Katharine Jefferts Schori Visit

05 Aug 2010

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, recently visited Christchurch while on holiday in New Zealand. Megan Blakie reports on her lecture entitled ‘Conversation and Language’.

Conversation is about building intimate relationships with each other and the presiding bishop of the Episcopalian Church, the Very Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, would like that dimension to re-enter our daily interactions. “Conversation originally meant ‘to turn about with’, ‘to live with’, ‘to keep company with’ - today we’d probably say ‘to hang out with’. It didn’t mean ‘to talk’ – at first. It took a long time before it came to mean ‘using words’,” she said to an ecumenical audience at the Canterbury Women’s Club in Christchurch.

New York-based Bishop Katharine is the first woman within the Anglican Communion to head a national church, and oversees 2.4 million Episcopalians in 16 countries. Her brief visit to New Zealand in late June included several speaking engagements and was an opportunity for her to learn about our three-tikanga Church structure.

During her talk on conversation and language, she explained how communication is often adversarial and that approach makes it difficult to have meaningful and honest dialogue. “Everyday we experience a lot of violence that masquerades as conversation,” she says. “Violent language brings less life rather than the abundance for which we’re created. Words can be used as judgement - it makes others less dignified or unworthy of conversation,” she commented.

Anxiety, fear, and distress are some of the reasons we use language in a violent or judgemental way. Communities and nations can also react similarly. She believes Christians have the opportunity to demonstrate - to individuals and nations - a more abundant way of conversing: one that is “truth-telling”, builds people up, and allows for a deepening of understanding and relationship. “In Genesis, God’s word produces all that we see. ...When we get around to speaking, does it echo divine speech: do our words speak something more into existence? Or does our use of words tear things down and lead away from direct and intimate conversation?” she challenges.

She says it’s important to remain in conversation with others, even if it is difficult. “Conversation and conversion have the same root word: to turn toward. If we believe we’re made in the image of God and all are capable of salvation because of Jesus’ work, then if we turn away from conversation, we do violence to that which we hold most centrally in our faith.”

She says how differently we might approach others if we meditate on the fact that they - neighbours, vestry members, strangers - are God’s beloved in whom he is well pleased.

Writer: Megan Blakie

Photo: Lloyd Ashton