Conger

Note: I did not write this story published by The Living Church, but contributed to some of the reporting in the article. GC

A group of traditionalist Anglican primates and other bishops have announced an eight-day event to be held in the Holy Land next summer that will be structured as “a pilgrimage back to the roots of the Church’s faith.”

The Global Anglican Future conference will “outline the mission imperatives for the next 25 years for orthodox Anglicans, according to the Dec. 24 announcement. Conference details were completed at a meeting of primates and others in Kenya last week.

According to a press release, bishops and their wives, senior clergy and laity from every province and from “both the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings” of the Communion will be invited to participate in the event, which is scheduled to be held June 15-22. Those dates put the conference less than a month before the start of the Lambeth Conference of bishops.

“While this conference is not a specific challenge to the Lambeth Conference, it will provide opportunities for fellowship and care for those who have decided not to attend Lambeth,” said the Rev. Canon Chris Sugden, executive secretary of the advocacy group Anglican Mainstream, who attended the Nairobi gathering. “There was no other place to meet at this critical time for the future of the Church than in the Holy Land.”

“Our pastoral responsibility to the people that we lead is now to provide the opportunity to come together around the central and unchanging tenets of the central and unchanging historic Anglican faith,” said the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, Primate of the Province of the Southern Cone. “Rather than being subject to the continued chaos and compromise that have dramatically impeded Anglican mission, [the conference] will seek to clarify God’s call at this time and build a network of cooperation for global mission.”

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya said conference organizers hope to inform and inspire invited leaders “to seek transformation in our own lives and help impact communities and societies through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

American representatives at the organizing meeting included Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, representing the Anglican Communion Network; Bishop Martyn Minns of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA); and the Rt. Rev. Bill Atwood, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of All Saints’ Cathedral, Kenya.

The meeting will be self-funding, one member of the steering committee told The Living Church, as some provinces will use funds earmarked for the Lambeth Conference to pay for their delegations to attend, while others will pay their costs out of pocket.