The Church of Uganda has come under fire from gay activists in the UK for failing to speak out against a proposed law that would toughen the East African nation’s sodomy laws.

However the furore in church circles over the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” speaks more to the rift between the African and Western Anglicans than to the politics of the proposed legislation. The campaign mounted in the West to defeat the bill will likely change few minds in Uganda, while the Church of Uganda’s response will likely been seen in Britain as moral cowardice in the face of injustice.

One senior Ugandan cleric told The Church of England Newspaper, “The Church of Uganda is not passive about current issues, but we have chosen not to be publicly confrontational. People will work behind the scenes to influence current events and discuss issues with the players rather than go to the newspapers. For example, you will never know when the Archbishop meets with the President. This is the way we Ugandans do things, which is different from the West.”

“There’s very little influence to stop the legislation of a law, an institute, in practice by the church,” Archbishop Henry Orombi explained on June 22, 2008. “The church’s practice is to preach, to proclaim, so that people who find themselves in a position where they go away from the word of God, the same word of God can bring them back to life.”

The Church of Uganda is unlikely to address publicly the merits of the Anti-Homosexuality bill before parliament senior church leaders tell CEN, but will seek to educate and instruct the country’s leaders on the moral issues raised by the debates. During the reign of Idi Amin, the Church of Uganda spoke out against the injustices and abuses of his regime, yet the manner in which it confronted the government was very different than that favored by the Church of England and its governments. Archbishop Janani Luwum’s confrontation with Idi Amin, which ultimately led to his martyrdom, was behind closed doors in a private meeting with the President.

On 14 Oct MP David Bahati of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) tabled a private-members bill before parliament entitled the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ that would stiffen Uganda’s sodomy laws.

British colonial era laws prohibiting “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” remain on the statute books of Uganda as do similar laws in Tanzania and Kenya. Bahati’s bill seeks to establish a legal definition of homosexual acts and provide for their criminalization. Consensual homosexual acts between adults would be subject to penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment, while “aggravated homosexuality”—homosexual relations with a minor or homosexual acts committed by an HIV-positive individual—would be a capital crime or merit life imprisonment.

Article 13 of the bill imposes a seven year term of imprisonment or fine for promoting homosexuality, while organizations found guilty under the law would be closed down. Failure to inform would be an offence under the act punishable by imprisonment.

If enacted, the proposed law would follow a trend of increased state sanctions against same-sex conduct in East Africa. On April 22, 2009 President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi approved that country’s first sodomy law, which states that “whoever has sexual relations with a person of the same sex is punished by a prison sentence of 3 months to 2 years and a fine.”

In Rwanda political leaders have also called for the criminalization of homosexual relations. While homosexual acts are punishable if one participant is under the age of 18 under the 1977 Penal Code, legislators aligned with President Paul Kagame have called for the introduction of sodomy laws punishing all homosexual acts.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other civil liberties groups as well as the British and French governments denounced the Bahati bill saying it violates human rights and would stigmatize people live with HIV/AIDs in Uganda.

The Rev. Sharon Ferguson, Chief Executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) in Britain said the bill was “unjust, cruel and can only strike terror in the hearts of LGBT people, their families, friends and supporters”

She added she was “particularly distressed that many Christian groups including Churches in the Anglican Communion in Uganda appear to be supporting the proposals.”

On Nov 6 the Church of Uganda released a statement saying it was “studying the proposed ‘Anti-Homosexuality bill’ and, therefore, does not yet have an official position on the bill.”

It did, however, restate its official position opposing the death penalty and affirming the Church is a safe place for those struggling with sexual brokenness to receive pastoral care. It also restated its traditional views on marriage and human sexuality and its opposition to the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals to the ministry.

On Nov 7 the Ugandan Provincial Secretary, Canon Aaron Mwesigye, told CEN the church was “still studying” the bill.

He added that they stood “behind our previous statements” condemning homophobic violence articulated by Archbishop Henry Orombi at Gafcon.

“Violence by one individual against another is wrong, whether it is homosexual assault of children in schools or violence against homosexuals. We uphold the sanctity of all life,” Canon Mwesigye said.

On Nov 13 the LGCM reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office declined to respond to a request for comments on the law, while the Archbishop of York’s office said Dr Sentamu “will not be making a statement on this issue.”

“If ever there was a time for the Archbishops to speak out to protect human rights, is this not it?” the LGCM asked. Comments on Anglican-blogs also turned sharply against the Church of Uganda for its perceived inaction on the bill.

However, the Anti-Homosexual Bill is a private-members bill, not a government bill, sources note. While Bahati is a member of the ruling coalition, he is not a government minister. Bahati’s reasons for introducing the bill are unclear, though he was linked in May to power struggle in the top echelons of the NRM.

However, the decision whether to back the bill rests with President Yoweri Museveni. As party leader President Museveni controls the NRM and the NRM fields over 300 members of Parliament to the opposition’s 50. NRM MPs are subject to “party discipline” with voting decisions being determined directly under the president’s control during the monthly NRM caucus meetings.

On Nov 15 President Museveni indicated he was sympathetic to Bahati’s concerns, but signaled he would not endorse the bill as written. “I hear European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa,” he said, in an address to a youth awards banquet, warning against ‘foreign’ corrupt practices.

However, he added “We used to have very few homosexuals traditionally. They were not persecuted but were not encouraged either because it was clear that is not how God arranged things to be.”

While Museveni is President of Uganda and leader of the NRM, his power is not absolute, analysts note, as he cannot go beyond the consensus of the country’s political, military, traditional and religious leaders.

The church’s role in lobbying the government, one senior Ugandan cleric explained, was to avoid partisan politics but preach the practical lessons of the Bible. Public political lobbying demanded by activists in the UK is not how the Church of Uganda operates. “The church will tend to make statements to guide moral thinking rather than interfere in ‘word-smithing’ proposed legislation,” the Kampala cleric said.

He cited the Nov 12 funeral oration given by the Assistant Bishop of Kampala Zac Niringiye at the funeral of Major General Kazini as an example.

Preaching to the president and senior army leaders, Bishop Niringiye warned the government that it must address its failings and internal rivalries. “I do not have to be a prophet of doom to predict NRM’s collapse if you don’t deal with these weaknesses,” the bishop said.

It was too late for the dead general to mend his ways, but “you Generals, if you do not respond to this wake-up call, you are doomed,” he said.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.   Global warming is the new faith of the Church of England, a Tory MEP declared last week. Writing in the Leicester Mercury on Nov 16, East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer stated the “Church of England seems to have abandoned religious faith entirely and taken up the new religion of climate alarmism instead.”

“Many commentators have remarked on the similarities between religion and climate alarmism,” Mr Helmer said, as “both are based more on faith than on evidence. Both warn of dire consequences unless we have faith and change our way of life.”

Mr Helmer, who resigned from the Conservative Party’s frontbench in Europe when the party leadership jettisoned its promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, noted with approval the comment by children’s author and former Anglican priest GP Taylor, that “many bishops spend more time preaching about climate change than preaching a gospel of salvation” and that the Church of England had become the “spiritual arm of New Labour.”

The “world is cooling” and not warming, Mr Helmer said, arguing that “more and more scientists around the world are breaking cover to challenge the theory of man-made global warming” and called for the church to have “more faith in God, and less in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” The Bishop of Leicester told the Independent he was “surprised and saddened” by Mr Helmer’s remarks. Bishop Tim Stevens noted that Mr Helmer had not offered his “extraordinary view that the earth is cooling” when he spoke at a climate change debate at Leicester Cathedral.

While the consensus among the top echelon of the Church of England is that man-made global warming is a threat to the planet, a growing number of climate scientists have disputed this view. In the United States a petition endorsed by 32,000 scientists including the late Edward Teller argues the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong.

“No such consensus or settled science exists,” they argue, noting that “human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.”

One of the most pugnacious critics of the global warming, Ian Plimer, a professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, argues in his recently released book, Heaven and Earth — Global Warming: The Missing Science, that the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is a confidence trick played upon the public by fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians who thrive on creating public anxiety.

Plimer notes that fears of carbon dioxide building in the atmosphere are misplaced, as the current levels are at their lowest point in 500 million years, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide is only 0.001 per cent of the total amount of the chemical held on the earth’s surface. Mankind, he argues, contribute an insignificant fraction to the atmospheric presence of carbon dioxide.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper. The Government of India’s Maharashtra state has ordered the halt of all sales of Anglican Church property, pending an investigation into insider dealing and corrupt practices in the administration of church lands in the Diocese of Bombay. Last week Maharashtra charity commissioner NV Deshmukh rejected the application of the Bombay Diocesan Trusts Association (BDTA) to sell two churches to developers. Under Indian law the “property was allotted for the specific purpose of religious worship of the established Church of England and for no other purpose,” Deshmukh stated, noting that if the property is used for any other purpose, trusteeship passes from the church to the Indian government.

The decision follows an interim report released in April by the state’s charity commission that accuses the former Bishop of Bombay, the Rt Rev Baiju Gavit of defrauding the church by illegally transferring title of church property to developers.

While Anglican attention has focused on the 60 US church property lawsuits, the DNA India news service reports that over 5,000 church property lawsuits are making their way through the Indian courts.

Ownership of India’s Anglican churches has seen several imperfect attempts at consolidation. In 1927 Parliament passed the Indian Church Act and Indian Church Measure, which created an autonomous Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) out of the Church of England in India. Under the terms of the Act trusteeship of properties held by the viceroy passed to the CIBC.

However title to the majority of India’s Anglican properties were not held by the government, but by local trusts, mission agencies and dioceses, while garrison churches and other church properties on government land remained under state control.

Upon independence in 1948, the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru decreed that title to property held in trust for the church by the government would pass to the state. Local church trusts and associations would administer the properties, and if the church became dormant the land would pass back to the government.

Local laws have also hindered the consolidation of property ownership. When the Church of North India was formed in 1970, the BDTA — owner of over 4,000 church properties, declined to turn over title to its properties, citing the Bombay Public Trust Act, which forbad the transfer of ownership of church properties to entities based outside of the state of Maharashtra.

An investigation by the government found there was an ongoing pattern of fraud in the sale of church lands. In a report dated April 18, 2009, VR Patil, the Maharashtra law and judiciary department’s legal adviser, found that a “bogus” corporation entitled the Bombay Diocesan Trust Association (BDTA) Pvt Ltd had been created to “grab the properties of genuine Christian trusts” — the BDTA Ltd and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the Dioceses of Bombay.

“The bogus trustees indulged in many illegal activities to grab the property of BDTA Ltd and SPG by taking advantage of the similarity in name of the bogus trust with the complainant’s trust,” the Patil’s report said. Among the “bogus trustees” was Bishop Gavit and a number of clergy and synod officers, DNA India said.

The April inquiry found 20 past and 18 pending property deals involving the “bogus” trust and recommended a criminal investigation.

Last week’s decision to block the sale of BDTA properties held by the lawful trust, appears unrelated to the alleged scam, however, the charity commission is seeking a full accounting of all church lands. Sandeep Gaikwad, president of the CNI’s Synod All-India Legal Committee told Bombay’s Daily News & Analysis “these salaried bishops and priests were indulging in disgusting, shameful activities” in defrauding the Christian community.

However, “the community will see to it that these people are prosecuted and punished by the government,” he said.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.   The Church of South India (CSI) has urged its government to ban the cultivation of Genetically-modified (GM) foods in India. On October 15, the Indian government’s Genetic Engineer Approval Committee (GEAC) authorized the commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal, the trade name for genetically modified eggplant, or aubergine. The decision must now be affirmed by environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

Developed by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company or Mahyco, an affiliate of US multi-national Monsanto, Bt brinjal was initially approved by the GEAC in 2007.  Bt, or Bacillus Thuringiensis, is a bacterium that produces crystal proteins that are toxic to many species of insects and pests. The resulting genetically modified crop produces higher yields.

There are no known adverse effects of Bt brinjal seeds, AB Rai, the principal scientist at the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research which conducted the tests, told Dow Jones. However, protests from NGOs and church groups over the health safety and environmental impact of GM foods caused the government to ask for a second review.

“My objective is to arrive at a careful, considered decision,” Mr Ramesh told reporters last month, after GEAC gave its approval to Bt brinjal.

If approved Bt brinjal will be India’s first GM food crop. In 2002 the Indian government approved the cultivation of Bt cotton, a move that has led to the doubling of the nation’s cotton crop, making it one of the leading cotton exporters in the world. The GEAC is also studying genetically modified cabbage, cauliflower and peas with an eye towards authorizing their cultivation.

The environmental activist group Greenpeace denounced the decision, saying GEAC had “mindlessly” approved Bt brinjal despite “informed scientists and citizens of the country” raising safety concerns. The Ecological Concerns Committee of the CSI urged the government to reject the GEAC decision. Committee chairman Dr Mathew Koshy Punnackadu said GM foods poised troubling theological, environmental and economic concerns, and the church could not remain silent on this issue.

“It is obvious that the introduction of Bt brinjal will contaminate the large number of traditional brinjal varieties available to us, particularly those with unique medicinal properties. This will also shift the control of seeds from the farmers to profit-hungry corporations that have already established a virtual monopoly over seeds through the new patent regime,” the Ecological Concerns Committee said.

“What is at stake is not only our food security but also our food sovereignty. Disempowerment of small and marginal farmers and their displacement by aggressive models of corporatised agriculture are the inevitable consequences,’’ the statement said.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper. The Episcopal Church’s legal wars continued unabated last week, with new lawsuits in Tennessee, and appeals filed in Pittsburgh, Georgia and San Joaquin. The Diocese of Tennessee on Oct 30 filed suit against St Andrew’s Church in West Nashville, asking a state court to grant it control of the parish’s property. In 2006 the congregation quit the diocese to affiliate with the Diocese of Quincy and is now part of the Anglican Church of North America.

Tennessee caught many observers by surprise as it had been numbered among the conservative communion partners group, which had pledged to abide by the Windsor Report process, including the primates’ call for a halt to lawsuits.

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh announced last week that it would appeal against a lower court ruling granting control of the diocese’s assets to a loyalist faction aligned with the national church. “Our decision to appeal is for the purpose of protecting the mission of our 51 local congregations. Left uncontested, the award of all diocesan assets to the minority party, a group that comprises only a third of the parishes that were a part of our diocese when we withdrew from the Episcopal Church, would establish a precedent that we believe the minority would use to take steps to seize all the assets of all our local parishes,” the diocese said.

The loyalists’ bid to keep all of the assets of the diocese, “which is supported by the aggressive leadership of the Episcopal Church, is unfair, unreasonable, and unconscionable,” Pittsburgh said. On Oct 29, Christ Church in Savannah, Georgia, appealed a lower court’s ruling granting control of the oldest church in the state to the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

“This is another step in what we knew would be a long process,” said the Rev Marcus Robertson, Rector of Christ Church. The parish’s lawyer Neil Creasy said he believed they would win on appeal. “The Supreme Court of South Carolina is the only state supreme court to have ruled in a case involving facts, law and issues similar to ours. It ruled in favour of the local congregation. We are confident of a similar result here,” he said.

In California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno, briefs were filed last week in the case of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin v the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. In June a lower court granted summary judgment to the Episcopal diocese in its bid to seize the assets of the Anglican diocese. The lower court declined to hear arguments proffered by the Anglican diocese on the question of whether a diocese may secede from the national church and issued an order granting relief to the Episcopal diocese — the loyalist faction in San Joaquin.

Canon law commentator AS Haley noted the decision in the San Joaquin case would likely have an impact on the cases underway against Fort Worth, Quincy and Pittsburgh.

The “current leadership” of the Episcopal Church “is contending that once it joins the Church, a Diocese must forever remain a part of that organization. It has neither language nor logic on its side, but it still makes the argument,” he said, noting the Fresno appeals court will be the first “appellate court in any State to evaluate the merits of the Church’s case.”

First published in The Church of England Newspaper. The Archbishop of Cape Town has urged the nation’s electric utility, Eskom, to rethink its plans for building new coal-fired electricity generating plants, saying South Africa should do its part in helping reduce global warming. In a statement released on Nov 6 following the resignation of the CEO of the state-owned utility, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said he wanted to make public concerns he had shared with the corporation’s management in recent weeks.

“We believe we have a responsibility to God and to future generations to care for this planet – our home – and not to put its well-being at risk because of short-term gain, or the idolatrous pursuit of money,” Archbishop Makgoba said.

On Sept 18, the archbishop wrote to the chairman of Eskom’s board of directors to express “deep concern” with plans to build “yet more coal-fired plants for the production of electricity. This plan of action continues in the face of growing public discourse about the need for South Africa to reduce its release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a major cause of climate change, and to look seriously at both greater efficiency in energy use and renewable energy sources.”

He asked Eskom and the government’s Minister of Public Enterprises, Barbara Hogan, to give “strong and decisive leadership” on finding a way forward “on energy generation and use.”

Archbishop Makgoba conceded it was “unrealistic” to expect an answer “right now” to the country’s energy needs, but he urged the utility to “consider carefully alternative sources of energy which may ‘seem’ more expensive but which will represent huge savings for our planet – and all who inhabit it.” The Bible speaks of our calling to be stewards of creation, the archbishop said. “May God guide, direct, and bless” government and business leaders “and each one of us, as, in our various capacities – whether professional or personal – we seek to discharge with integrity this responsibility to our environment, our planet” he said.

Statistics released by Eskom show that 89 per cent of South Africa’s primary energy needs are derived from fossil fuels. The country emits about 400-million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year, which represents one per cent of total emissions on the global scale. And, with the advent of new coal-fired electricity-generating stations and new coal- and gas-to-liquids fuel plants, South Africa’s emissions are likely to rise still further.

Eskom must soon decide on whether it will build a new coal-fired power station as the country’s growth has outstripped the available power supply.

Speaking at the eighth Coaltrans South Africa conference in Johannesburg in September, the head of Eskom’s planning division Kannan Lakmeeharan said South Africa’s power supply and demand situation would remain tight. Eskom had a generating capacity and the ability to import up to 43.5 GW, but would require an additional 20 GW of electricity by 2020 to meet energy needs.

The Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) received a boost last month from the Diocese Sydney after its synod endorsed a resolution backing the formation of the third Anglican province in North America. However, a similar motion brought before the Diocese of Melbourne’s synod narrowly failed.

On Oct 28, the Diocese of Sydney’s Synod overwhelmingly adopted a resolution welcoming the “creation of the Province of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) under the leadership of Archbishop Bob Duncan.”

It noted the GAFCON Primates’ Council’s “recognition of the ACNA as genuinely Anglican” and their recommendation that “Anglican Provinces affirm full communion with the ACNA.” It also asked its diocesan standing committee “seek to have a motion brought to the General Synod affirming that the Anglican Church of Australia be in full communion with the ACNA.”

The Bishop of North Sydney Glenn Davies explained the resolution “does not expressly state that the Diocese of Sydney is in full communion, but merely ‘expresses its desire to be in full communion’,” with the ACNA.

“Why the fudge?” he wrote on the diocese’s website. “Well the Diocese of Sydney is part of the Anglican Church of Australia, whose Constitution defines those with whom we are in communion,” he said.

At its Oct 7-10 synod a resolution backing the ACNA was brought before the Diocese of Melbourne. The resolution noted “with great sadness the divisions” that had arisen in North America, and thanked the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams for his July 27, 2009 statement on the crises.

The resolution stated that it regarded “those who have formed themselves into the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as authentic Anglican Christians” and extended the “hand of Anglican Christian fellowship” from Melbourne to the ACNA and “longs for our fellowship with them to be renewed and formalised within the structure of the Anglican Communion; and (d) Respectfully asks the Archbishop [of Melbourne] to convey the substance of this motion to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leaders of the ACNA.”

Following thirty minutes of debate the resolution was put to a voice vote. The chairman of the meeting was unable to determine the outcome, and a show of hands revealed the resolution failed 150 to 175.

After the Sydney vote, Archbishop Duncan said, “We welcome this recognition from the Diocese of Sydney and look forward to working with them and our other overseas Anglican partners in spreading the Gospel and building a Communion that is truly Christ centered and missional.”

The Church of Uganda will hold a groundbreaking ceremony next week for the construction of a new cathedral for the Diocese of Kampala. On Nov 15 Archbishop Henry Orombi will lead services marking the start of a three year project to build a 5000-seat church to replace All Saints Cathedral.

Originally built in 1912 as a chapel to Kampala’s European hospital, at independence in 1962 the chapel was reconstituted as a parish church. In 1972 the church was named a pro-Cathedral and presently serves as the seat of the Bishop of Kampala, who serves as Archbishop of Uganda.

The rapid growth of the Anglican Church in Uganda has led to severe overcrowding in the church. For the past ten years overflow from the 9:30 congregation has led to the use of three tents pitched outside the church to accommodate the crowd.

The £3 million project will double the worship space for the colonial church, the church reports and will be funded by the contributions of the congregation. Between 1999 and 2006 the congregations acquired three adjacent lots for the new church. The completed cathedral complex will be seven-times the size of the present structure and included office and meeting space, as well as commercial space to provide income to the church, a spokesman reported.

The Anglican Church in Ghana is losing members to the Catholic and independent churches due to the Communion’s divisions over gay bishops and blessings, the House of Bishops of the Church of the Province of West Africa learned last week.

In a meeting following the consecration of the new Bishop of Sunyani on Oct 25, the rector of the Sunyani Polytechnic Institution, Prof. Kwasi Nsiah Gyabaah warned the bishops the Anglican church’s place in Ghanian society was imperiled.

While the church had played an important role in the social and economic development of the country, the disputes ranging in the wider Anglican world had harmed the reputation of the church. “Although many of you may not share my opinion, the Anglican Church in particular, is now in a sorry state,” he said.

The bishops were told they could not control the image of the church, which had been damaged by developments outside the country, as well as by the church’s slow response in explaining its stance on the issues to its people.

A divided and uncertain Anglican Church also had to compete with the sports, popular culture and other recreational activities in vying for the attention of people. However, a return to an authoritarian model of church governance was not the answer, he said, urging the church to be both culturally relevant as well as firmly tied to the unchanging word of God.

On Oct 25, the Primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa, Archbishop Justice Akrofi of Accra consecrated the Dr. Festus Yeboah-Asuamah, a Sociology Lecturer as Bishop of Sunyani.

A parish priest and lecturer in sociology at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Bishop Yeboah-Asuamah was educated at KNUST, the University of Ghana, International Theological Seminary and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Thomas Brient who retired in December 2008 after eleven years in office.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s shameful failure of leadership lies behind the Pope’s offer of a home for alienated Anglicans, the primates’ council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON/FCA) said in a statement released on Nov 10.

While Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an “Apostolic Constitution” for those Anglicans wishing to be received into the Roman Catholic Church was a “gracious one” that “reflects the same commitment to the historic apostolic faith, moral teaching and global mission” proclaimed by GAFCON in 2008 in its Jerusalem Declaration, it was also profoundly embarrassing and shameful for the Anglican Communion, the GAFCON primates’ council said.

Writing on behalf of the group of seven archbishops representing some 50 million Anglicans, Archbishop Peter Akinola said we are “grieved that the current crisis within our beloved Anglican Communion has made necessary such an unprecedented offer.”

The Pope’s offer is a “grave indictment of the Instruments of Communion:” the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates Meeting. “Their failure to fully address the abandonment of biblical faith and practice” by the American and Canadian churches has “now brought shame to the name of Christ.”

However, it was not yet time to write off Anglicanism they said. The Anglican Communion had a “bright future” so long as it remained “grounded in the Holy Scriptures” and was obedient to its call to evangelize those who did not know Christ.

Anglicanism was doing quite well within the GAFCON churches of the Anglican Communion they said. “We are convinced that this is not the time to abandon the Anglican Communion. Our Anglican identity of reformed catholicity, that gives supreme authority to the Holy Scriptures and acknowledgement that our sole representative and advocate before God is the Lord Jesus Christ, stands as a beacon of hope for millions of people,” they said.

“We remain proud inheritors of the Anglican Reformation,” Archbishop Akinola said, and now was the “time for all Christians to persevere confident of our Lord’s promise that nothing, not even the gates of hell, will prevail against His Church.”