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Press Releases
The Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message 2007
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The Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message was broadcast on Sunday 31
December 2006 on 大象传媒 Two at 8pm, and repeated on New Year's Day on 大象传媒 One at 12.45pm.
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This is the text of Dr Rowan Williams' message:
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"Here in this London shopping centre - as in towns across the UK - the
January sales are well underway - after a Christmas when many of us probably
spent more than we should and eaten more than we should . It's all in stark
contrast to Sudan where I visited last February.
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"The local church feeds several hundred each day, using its school as the
feeding point where the World Food Programme's supplies can be distributed.
Centres like this are few and far between - and the World Food Programme is
already warning that resources are running out.
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"We all respond as best we can to one emergency appeal after another. And we
feel just a bit guilty as we acknowledge that we're almost bored by yet
another appeal - yet another set of pictures of suffering children in need.
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"It's true that endless appeals lose their impact. Information - statistics,
won't really motivate us. The only thing that makes a difference is if we get
to see those faces and figures as somehow about us - not just them.
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"It's when the hunger or the homelessness or the loneliness of someone else
becomes something that I feel for myself as an affront - something that makes
me less of a person.
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"In the Bible, Jesus talks about being hungry and thirsty for righteousness,
for justice. And if we hear that in the way it's surely meant, we have to
conclude that he means that we should feel there's something missing in us,
something taken away from us, when another person, near or far away, has to
face need and suffering. We get to be ourselves only when we wake up to them
and their needs.
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"2007 marks 200 years since the slave trade was abolished. Here at Holy
Trinity Clapham a group of Christians called the Clapham Sect were at the
forefront of the fight to end the slave trade.
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"People like William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton felt they were made less
human than they should be by the appalling injustice of the slave trade.
They felt a hunger for justice - a sense of being spiritually impoverished -
undernourished because of slavery.
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"This is what made the difference. When we look at the familiar images of
other people's suffering, do we feel a void inside ourselves, a yearning for
something different and a conviction that it needn't be like this?
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"That's where change begins. And it's one of the differences that faith can
make; faith in God and in people.
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"It's worth remembering this year those who struggled to do away with the
slave trade. If we lived in a society that tolerated slavery now, wouldn't we
feel soiled and diminished by it? Wouldn't we feel hungry for something
different?
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"So what are the things today that make us feel the same?
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"People often speak about the spiritual hunger of our society. But the
answer to that isn't in ideas or spiritual feelings; it's in the decision to
act - to reach out to feed, to heal, to befriend, knowing that this is where
we discover who we're really meant to be.
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"We get the power for that when we believe that there is a divine love that
is waiting eagerly for us to cooperate.
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"And when we do, both physical and spiritual hunger can be met. We find our
nourishment as human beings together, as we really learn to share the world
we've been given to live in.
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"God bless you all in this New Year and help you find the nourishment you
need for spirit and body." 听
CD2
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