ENS: TEAM: Presiding Bishop tells conference to carry out prophetic witness
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] At the March 14 closing session of the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference, which has described itself, in part, as an international conference on prophetic witness, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the participants that they stand in a long line of Jewish and Christian -- including Anglican -- prophets.

A prophet, she said, is ''literally, one who speaks for God -- one like Isaiah or Jeremiah who dares to critique the evils of human systems and also dares to speak a vision for what God believes things should look like -- the godly characteristics to which a human society could and should aspire.''

''The opportunity that is the Anglican Communion is a gift given for a reason, and that reason is the healing of God's creation,'' Jefferts Schori told the conference gathered for its final meal together at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg, near the Johannesburg airport.

''The bonds of affection born and nurtured here in Boksburg are going to continue to transform this larger world for a very long time to come. Because we know our neighbor, and have heard the cries of our brothers and sisters in Burundi or Sudan or South Africa or Nigeria, we can tell that story, and help others in our own contexts to hear those cries in the wilderness. Because we know our neighbor, we have heard the cries of those made captive to consumerist societies, particularly in the wilderness of the developed world and we can tell that story,'' she said. ''We are invited into the prophetic work of claiming our oneness in God, and striving to make God's vision for our oneness more effectively real and complete in this world.'' the rest