Post-mortem continued

So, the entries are briefer and less detailed, mainly because I don't want to go on and on with what I was thinking, but in brief, here are the last three days:

Day five - I’ve already briefly talked about this day in a much more contemporaneous way previously, so I won’t reiterate here.
Day six
This day’s theme was integrity. It started with a rousing, kicking plenary by a Kenyan pastor challenging us to determine if we really live the life we say we represent with justice, love, equity and integrity. He challenged us to consider that the biggest obstacle to the gospel is not methods, fads, celebrity, trends or strategy, but is actually ourselves and our lack of integrity. Putting out the challenge of putting orthodoxy to orthopraxis, as the church is left with a large credibility gap.
Others followed, noting that we are a scandal in and of ourselves. That our idolatry for power and pride, popularity and success, and wealth and greed that cost God His glory. That we must stop pointing at the sin in the world, and go to clean up our own backyards first. That, in our obsession with proper theology, we must be careful in our arrogance to think we have it set firm - for even at a highly regarded seminary just outside Cape Town was where the theology for apartheid was formulated.
After that, it kind of degenerated. This was the day where they also spoke about the role of women in the church. And where I was torn, yet again. Officially, the Lausanne movement endorses the full and free participation of women to use their gifts in all their diversity, in order to bring about kingdom. However, the rationale that I heard, though I desperately wanted to agree, was weak, at best. It distilled down to a very pragmatic reasoning and preference for passages that help support that view, and, as far as I could tell, was not a deep and anguished wrestling with passages that don’t support that view. To be fair, the men on the other side of the camp also do not wrestle with the passages that do not support their views either, however, the presentations that I heard would NOT fly in my own church against the men who really believe that my gifts and talents are not equivalent to their own. This was a grave disappointment to me. Many men during this congress were greatly encouraging of my gifts and my talents, and dared me to dream further than the narrow boundaries of certain denominations. For certainly, if a church feels that its theology stands or falls based on the status of women, I would argue that church doesn’t actually know what its reason for being actually is.

Day seven
The final day. Patrick’s challenge was one of the most breath-taking (the other ones were actually rather “meh” to “that was really, really lame”). He pointed out how the Western church declares that Asia will finish the task, partially because it certainly could be capable to do so, but also partially because it would like to wash its hands of the hardship and difficulty of going to the truly ‘hard places’. However, he points out that we should banish that thought from our heads. Already, Asian nations are equating political and economic power with the gospel, and the same paradigm of the powerful bringing the gospel to the powerless begins afresh. The same colonialistic, imperialistic, and triumphalism begin anew and Asia will make the same mistakes of treating the gospel as that of the powerful, and not that of the weak, the humble and the small. Again, the echoes of our arrogance and lack of integrity standing in the way of real breakthrough in all of our nations was still resonating through this morning.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what I did that afternoon, but our second Canadian gathering occurred later that day, and here was another example of how redemptive my fellow countrymen and women were for me. It was here that we were able to say, quite honestly, how the majority of the messaging at this congress was disturbing and not the most helpful in navigating the pressing issues of our world today. There were many other wise things that were discussed here, but I don’t think I’m going to discuss them in this kind of forum.
We then headed back for the closing ceremonies, which again, was redemptive and satisfying in its richness. They had adapted a Ugandan liturgy that was beautiful and deep. Lindsay came to deliver the message, and he brought together disparate topics and beautifully highlighted how we, as the church, should see ourselves and what we do in this broken world. I have to commend him, as he reconciled many of the harsh and aggressive messages that were imparted in this congress and reshaped them back into the fold of love, such that, by the end of it, many of us could wholeheartedly agree with what he said, though we struggled much with what we had heard previously in the week. It was satisfying to my soul to be at those closing ceremonies - in that, I felt that at least we had one thing right to say to the world.
And then, that was that. I left Cape Town shortly after that to head on another adventure, and to end up at another conference. I was so tired: emotionally, spiritually, physically by that point, I wouldn’t have minded to be put into a medically-induced coma for a few days. I am still very emotionally and spiritually weary, and I think that brokenness from this experience will last for quite a long time yet. The physical weariness will wear off, but I think the scars borne from attending will remain. There was incredibly loveliness and beauty and vast amounts of sadness and confusion. What is still most astounding to me is that God bothers to loves us at all, and that He chooses to dwell with us and walk with us, when we will not. Ultimately, He is very lovely, and we are very not.