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John Walker - A Man for the 21st Century
Every Sunday since the 1988 Lambeth Conference I have prayed for a special group of people by looking at the picture taken of us on the grounds of the University of Kent where the conference was held. The picture is of the bishops who were members of our Bible and discussion group. Bishop John was one of this group. Three of those in this photograph are no longer alive. Amongst other things, the picture reminds me of the quiet but significant influence that John Walker has on that Conference. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the late Robert Runcie, had a special committee that met each even8ing after the day's proceedings to assess how things were going and to make suggestions about possible changes in the next day's agenda to facilitate the work of the Conference. John Walker was one of the few non-archiepiscopal members of this crucial committee which had those quaintly named persons, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, each of whom headed an autonomous ecclesiastical province of our communion. I was always fascinated to note how frequently after Bishop John had spoken on any particular issue that often signaled the end of the discussion. He had a quiet, gentle but undoubted authority to which most of our Church seemed quite willing to defer.
Bishop Walker cared that so many of God's children were having a rough time, being destitute and poor, everywhere.in the USA , in Africa and elsewhere. So he volunteered to go and work in Uganda . Then he was involved in the antiapartheid struggle and gave us his formidable support from the strategically important Diocese of Washington and the National Cathedral. When I became Archbishop of Cape Town, he helped to forge a three-way relationship between our dioceses as well as the diocese of Honduras, and cared that it was not all rhetoric-our third world dioceses benefited enormously from being so prominently linked.
I was privileged to attend his funeral in the Cathedral he loved so dearly and whose completion was such a fitting tribute and memorial to him. I was so touched by the many people of all races who were weeping unashamedly in that huge congregation who had come to pay their lasts respects. It was clear that they adored him, and the service was people of all races, for one of Bishop John's passions was racial justice, harmony, and reconciliation.
God gave us a marvelous person in his servant John Walker. When he died, he undoubtedly heard his Master say 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' as he stood before the Gates of Heaven. We are all the better for having been touched by him; the Church of God is a more effective fellowship as a result of his outstanding ministry and witness. We welcome this biographical anthology of his work. The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu
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I seem to have known him forever, for he had that gift of making you feel special, that when he was engaging you there was nothing more important for him in the whole wide world. He gave you all of himself, and you were for him the most important person on whom he would lavish his total and undivided attention-allowing nothing to distract him from this important task. He was a devoted and caring pastor because he genuinely loved people and poured himself out for them constantly. So, I do not recall when I first met him, but from that moment on we clicked. He cared enormously for people especially those who were having a raw deal, the poor, the hungry, the despised and down and outs everywhere.
It was a great joy to have him and Mrs. Walker visit Cape Town for my enthronement as Archbishop. They were deeply moved by what they saw of the ravages and iniquities of the repressive system of apartheid, and this reinforced his resolve to work assiduously for the demise of that awful system. He wanted the world to know this and so gave me a prominent pulpit from which to speak about our agony and our hope for the future. Perhaps it was this kind of prominence that helped to protect me from the machinations of the apartheid regime. He cared for all of Africa and poured out relief through his beloved Africare.
Although he was fervent in his opposition to racism, Bishop John had the knack of opposing evil without alienating the people caught up in it. He was not abrasive, although he was not wishy-washy, either. He was a splendid advocate for racial harmony and reconciliation, and the willingness to be magnanimous and forgiving and understanding-the very attributes we were to see demonstrated so spectacularly by Nelson Mandela and the many victims of apartheid in the Truth and Reconciliation process that has been working hard to heal the deep wounds of my own country's history.