Michael Poon: The Ways of Obedience: Scripture and Global South
Lent 2, 2007
Singapore

Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts: . . . ” (Venite)

It was not a time for elation for Global South Primates when they received the Communion Sub-group Report at Dar es Salaam in February 2007. The remarkable turn of events in that mid-February weekend did not change that. All the more the present is not a time for celebration, but for self-examination and more costly discipleship, for the sake of the common good of the Communion.

The present does not merely call for a refreshed study of the methods of interpreting scripture (cf. Tanzania Communiqué, on “The Hermeneutical Project). Such can become a self-absorbing exercise that reflects “internal division” rather than having anything to do with the transforming good news for a world inflicted with human grief, borrowing Canterbury’s words.2 More pointedly, such exercise is safe. It is difficult for the Communion to come to a common mind on methodology anyway. All can continue their own familiar and separate ways.

To obey Christ today, Global South churches need to submit themselves to the Scripture in a more radical manner. It takes more than merely having orthodox upbringing and evangelical friends for a person to be an orthodox today. The crisis is not out there in the West, but at the home front. The challenge before the churches is in translating their formal confession of the authority of the Scripture into practice: what does it mean in concrete terms for Christian communities to live under the authority of God’s Word? the rest