Phil Groves pays tribute to Professor Glagalo following him being awarded the St Augustine Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury for services to the Anglican Communion.
Professor Joseph Galgalo is a remarkable, unassuming star in the Anglican Communion. Few people have changed the world for good in the way he has done and he is a worthy recipient of the Cross of St Augustine for Services to the Anglican Communion.
Professor Galgalo exudes quiet calm. All he does is considered and careful. He is a considerable academic with that rare ability to both see the big picture and pay attention to the detail. He is a man of deep passion: he has a passion for Christ that guides all he does.
This combination of passion, calm, and care has enabled him to change the world.
I have seen Professor Galgalo angry – indeed I have sometimes made him angry! His anger is magnificent. It is an anger for what is right and he is ready to forgive and reconcile. He is passionate about the truth, but ready to explore what truth is using both his intellect and his Bible.
In 2008 we were together in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference and experienced from the wings the unfolding drama as the Indaba sessions enabled conversation between bishops. We were able to see the strengths and weakness of the process. I longed for a more genuine Indaba – one based on African cultures and grounded in Scripture and so I reached out to Professor Galgalo to ask for his help.
The request was simple: Could he help us gather Kenyan scholars and church leaders to gain their insight into conflict transformation? We wanted people who could both draw upon their cultural heritage to tell us what Indaba was and draw on Scripture to where there were parallels.
Professor Galgalo worked with Professor Esther Mombo and in early 2009 they gathered an amazing group of women and men for a seminar in Limuru, Kenya which we led together. Among us were two Bishops – Bishop Moses Masamba of Mbeere and Bishop Jackson Ole Sapit (the present Archbishop).
Those attending expected us to talk about the dividing issues in the Anglican Communion and in particular the disputes over human sexuality. But we had a specific agenda: to look at African models of conflict transformation and to see if ‘Indaba’ had a future.
The gathering will forever be in my memory. As the Kenyans worked through what they were being asked to do they began to talk about the trauma of the post-election violence that had ripped through the nation at the end of 2007 and continued until the end of February 2008. The violence erupted on tribal lines and resulted in people fleeing to where they might be safe. As we continued with the seminar the participants began to share their experiences and face the fear for the first time. One after another came up to Joseph and myself saying – ‘We have never spoken of that time. This is the first opportunity to speak.’ Several times we had to stop the meeting to cry and to pray.
We left the meeting profoundly moved.
Without Professor Galgalo it would have ended there, but he took the next step. He kept in contact with all those who had participated and then contacted others. He took time to carefully explain what had happened and what was wanted and commissioned writers to present texts for a follow up seminar later that year.
This time Professor Galgalo was in charge and I was in attendance. He had 18 people present edited versions of their texts one after another over a two-day conference, with time for comments and questions after every presentation. The event set the agenda for Continuing Indaba. The papers were of exceptional quality, reflecting the standard of education at St Paul’s Limuru where many of the contributors had studied under Professor Galgalo. The Kiswahili word for ‘Indaba’ is ‘Baraza’ and the contributors owned Baraza as a common aspect of community life and the Bible resonated in their writing as a non-western text with insights emerging that produced real change.
Following he first publication of the essays Professor Galgalo accompanied me to South Africa to inspire new writing in that context. One South African Bishop said – ‘We had Indaba on our tongues, but it was only when we looked at these essays did consider living it in our dioceses.’
I presented the texts to theologicans in Ghana through Bishop Victor Atta Baffoe. I remember handing the texts to a theologian at the beginning of a car jurney. For an hour was silence fromthe back and then an erruption of excitement. The theologian had never rad anything like these essays and he was inspired to write from his own context and to get others thinking. African culture resonated with the Scriptures to offer new models of Conflict transformation.
Professor Galgalo’s core project then inspired theologians other contexts such as India, Jamaica, and Hong Kong and even in places such as New York and Brazil.
In Kenya the project had a dramatic effect. As time passed the sharpest wounds of the 2007-8 violence had eased, but the underlying causes were still present. Bishop Masamba applied the writings in practice within his diocese, healing ethnic divisions that had fermented since 1964. The rival clans of the Mbeere ended their long-term conflict and entered into a period of reconciliation, breaking down the walls of conflict and building bridges between the communities. The story is told in Chapter 5 of Living Reconciliation
In 2011 Archbishop Wabukala partnered with Continuing Indaba to deliver a Baraza of all the Kenyan bishops with the aim of transforming conflict and enabling leadership to heal divisions in the nation. Galgalo’s work was having an immediate effect in his own nation.
Without Galgalo Continuing Indaba would not have had the global impact it managed. The essays stimulated programmes around the world – including the design of the Episcopal Church’s Black Clergy Indaba led by Revd Angela Ifill and Bishop Michael Curry, Indaba in Hong Kong on the Umbrella Movement and so many more transformational Indaba events.
While all this was going on Professor Galgalo was transforming a small theological college into a dynamic University and contributing to global Anglican conversations on mission. Few people have changed the world so dramatically.
Galgalo is an excellent recipient of The Cross of St Augustine for Services to the Anglican Communion.
APJN is publishing the 2009 Continuing Indaba essays edited by Professor Galgalo