Gafcon leaders speak out against centralisation: CEN 4.23.09 April 23, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Anglican Covenant, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.1 comment so far
| Political and ecclesiastical authority should reside within the provinces of the Anglican Communion and not the “instruments of unity,” eight archbishops concluded last week at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) Primates’ Council meeting in London.
In a statement released after three days of talks, the eight archbishops stated that the third province movement in North America should seek recognition first from the provinces of the Communion, bypassing the Anglican Consultative Council. On April 16 the Primates of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Southern Cone, Tanzania, Uganda, and West Africa, along with the Archbishop of Sydney released a statement endorsing the formation of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), saying it was “authentically Anglican.” The primates affirmed the desire of their churches, representing over two-thirds of the active churchgoers in the Communion, to preserve the integrity of the Anglican Communion, but gave a muted vote of no confidence to the current draft of the Anglican Covenant and the communion’s administrative structures. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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GAFCON primates back new North American province: TLC 4.15.09 April 17, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, GAFCON, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church magazine
Following three days of closed-door talks in London, the primates of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Southern Cone, Tanzania, Uganda, and West Africa, along with the Archbishop of Sydney, have endorsed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as being “authentically Anglican.”
The eight members of the GAFCON primates council met with the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh under the jurisdiction of the Southern Cone, and other ACNA leaders and said “careful consideration was given to the new ‘province in formation’ in North America.” Their April 16 communiqué endorsed the formation of the new province, saying “we celebrate the organization and official formation of ACNA,” and recognized it as “genuinely Anglican.”
The council said that recognition of the ACNA as a province will first come from the other provinces of the Communion, sidestepping the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). They recommended that “Anglican provinces affirm full communion with the ACNA,” adding that they looked “forward in real hope to a positive response amongst the churches and diocese and provinces of the Communion.” By going first to the provinces for support, rather than approaching the ACC, the primates suggested a lasting structural and political base of support for the ACNA would be established that will end “cross-border incursions” and restore a “measure of peace” to the church.
The council’s statement comes as a challenge to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who has sought to confine debate to the structures of the four “instruments of unity”: the ACC, the Primates Meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference. These instruments were first articulated in 1997 by the Inter-Anglican Doctrinal and Theological Commission’s Virginia Report, but they have not yet gained official status. The ACC declined to endorse the report at its 1999 meeting, and individual provinces are bound by the report’s statements only to the extent that they adopt them within the terms of their constitutions and canons.
The primates’ council also gave a tepid response to the current draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant. While they supported the covenant concept in theory, they noted that the adequacy of the final document “depends on the willingness to address the crisis” dividing the Communion. They restated their commitment to the Communion, however, and to its reform, renewal and “to being a faithful and creative voice within it to recapture focus on mission.”
North American Bishops Meeting with GAFCON Primates in London: TLC 4.14.09 April 14, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, GAFCON, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church.
Eight archbishops are meeting in closed-door session at a London hotel this week to review plans for the creation of a new Anglican Communion province to be known as the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Details of the meeting will be made public at a press conference on April 16, according to a spokesman for the archbishops, but participants told The Living Church the group, which is meeting as the GAFCON (Global Anglican Futures Conference) primates’ council, will discuss the formation and strengthening of the Fellowship of Confession Anglicans (FCA), the formation of the ACNA, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s proposed Anglican Covenant, and the on-going divisions within the Anglican Communion.
A Lambeth triumph for Dr. Williams, but the splits go on: CEN 1.02.09 p 8. January 5, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008, Property Litigation.add a comment
Lambeth, Gafcon and the American church’s legal wrangling topped the international church news in 2008.
Designed to avoid controversy, Lambeth 2008 set out to make no statements, take no stands, and avoid provoking new conflict within the Anglican Communion. By its own lights, the July 14 to Aug 3 meeting at the University of Kent in Canterbury was a triumph for its organizer and host, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, for during those three weeks the oft foretold crack up of the Anglican Communion did not happen.
While Lambeth was not by schisms rent asunder or heresies distressed—no anti-Popes set up residence in Abuja to preside over rival Communion as a result of the July gathering—functionally the tear in the fabric of the church begun in 2003 was all but completed. A third of the bishops—representing over two thirds of the communion’s active members—refused Dr. Williams’ invitation, even as the Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson was prevented from defending himself before the assembled bishops in Canterbury.
The plan for Lambeth was that if the bishops “just kept on talking”, while avoiding discussion of the underlying issues dividing them—the person of Christ, the efficacy and nature of the sacraments, the place of Scripture within the church—-a ceasefire would emerge giving time for healing.
However, “the miracle hasn’t happened,” Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said on Aug 2. “It was a good try,” but Lambeth did not prevent the crack up of the Anglican Communion.
“We talk but nothing is decided. People are frustrated,” and Lambeth did not address these needs.
Lambeth 2008 drew 617 bishops from the communion’s 722 dioceses, 5 missionary districts, and 2 ecclesial jurisdictions. In protest to the presence of the bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson, 214 bishops boycotted the conference. From Africa’s 324 dioceses, 200 diocesan bishops (61 percent) refused Dr. Williams’ invitation.
Three Roman Catholic cardinals also attended the Conference and offered a harsh critique of Anglican-Catholic relations. The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor urged the bishops to put their house in order, and decide what they believed. “If Anglicans themselves disagree” over contentious issues like women priests “and find yourselves unable fully to recognize each other’s ministry, how could we?” he asked.
The Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to Lambeth was blunt. Women or homosexual bishops would exclude “even the theoretical possibility of the Orthodox churches acknowledging the apostolic succession” of Anglican bishops, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna told Dr. Williams on July 28.
On August 3, the conference released a statement that noted the broad desire for a “season of gracious restraint” marked by abstentions from further gay bishops and blessings, and a halt to foreign incursions into the jurisdictions of the North American provinces.
In the closing press conference, Dr. Williams said “the pieces are on the board” for the resolution of the Anglican conflict. “And in the months ahead it will be important to invite those absent from Lambeth to be involved in these next stages.”
Yet by year’s end, Dr. Williams had yet to contact the boycotting bishops to take part in the “next stages” nor was he able to honor his promise that “within the next two months” a “clear and detailed specification for the task and composition of a Pastoral Forum” to support embattled traditionalist would be delivered to the communion.
The Lambeth call for restraint was soon rejected by left and right. On Dec 3, traditionalists in the US and Canada ratified a draft constitution for the Anglican Church in North America, institutionalizing the cross-border violations denounced by Lambeth. By mid-December five Canadian dioceses announced plans to begin work on rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, while 9 American dioceses issued formal calls for the US church to end its self-imposed ban on further gay bishops.
“We have gotten this far without formally announcing our division, but we [just] haven’t announced it” yet, Bishop Venables said on the closing day. “I hoped we would be able to talk about very serious things [at Lambeth]. We tried to but were unable to,” he said.
Standing in contrast to Lambeth’s indecision, was the June Gafcon Conference in Jerusalem. The gathering of Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals and Charismatic Anglicans formed a confessing movement centering upon common doctrinal beliefs rather than a common historical heritage or tie to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
On June 29, the 1200 delegates-including 291 bishops representing two thirds of the communion’s members—endorsed the “Jerusalem Declaration”: a 14-point manifesto that set the foundations of a “confessing movement” to provide a haven for traditionalists.
The Jerusalem Declaration “is really calling us back to our roots,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, and states “as Anglicans were we really belong.”
Nor was the Jerusalem Declaration was a mark of schism. We are “not saying we are the only faithful Anglicans,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen said, nor were we forming a “church within a church.” Gafcon provided a bulwark against “Western revisionist” theology by preparing a “fellowship” of Christians to “support each other in truth,” while “charting the way forward for a Gospel-centered future,” Dr. Jensen explained.
It also “creates order out of chaos,” he said. The church splits and lawsuits that had arisen since the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay priest as Bishop of New Hampshire were spiraling out of control, Dr. Jensen said.
With an estimated $5 million spent in litigation, the American church news was all but consumed with lawsuits and parish and diocesan secessions. Eleven breakaway parishes that formed the nucleus of the Nigerian backed Convocation of Anglican Churches in America (CANA) won their legal fight to quit the Diocese of Virginia and to keep their property—while lawsuits waged in New York, Florida and half a dozen other states saw the national church prevail over the parishes.
Three dioceses: Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth quit the Episcopal Church, joining the Diocese of San Joaquin in affiliating with the Province of the Southern Cone, prompting litigation in the church and secular courts. As a result of their secessions the US House of Bishops expelled the Bishops of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh from their ranks—while the Bishop of Quincy took early retirement.
Litigation over parish secessions was the order of the day in Canada as well—as dioceses brought suit to gain possession of parishes that had quit the church to affiliate with the Anglican Network in Canada—a partner in the new Anglican Church in North America. Complaints by the Archbishop Fred Hiltz in January about the intrusion of the Southern Cone into Canada received a sympathetic hearing, but Dr. Williams explained that he had no power to do anything about it.
The Diocese of Sydney synod reiterated its long standing support for diaconal presidency at the Eucharist, and embarked on a campaign to offer a Bible to every home in the region. The Dioceses of Perth and Melbourne appointed the first women bishops in the country, while Adelaide continued to dig out from under the financial burden brought on by clergy abuse scandals in the 1990’s.
New Zealand elected the former bishop of Edmonton, Canada, the Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews as Bishop of Christchurch—and witnessed a division over how best to proceed over the gay issue at its meeting of General Synod.
The Church of Ireland continued its push toward breaking with the island’s sectarian past, and early in the year issued a statement confirming that the pope was not the anti-Christ.
Politics, persecution and pogroms drove the church news for the majority of Anglicans in the developing world.
A “silent genocide” underway in the Eastern Congo, church leaders claimed, has killed thousands and driven over 100,000 from their homes as rival war lords clash with government forces. The Archbishop of Burundi along with other church leaders in East Africa has sought to mediate between the Congolese government and rebel leaders-even as tensions in Burundi between Tutsis and Hutus remain high.
The shadow of genocide still hangs over neighboring Rwanda, with the Anglican Church taking the lead in providing a moral witness to combat the “genocide ideology” that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands almost 15 years ago.
Across the border in Uganda church leaders lamented the collapse of peace talks to end the 23 year old war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Archbishop Henry Orombi has called upon the LRA to lay down its arms, but church leaders in the north of the country warn that military force will not bring an end to the conflict.
Peace has broken out across South Sudan, as the political settlement that ended the decades old civil war between the Islamist government in Khartoum and the predominantly Christian government of South Sudan appears to have taken hold. However, the crisis in Western Sudan’s Darfur region continues to sap the efforts at rebuilding the country.
Stung by the country’s post-electoral violence, Kenya’s bishops have joined with other Christian leaders in seeking constitutional reforms for the government, and an end to the tribal jealousies that all but closed the country down in January.
The Anglican Church in Ghana, however, has celebrated their country’s break with the past, applauding an apparently successful presidential and parliamentary election. Plans for division into a Ghanaian Church and a Province comprised of Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Guinea, and Cameroon are also underway.
The Church of Nigeria continued its tremendous growth throughout 2008, adding almost three dozen new dioceses and continuing to play a prominent role in the social and intellectual life of the country. However, tensions with the Muslim minority remain high with continued bouts of sectarian violence plaguing the country. In December fresh riots broke out in Jos, leaving hundreds dead and over a dozen churches burnt to the ground.
Attacks by Hindu militants upon Christians in Orissa opened the year in India, while Islamist terrorists closed the year with terror attacks on Mumbai. Christians in Pakistan continued to live and work under legal and social pressures. The future for the country’s Christian minority was grim, the Bishop of Raiwind warned, unless the government took firm steps to control Islamist aggression.
With hundreds of thousands dead and millions left homeless by Cyclone Nargis in May, the Church in Myanmar (Burma)’s focused on rebuilding and reaching out to the those afflicted by the worst natural disaster to strike the country in the modern era.
Zimbabwe’s natural disaster, however, has been man-made by the regime of Robert Mugabe. Fraudulent elections, a complete collapse in the country’s economy and infrastructure—and by year’s end outbreaks of cholera and starvation in what was once the bread basket of Africa, have left the country all but bereft of hope. Mugabe crony Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, the former Bishop of Harare who quit the province of Central Africa to form his own Anglican Church of Zimababwe maintains a hold over most the church properties in the diocese, but has the support of only a handful of worshippers.
Dr. Sebastian Bakare, who came out of retirement to lead the embattled Anglican Church in Harare, has risen to become one of the leading moral voices in the country—and has won international accolades for his pursuit of justice and freedom in the country.
The scandal over the Church of Papua New Guinea’s former primate, Archbishop George Ambo, joining a “cargo cult” and in the process, being sought by the police for questioning in the theft of typhoon relief supplies, ended after the archbishop sought the pardon of the church and received absolution for his sins before his death in July.
Crime was also the focus of much of the work of the Church of the West Indies, with debates over the reinstitution of capital punishment, as well as a call for self-examination over the moral corruption of society.
Canterbury won’t block or bless new province: CEN 12.12.08 p 5. December 11, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.7 comments
The Archbishop of Canterbury will not block the creation of a third Anglican province in North America, sources familiar with Dr. Rowan Williams’ Dec 5 meeting with five traditionalist archbishops, tell The Church of England Newspaper.
However, the archbishop will not give it his endorsement either, arguing his office does not have the legal authority to make, or un-make, Anglicans.
On Dec 5, five members of the Gafcon primates council: Archbishops Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, and Henry Orombi of Uganda met with Dr. Williams in Canterbury for approximately five hours to discuss the current state of affairs within the Communion.
In a half day meeting interspersed with prayer and lunch the archbishops had a “full and frank” discussion of the issues, sources familiar with the proceedings said. “There was no indaba-ding on Friday,” one senior Gafcon bishop told CEN, referring to the ‘Indaba’ process of directed listening used at the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The Gafcon bishop said the conversation was a direct and forthright discussion of all of the presenting issues.
According to several sources familiar with the proceedings, the archbishops discussed the boycott of Lambeth 2008 by 214 bishops, the on-going ramifications of the election of Gene Robinson, and the disquiet many Global South leaders felt with the innovations of doctrine and discipline advocated by the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. While the idea of an Anglican Covenant was sound in theory, fears that the elastic interpretation given to language and law by the American Church would render the document meaningless, some conservatives said.
Dr. Williams sounded several familiar themes in his remarks, the sources said, stressing the need for on-going dialogue amongst the disparate parties. He shared his disquiet over ecclesiastical border crossings, saying that it implied that the trespassing bishops were stating that Christ was absent from the ecclesiastical structures who were their unwilling hosts.
The third province movement and the Wheaton constitution was presented to Dr. Williams as well—and was offered as a resolution to the archbishop’s concerns over border crossings. However, the gafcon primates did not ask Dr. Williams for his formal blessings of the project.
Legal advice given to the Archbishop of Canterbury held that his office had no role in the creation of provinces independent of the primates meeting and Anglican Consultative Council, sources told CEN.
However, Dr. Williams was able to come away with an undertaking by the primates who boycotted Lambeth 2008, that they would attend the Jan 31 to Feb 6 primates meeting in Alexandria.
Following their meeting, the Gafcon archbishops released a statement affirming their support for the third province. “The steps taken to form the new Province are a necessary initiative,” the primates said, as a “new Province will draw together in unity many of those who wish to remain faithful to the teaching of God’s word, and also create the highest level of fellowship possible with the wider Anglican Communion.”
By freeing the church from its seemingly intractable legal wrangling, a new province “releases the energy of many Anglican Christians to be involved in mission, free from the difficulties of remaining in fellowship with those who have so clearly disregarded the word of God,” they said.
The genesis of the Canterbury meeting came in October, when the Gafcon primates requested a consultation with Dr. Williams, and a date was scheduled to take place shortly after the founding convocation of the Anglican Church in North America constitution convention in Wheaton, Illinois on Dec 3. Last month Archbishop Nzimbi told CEN the purpose of the meeting was to present to Dr. Williams the ACNA constitution and to discuss the third province movement in North America.
On Dec 4, the Lambeth Press office released an unsigned press note stating that it was unofficially unaware of any request for a third province in North America, but also said that it believed that new provinces must follow a formal process of incardination to join the Anglican Communion.
“There are clear guidelines set out in the Anglican Consultative Council Reports, notably ACC 10 in 1996 (resolution 12), detailing the steps necessary for the amendments of existing provincial constitutions and the creation of new provinces. Once begun, any of these processes will take years to complete. In relation to the recent announcement from the meeting of the Common Cause Partnership in Chicago, no such process has begun,” the statement said.
However, it is unclear to what regulations Lambeth Palace was referring as under the constitution of the ACC there is no “necessary” process for the creation of provinces. In 1996 ACC legal advisor John Rees said the ACC10 guidelines were not intended to be a legal requirement but a flexible aid in provincial formation.
Canon Rees noted that in many cases provincial formation had taken place without input from the ACC. “In a number of instances in recent years, although the ACC has been ready and willing to offer advice and assistance to Provinces in process of formation, it has not in fact been consulted until the process has become so far advanced that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to incorporate any of its suggestions into the proposed constitutional documents.”
In 1996 the Anglican Communion News Service said the guidelines would “ensure new Provinces the opportunity to benefit from the advice of the ACC and the experience of other Provinces” but were not necessary steps for creating new provinces.
New American Province looms: CEN 12.05.08 p 1. December 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Secession, The Episcopal Church.1 comment so far
The Third Province movement in North America will be the topic of a special meeting at Lambeth Palace today (Dec 5). The Archbishop of Canterbury is scheduled to meet with the Gafcon primates’ council and will be briefed on plans to form a province for traditionalist Anglicans in the United States and Canada.
On Nov 11, Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi told The Church of England Newspaper that a meeting had been tentatively set with Dr. Rowan Williams in London for Dec 5. He said the timeline under which the Gafcon primates were working was that on Dec 3 the leaders of the Common Cause Partnership would gather in Wheaton, Illinois to endorse a draft constitution for the emerging province.
The Gafcon archbishops: Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, [Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda] Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania, Henry Orombi of Uganda, Justice Akrofi of West Africa would then meet on Dec 4 in London to receive and endorse the agreement and bring it to Dr. Williams the following day.
Speaking to the congregation of Truro Parish in Fairfax, Virginia on Nov 30, Bishop Martyn Minns publicly confirmed the proposed timeline adding that the Gafcon primates were also planning on briefing the primates standing committee the day before the start of the Jan 31-Feb 6 Alexandria Primates meeting-however, US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will likely miss the pre-conference session as she is scheduled to attend the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council meeting from Jan 29-31.
A Lambeth Palace spokespersontold CEN that Dr Williams would meet Archbishops Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone and Henry Orombi of Uganda at the Old Palace in Canterbury today. The meeting had been set “at their request” the spokesperson said. However, she declined to describe the proposed agenda.
A senior member of the Gafcon leadership team said it would be a mistake to assume they were waiting upon Dr. Williams’ word before work began on the Third Province. He told CEN the Gafcon primates would not adopt a confrontational approach over the Third Province and would be happy for Dr. Williams to sign on to the plan. However, he noted that under the existing legal structures of the Anglican Communion, Dr. Williams’ endorsement was not a prerequisite for their creation of the new Common Cause province in North America.
Membership in the Anglican Consultative Council determines membership in the Anglican Communion. Article 3 of the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council vests the authority to make members with the primates: “With the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the council may alter or add to the schedule” of members.
While it is technically possible for a vote on a third province to come before the primates’ meeting in Alexandria, and then be forwarded to ACC-14 in May for action, it is unlikely as the necessary constitutional work in forming a CCP-based North American province will not be completed.
Final approval within North America could take up to two years as the synods of the four breakaway Episcopal dioceses: San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth will have to endorse the constitution over two meetings of their convention, while the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, and the Kenyan and Uganda overseen churches in North America and other CCP members must ratify the constitution and amend their own governing documents so as to bring its terms into force.
Should the primates agree to the creation of a Third Province at their 2011 meeting, the matter would be brought before ACC-15 in 2012. While special meetings of the ACC and the primates can be called on the initiative of their standing committees, no such meeting has ever been called, and the current political climate within the Anglican Communion does not favor expedited action.
The status of the members of the Third Province within the Anglican Communion during the interval between Dec 3, 2008 and final approval by the ACC, would likely be under dispute. However, under custom established in the case of the Church of South India and existing church canons the status of the individual churches would be determined by its relationship to one of the existing primates of the Anglican Communion. The four breakaway US dioceses, the Anglican Network in Canada, and the African-overseen parishes and jurisdictions would continue in their present form as de facto members of the Communion—while ecclesial entities such as the Reformed Episcopal Church would be outside the Communion.
While in the 20th century, many came to assume that Anglicanism was cotemporaneous with the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the governing constitutions and canons of a number of provinces affect their link to the Communion through fealty to the Book of Common Prayer, or to shared doctrine. The “muddiness” of Anglicanism ecclesiastical structures, the Gafcon senior source tells the CEN, prevents decisive or speedy action in resolving the disputes.
Legal framework set for new Third Province in North America: CEN 12.04.08 December 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Secession, The Episcopal Church.add a comment
| Leaders of the Third Province movement sidestepped the contentious issue of women clergy last night, and have endorsed a provisional constitution and canons governing the emerging Third Province in the Americas.
“God did a great work today,” Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan told supporters at a church service in Wheaton, Illinois at the end of the Dec 1-3 gathering, as the disparate members of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) of Anglican traditionalists in the US and Canada “came together with the proposed draft of the constitution and canons” and after discussing each proviso, “adopted unanimously” each article of the code. This was “staggering considering who was around the table” said Bishop Duncan — the moderator of CCP and now the interim primate and archbishop of the provisional province. Comprised of approximately 700 congregations with an average Sunday attendance of 100,000, the newly created Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) boasts Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, Charismatics, and a variety of traditionalists at odds with the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Summit will not debate Gafcon: CEN 11.28.08 p 7. November 30, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.add a comment
Members of the Joint Standing Committee [JSC] of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council are scheduled to meet this week, Nov 25-27 at St. Andrew’s House in London to prepare for the May 2009 meeting of the ACC in Jamaica.
Senior Communion sources tell The Church of England Newspaper the “agenda is largely preparing for ACC-14 next year, and trying to build on the lessons learned from the [2008] Lambeth [Conference].” No formal discussion of the Gafcon call for a third province in North America has been planned for the gathering, sources report.
The JSC will look into the current state of the ACC’s finances as well as receive an update on the attempts to pay off the million pound cost overruns from the 2008 gathering of bishops in Canterbury. Personnel issues at the ACC will be addressed, along with a status report on the proposed Faith and Order Commission and the Anglican Covenant Design Group’s works.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams will also address the gathering, offering his reflections on the state of affairs within the Anglican Communion.
Questions of a third province in North America proposed by the Gafcon movement will not likely come before the meeting as no formal request has been made by the primates on this issue. Conservative church leaders have called for the creation of a third province in North America as a haven for traditionalists which would also gather up the disparate Anglican groups that have broken with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the past hundred and twenty five years.
However, the third province movement is bitterly opposed by the leaders of the US and Canadian churches, who have argued that overlapping jurisdictions based upon theology, race and politics are foreign to the Anglican ethos. While overlapping jurisdictions are far from ideal, they are not strangers to Anglican history, as past divisions over doctrine and discipline have led to the temporary creation of rival jurisdictions such as the dioceses of Natal and Maritzburg in Nineteenth century South Africa.
In the modern era, a province becomes a member of the Anglican Communion not through communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury but by virtue of its membership in the ACC—the Archbishop of Canterbury is in communion with the Lutheran Porvoo Churches, but they are not members of the Anglican Communion.
Membership in the ACC for a new province comes after two-thirds of the primates have given their assent, and the full ACC assents by majority vote. No formal procedure for the creation of a province is specified, though Resolution 21 of ACC 1 asks that “before the creation of a new province there should be consultation with the Anglican Consultative Council or its Standing Committee for guidance and advice, especially in regard to the form of constitution most appropriate.”
Members of the Primates Standing Committee are from elected by regional blocks during votes taken at the primates meetings. The roster of the current committee includes Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishops Philip Aspinall of Australia, Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Barry Morgan of Wales, Henry Orombi of Uganda, and Katharine Jefferts Schori of the United States.
Aides to Archbishop Orombi tell CEN he will not be attending this week’s meeting, and that Archbishop Justice Akrofie of West Africa will attend in his place.
Members of the ACC’s standing committee are elected at its regular meetings. The current roster includes the chairman, Bishop John Patterson of New Zealand, and vice-chairman Dr. George Khoshy of South India, as well as regular members: Mrs. Philippa Amable of West Africa, Mrs. Jolly Babirukamu of Uganda, Mr. Robert Fordham of Australia, Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe of Ceylon, Canon Elizabeth Paver of the Church of England, Bishop James Tengatenga of Central Africa, and Ms. Nomfundo Walaza of Southern Africa.
“Gafcon leaders are unrepresentative”: CEN 11.28.08 p 6. November 29, 2008
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The hard-line views of the Archbishops of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Southern Cone, Tanzania, Uganda and West Africa are unrepresentative of the views of many Anglicans in the developing world, Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada has claimed.
In a Nov 17 interview the Canadian primate denounced plans for a third province in North America as being un-Anglican, and argued it was a “huge assumption” to claim that the Gafcon primates’ support for a traditionalist province for North America was universally shared by their brethren.
A third province in North America was a non-starter, Archbishop Hiltz said, arguing “the creation of provinces, as I have always understood it, is based on mission. It is based on a commitment to embrace and give flesh to an expression of the gospel in a particular context. There is a geography associated with that context, there is a set of cultural needs, a set of social needs.”
While the ideal of provincial formation expressed by Archbishop Hiltz is shared by a number of Anglican leaders, no rules exist governing the formation of provinces within the Anglican Communion, save that they must be approved by a two-thirds vote by the primates.
His rejection of the third province movement came two days after the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), the breakaway group overseen by the Province of the Southern Cone, held its first synod in Burlington, Ontario. ANiC adopted an interim constitution, endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration of the Gafcon meeting, and asked Archbishop Gregory Venables to appoint up to three suffragan bishops to assist the growing traditionalist movement.
Archbishop Hiltz said ANiC and Archbishop Venables’ actions violated the call for a season of “gracious restraint” suggested by the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and were bent on destabilizing the Anglican Church of Canada. “It has become more and more clear that those associated with GAFCON are not so committed to building bridges and keeping in conversation but rather to separation,” he said.
He also questioned the depth of support the Gafcon primates enjoyed among their own churches. “The experience that I had at Lambeth and that lots of other Canadians had at Lambeth was that the primates speak, but they don’t necessarily represent the views of all the people,” Archbishop Hiltz told the Anglican Journal. “And they don’t in every case represent the views of their bishops.”
Questioned by The Church of England Newspaper on Nov 11, Archbishops Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya and Justice Akrofi of West Africa stated the Gafcon movement had the full backing of their provinces.
Lambeth faces Chicago test: CEN 11.21.08 p 1. November 21, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Ecclesiology, GAFCON.add a comment
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.
The leaders of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) are set to endorse a draft constitution to govern the loose coalition of breakaway dioceses, congregations and Anglican jurisdictions in the United States.
In a statement released on Nov 17 by the American Anglican Council on behalf of the CCP, AAC spokesman Robert Lundy said the “the draft constitution of an emerging Anglican Church in North America” will be released on Dec 3. The leaders of the CCP will “formally subscribe to the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) and affirm the Gafcon Statement on the Global Anglican Future.”
The Dec 3 ceremony will not launch a new province, CCP moderator Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh said, but will be an “an important concrete step toward the goal of a biblical, missionary and united Anglican Church in North America.”
Speaking in Boston on Nov 15 in a sermon broadcast by Anglican.TV, Bishop Duncan said the CCP leaders will “receive and god-willing commend a draft constitution” for the “Anglican Church in North America.”
We want to “bring Jerusalem to American” and “claim our place as members of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans,” he said.
A final draft of the CCP constitution was completed on Oct 31 following meetings in Northern Virginia. The CCP Council is scheduled to meet Dec 1-3 in Wheaton, Illinois at the Billy Graham Center and is expected to ratify the constitution and governing documents of the coalition of American and Canadian Anglican churches that draw over 100,000 worshippers every Sunday. Statistics released by the national offices of the Episcopal Church state that in 2007, the average Sunday attendance for the Episcopal Church was 727,822.
Once the CCP constitution is ratified, it will then be forwarded to the Gafcon primates’ council comprising Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Henry Orombi of Uganda, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Justice Akrofi of West Africa, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, and the group’s secretary, Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney.
[Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania is also a member of the Gafcon primates' council and his name was inadvertently omitted from this list in the print edition. GC]
The primates are expected to formally accept the CCP proposals and begin the process of creating a Third Province in North America for the Anglican Communion. Meetings have been tentatively scheduled with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams before the Jan 31 to Feb 5 primates meeting in Alexandria.
However, Dr. Williams’ approval is not a prerequisite for creating a new Province for the Anglican Communion. Article 3 of the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council vests this authority with the primates: “With the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the council may alter or add to the schedule” of members.
The Gafcon primates are expected to bring the matter of the Third Province to the Alexandria meeting in February, where a majority already exists sympathetic to the aspirations of Bishop Duncan and the CCP. Should the primates endorse the request, it will then be forwarded to the ACC’s May meeting in Jamaica for implementation.
Gafcon leaders dismiss ‘futile’ covenant draft: CEN 10.31.08 p 7. October 30, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Covenant, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.1 comment so far
The proposed Anglican Covenant is an “exercise in futility,” theologians affiliated with the Gafcon movement tell The Church of England Newspaper, and the current draft is beset with “a considerable degree of theological confusion.”
On Oct 22, the Anglican Covenant Design Group chaired by Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies released a commentary on the proposed pan-Anglican agreement drawn from comments made by bishops attending this summer’s Lambeth Conference. The 33-page “Lambeth Commentary” has been distributed to each of the Communion’s 38 provinces, with the request that they offer their comments on the commentary as well as the underlying draft of the covenant by March 9, 2009.
The Design Group said it hoped the Lambeth Commentary “will stand alongside the St. Andrew’s Draft [released in February 2008] as a critique and as a stimulus for study and response.”
The Covenant Design Group will meet in March 2009 to develop a new draft based upon the provincial responses and submit the final report to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) at its May 1-12 meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The Lambeth Commentary suggests the Anglican Communion adopt a form of alternative dispute resolution to resolve its divisions over doctrine and discipline, citing the examples of conflict mediation, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Chinese community centres,’ and the racially segregated Anglican churches of New Zealand.
The Commentary also urged the Design Group to permit dioceses to endorse the Covenant. During the Lambeth Conference, ACC Deputy Secretary General Canon Gregory Cameron said the St Andrew’s Draft did not envision dioceses being the primary signatories of the Covenant.
However, the Lambeth Commentary urged a reconsideration of this view, noting if “the canons and constitutions of a Province permit, there is no reason why a diocesan synod should not commit itself to the covenant, thus strengthening its commitment to the interdependent life of the Communion.”
US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told members of the church’s Executive Council on Oct 21 that she would “strongly discourage” consideration of the Covenant at the July meeting of General Convention.
“The time is far too short before our General Convention for us to have a thorough discussion of it as a church and I’m therefore going to strongly discourage any move to bring it to General Convention. I just think it’s inappropriate to make a decision that weighty,” she said. However, critics note the 2003 decision by General Convention to affirm the election of Gene Robinson was made in less time.
However, Sydney theologian Dr. Mark Thompson, Dean of Moore Theological College argued the covenant process would not resolve the problems before the Anglican Communion. The actions of Bishop Schori and New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham since Lambeth “have made clear that the covenant idea simply will not deal with the real issues
The “Lambeth Commentary itself refuses to deal with the real issues,” he noted, observing that the covenant was “entirely irrelevant” and would “make no difference to the current situation and will be unable to prevent future challenges of the same magnitude,” Dr. Thompson said.
The present draft of the Anglican Covenant made a “simplistic appeal to the biblical covenants ” in support of its agenda, yet the biblical covenants “were instituted by God as a gift which provided a framework for understanding Israel’s relationship with him. At the heart was hearing, believing and obeying God’s word. They ought not be confused a covenant between human beings,” he said.
The Lambeth Commentary was also unclear as to what it understood the Covenant to be describing it both as a “central text” while also “speaking about it as a ‘foundational document’.”
Dr. Thompson added that there was an “ecclesiological confusion when the ‘local church’ is described as ‘that portion of God’s people gathered around their bishop, usually I the form of a territorial diocese’,”—a description of the church not supported by the Articles of Religion.
It was “simply untrue” to say that the Windsor process and the Anglican Covenant were the “only game in town,” Dr. Thompson said. “It is the unwillingness of the current leadership of the Communion to deal directly and biblically with the crisis created by the American and Canadian revisionists, its prevarication and personal compromise that has radically deepened the crisis and ensured that the covenant as it is proposed simply will not work.”
Prof. Stephen Noll, Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University told CEN the “most important requirements of a workable covenant are doctrinal substance and disciplinary efficacy. The drafts to date have fallen short on both counts.”
Both Dr. Thompson and Prof Noll argued that the exclusion of theologians and leaders of the Gafcon movement weakened the credibility of the document. “If the Covenant Design Group truly wishes to be inclusive, it needs to sit down with the leadership of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and seek to incorporate the principles of the Jerusalem Declaration into the Covenant,” Prof Noll said.
“Any hope” for the future of the Anglican Communion, Dr. Thompson said, ” lies with those faithful bishops and other leaders whose voices could not be heard at Lambeth because they had chosen to gather in Jerusalem. “
“The St Andrews Draft of An Anglican Covenant, and the Lambeth Commentary on that draft, are institutional responses to a situation that can only be resolved by much, much more,” he concluded.
Diocese signs up to Gafcon movement: CEN 10.03.08 p 6. October 3, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.add a comment
The Fellowship of Confession Anglicans (FCA) has added its first New Zealand diocese to its list of supporters. At its annual synod on Sept 26 the Diocese of Nelson adopted a resolution commending the Jerusalem Declaration of the June Gafcon conference, and affirmed its place within the orthodox wing of the Anglican Communion.
In his presidential address, the Bishop of Nelson, the Rt. Rev. Richard Ellena urged the diocese to use creative strategies for growing God’s kingdom. He cited examples from the “Fresh Expressions” project of the Church of England where one ministry had opened a cafe in a disused church building, while another opened a coffee bar to serve and witness to patrons after the nightclubs had closed.
Projects such as a “cyberchurch” on the internet could also be added to the ministry of the diocese, he said, reaching people where they were in their communities. “The one thing [these ministries] will have in common is the desire to reach out to people unreachable within our current structures of the church,” he said.
During its business session, the synod adopted a resolution noting the holding of the Gafcon conference in Jerusalem and received the final statement of the conference along with the Jerusalem Declaration, commending it to the diocese “for general study and reflection.”
It further confirmed “the Diocese of Nelson upholds the orthodox faith and practice of the Anglican Church as represented in the Jerusalem Declaration and continues to look for ways to be in relationship with those represented at Gafcon.”
Last month FCA—the new name for the Gafcon movement—announced that its administrative offices would be housed at the Diocese of Sydney.
The theological principles of the reform movement within the Anglican Communion received a fine tuning this week, Prof Stephen Noll, Vice Chancellor of the Uganda Christian University reported, with a meeting of approximately “forty Anglican theologians from around the world, more than half of them from Africa” at the university in Mukono.
“We are working on a commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration, the basic theological statement that emerged from Gafcon,” Prof. Noll said in a letter to mission supporters.
Prof. Noll added the future for FCA was bright. “Even as I write these things, I am uplifted with hope. There are dark days ahead for Anglicanism in many ways. Coupled with the economic meltdown, times will be tough for Anglicans everywhere. But we have the resources in the Scriptures and in our God to see beyond the immediate darkness and to know that God has a bright future for us,” he said.
Gafcon primates say there can be no going back on the gay issue: CEN 9.05.08 p 4. September 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008.7 comments
The Anglican Communion has been broken and it is an “illusion” to believe things can ever be the same again, the archbishops of the Gafcon movement said last week following their first organizational meeting in London.
The leaders of the conservative wing of the Anglican Communion, representing more than half of the church’s active members, on Aug 29 released a statement affirming the aims of the movement—now known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA)—and restated its commitment to the reform and renewal of the communion.
However, they disagreed sharply with the course taken by Archbishop Rowan Williams in avoiding a full and frank airing of the issues, with one insider telling The Church of England Newspaper the Anglican Communion’s sex wars had taken on a Dickensian quality, and like “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” was still dragging its “dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.”
The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Primate of Uganda, Archbishop Henry Orombi, the Primate of Rwanda, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, the Primate of Kenya, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, and the Primate of the Southern Cone, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables—later joined by the Primate of Tanzania, Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa also offered a critique of suggestions made by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) that another committee such as a “Pastoral Forum” might successfully address the issues dividing the church.
While applauding the aims of the “Windsor Process” and the intent of its supporters, the premise underlying the WCG’s argument was flawed, the FCA archbishops said. The WCG had argued that unless all parties agreed to moratoriums on gay bishops and blessings, as well as cross-border incursions “the Communion is likely to fracture.”
However, the “Communion fractured in 2003, when our fellowship was ‘torn at its deepest level’,” by the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
The response to the Robinson ordination had been a series of hapless committees that pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases that achieve nothing. We are “continually offered the same strategies which mean further delay and unlikely results. Indeed, delay itself seems to be a strategy employed by some in order to resolve the issue through weariness,” they said.
Sadly, the archbishops observed, there were now three realities that “must be faced,” and are “past the time when they can be reversed.”
“First, some Anglicans have sanctified sinful practices and will continue to do so whatever others may think.” Second, those “affected by this disobedience have rightly withdrawn fellowship while wishing to remain authentic Anglicans. So-called ‘border-crossing’ is another way of describing the provision of recognition and care for those who have been faithful to the teachings of Holy Scripture.”
And, third: “there is widespread impaired and broken sacramental communion amongst Anglicans,” the archbishops said, noting that the “hope that we may somehow return to the state of affairs before 2003 is an illusion.”
The way forward for the communion lay not through committees but through spiritual revival, the archbishops said. “We believe that the Jerusalem Declaration provides for a viable way of helping to deal with the crisis in the Anglican Communion brought about through the disobedience to Scripture by some in North America and elsewhere.”
The Aug 29 communiqué stated the primates had created a Secretariat and an Advisory Board, “which will work with them on fulfilling the aims of the movement.”
The FCA “isn’t a new church, nor is it an alternative power [bloc]” within the Anglican Communion Bishop Venables told CEN. “It is about the survival of Biblical values within the communion.”
“What is being worked out” in the formation of the FCA “is the Gospel. Gafcon [FCA] is a proclamation of the ‘truth’,” he said.
Anglicanism “need not be unclear. We are seeking to say what God says,” Bishop Venables explained.
Archbishop Orombi told CEN “Gafcon is a movement of hope for the Anglican Communion members who love Jesus and live in obedience to his Word. We are full of passion for Gafcon’s future,” he said.
Common Cause wants to be Gafcon Province: CEN 7.25.08 July 26, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008.add a comment
| London: The Common Cause Partnership in North American has petitioned the Primates Council of the Gafcon movement for recognition as an Anglican province in North America.
While not unexpected in light of the declarations of the Gafcon meeting in Jerusalem, the announcement released at the same time the bishops were seated for luncheon at Lambeth Palace before the garden party at Buckingham Palace with the Queen on July 24, symbolizes the challenge posed to the old order by the former colonial churches. While Dr Williams’ go-slow strategy has so far kept a semblance of order within the Conference, with only a quarter of the bishops absent, a strategy of avoidance cloaked in the mantra of dialogue may risk his being neutered in the Anglican future, traditionalist leaders tell ReligiousIntelligence.com. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Rebel Zimbabwe bishop claims support of Gafcon constituency: CEN 7.13.08 July 13, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Zimbabwe.add a comment
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The former Bishop of Harare , Dr Nolbert Kunonga, has claimed the support of the Gafcon movement saying his schism from the Church of the Province of Central Africa was merely the opening shot in the Anglican Communion’s war over homosexuality.
However, the African archbishops leading the Anglican renewal movement have distanced themselves from the controversial bishop, giving their support to the Province and its dean, Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Anglican Conservatives Create “Confessing Movement”: IRD 7.08.08 July 8, 2008
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Jerusalem—Anglican conservatives have dethroned the Archbishop of Canterbury as spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, and have created a confessing movement within the 80-million member church body that centers upon common doctrinal beliefs rather than a common historical heritage.
Delegates attending the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) endorsed the “Jerusalem Declaration”—a 14-point manifesto that sets the foundations for a reform fellowship within the largest Christian denomination in the world after Roman Catholics and the Orthodox.
The 1,200 delegates, including 291 bishops, also denounced the Episcopal Church for teaching a “false gospel” and for having “defied” church teaching by denying the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and promoting a “variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior.”
Archbishop Henry Orombi claims that the Anglican Communion has a “bright future . . . because Jesus is alive.” (Photo courtesy Episcopal Life/Matthew Davies) |
The conference announced the creation of a “confessing movement” that will provide a haven for traditionalists unhappy with the liberal tilt of the Episcopal Church in the United States and Anglican Church of Canada, and a “Primates’ Council” of Archbishops to oversee the new movement.
“We are a global Communion with a colonial structure,” the delegates declared, sloughing off the control of the London-centered church in the greatest crisis within the Anglican Church since the Reformation. The Jerusalem Declaration “is really calling us back to our roots,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, and states “as Anglicans were we really belong.”
While endorsing GAFCON’s underlying statement of faith, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, described its attempts to reform the structures of the Communion as “problematic.” Saying there was much that was “positive and encouraging” about the conference’s final statement, Dr. Williams urged the leaders of the GAFCON movement to “think very carefully about the risks entailed.”
Read it all at the IRD.
US Presiding Bishop dismisses Gafcon conference: CEN 7.05.08 July 5, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, The Episcopal Church.2 comments
| US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has ridiculed the Jerusalem Declaration released by the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem. In a June 30 statement Bishop Schori said “much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from Gafcon.”
She added that the participants in the June 21-29 held a parochial view of Anglicanism, which had “always been broader than some find comfortable.” The Gafcon statement was about power she argued, and was “merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Conservative Anglicans Seek to Form a “Church Within a Church”: IRD 6.27.08 July 3, 2008
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Jerusalem—Conservative Anglicans attending the Global Anglican Future Conference will break with the liberal wing of the Episcopal Church, forming a “church within a church” for traditionalists.
Prior to the release of a communiqué prepared by delegates (or pilgrims) to the Jerusalem assembly, a midpoint report given by the Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi on June 26 states the final document “will require” the creation of “appropriate” and “permanent structures” to support “faithful Anglicans who live and serve in provinces that have abandoned the traditional teaching of the Bible.”
Participants of GAFCON pose for a picture on the Mount of Olives. (Photo by George Conger) |
The GAFCON movement “is a global movement for the transformation of life and Gospel ministry,” Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney said, as the “Gospel of Jesus has immense power to change people’s lives.”
GAFCON would be a “movement, not something of the moment,” Archbishop Nzimbi explained, but the movement for reform will work within the bounds of the Anglican comprehensiveness.
We are “not innovators or rebels,” said Professor Stephen Noll, vice-chancellor of Uganda Christian University, but a movement “back to the original sources of our tradition.”
Read it all in the IRD.
JI Packer calls upon Archbishop Rowan Williams to resign: CEN 7.04.08 p 7. July 3, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.1 comment so far
Canadian theologian JI Packer has called upon the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, saying Dr. Rowan Williams is not up to the task of keeping the Anglican Communion alive.
In a question and answer session following a lecture on June 24 at Holy Trinity Church in Eastborne, Dr. Packer responded to a question on what he would say to Dr. Williams about the Anglican crisis, by stating ” you are not qualified just at the moment to lead the Anglican Communion, for on this issue of whether or not people should yield to homosexual temptation, you are over a barrel.”
Dr. Packer, who last month was kicked out of the Anglican Church of Canada by New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham explained that he would say, “before you became Archbishop, you went in to print cautiously approving gay relationships. It is known, and you don’t deny, that you have ordained at least one person who is a practising homosexual.”
“Now you say that you are seeking to uphold the Anglican consensus of the Lambeth conference of 1998 which says that homosexual behaviour is absolutely off limits, but when asked whether you have changed your own mind on this matter, you say no. I cannot pretend to believe what I don’t believe and all of this of course is documented.”
Dr. Packer concluded that “I would say with great respect Archbishop, I believe that the way of wisdom is for you to resign.”
Asked if he endorsed Dr. Packer’s views, Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said, he did not. Dr. Packer, who now holds Bishop Venable’s licence as a priest of the Province of the Southern Cone was “no spring chicken.”
“He is a year older than the Pope and a year younger than the Queen,” and is entitled to his views, Bishop Venables explained, but they did not constitute the formal views of the Province of the Southern Cone.
Gafcon sees a future away from Canterbury: CEN 7.04.08 p 7. July 3, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.1 comment so far
Jerusalem: Anglicans meeting in Jerusalem have released a declaration that expels the leadership of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion and dethrone the Archbishop of Canterbury as its spiritual leader.
Delegates from churches representing more than half of the Communion’s 80 million members attending the Global Anglican Future Conference endorsed the “Jerusalem Declaration”: a 14-point manifesto that sets the foundations for a reform fellowship within the 80-million member Anglican Communion, the third largest Christian denomination in the world after Roman Catholics and the Orthodox.
The 1200 delegates, including 291 bishops, denounced the Episcopal Church for teaching a “false gospel” and for having “defied” church teaching by denying the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and promoting a “variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior.”
The conference announced the creation of a “confessing movement” that will provide a haven for traditionalists unhappy with the liberal tilt of the Episcopal Church in the United States and Anglican Church of Canada, and a “Primates’ Council” of Archbishops to oversee the new movement.
However, Gafcon’s impact upon Britain is less clear, as conservatives have not broken eucharist fellowship with any bishop of the Church of England. Unlike the US and Canadian bishops, all of the Church of England’s bishops had conformed to the agreed statements on human sexuality, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said.
“We are a global Communion with a colonial structure,” the delegates declared, sloughing off the control of the London-centered church in what is being seen as the greatest crisis within the Anglican Church since the Reformation. The Jerusalem Declaration “is really calling us back to our roots,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, and states “as Anglicans were we really belong.”
While the meeting has no power to excommunicate the liberal leadership of the Episcopal Church, the churches representing more than half of the Communion’s 80 million members will shun them—and support the creation of alternative and complimentary structures to support Episcopal conservatives.
Support for the document appeared universal within the meeting, garnering support from Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, both inside and out of the existing formal church structures.
Bishop John Guernsey, a former Episcopal priest who serves as a Bishop of the Ugandan Church but ministers in Northern Virginia called the statement historic, saying he was “very pleased” by the outcome. Anglo-Catholic leader Jack Iker, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth hailed the meeting as a success and a “positive contribution to the future direction of the Anglican Communion, as well as a very encouraging affirmation and validation of the realignment that has been taking place” over the past few years.
The Jerusalem Declaration restates traditional Anglican teaching on the Bible, ethics and church order-but also “rejects the authority” of church leaders and institutions that have “denied the orthodox faith in word.”
The failure of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, to discipline the US Church had made the situation worse, they argued. While recognizing his historic role, the Gafcon statement said it did “not accept that Anglican identity” was “determined necessarily through recognition” by the office of Archbishop of Canterbury—the hitherto customary determination of Anglican status.
However, the Jerusalem Declaration was not the start of a schism or formal split within the Anglican Communion. We are “not saying we are the only faithful Anglicans,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen explained, nor were we forming a “church within a church.”
The Jerusalem Declaration would provide a bulwark against “Western revisionist” theology by preparing a “fellowship” of Christians to “support each other in truth,” while “charting the way forward for a Gospel-centered future,” Dr. Jensen told The Church of England Newspaper.
It also “creates order out of chaos,” he said. The church splits and lawsuits that had arisen since the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay priest as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 were spiraling out of control, Dr. Jensen said. The Jerusalem Declaration and Gafcon Statement would provide a method for managing the crisis, he said.
It “will also help strengthen our relationship with Muslims” in Africa and Asia, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria explained, as it makes “clear” what we believe and addresses the intellectual and theological challenges posed by militant Islam.
No immediate changes would be seen in the US, Bishop David Anderson—a former California Episcopal priest consecrated a bishop by the Nigerian Church observed. However, he expected that over the coming year the structures would be set in place for the creation of a new province of Anglicans recognized by the Gafcon primates’ council.
The Anglican Communion has “a bright future,” Archbishop Orombi said, because “Jesus is alive” and the accretions of the past generation are being trimmed away in a return to a purer form of Anglicanism, he said.
Anglicans poised to split from Church: Wash Times 6.29.08 June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in GAFCON, Washington Times.1 comment so far
JERUSALEM | Conservative Anglicans will declare a split from the U.S. Episcopal Church on Sunday, but will stop short of schism with the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
“There will be permanent division, one way or the other,” said Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia, one of the organizers of the weeklong Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), adding that he expected “long-term consequences” for the Anglican Communion.
Read it all in The Washington Times
Bishop explains his Lambeth difficulty: CEN 6.27.08 p 7. June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008.1 comment so far
The Bishop of Rochester will not attend this summer’s Lambeth Conference. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said his absence from Lambeth was a “statement of conscience” and shared by “hundreds of bishops.”
In a statement released during the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) on June 23, Bishop Nazir-Ali explained his “difficulty” in attending Lambeth arose from the problem of “Eucharistic fellowship with and teaching the common faith alongside those who have ordained a person to be bishop whose style of life is contrary” to the teaching of the Bible and the Church.
“I found it difficult to be around a common table” in Eucharistic fellowship “with people who have gone against the common” mind and received teachings of the church, he said.
He was “not boycotting” Lambeth but was unable to attend the gathering as it was presently constituted. “If the difficulty was removed, I would go,” he said.
Bishop Nazir-Ali noted “my going to Lambeth or not going to Lambeth” was immaterial as “I am a person of no consequence.” Nor was this “about punishment” of errant bishops, but a step towards their “restoration” to the fuller life of the Church.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams was aware of his views, and had expressed his “regret” of the decision, he added.
The Bishop of Rochester joins the Bishops of Lewes and Willesden along with the bishops of Sydney, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and other parts of Africa in declining to attend Lambeth 2008.
African women resolute against liberal moves: CEN 6.29.08 June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, GAFCON.add a comment
| The women of the Anglican Communion in Africa are steadfast in their opposition to the innovations of doctrine and discipline promulgated by the Episcopal Church, Nigerian pilgrims to the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem said this week.
“We are in full support” of the stance taken by the Bishops of the Church of Nigeria, Mrs Oluranti Ademowo (pictured), wife of the Archbishop of Lagos said. “We are in more than full support,” she added, “we are so happy [Archbishop Peter Akinola] has taken a stand.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Conservatives to split—but only from the Episcopal Church: CEN 6.29.08 June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.add a comment
| Jerusalem: Conservatives will declare a split from the Episcopal Church but will stop short of schism with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“There will be permanent division, one way or the other,” Dr. Peter Jensen (pictured), the archbishop of Sydney told the media, as the decision by the Episcopal Church to consecrate a practicing homosexual as a bishop in 2003 was “an extraordinary strategic blunder” that had divided the church. However, the Anglican Communion will continue, the Primate of the Southern Cone, Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said. “This is not a shutting of doors. We are not walking away,” he said, but were forming a movement that would reform and renew the Anglican Churches. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper |
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GAFCON Communiqué Likely to Redefine Relations with Canterbury: TLC 6.28.08 June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in GAFCON, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church magazine.
A communiqué from the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) is expected to include a declaration of common doctrinal principles and lay out plans for a new Book of Common Prayer and catechism based upon the historic Church of England 1662 prayer book, according to Nigerian Bishop John Akao. The document also is expected to include a clarification of relations with the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Final edits were being made on Saturday, with the completed version of the communiqué expected to be released to the public on Sunday, the concluding day of the meeting of more than 1,200 Anglican bishops, clergy and lay leaders at the Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem. GAFCON organizers also are expected to announce new structures for traditionalists in the United States and Canada.
“All around the world, the sleeping giant that is evangelical Anglicanism and orthodox Anglicanism has been aroused” said Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney (Australia) during a press conference on Saturday. He said he expected there would be “long term consequences flowing from the conference” that will see “concrete results” that will change the Anglican Communion.
Anglican traditionalists set to form a ‘church within a church’: CEN 6.27.08 June 27, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON.add a comment
| JERUSALEM: Traditionalists are set to form a “church within a church”, keeping in formal relation with the Archbishop of Canterbury but severing ties with the progressive wings of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.
A communiqué being prepared by pilgrims to the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) will call for new structures to support conservatives and likely formalize a break with the Episcopal Church. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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English bishop to boycott Lambeth Conference: CEN 6.27.08 June 27, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008.add a comment
| JERUSALEM: The Anglican Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn will not attend the Lambeth Conference.
“I cannot pretend to have fellowship” round the communion rail and “sit down and take meals with those persecuting my friends in North America,” Bishop Benn (pictured) told reporters on June 25 during the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem. “I cannot be in fellowship with those who have denied the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I also respect those faithful [evangelical bishops] who are going to Lambeth; I respect their decision and will not condemn it,” he said. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Conservative Anglicans opting to break away: Wash Times 6.27.08 June 27, 2008
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JERUSALEM | Anglican conservatives are set to form a “church within a church,” keeping informal relations with the Archbishop of Canterbury but severing ties with the Episcopal Church.
A communique being prepared by participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) here will likely formalize a break with the Episcopal Church.
In a Thursday press briefing, Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi said “more permanent structures need to be established for those faithful Anglicans who live and serve in provinces that have abandoned the traditional teaching of the Bible.”
This includes a break with the progressive wing of the Episcopal Church, a common approach to reading the Bible, a new catechism and a new Book of Common Prayer shared by conservatives across the Communion, Nigerian Bishop John Akao said.
Read it all in The Washington Times.
“No split” says Gafcon: CEN 6.27.08 p 1. June 26, 2008
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A collision between the Archbishop of Canterbury and conservatives that appeared set to wreck the Anglican Communion appears to have been averted.
While there has been no retreat by leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) on the issues of homosexuality and the Episcopal Church, conservatives have changed their rhetoric and tactics, and are set to adopt strategies for reform of the Church that place less reliance upon political solutions.
There is no plan for conservatives “to walk away” from the Communion, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said. “We are meeting to renew our commitment, to renew our faith, to get a sense of direction of what we can be as Anglicans. We do not want to start a new Church,” he said.
“Anglicans we are, Anglicans we’ll remain until the Lord shall return in glory,” Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told delegates at the start of the June 21-29 conference held at the Renaissance Hotel in West Jerusalem.
Organizers of the gathering—representing some two thirds of the active Anglican churchgoers—see Gafcon as the start of a confessing church movement. One that “will liberate and set participants, particularly Africans, free from spiritual bondage” imposed by the “Episcopal Church and its allies,” Archbishop Akinola said.
But the movement for reform will work within the bounds of the Anglican comprehensiveness. We are “not innovators or rebels” Prof Stephen Noll, vice-chancellor of Uganda Christian University said, but a movement “back to the original sources of our tradition.”
The Gafcon movement “is a global movement for the transformation of life and Gospel ministry,” Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney said, as the “Gospel of Jesus has immense power to change people’s lives.”
Pre-conference criticisms that Gafcon would be a political rally for conservatives and a stalking horse for schism appear to have been unfounded. Nor have claims of tensions and jealousies between rival archbishops, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, Africans and Europeans, been proven out. Conference spokesman Arne Fjelstad said that while there were some cultural and language barriers present, the “pilgrims,” or delegates to Gafcon were united on key theological issues.
All rejected the innovations of doctrine and discipline instituted by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada while many were disappointed with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams for ignoring the pleas of traditionalists. Dr. Williams was “not interested in what matters to us, in what we think or in what we say,” Archbishop Akinola claimed.
Over the coming week, delegates will be asked to review seven questions to help formulate a common response to the Anglican crisis.
The issue of broken communion between churches and cross-border Episcopal jurisdictions will be addressed as will the issue of whether reform must arise from within or can it be assisted from abroad.
Gafcon will also examine itself, asking whether it is to be another ingredient in the alphabet soup of Anglican pressure groups, or a reform movement, or an Africa-based ngo, or a potential instrument of unity within the Communion? The pilgrims will also address the issue of how Gafcon relates to those with a shared faith, but through reasons of financial pressures or political expediency cannot yet move out from under the shadow of the Episcopal Church.
Archbishop Orombi told CEN there were no predetermined answers to these questions. The archbishops believe Gafcon believed it important that clergy and lay voices be heard in formulating a way forward for Anglicanism.
American Bishops Join in Shaping Communion Renewal Movement: TLC 6.26.08 June 26, 2008
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Read it all in the Living Church magazine.
Participants’ responses to seven questions posed by organizers of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) are expected to form the basis of a communiqué that will set the agenda for the conservative wing of the Anglican Communion for coming years.
Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney said he hoped it would be the “beginning of a movement within the Anglican Communion” for reform and renewal.
Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, is not in Jerusalem. Family obligations limited his attendance to the pre-conference meeting in Jordan. Other Episcopal Church bishops present at the conference include:
- Keith Ackerman, Quincy
- James Adams, Western Kansas
- Peter Beckwith, Springfield
- Jack Iker, Fort Worth
- Mark Lawrence, South Carolina
- William Love, Albany
- Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana
- Henry Scriven, Suffragan of Pittsburgh
The Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, formerly Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin and now the Anglican Bishop of San Joaquin, is also in attendance.
GAFCON is the first pan-Anglican congress that is African-led and internationally funded, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told participants earlier this week.
Archbishop Akinola said that $5 million to cover the costs of the June 22-29 conference had been raised in five months, with $2.4 million coming from the Church of Nigeria. Two individuals contributed the bulk of the Nigerian funding, he said, providing enough to pay the costs of the American bishops of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, to attend the gathering.
Bishop-elect AkinTunde Popoola, the Church of Nigeria’s press spokesman, told The Living Church the Nigerian donations were given anonymously, but he confirmed that the donors are Nigerian nationals resident in the country, and were not American supporters of CANA.
“Nigeria has been self-supporting” in its obligations within the Anglican Communion, Bishop-elect Popoola said. He noted that CANA had been granted a dispensation from Nigerian canon law requiring dioceses to contribute to the support of the national church. “CANA does not pay a dime to Nigeria,” he said.
The final costs of the conference will be released on Friday, conference treasurer Hugh Pratt said. He said that GAFCON appeared on track to be a financial success. Given the short time to prepare for the conference, Mr. Pratt said, the financial stability of the gathering was evidence of God’s hand at work.
The 1,072 conference registrants-303 of them bishops-paid approximately $1,600 per person, $1,200 for spouses, to cover the costs of meals, lodging, local transportation, and conference costs. National delegations have contributed to the costs of CANA, with the American Anglican Council and other members of the Common Cause Partnership undertaking fundraising campaigns to help cover costs and, along with other donors, provided scholarship support for some individuals. Including volunteers, the total number of conference participants tops 1,200.
Mr. Pratt dismissed speculation that wealthy American conservatives were footing the bill for the gathering. California businessman Howard Ahmanson is a delegate to GAFCON but was not its paymaster, a conference spokesman said.
Attendees are staying in eight West Jerusalem hotels, with the plenary sessions held at the Renaissance Hotel. Their time is divided among plenary sessions, workshops and 85 small groups that discuss the day’s agenda. Pilgrims have also taken half-day trips to the TempleMount and the Mount of Olives, and are scheduled to spend Saturday in Galilee.
The logistical challenges of coordinating a conference of this size in Jerusalem have been formidable at times. A state visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy snarled traffic on Monday, and a gay pride march is scheduled for today.
(The Rev.) George Conger in Jerusalem, with additional reporting by Steve Waring
The Bishop of Rochester at Gafcon June 26, 2008
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Bishop warns of rise of “militant secularism”: CEN 6.27.08 p 7. June 26, 2008
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“Militant secularism” is the greatest threat facing the Church and Western culture, the Bishop of Rochester told delegates to the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) on June 24.
In Parliament and in governments across the globe, “Christian views are being denied” a place in the public square “on the basis of scientific progress, or a crude materialism,” he said.
Secularism was not a “privileged vantage point,” Bishop Nazir-Ali argued, nor “some sort of neutral place” but a worldview that seeks to exclude others. The loss of “Christian nerve” had left society ill-equipped to respond to the aggressive demands of modern culture, he argued.
This loss of theological and intellectual vigor had also taken its toll on the Anglican Church, where “private deals” have supplanted theological principles, he told the delegates.
In a 45 minute address delivered without notes, the Bishop of Rochester said the future of the Communion was to be found “its authentic nature, not in recent innovations or explanations.” Citing John Henry Newman, Bishop Nazir-Ali said the development of doctrine must be tested against Scripture.
“The Bible is the norm by which we appreciate what is authentically apostolic. That is the reason for the Bible being the ultimate and final authority for us in our faith and our lives and this is the reason why Anglicans have taken our study of the Bible so seriously.”
This renewed church would be “confessing,” “conciliar” and “consistatory”: one under the authority of Scripture and governed by councils whose authority was recognized across the Communion. “We have to be clear that we are a confessing church. Some people have the mistaken idea that Anglicans can believe anything, or that Anglicans can believe nothing. I don’t know which one is more serious,” he explained.
“We need to be a conciliar church,” he said, one governed by councils. These councils must also be consistatory as the “church needs to exercise the authority of its teaching office.” In the life of the Anglican Communion, “I have been frustrated by decision after decision after decision that has not stuck. We cannot have this for a healthy church,” Bishop Nazir-Ali said.
He urged the reform of the present hierarchical structures of the Communion. While they had proven effective over the past hundreds years, “in the crisis that is facing us at this time we have found them not to be enough, because in the end they were based on English good manners. In our world we have found that English good manners are not enough.”
Bishop Nazir-Ali closed his address with a word of hope that Gafcon might serve to renew and rebuild Anglicanism. “If you are anything gathered here together, you are the beginnings, the miraculous beginnings, we may say, of an ecclesial movement for the sake of the Gospel and for the sake of Christ’s church.”
Conservative leaders oppose violence against homosexuals: CEN 6.26.08 June 26, 2008
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| JERUSALEM: Violence against homosexuals is an abomination, and is rightly condemned by all Christians, the leaders of the Global Anglican Futures Conference said in Jerusalem this week.
“Any violence that occurs against a person is wrong,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen said in response to Church questions about its alleged silence in the face of homophobic violence. Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda and Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda noted their assent to Dr Jensen’s condemnation of persecution. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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American conservatives ‘are not bank-rolling Gafcon’: CEN 6.26.08 June 26, 2008
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| JERUSALEM: Claims the Global Anglican Future Conference is being underwritten by American conservative money is false, conference leaders tell ReligiousIntelligence.com
Gafcon is the first pan-Anglican congress that is African-led and self-sufficient Archbishop Peter Akinola told delegates, or “pilgrims” to the June 22 to 29 conference in Jerusalem. During the opening session on June 22, Archbishop Akinola stated the £2.5 million in costs for the June 22-29 conference had been raised in five months, with £1.2 million coming from the Church of Nigeria. Bishop-elect AkinTunde Popoola, the Church of Nigeria’s press spokesman said two donors gave the bulk of the funds. While they were given anonymously, he could confirm they were Nigerian nationals resident in the country, and were not American supporters of CANA. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Israel Minister welcomes Gafcon ‘pilgrims’ to Jerusalem: CEN 6.26.08 June 26, 2008
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| JERUSALEM: “Christians and Jews must unite against a common foe” the Deputy Tourism Minister of Israel, Rafi Ben-Hur told pilgrims from the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem.
Speaking to over 1,200 Anglicans on the southern steps of the Temple on Mount Zion, Rafi Ben-Hur thanked Archbishop Peter Akinola for bringing the Gafcon conference to Jerusalem, and called the gathering a sign of solidarity between the Jewish state and the Anglican world. “It is time for Jews and Christians to be blood together,” Ben-Hur told the gathering, with many African bishops shouting “Amen” and “Hallelujah” in response. “We have enemies across the world” and must stand together, he said. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Anglicans vow no schism over gays, dogma: Wash Times 6.25.08 June 25, 2008
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Leadership conference pledges to work within the church
JERUSALEM | There will be no conservative-led schism within the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinoa told traditionalists attending the Global Anglican Future Conference Tuesday.
The weeklong gathering of 300 bishops and 700 clergy and lay leaders at the Renaissance Hotel hoped to offer a way forward for Episcopal and Anglican churches divided over homosexuality and biblical authority but unwilling to secede from the 77-million-member Anglican Communion.
Read it all in The Washington Times.
Traditional Anglicans gather in Jerusalem: IRD 6.24.08 June 24, 2008
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Fears of a conservative-led schism within the Anglican Communion are unfounded, the Archbishop of Nigeria told delegates to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem.
“Anglicans we are, Anglicans we’ll remain until the Lord shall return in glory to judge each one according to his deeds,” Archbishop Peter Akinola said in the June 22 opening address to the 300 bishops and 700 clergy and lay delegates to the conference.
Read it all on the IRD.
Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani and Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria greet GAFCON participants following an Evening Prayer service June 22 at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, Jerusalem. (Photo © 2008 Episcopal Life Online) |
With hopes for a political resolution to the divisions on doctrine and discipline within the Anglican Communion centring round homosexuality fading, delegates have focused on spiritual solutions with organizers hoping GAFCON will spark a renewal movement within the church.
Called “pilgrims,” the delegates to GAFCON were at the forefront of a “new reformation,” the Archbishop of Rwanda Emmanuel Kolini said—one that would take Anglicans back to the Bible.
While the situation remains dire, with Anglican churches breaking relations with one another, and churches in the West in numerical decline, it was not past saving. “Jesus will never let down the Anglican Communion,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, but will “send hope where hope is very small.”
GAFCON Pilgrims Face Questions on Communion’s Future: TLC 6.23.08 June 24, 2008
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Read it all in The Living Church
There will be no conservative-led schism within the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Nigeria told some 300 bishops and 700 clergy and lay leaders on June 22, the Global Anglican Future Conference’s opening day in Jerusalem.
But Archbishop Peter Akinola expressed his disappointment with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for ignoring the pleas of traditionalists that he act quickly to resolve the crisis. Archbishop Williams was “not interested in what matters to us, in what we think or in what we say,” he said, but he refrained from criticising Archbishop Williams by name, reserving his opprobrium for decisions taken by “Lambeth Palace.”
Archbishop Akinola said it “would be presumptuous of me to offer advise” to California bishops who are seeking ways of incorporating last month’s state court decision authorizing gay marriage into the liturgical life of The Episcopal Church. But he said the introduction of gay marriage was a consequence of sin and a failure of the church to maintain standards. “If the church had been faithful we would not be in that mess,” Archbishop Akinola said.
The Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, spoke to members of the gathering during an invitation-only service at St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem Sunday. He had repeatedly asked that the meeting not be held in his diocese. In his remarks he said that the local Anglican church disagreed with recent actions by The Episcopal Church, but said those actions should not be the cause of schism. Unity lay with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Dawani reportedly said.
The meeting has witnessed a shift in the leadership of the conservative movement within the Anglican Communion, with the Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen assuming a new prominence among what had been an African-dominated leadership team. Challenged in a press conference by a gay activist to respond to the persecution of a lesbian in Uganda, who was forced to flee to the United Kingdom for her safety, Archbishop Henry Orombi responded that he did not think that homosexuals were persecuted in his country. It was Archbishop Jensen who then intervened, noting that all Anglicans abhorred homophobia, and that speaking for himself and the African church leaders, they were united in their condemnation of violence. When the issue was presented to the African leaders in those terms, they were quick to join their Australian colleague in condemning homophobic violence.
Condemned by critics as schismatic, the leaders of GAFCON have confounded expectations by focusing on spiritual solutions, with organizers hoping it will spark a renewal movement within the wider church. The long-term implications of GAFCON will likely rest upon its closing communiqué. Pilgrims will be asked to review seven questions over the course of the conference, including what can be done to restore sacramental Communion among the divided Anglican churches and whether it can be reformed from within.
The questions they will be asked to answer include whether cross border Episcopal jurisdictions are an appropriate way forward to resolve differences; is GAFCON merely a Global South initiative or does it have a role to play in the wider church; will the initiatives that arise from GAFCON be neutralized by the strategic use of money by its opponents in the Episcopal Church; can GAFCON provide a path towards the Anglican future; and should GAFCON become an institutional entity in order to achieve the tasks it has set for itself.
Archbishop Orombi said there were no predetermined answers to these questions from the archbishops, as it was important that clergy and lay voices be heard in formulating a way forward for Anglicanism.
Gafcon is not the start of an Anglican schism, Archbishop says: CEN 6.23.08 June 23, 2008
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| Jerusalem: There will be no schism from the Anglican Communion by conservatives, Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola told the opening session of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem.
The week-long gathering of 300 bishops and 700 clergy and lay leaders hopes to offer a way forward through the crisis over homosexuality. But secession was not the answer. The introduction of gay bishops and blessings justified by novel methods of Scriptural interpretation would not drive out traditionalists, the Nigerian church leader said. We are Anglicans by “conviction” who had no “intention to start another church.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Gafcon will “set the future for the church”: CEN 6.20.08 p 3. June 19, 2008
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Gafcon will prove to be “one of the most important events in the next two or three decades” of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Sydney has predicted, and will set the future course of the church.
In an interview with Anglican Media Sydney before his departure for the June 22-29 gathering in Jerusalem, Dr. Peter Jensen said the 1000 delegates—including 280 bishops—will be “working out where [Anglicans] go from here.” He dismissed suggestions that Gafcon was a stalking horse for a conservative schism, saying Evangelicals “are Anglicans and intend to remain so.”
Gafcon, the Global Anglican Future Conference, will work towards shaping an “Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission [is] a top priority,” Dr. Jensen, the chairman of the conference’s programme committee, said.
He denied charges the conference was a shadow Lambeth Conference, saying the delegates meeting at the Renaissance Hotel near Israel’s Knesset in West Jerusalem were not going to “ape” Lambeth. “This is a conference about the future and we’ve deliberately invited lay people, clergy and others” to ask what it means “to be Anglican,” he said. “How can we best serve God, how can we honour his word and how can we best make his message known? They’re the big themes we’ll be looking at,” Dr. Jensen said.
However, Dr. Jensen along with bishops from amongst the largest provinces of the Communion: Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda will boycott the Lambeth Conference, attending Gafcon in its place. “We have made other plans to travel to Jerusalem [instead of Lambeth] to reflect on how best we can do the work of the Lord,” Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya explained last week, citing conservative disquiet with its agenda and guest list.
In a June 13 statement, the 10-million member Church of Uganda said it too would skip Lambeth for Gafcon “because the purpose of Lambeth is for fellowship among Bishops, and our fellowship has been broken with the American church.”
“We are not going to pretend by going to Lambeth that we are in fellowship” with the Episcopal Church. “We are not. What they have done is a very serious thing, and what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done in inviting them is grievous and we want them to know that,” the Ugandan church said.
Jockeying amongst conservatives for control of the Gafcon message has been intense with some Americans calling for a Canterbury-less Anglican Communion, Ugandans and Australians pushing for a reformed Communion, as well as supporters of federal central executive ranged against those seeking a looser confederated polity. However, a three day pre-conference at a Jordanian Dead Sea resort beginning June 19 will seek to smooth over the cracks in the conservative façade, allowing the main conference to focus its work.
From the Church of England, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazi-Ali and the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt. Rev. Wallace Benn will attend the gathering, as will bishops, clergy and lay leaders from 25 other countries.
Presiding Bishop sends representative to splinter meeting: CEN 5.30.08 May 30, 2008
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| US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has deputized the Bishop of Colorado to be her eyes and ears at the forthcoming Global Anglican Futures Conference (Gafcon) next month in Jerusalem.
During a May 20 press conference at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, Bishop Schori said she had asked Bishop Robert O’Neill to attend the June 22-29 gathering. Bishop O’Neill would be the guest of the Bishop in Jerusalem, the Rt Rev Suheil Dawani, she said. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Dr. Mouneer Anis says he won’t attend Gafcon: CEN 5.30.08 p 8 May 29, 2008
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The Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East will not attend the Global Anglican Futures Conference (Gafcon).
In a May 8 letter posted on his diocesan website, Dr. Mouneer Anis said he supported the aims of the gathering and joined the participants in their disquiet over the recent innovations of doctrine and discipline taken by the North American churches.
However, local and regional issues have weighed against Dr. Anis’ participation in Gafcon. His colleague in Jerusalem, Bishop Dawani had urged the organizers to relocate the conference away from Jerusalem so as not to inflame political tensions in the region.
The stance of the leader of the Coptic Church in Egypt, Pope Shenouda III had also made Dr. Anis’ participation difficult. In 2006 Shenouda issued an anathema, forbidding Copts from visiting the Christian holy places in Jerusalem under pain of excommunication, until the Arab-Israeli question is solved. By publicly attending Gafcon, Dr. Anis would divide the Christian churches in Egypt, during a period of heightening persecution.
In his letter explaining his reasons for declining the Gafcon invitation, Dr. Anis said that he agreed that action must be taken and hoped the Lambeth Conference, the “most important Anglican council” would address the divisions within the Communion. “It is wrong to sweep all these problems under the carpet,” he said.
While sharing the strategic aims of American, British and Australian conservatives, he parted company on the proper tactics to be used in resolving the Anglican crisis. The best “strategy for safeguarding orthodox faith and unhindered mission is to have parallel processes for building unity among those loyal to the biblical historic faith and ethics in both the South and the North,” he argued.
There was a danger of Western orthodox leaders crowding out the voices from the Global South, he said, and the concerns and work of the churches in the developing world should not be “driven by an exclusively Northern agenda or Northern personalities.”
Sources within the Gafcon leadership team said they were not surprised by Dr. Anis’ announcement. The Egyptian Anglican leader has taken the lead in pressing the conservative case within the joint primates-ACC standing committee and has agreed to serve as an Episcopal visitor in the proposed Anglican Communion partners plan for North American conservatives, but has not supported calls to boycott or downgrade the Lambeth Conference.
Pilgrimages high on the agenda for Gafcon Jerusalem meeting: CEN 5.23.08 p 7. May 29, 2008
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Participants at the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem will divide their time between worship, pilgrimages around Jerusalem, workshops and plenary sessions on the future life and witness of the Anglican Communion, the tentative agenda for the July 22-29 conference reports.
Approximately 280 bishops and 600 lay and clergy delegates from 17 of the Anglican Communion’s will attend the gathering to be held at Jerusalem’s Renaissance Hotel. Details on the pre-conference meeting in Jordan, for Anglicans from Muslim majority countries unable to freely travel to Israel have not yet been published.
However, the Jerusalem portion of the meeting will “focus on the transforming love of Christ. We will be drawing from the scriptures of the Old and New Testament in our pilgrimage, and their relevance to the challenges facing the church globally today. These include secularism, other religions, poverty and HIV/AIDS as well as moral and theological issues,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen said.
The conferees will visit the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, Bethlehem, Galilee and historic and biblical sites round Jerusalem.
Organizers of the meeting said meetings with local Christian leaders had been held to “brief them on the nature and purpose” of Gafcon, and to affirm the “continuing presence of the Church in the Holy Land.” However, a press spokesman for the meeting said he was not aware of plans to meet with Jewish leaders during the conference.
Expectations for the meeting differ widely. Some bishops and church leaders have criticized Gafcon as holding itself out to be an alternate Lambeth Conference. Some supporters of Gafcon, such as the Dean of Sydney, have lambasted those attending Lambeth saying that by associating with liberal US and Canadian bishops those attending the July 16-Aug 3 conference in Canterbury give succor to their theological innovations.
From among the 100 North American participants at Gafcon, chosen by the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, the majority of US Episcopal bishops will attend both Gafcon and Lambeth, arguing it is important to witness to the wider church the situation afflicting the American church.
The conference will open on Sunday June 22, with dinner and an evening plenary session. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday the conferees will take half day tours of the Holy Land sites, with the remaining working days of the conference divided into periods of worship, Bible study, workshops and plenary sessions.
Behind the scenes of the conference, however, attempts to forge a common front among the fissiparous elements of the Anglican right will take place. While united in their opposition to the innovations of doctrine and discipline on offer from the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church, questions of women’s ordination, rivalries and jealousies between different American factions, as well as the traditional doctrinal divides between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics have yet to be fully resolved.
However, Dr. Jensen reports that from across the spectrum of traditional Anglicanism, those participating in Gafcon are united in seeking a “future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission a top priority.”
267 bishops say they will attend Gafcon conference: CEN 5.09.08 p 1. May 8, 2008
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Organizers of Gafcon report that as of April 25, 267 bishops have registered for the June meeting in Jerusalem.
Denounced as a rival gathering to the July Lambeth conference, a detailed agenda has yet to be released. Like Lambeth much of the conference will be devoted to worship and spiritual reflection. However, Gafcon will play host to bishops, clergy and lay leaders, and will also seek to formulate a common approach to the divisions of doctrine and discipline within the Anglican Communion.
Approximately 150 bishops and conferees from Muslim majority countries unable to travel freely to Israel along with the Gafcon leadership team will meet at a resort on the Dead Sea in Jordan from June 18-22, while a further 600 are expected to join the self-styled “pilgrimage” in Jerusalem from June 22-29.
Organizers note that many of the bishops attending Gafcon will also be among the 625 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference. While the Archbishops of Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda and their bishops have said that as it is currently organized, they will not attend Lambeth, the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone Gregory Venables announced last week that he will go to Lambeth.
Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh announced on May 6 that he would attend Lambeth and Gafcon, joining Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the other conservative American bishops in attending both meetings.
“After consulting with the people of Pittsburgh and our friends around the globe, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary for us to be present at both gatherings,” said Bishop Robert Duncan. The American conservative leader said that he would attend the first half of Lambeth, from July 16-25, and that his suffragan, Bishop Henry Scriven will attend from July 26-Aug 3.
At Gafcon, “we will be among friends, focused squarely on the Gospel, and dealing openly with how we build the missionary relationships, covenantal boundaries and responsible structures for the future of Anglicanism,” he said.
At Lambeth, “those who accuse us of abandoning the Anglican Communion will certainly be present and vocal,” he noted. “It is important for us to be able to respond directly to their claims about the situation in the Episcopal Church and our place in the Communion,” he said.
Gafcon conference ‘rearranged’: CEN 2.19.08 February 19, 2008
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| The Gafcon organizing committee, which is arranging an alternative to the Anglican Lambeth Conference, has announced that the dates and venue of the Jerusalem conference have been changed.
Following consultations with the Bishop in Jerusalem, the Rt Rev Suheil Dawani, the conference will now be broken into two parts: a consultation for church leaders in Jordan from June 18-22 and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from June 22-29. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Gafcon not Lambeth’s “shadow”: CEN 2.08.08 p 5. February 9, 2008
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The Jerusalem GAFCON conference will not be a shadow Lambeth Conference, organizers explained last week, but a gathering of Biblically-grounded Anglicans forging a common front against the social and cultural challenges facing the church.
At a Jan 30 press conference in Nigeria, Archbishop Akinola said the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) would gather “those members of the Anglican Family who see themselves as orthodox Anglicans” by their adherence to the “authority of Scripture”, who “believe that the time has come to come together to fashion the future of our Anglican family.”
The June gathering in Jerusalem will not be an alternative Lambeth Conference, he said, and makes no higher claims as to its place within the Anglican firmament.
In an article published in his diocesan newspaper, the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Peter Jensen wrote GAFCON “is not designed to take the place of Lambeth. Some people may well choose to go to both. Its aim is to draw Biblical Anglican Christians together for urgent consultation. It is not a consultation which can take place at Lambeth, because Lambeth has a different agenda and far wider guest list.”
Dr. Jensen, one of the organizers of the Jerusalem meeting, said the composition of the two conferences will differ. “Unlike Lambeth, the Future Conference is not for Bishops alone – the invitations will go to clergy and lay people also.”
The conference will permit church leaders to “plan for a future” where “Christians world-wide will increasingly be pressured to depart from the biblical norms of behaviour and belief. It gives an opportunity for many to draw together to strengthen each other over the issue of biblical authority and interpretation and gospel mission.”
GAFCON would have a pragmatic focus Archbishop Akinola said. It will ask “what is God doing in our time, responding to the needs of our time -Aids, poverty, corruption, good and bad governance.”
The Lambeth Conference and GAFCON will also differ on a conceptual basis. Lambeth will permit a sharing of concerns and a fostering of dialogue between the disparate wings of the Communion.
However, the agenda prepared by the Lambeth Design Group for the Canterbury conference stresses the social justice problems facing the Communion, and assumes no common theological underpinnings among the bishops.
GAFCON begins with a common “theological framework,” from which the Church’s response to the disparate social justice problems encountered within the Communion shall arise, organizers tell The Church of England Newspaper.
Lambeth boycott is not the end of the Communion: CEN 2.08.08 p 5 February 7, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, GAFCON, Lambeth 2008.add a comment
The boycott of the 2008 Lambeth Conference does not mark the end of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Sydney has said. However, the Lambeth Conference’s role as an “instrument of unity” is no more.
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Feb 5, Dr. Peter Jensen said he and his suffragans would not attend the July 16 to Aug 3 gathering out of “faithfulness” to Scripture and in solidarity with Africa’s Anglicans.
On Jan 30 Archbishop Peter Akinola stated the Nigerian bishops along with those of Rwanda and Uganda “are not going to the Lambeth Conference.”
The proposed agenda of the 2008 Lambeth Conference will differ in purpose and structure from past gatherings of the Communion’s bishops. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme on Jan 27, Archbishop Rowan Williams stated he wanted the Lambeth Conference to give “space” to the “huge number of Anglicans” for whom homosexuality is “not the overwhelming issue, who really want to talk about mission, about development, and questions like that.”
Dr. Williams said he hoped Lambeth would allow the bishops to have a “good serious look at what structures we need to avoid the kind of confusion we’ve had in the last couple of years.”
His desire was also for “both ends of the spectrum” to “make some concessions to stay together. So the American Church is willing to say, ‘Alright, we won’t rush things,’ if the African and other churches are willing to say, ‘We won’t instantly condemn’.”
In his Advent letter to the Primates, Dr. Williams stated the Lambeth Conference would be “a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice.”
However, the agenda does not envision creating a forum for the bishops to find their voice. The bishops will be given a “look” at the proposed Anglican Covenant, but no action will be taken, nor will there be any consequences for rejecting the common voice reached in 1998.
Archbishop Akinola expressed disquiet with the proposed agenda. “What is the use of the Lambeth conference for a three weeks’ jamboree which will sweep” the issues dividing the Communion “under the carpet,” he said.
Dr. Jensen explained that while the 1998 Lambeth Conference “made it clear that the leaders of the overwhelming majority of Anglicans worldwide maintained the biblical view of sexual ethics,” within five years Anglican churches in the US and Canada had “officially transgressed these boundaries in defiance of the Lambeth resolution and the teaching of the Bible.”
The “fallout” had made it “clear that we shall never go back to being the communion which we once were,” he said.
The African provinces that are boycotting Lambeth are “are not ending the Anglican Communion, or even dividing it. They are simply dealing with the reality that the nature of the communion has now been altered and reflecting that Lambeth is not as crucial to the future as it once was.
Dr. Jensen said he had come to share the African view “that since the American actions were taken in direct defiance of the previous Lambeth Conference, the Americans have irreparably damaged the standing of the conference itself.” To attend the conference without a resolution of these questions would be to “overlook” the “issues at stake.”
As the Conference is presently constructed, “those who say [that these issue do] not matter are the ones who are attending Lambeth,” Archbishop Akinola said.
Leaders of the Global South coalition tell The Church of England Newspaper there appears to be little the Archbishop of Canterbury can say or do at this stage to salvage the situation. While assurances have been given and programmes laid out at every Primates meeting since 2003, no substantive action has occurred.
“Why will it be different this time?”, one primate said.
Regional Anglicans fear Jerusalem conference could ‘inflame tensions’: JP 1.03.08 January 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, GAFCON, Jerusalem Post.add a comment
Arab Anglican leaders have called for the cancellation of a June gathering of Anglicans in Jerusalem, claiming it could exacerbate Christian-Muslim tensions in the Palestinian territories.
On Wednesday, the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem, Suheil Darwani, released a statement saying the presence of hundreds of conservative Anglican bishops in the Holy Land would inject the Anglican Communion’s political disputes into the diocese of Jerusalem, and could also have “serious consequences for our ongoing ministry of reconciliation in this divided land.”
Read it all in The Jerusalem Post.
Warning over Anglican conference: CEN 1.02.08 January 2, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, GAFCON, Israel.add a comment
| THE BISHOP in Jerusalem has urged organizers of the Jun 15-22 Jerusalem conference of conservative Anglican bishops to move the meeting outside the Holy Land, saying the gathering would inflame sectarian tensions.
The Rt Rev Suheil Dawani stated the GAFCON conference could inject the Anglican Communion’s political disputes into the diocese, and could have ‘serious consequences for our on-going ministry of reconciliation in this divided land.’ Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Anglicans choose Jerusalem for key June conference: JP 12.30.07 December 31, 2007
Posted by geoconger in Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, GAFCON, Israel, Jerusalem Post, Lambeth 2008.add a comment
The battle over homosexuality that has threatened to split the Anglican Communion could be decided at a June meeting in Jerusalem. On December 26, a conservative coalition led by the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced a June 15-22 conference in the Holy Land to chart the church’s future course.
Divided into liberal and conservative factions, the 80-million member Anglican Communion is on the verge of breaking up over the consecration in 2003 of a gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire.
However, Anglicans are as divided over Israel as they over homosexuality. While the meeting will focus on the current crisis facing the church, some Anglican and Jewish supporters of the gathering hope the presence in Jerusalem this June of conservative Anglican bishops from every continent will present an opportunity to broaden Israel’s support in the developing world.
Read it all in The Jerusalem Post.
