Anglican Archbishop: Church must reach those grappling with social ills

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

An­gli­can Arch­bish­op of the West In­dies, Philip Wright, has stressed that a heal­ing church ex­tends be­yond its walls and reach­es peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties grap­pling with so­cial ills, in­clud­ing pover­ty, ad­dic­tion and oth­er hard­ships.

Wright made the com­ment while ad­dress­ing the An­gli­can Dio­cese of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s an­nu­al Fam­i­ly Day cel­e­bra­tion at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, as part of his first of­fi­cial provin­cial vis­it to T&T since his ap­point­ment.

Speak­ing on the theme “The Body of Christ: A Heal­ing Church in a Hurt­ing So­ci­ety,” Wright urged be­liev­ers to em­brace their role as the hands and feet of Christ in a world fac­ing grow­ing chal­lenges.

“The world is hurt­ing. Peo­ple are hurt­ing,” he said.

“The ques­tion the gospel puts to us is, will the church rise up and be what it was al­ways meant to be? Not a club for the com­fort­able. Not a refuge from the world. But a sign and in­stru­ment of God’s King­dom.”

Draw­ing from St Paul’s First Let­ter to the Corinthi­ans, Wright said Chris­tians are called to be part of one body, with each mem­ber con­tribut­ing unique gifts for the ben­e­fit of the whole com­mu­ni­ty. He cau­tioned against at­ti­tudes that di­min­ish the val­ue of oth­ers, not­ing that every in­di­vid­ual has an im­por­tant role to play.

“The ones who ap­pear weak­est, who car­ry the least vis­i­ble gift, who oc­cu­py the least cel­e­brat­ed role, these must not be seen as dec­o­ra­tion. They are load-bear­ing walls with­out which things can eas­i­ly col­lapse.”

Wright said a heal­ing church must be will­ing to meet peo­ple where they are, rather than wait­ing for them to come through its doors. “A heal­ing church shows up,” he said.

“It does not wait for the bro­ken to find their way to a Sun­day ser­vice. It goes in­to hos­pi­tal rooms, prison cells, refugee camps, on­to the doorstep of the iso­lat­ed neigh­bour, and in­to the for­got­ten cor­ners of strug­gle and pain.”

He al­so stressed the im­por­tance of lis­ten­ing to peo­ple’s needs be­fore of­fer­ing so­lu­tions, say­ing mean­ing­ful min­istry be­gins with un­der­stand­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of those who are suf­fer­ing.

“One of the great fail­ures of well-mean­ing re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties is rush­ing to Bible vers­es and ad­vice be­fore tru­ly hear­ing the ques­tion.”

Wright said a heal­ing church must ad­dress root caus­es, not just symp­toms.

“Yes, we feed the hun­gry, but we must al­so ask, why are peo­ple hun­gry? Yes, we shel­ter the home­less, but we ask, why is hous­ing in­ac­ces­si­ble for so many?” he said.

He added, “We are the feet that car­ry good news to bro­ken places. We are the voice of com­fort speak­ing for the voice­less. And we are the arms that hold those who are falling.”

The arch­bish­op al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the warm wel­come he re­ceived dur­ing his vis­it, de­scrib­ing T&T as “a bit like com­ing home” be­cause of the re­la­tion­ships he has built over many years of vis­it­ing the coun­try. He is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue his vis­it this week with en­gage­ments across the dio­cese, in­clud­ing a trip to To­ba­go.