SEARCH Journal

Summer 2012

Editorial

It is good, in the aftermath of last month’s General Synod, to look beyond our particular obsession of the moment to the wider ecclesial scene and to consider, along with Archbishop Jackson, the ever present and ever pressing issue of how much our common baptism enables Christians to share together in our regular worship and witness. Passion and politics tend to prompt different approaches to such issues, so we are grateful to our Archbishop for his balanced, thoughtful and thought-provoking article – a fitting accompaniment to his presence at this month’s Eucharistic Congress, where he will be presiding at the Liturgy of Word and Water on Monday June 11th.

However the question of human sexuality in the context of Christian faith, however divisive in the Church at present, is not going to go away. The General Synod resolution of last month is no more than a marker on the journey towards a considered Church of Ireland response to new scientific and sociological material in this area, along with deeper biblical reflection. So it is hoped that three articles deriving from the Bishops’ Conference on Human Sexuality held in Cavan in March will help members of our Church in their further reflection and respectful listening to fellow Christians whose views, and maybe life experience, vary from their own. The articles, by Stephen Farrell, Doug Baker and Bishop Gregory Cameron respectively, cover legal, discussion process, and ecclesiological issues. Our series on Approaches to the Bible continues with an arresting article by Jerusha McCormack, whose recent work at Beijing’s Foreign Studies University has led her to ponder the difficulties of inter-cultural communication, particularly as related to religion. Her discovery of linguistics professor Anna Wierzbicka’s work, which reduces Gospel vocabulary to a sum of only 150 words equally intelligible in all cultures, was an eye-opener for her, which she shares in a compelling manner. This summer edition finally offers couple of very different articles: a deeply impressive consideration by the Dean of Lismore of the ministry of a country cathedral to its visitors; and an intriguing essay in Irish clerical family history – the family in question being the Wynnes of Hazelwood, Co.Sligo - by a descendant now living in the south of England. A full selection of book reviews concludes the issue – and this editorial concludes with a plea to subscribers to remember to forward their 2012 subscriptions to Dean Stephen White, if this remains to be done! (See order forms on the last page.)

Contents

Common Baptism – Shared Life?

In the week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2011, the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, the Most Reverend Dr Richard Clarke, preached with eminent pragmatism in the two cathedral churches in Armagh. He drew attention to three aspects of Christian life in Ireland today where he felt that the churches together could “make a move”. They were: pastoral care, Bible study and preparation for baptism. Significantly, and to my mind rightly, Bishop Clarke was not pushing the agenda of shared eucharist as a failed aspiration which might just be turned round, were people to read the small print and the footnotes in the plethora of ecumenical documentation which is produced with considerable sophistication and erudition. In no way do I intend to diminish such industry or indeed such an aspiration. I simply want to see if there is another way of looking at the situation in which we find ourselves, as churches whose members know one another; whose bishops – six by six – have met for a day conference for the first time in living history in 2011, to discuss baptism, as it so happens; and whose sharing of the total tradition of Western theological thought and practice, as inherited in our complex Irish insularities, has genuinely become more and more public over the years.

Archbishop Michael Jackson
Archbishop Michael Jackson
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The Church of Ireland and human sexuality: an overview of the legal landscape

On Monday 19th December 2005, the first Civil Partnership was registered in Belfast City Hall, made possible by the passing of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 and the Civil Partnership Regulations NI 2005, (referred to herein as “the NI Act”). In The RoI the first Civil Partnership was not celebrated until 7th February 2011, some months after the passing of the Act of the Oireachtas, The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010, (referred to herein as “the RoI Act”.)

Stephen Farrell
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Enabling Discussion – Handling Conflict in the Church

I was invited to lead a seminar on “Dealing with Contentious Issues” on the first night of the recent Bishops’ Conference on “Human Sexuality in the Context of Christian Belief.” Around 125 participants attended it and, like other parts of the event I witnessed, there was very constructive engagement by those present both with the topic and with each other.

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From the Sidelines: A View of the Bishops’ Conference on Human Sexuality

As a Bishop of the Church in Wales, it is always intriguing to have the opportunity to see how things are done in another Province of the Anglican Communion, and it was with great interest that I received the invitation to be an observer and “summariser” at the Bishops’ Conference on Human Sexuality organised for members of General Synod on 9th and 10th March this year. Having worked in the Anglican Communion Office for six years, I was not unaware of the tensions aroused by the topic of sexuality – specifically homosexuality – in the life of the Churches, and I was also aware of the particular way in which these tensions had been focussed in the Church of Ireland.

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What did Jesus Mean? Interpreting the Gospel through a Universal Language

Jerusha McCormack on the work of Anna Wierzbicka. After her brief excursion into the caves at Marabar, Mrs. Moore sits down, wishing to rest – not (as she thinks at first) from the exertion of climbing in the relentless Indian sun – but to overcome an inner turmoil that deepens with every passing minute. With the echo of the caves still resonating in her head, as a good Anglican she tries to pray. But, as the narrator comments, “when Religion appeared… she knew that all its divine words from ‘Let there be light’ to ‘It is finished’” amounted to little more than the caves’ endless ‘boum’.

jerusha-mccormack
Jerusha McCormack
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Cathedral: A Place of Friendship for all Humanity

“Every being cries out to be read differently.” Since his resurrection, Christ accompanies each human being. He does not impose himself, but comes humbly alongside us; and he never stops seeking our friendship. To live this friendship with Christ! This becomes a leaven of peace and reconciliation for the whole of humanity. Then to widen this friendship to those around us, going beyond the separations which remain! If only we could do everything to make it more obvious that the Church is a place of friendship for all, particularly those who are vulnerable, isolated or strangers! (Taizé) SAINT CARTHAGE’S has been a site of Christian worship and prayer since approximately 635AD when Mochuda (who took the name of his teacher Carthage) was given the site by chiefs of the Deise. Evicted from their site in Rahan, Co Offaly, Carthage and his monks walked the Blackwater in search of a new site for their community. Deep in the DNA of this cathedral is displacement, wandering, seeking, hospitality, gift and journey. Whoever we are 1400 years later, we must be true to the DNA of the place, owning our own, and welcoming inclusively, the dislocation, seeking, and journeys of the human condition. This we do still in hospitality, and in the knowledge that all is gift. Gifts are given and received with open hands, and the grasping hand unfolds slowly to reveal that nothing is there. If we grasp at being Cathedral we are left with religion: Unless we leave our comfort zone, we really do not meet God at all, but merely pull God inside of our own small sphere, and it is no longer God that we meet at all. Just religion. Richard Rohr

paul-draper
Paul Draper
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Three Clerical Members of the Wynne Family

Scions of landed families, in Ireland as in England, often took up careers in the Established Church; among them were no fewer than 17 descendants in the male line of Owen Wynne of Hazelwood (Co Sligo) (died 1789). The most famous of these was Canon “Billy” Wynne, founder of the Irish Samaritans. The present article deals with three others, a father, son and grandson whose careers spanned a century, reflecting the changes in the Church of Ireland during that tumultuous time. HENRY WYNNE (1758/9-1828), Owen Wynne’s third son, seems to have considered the Church at first more as a source of income than a focus of religious devotion. Indeed, until the birth of an heir to his eldest brother in 1801 he might eventually have succeeded to Hazelwood, of which he was particularly fond (the second brother never married). Henry entered Trinity College, Dublin, in November 1776, taking his BA in 1781 and MA in 1786. The dates of his ordination as deacon and priest are unknown.

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