Ecclesia Anglicana Conference of September 2020

Cooking Anglican ecclesiology in a Kenyan Pot?

Abstract

As the first wave of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) was being experienced in Kenya since 13 March 2020, when a 27-year-old Kenyan woman became the first person to be diagnosed with it, some Anglicans in Kenya were contrariwise overcoming the shock, that went with it, as they undertook noble intellectual activities. As numbers went on soaring, and as some celebrated artists, scholars, clerics, and other cadres of society became early casualties of Covid-19, an Ecclesia Anglicana was boldly entering the ecclesiastical market-place with new rhythms hitherto unknown in Kenya’s historiography. In other words, a theo-ecclesial creativity was cooking in an African pot, and cooking well from the nethermost depths of the Ocean floor, rather than from the top stratums. While the revolutionary trigger was set on 6 August 2017, it had to await the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 before it picked up its momentum. Put it differently, the momentum picked up astoundingly during Kenya’s Covid-19 lockdown, as two major conferences were successfully held during this chilling moment. The first major webinars’ conference was held on 26 August 2020; while the second one was held on 16 September 2020. Characteristically, the two conferences made a bold attempt at understanding the Anglican ecclesiology by cooking it from the local resources and spiced it up through the modern science and technology. Was it a protest against theo-intellectual lockdown cutting across the continent, a phenomenon where a casual observation shows that social and ecclesial leadership has largely attracted the less intellectually-inclined sons and daughters of the land? Methodologically, this article seeks to explore, and indeed make a survey of Ecclesia Anglicana and attempt to understand it beyond the founders’ perspectives, after interviews with some of them, and make an informed analysis. Second, this article will attempt to show how Ecclesia Anglicana is ushering in a new rhythm, as it beats the drums of science and technology, modern communication and social media platforms, and hopefully change the status quo for the better. It appears that nothing will slow down this rapid tempo; for if the pandemic has not, what else can do so? Third, the article will focus more on the 16 September 2020 webinar conference which, in my view, was the most climactic moment for Ecclesia Anglicana since 2017 when the idea was mooted and subsequently released to the public square for broader consumption. Will Ecclesia Anglicana help in building a more informed and/or an intellectually engaging Kenyan Anglican society?