Читать книгу Witness - The Faith and Order Commission - Страница 4

For some years, the Faith and Order Commission has been thinking about witness as a rich theological theme with many resonances for the Church of England at the present time. As this report sets out, witness requires a readiness to speak of what we have seen and heard, but also to point away from ourselves and to listen with humility to others as we learn how to communicate the truth entrusted to us by Jesus Christ, who calls us to be his witnesses in the localities into which each of us is placed (Acts 1.8).

The report constitutes something of a new departure for the Commission. Well over half the text comprises a set of case studies, based on visits to eight different church communities and interviews with those involved in them. The relative brevity of the first Part and the opening section of the third, where the Commission speaks as it were in its own voice, should not be mistaken for a lack of weight or depth. Between them, space has been deliberately given for a range of distinctive and varied voices to articulate their own account of what it means to be God’s witnesses in their particular situations.

Many people have contributed to this text. As well as members and staff of the Commission during this period, Anne Richards has provided valuable support and has been an important link with the Mission Theology Advisory Group. I am deeply grateful to those from the church communities in the eight case studies who were so generous in sharing their experiences, and to Muthuraj Swamy, Hannah Lewis and Martyn Snow for providing their reflections. None of this would have been possible without Mike Higton’s leadership of the project and the many gifts and skills he has brought to it, and the Commission is very much in his debt for this.

My hope is that the report we are now publishing will strengthen the church in being – to use the words of the 1930 Lambeth Conference – ‘a fellowship of witness’ in the time and place where God has set us.

Christopher Cocksworth

Bishop of Coventry

Chair, Faith and Order Commission