Further Thoughts on GAFCON and related matters
by the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright
 I wrote an initial response to GAFCON last Sunday/Monday (June 29/30). This went out on the Fulcrum site and elsewhere. In that response, I was trying to find as many points of contact as possible, as many things to affirm as I could, as many features to celebrate as possible. I don’t want to back down from that: there were many people, including many friends of mine, who found the whole GAFCON experience deeply moving – as of course they should, since worshipping and praying in Jerusalem is always likely to be a wonderful Christian experience, as I know from many such visits myself. I do not, though, suppose that when I have been on such visits everything I then think or write is automatically dictated by the Holy Spirit. I believe we should assess GAFCON with generosity but also with appropriate critical questioning – such as I would expect to be applied to anything I might say myself, however deep and meaningful the experience which produced it.
Having written my initial response, I then received reports, late on Tuesday July 1 and through parts of Wednesday July 2, of the meeting of GAFCON leaders with several hundred English clergy at All Souls, Langham Place on the July 1. Frankly, I was quite disturbed, as were various others who had actually been there. I checked websites to see as far as I could precisely what had been said, and discussed the meeting with some who were there during the day and some who were there during the evening including the question time. It is as a result of that that I became convinced that some more clearly negative comments were necessary as well. I stress that this is in no way to say ‘so America doesn’t need help’ or ‘so the African leaders are completely mistaken’. It is to say, rather, that the GAFCON proposals are not only not needed in England but are positively harmful and indeed offensive. This was more or less what I said on the radio last Thursday, where I distinguished carefully between the American and English situations. AS FAR AS ENGLAND IS CONCERNED, it is damaging, arrogant and irrelevant for GAFCON leaders to say, as they are now doing, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve’, with the implication that there are now only two parties in the church, the orthodox and the liberals, and that to refuse to sign up to GAFCON is to decide for the liberals. Things are just not like that. Certainly not here in England.
Henry Orombi was the opening speaker at All Souls, and I have nothing but admiration for who he is and what he represents. But his moving account of his own early days and of how the gospel has worked in Uganda does not in any way constitute an argument for saying ‘therefore England needs the GAFCON solution’. Nor, I believe, did Greg Venables offer any reflections that would lead to that conclusion. Unfortunately, the great Dr Jim Packer, one of my early theological heroes and still someone I respect enormously, was used as a kind of stalking horse. It was a shrewd move by the organisers to get him there: for many older English evangelicals, with long memories of listening to John Stott and Jim Packer in conferences at All Souls, it will have stirred recollections of happier days. And now to discover that our great Jim Packer is being persecuted by a wicked liberal bishop in Canada – well, clearly it’s time to man the barricades! Why can’t the Anglican Communion do something to help this wonderful man?
That is the very question I have asked myself – not only in relation to Jim Packer faced with the Diocese of New Westminster (i.e. Vancouver), but in relation to many of my close friends in various dire situations in the United States and in other parts of Canada as well. I want to assure such friends, many of whom are in regular email correspondence with me, that nothing I have said takes away at all from my strong and consistent support for them, my prayers for them, my desire that a solution be found to the appalling situation that so many have faced, AND (please note) a lot of hard work, necessarily behind the scenes, on their behalf. It is simply untrue to suggest that I and others have done nothing to help the beleaguered orthodox in America; I call to witness the vitriol I have received from revisionist journalists on several occasions over the last few years! I have taught and lectured in the USA many times over many years (to the point where some of my detractors sneer at me for it). I am very well aware, as many in England are not, of the almost incredible situations that people face for the sole crime of continuing to preach and teach the orthodox faith in Jesus Christ as the true and only Saviour, the final revelation of the one true God, and the standards of behaviour which Christians around the world have taught, and tried to live up to, for 2000 years. Since this is my own position, too, and since I do not regard the recent innovations in the USA and Canada as ‘allowable local options’, or as ‘secondary matters’ upon which we can ‘agree to differ’, I continue to stand where I have always stood, that is, shoulder to shoulder with those in the USA who have suffered much for the sake of their allegiance to this same gospel and standard of behaviour. I fully agree with those who say that the innovations which came to their head in 2003 are the symptom of a much deeper doctrinal and spiritual malaise, and that it is tragic that this has been allowed to develop in North America in particular (though elsewhere as well to a lesser extent) to the point where things that two generations ago were unthinkable to almost any Christians anywhere in the world are now not only thinkable but taught as necessary doctrines to be enforced (without irony; but then apart from Stephen Colbert there doesn’t seem to be that much irony in North America just now) with the full rigour of canonical and legal processes which were designed to protect, not to attack or undermine, biblical and theological orthodoxy. All this I have taken for granted. Those who know me personally have not, I think, ever doubted that this is where I stand.
Why then am I anxious about GAFCON even on a generous reading? And why have I been so critical of it once I heard what was said at All Souls last Tuesday, especially by the Archbishop of Sydney?
Basically, as I made crystal clear on the BBC ‘World at One’ programme last Thursday, there is an enormous difference between the USA situation and the English situation. Some of the leaders of GAFCON are trying to impose on England a regime whose only validity (if any) is that it offers an emergency measure for the situation in the USA and Canada.
The problem is that GAFCON is addressing (at least) three quite different issues:
a. The real, substantial and scandalous situation in the USA and Canada;
b. The African sense that it’s time for leadership to come from black Africa rather than white N Atlantic;
c. The belief among a VERY SMALL group of hard-line right-wing English evangelicals (including in Sydney, Australia) that they are called to take over the C of E by aggressive planting of new churches under the nose even of existing evangelical churches and bishops, and insisting that they are the only real ‘evangelicals’, that they alone are true to scripture.
What is happening is that the Archbishop of Sydney, and his English colleagues, are using the fact of (a) and the energy of (b) to advance their agenda on (c). I am objecting as strongly as I can to (c) since I believe it to be doctrinally and pastorally unwarranted and extremely dangerous even in the short and medium term, let alone in the long. These objections have nothing whatever to do with compromising the gospel or the ethical teaching of scripture.
The policy in question (as in (c)) was in fact well established long before Gene Robinson was even proposed as a bishop for New Hampshire. One of the policy’s key architects explained it to me enthusiastically early in 2003, and another highly influential figure stated it quite explicitly in a hand-out at the NEAC conference later that year. It has been energetically promoted not least e.g. through the illegal ordinations in Southwark.
The rhetoric of this policy has not changed since then. It was advanced in the so-called and abortive ‘Covenant for the Church of England’ put out in December 2006. It basically consists of three moves: (a) liberalism has taken over the Church of England/the Anglican Communion; (b) the present structures (Lambeth, Archbishop of Canterbury, etc.) are powerless and/or spineless and it’s no good looking to them for help; therefore (c) here is a new movement which offers protection to those persecuted by wicked bishops, and which will enable us to advance the gospel.
This analysis is hopelessly inaccurate as regards England. Once again, the English situation is NOT like America. (a) Of course there is something you can call ‘liberalism’, which has affected many parts of the church, but life is much more complicated and interesting, and actually hopeful, than the old, tired rhetoric of ‘creeping liberalism’ would allow for. Many of the theological teachers in our universities now occupy what one might call a ‘generous orthodox’ position. Our theological colleges are not dominated by the liberal agenda – some may be to some degree, but there is a wonderful doctrinal and practical health, indeed exuberance, about many of our colleges and training courses. Evangelical bishops – a phrase that was almost a contradiction in terms thirty years ago – are now to be found up and down the country, and they are working closely with orthodox bishops from the Catholic tradition, of whom again there are several. As I look around not only my own diocese but also the larger Church of England, I see many clergy and laity who are not from an ‘evangelical‘ stable but who are cheerfully preaching the gospel, working for God’s kingdom, saying their prayers and living lives of faithful holiness. Yes, there are huge problems in America, and they are of course reflected here and there in the C of E, but we are NOT AT ALL in the same situation. What I was objecting to strongly in my radio interview was the suggestion that English parishes now needed to ‘sign up’ to GAFCON – with the implication that all ‘sound’ people will do so, and that anyone who doesn’t is colluding with the liberalism of which the American revisionism is the main symptom. Some have questioned whether this implication is really present, and I want to assure them that it truly is – just as it was truly present in the GAFCON declaration itself. The response to my radio interview shows exactly what I mean: ‘here is someone questioning GAFCON: well, he has “chosen this day whom he will serve”, and it’s clearly the liberal agenda!’ The proper, technical term for this kind of behaviour is ‘bullying’: ‘we know what’s best, sign here or we’ll declare you to be beyond the pale’. Or perhaps it’s a protection racket: ‘we will look after you; just keep paying the subscription.’
Likewise, (b), the present structures are neither powerless nor spineless. The General Synod of the Church of England has not voted to allow same-sex blessings or the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Yes, such events have happened, and the problem is then partly that the bishops are hindered in their desire to exercise proper discipline by the new regulations (the ‘Clergy Discipline Measure’) which came in very recently and which is proving extremely difficult and problematic to operate. But the doctrinal and ethical teaching of the Church has not changed, and I see no prospect of it being changed in the near future.
As for leadership: nobody who has spent any time with +Rowan Williams will be able to accuse him either of woolly liberalism or of spiritual spinelessness. I know that some have criticized, even mocked, me and others for supporting him. All I can say is that I have spent plenty of time over my nearly 60 years with Christian leaders from many traditions and, though I have questioned some of the conclusions +Rowan draws and some of the policy judgments he has made, I remain convinced that he is one of the holiest and most remarkable Christians I have ever known and that God has indeed called him to lead us at this time. Certainly there isn’t anyone else who could do it. (And, to answer something people have been suggesting, he is more than a year younger than I am, and I expect to retire some while before he does!) As to the structures, we wait to see whether the Lambeth Conference will ‘deliver the goods’ or not. +Rowan’s initial desire not to have too many ‘statements’ stemmed from the belief that it is not healthy to spend three weeks in ‘parliamentary’ style debates, and the sense he had from going around the Communion that there was no appetite to re-open the question of Lambeth 1998 1.10. It is bizarre to have this interpreted as a desire to alter that teaching. Yes, the ‘Windsor process’ has not done what many of us wanted (another footnote: I do wish people would stop implying that I wrote the whole Windsor Report! I didn’t. Source critics are right to detect my hand in various sections but I guess at most I wrote about 1/5 of it, probably less.) Yes, the ‘covenant’ draft has not so far reached a point where I am convinced it will do what we urgently need it to do. Yes, I and some other ‘Windsor’ authors did assume that what we had said would mean that those who had consecrated Gene Robinson (or who had authorised same-sex blessings) would not be invited to Lambeth, and the initial invitations, by stating that Windsor and the Covenant were the criteria for Lambeth, seemed to me to be designed to get at that by a different route. (There was of course a problem, in that some of the ‘consecrators’ had retired, and new bishops had arrived who had not consecrated Robinson but would have done had they been bishops at the time; but this category has too many grey areas to be easily dealt with.) I understand the disappointment over what has happened, including the remarkable non-appearance of key ‘letters’ which I was assured were about to be sent out (and which have been replaced by telephone conversations). But the key point is this: several of the GAFCON architects have a long-standing and oft-expressed vested interest in Lambeth failing, because they need point (b) to be true if they are to be able to advance their plan (c): but to help Lambeth to fail by telling key ‘orthodox’ bishops that they should not attend it is the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The point is this: global Anglicanism has never had, and still does not have, ANY mechanisms for enabling anyone, Canterbury or anyone else, to ‘intervene’ in another province. I’ve said it before and say it again: the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the CEO of Anglicanism plc; he cannot walk down the hall and fire people (which seems to be what some American bishops can do in their dioceses; believe me, my American/Canadian friends, it doesn’t work like that here in England, or globally!). The reason the Windsor Report was commissioned in the first place was precisely because we don’t have structures that could deal with the present appalling situation, and we quickly concluded that the only way we could work towards such things was to build on what we already had, i.e. Lambeth, ACC, Primates and the Archbishop himself. I know, and the Archbishop has said, that the present structures and their present way of working are not adequate. That is why Lambeth needs to chart ways of reforming them. But that urgent and necessary task is made much, much harder, both by the extraordinary proposals for a different way altogether and by the refusal on the part of some leaders to allow their bishops to come to Lambeth to help the great many orthodox bishops who are going to be there working flat out for the gospel-based, Bible-based and Kingdom-based way forward – which is what +Rowan Williams has invited us to do.
And so to (c). When I hear Peter Jensen say that ‘we are not self-selected; we are God-selected, because we are based on the word of God’; when I hear beloved and respected Jim Packer say that the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ should be the basis of a new covenant to which all English bishops will be required to sign up; when I hear Vinay Samuel, one of the sharpest minds in the whole GAFCON movement, saying (unless he was misreported) that ‘we are not breaking away from the Anglican Communion – we ARE the Anglican Communion’; and when I see Bishop John Rodgers of AMiA saying that ‘we are the true and faithful Anglicans . . . the true representatives of the Anglican Communion’ – then it is time for someone, and it might as well be an old-fashioned Bible-believing evangelical like me, to stand up and say , with usual English understatement, ‘hold on, this seems to be somewhat over the top’. Just as the ‘covenant for the Church of England’ bore all the marks of sloppy thinking and hasty drafting, so the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’, though affirming more or less the doctrines that I myself have spent my whole adult life affirming and teaching, bears all the marks of similar haste. In addition to its embarrassingly obvious weaknesses, it has smuggled in, alongside the doctrinal affirmations, various open-ended formulae which basically mean ‘We will decide who’s in this new club and who’s out of it, and if we decide you’re out we claim the right to plant new churches in your territory, “authorize” them, and send in bishops to look after them’. This is not a ‘suspicious’ reading; it is more or less exactly what the text says. And I say to my fellow evangelicals in the Church of England: do not be taken in by this. This is not the answer. There are good answers to such problems as we face and this is not among them. There is such a thing, alive and well in our church, as sound, lively, wise biblical teaching and preaching. America may need drastic action: we most certainly do not. This is why I spoke in my radio interview of GAFCON taking a global sledgehammer to crack the American nut.
And I say to my American friends: please do not alienate the great majority of English evangelicals by implying that unless we sign up to something which makes no sense in our own context we are somehow failing to support you in your own dire need. Nothing that I have said pulls me back from agreeing that the situation in US and Canada is appalling, that same-sex blessings and ordination of practising homosexuals is an anti-scriptural scandal symptomatic of major theological and exegetical unAnglican innovation, and that we urgently need to address this whole situation. But I do wish some US right-wingers would realise that the US and the UK are not the same place, that England has NOT done ANY of the key things the US church has done (i.e. our Synod has not voted to depart from traditional ethics at all), and that there are completely different agendas running here. This can be seen from the fact that the small-but-loud English group are extremely low-church and anti-social-justice-as-part-of-the-gospel, whereas most of the American reasserters are high-church with strong social concern as part of their kingdom-theology. This is a coalition held together with string, which always indicates that some people at least are in it for the power they may gain in their own situations.
I am grateful for the many affirmations I have had of friendship, prayer and support at this extremely difficult time. I ask those who have jumped to the wrong conclusions about what I wrote and said to ponder carefully the radically different situations that exist in different parts of the world, to look beyond their own horizons and see that what they are eager to embrace as a solution to their own pressing difficulties may well create other difficulties in other countries. Yes, we need to solve the American and Canadian problems. Yes, we need the wonderful and exuberant African energy as we take forward God’s mission in the next generation. But no, GAFCON is not the answer. Especially not here in England.
TOM WRIGHT
Bishop N. T. Wright
Durham
July 6 2008
Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum
Forum Posts About This Article:
Posted by: Dave
Saturday 6 December 2008 - 05:37pm
Stephen Sizer has made available recordings of GAFCON and the subsequent reports at All Souls
http://www.stephensizer.com/2008/11/audio-recordings-of-gafcon/
and
http://www.stephensizer.com/2008/11/audio-recordings-of-the-all-souls-gafcon-consultation/
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 29 August 2008 - 11:58pm
For responses to the communique from the GAFCON Primates' Council, see the following sites:
Living Church
Preludium
TitusOneNine
Thinking Anglicans
Stand Firm
Pluralist
On first reading, it seems to me that:
the meaning of 'The Council will consist of Primates assisted by an Advisory Board' implies that the Council is wider than that first envisioned at GAFCON. Peter Jensen is not a Primate, and after GAFCON he made that clear, but the widening of the Council to include an Advisory Board means that he is now on the GAFCON Primates' Council.
it was a good decision to drop the 'o' from the acronym of the 'Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans' - making it clear that it is now FCA. In which case, why not call the GAFCON Primates' Council the FCA Primates' council? This would avoid the brand link with the Global South Anglican movement, which is clearly much wider than the 6 primates who have signed up to the present communique - five from Africa and one (from England) from the Southern Cone of South America. Perhaps it may be better to leave the GAFCON brand as a 'one off conference' and move forward with the FCA brand?
John Martin's point, registered on this forum earlier today, about the secretariat being based in Sydney, rather than in Oxford, may well be significant. It is interesting that it has been privately reported that the first draft of the GAFCON communique from Jerusalem included the setting up of a GAFCON secretariat, but that that was deleted from the final edition of the communique. One has now been established.
Why did only six primates of the Council sign and not seven? The report from the Living Church site does not answer all the questions raised by this fact.
Why the delay of seven days after the meeting before the communique was published? It may be that the seventh Primate, of the Province of West Africa, was being contacted. Archbishop Justice Akrofi has not signed.
the polite reference to the Global South Anglican leaders who were not present at GAFCON is encouraging.
at least the Anglican Covenant is mentioned - even if it is in somewhat dismissive tones - which is a move forward from the GAFCON communique where it was not mentioned at all.
at least the door is left open on the Pastoral Forum, even if it is also mentioned in dismissive tones.
Greg Venables, in the report of The Living Church, implies that the GAFCON/FCA Primates will attend the Primates' Meeting in early 2009. This is encouraging.
the naming of the five bishops who are canonically bishops of the African provinces of Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, as 'US Bishops' is a misnomer. They may be American citizens, but they are canonically not 'US Bishops' - or does this nomenclature imply that their canonical status, in the end, is not that significant?
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 29 August 2008 - 09:03pm
On the fine print: I notice the Gafcon Secretariat has a Sydney PO Box address. (a) So is there a continuing role in Gafcon for Chris Sugden? and (b) is there a Jensen "unseen hand" even if the Archbishop of Sydney is not a signatory to the statement?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 29 August 2008 - 04:07pm
The communique from the first GAFCON Primates' Council meeting, which met in London 20-22 August, has been published today seven days later, GAFCON site, 29 August 2008.
What do people make of it and of the delay in its publication?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 27 July 2008 - 04:12pm
Thanks, Pete. You say:
And presumably the proposal to invent a Faith & Order Commission is in itself an admission that the current instruments aren't working?
Exactly. In his letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, 'The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today', written in June 2006, soon after the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated:
There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment... for this to survive with all its aspects intact, we need closer and more visible formal commitments to each other. And it is not going to look exactly like anything we have known so far... We have some very hard work to do to embody this more clearly. The next Lambeth Conference ought to address this matter directly and fully as part of its agenda.
That, two years later, is exactly what is happening. Note the phrase, 'we need closer and more visible formal commitments to each other'. This was elucidated by the Archbishop in his Presidential Address to the Lambeth Conference last Sunday, in terms of 'intensification'. I commented on the significance of this word on this forum thread last Wednesday.
The choice at the Lambeth Conference is not between the GAFCON split and a boring 'continue as we are' Anglican Communion. It is clear, and the Archbishop has made it plain for two years, that we can't continue as we are.
The choice is between the GAFCON split and the new shape of the Anglican Communion - renewing and expanding the instruments of unity - which is emerging from the Windsor Continuation Group. The latter reflects especially 'Communion Conservative' thinking and some 'Communion Liberal' thinking, and this is the most hopeful sign of the Lambeth Conference holding the Communion together.
'Federal Liberals' in The Episcopal Church and elsewhere are not happy with this new emerging shape. It may be that 'Federal Conservatives' - especially 'Non-Canterbury Federal Conversatives' are also not happy with having a realistic conservative alternative to GAFCON.
A key question will be whether some 'Federal Conservatives' will join with the 'Non-Canterbury Federal Conservatives' (who have boycotted the Conference already) in rejecting this new emerging shape (and have already been vociferous in their rejection of the Covenant), or whether some will be part of the new shape. I hope for the latter.
BTW, Pete, it's great to have your 'extra mural' input into the Lambeth Conference... I'm copying this comment onto the 'Lambeth Conference' forum thread, so let's continue there.
Posted by: Ken Petrie
Sunday 27 July 2008 - 03:36pm
"both pro-gay and pro-Gafcon camps" Ah, camps; what are they doing in the Church? I Corinthians 1.10ff springs to mind.
Posted by: Ken Petrie
Sunday 27 July 2008 - 03:23pm
The problem with the GAFCON approach is that the confessional statement is self-contradicting, which does question the logical integrity of any communion based on it.
If we must have a confessional statement we must have one which makes sense. The JD doesn't.
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Sunday 27 July 2008 - 11:51am
Which means that the issue that may well need to be addressed in relation both to Gafcon and Lambeth is - "How much do the four instruments of communion retain their credibility?"
1. The Archbishop of Canterbury retains it for me and I guess for most Fulcrum evangelicals, and for a huge majority of the wider communion, but he has only grudging support from some liberals and downright hostility from some in both pro-gay and pro-Gafcon camps.
2. The Primates' Meetings are difficult and expensive to convene, and many on both ecclesiastical left and right are deeply suspicious of them. They also bear the problem that some primates will agree with a line and then walk away and do something different.
3. The ACC is loved by those who believe that bishops, clergy and laity should all have a voice (ECUSA polity), but many don't trust the bureaucrats who run it, and see it as a politburo.
4. And the Lambeth Conference - we wait and pray, but the jury is out.
Others may not share this analysis, but it does say to me that the instruments of communion may no longer work to hold us together - and I think that is what Gafcon are saying, too. So to those who ask "By what authority is Gafcon speaking?", the answer must surely be "by the authority of those provinces and dioceses who have voluntarily entered into a new series of instruments of communion, because they don't think the old ones are any longer fit for purpose". The Gafcon instruments would be based around a confessional approach - adherence to the Jerusalem declaration - and an approach of mutual fellowship. They are different from the Anglican Communion instruments, but they arguably supply mechanisms for filling the current vacuum that allows the North Americans to play fast and loose.
And presumably the proposal to invent a Faith & Order Commission is in itself an admission that the current instruments aren't working?
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Sunday 27 July 2008 - 07:40am
Graham,
That is indeed an interesting question. I have two answers so I will give both and we will see if either is satisfactory.
The first is that Gafcon assumes a different shape depending on where to view it from, rather like a post-modern building.
If you view it from the US or Canada it can look like a structural solution of some sort to the crisis (if it is a crisis) on the Anglican Communion. Churches like St John's Shaunessy, which have protested against a policy of SSBs in their local diocese for five years or more are seeking a solution to their isolation (which among other things means that they cannot get clergy ordained. So in those provinces it looks like a rescue mission. (for the purposes of this post I will make the assumption that these churches are justified in their protest action - but that is something that could be discussed at another time).
If you view it from Africa, for Gafcon members life goes on as normal, with the exception of missionariy bishops sent to the US, and a change of venue for where their bishops went this year.
If you view it from Australia, it appears that the Sydney delegates have made connections with people from other cultures, and theological persuasions, so it appears like a conference to us.
The second answer is in the form of a question . I know that this is an annoying way to answer a question and I apologise for any irritation caused. Is the Anglican Communion a church? Is that Lambeth conference a church? Is the ACC a council or synod? If the answer is "no", then it helps to answer the difficulty you might have with Gafcon recognising a province. Or rather the primates of Gafcon recognising a province. Because for 7 primates to get together and recognise another province is not dissimilar to the primates of the AC requesting the ACC add a new provincial member to the membership schedule of the ACC? You can argue that the seven primates should not take this action.
But your argument can not be sustained on the basis Gafcon is not a church.
Ultimately I think the arguement comes down to whether you think the US and Canadian refusniks should have left TEC/ACoC. I do not recall a Fulcrum statement on that, but I think concern for those churches drives Sydney's views.
FWIW my full name is John Sandeman. Using a pseudonym is a hangover of starting to post in a group that used pseudonyms, largely because members like "decbass" we also members of the group.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 25 July 2008 - 07:41pm
Thanks, Obadiahslope (aka John). Perhaps, as a Defender of the Faith of Sydney (DFS) on this site and others, you could comment on the following extraordinary quotation from the Common Cause Partnership (CCP), Anglican Communion Network site, 24 July 2008:
The intention of the CCP Executive Committee is to petition the Primates Council for recognition of the CCP as the North American Province of GAFCON
So is GAFCON being recognised as a church by the Common Cause Partnership?
This is a very serious question. The above petition implies that it is.
How can you have a province of GAFCON, if GAFCON is not a 'church' or a 'communion'?
A ‘fellowship’ does not have ‘provinces’. A ‘communion’ or a ‘church’ does. It seems that a ‘church within a church’ does too…
The serious questions raised by the Archbishop of Canterbury and by Tom Wright, about the authority which GAFCON claims for itself, are well founded.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Monday 21 July 2008 - 10:02am
Its worthwhile noting that the Jerusalem Declaration includes at point 13 "We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord."
For EFAC to endorse that is significant.
On the Bishop of Croydon thread Graham Kings discusses difficulty of some Gafcon delegates participating in the discussion after the Amman meeting failed to go ahead. Thinking Anglicans supplies further information, that would suggest that the Jordanian authorities would not allow the meeting to proceed, an outcome beyond Gafcon's immediate control. You can't fault them for trying.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 21 July 2008 - 07:38am
Anglican Mainstream has published an 'EFAC commitment' following the meeting of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion at Trinity College, Bristol, 8-10 July 2008. It gives the headline 'Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion ‘heartily endorses’ GAFCON declaration'. There is not a list of names of those present.
In reading the 'commitment', this headline is misleading. The 'commitment' 'heartily endorses' the Jerusalem Declaration (of GAFCON) but does not mention at all the rest of the Statement of GAFCON, which surrounds the 14 points of the Jerusalem Declaration, and which goes on to outline the strategic way forward of alternative episcopal oversight.
The commitment states: 'We heartily endorse the fourteen points of the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and, like those at GAFCON, are fully committed to remaining within the Anglican Communion, and to bearing joyful witness to evangelical distinctives.'
It is worth noting that the GAFCON petition, which Anglican Mainstream has been urging people to sign, mentions both the 'Jerusalem Declaration' and the 'Statement on the Global Anglican Future'.
'I stand in solidarity with the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement on the Global Anglican Future.'
Posted by: Dermot
Sunday 20 July 2008 - 09:39pm
Sorry decbass, it was you who made the observation.
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Friday 18 July 2008 - 07:34am
Hang on a mo Thos Scarlett - I think you will find it is me being perceptive!! Not that I am one to boast.... LOL
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 18 July 2008 - 02:01am
What an excellent overview of Anglicanism decbass and such a good argument against the Covenant. Let's be clear here from my (liberal) point of view - no Covenant: not weak, not strong.
Posted by: Dermot
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 11:15pm
RevDavid perceptively says of the Covenant:
"I suspect that it is wanted in part to exercise control in a reverse direction".
Interestingly I had pondered the same possibility. If the covenant is woolly enough, the liberals will be keen to sign it but the Africans will refuse. That would make them at best second class members of the club. Pretty neat, eh?
But in any case, by the time the covenant is up and running (and while its appendix is migrating in a different direction) the situation on the ground will have changed beyond recognition. In the next few weeks I have been told that a certain Canadian bishop, who has held back from authorising same-sex blessings in order "to discern at Lambeth" (or in a sceptic's translation, "to avoid being disinvited to the party") will go ahead soon after his return and do just that. How will the covenant unwind what has happened on the ground? How will it avoid being either so woolly as to be useless, or so clear that it will become a battleground?
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 10:17pm
Good to hear John V Taylor here. How we need him today !
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 03:22pm
RevDavid
Lambeth 1:10 is a resolution of the last Lambeth Conference. But that is all it is. Lambeth Conference resolutions are not binding on any province - they are simply the resolutions that the Lambeth fathers felt they needed to make. It has been given an artificially elevated status in the last decade by being used as a kind of coatpeg to hang things on (even in the Church of England). I don't think it should be used that way. The resolutions are a record of what the bishops at Lambeth collectively felt in 1998 - it is evidently important for Provinces to take them into account, but I dont think they are obliged to follow them to the letter. I say that simply as a way of recording what it seems to me to be a matter of fact.
Now, what you are asking for is a Covenant with punitive teeth. Is this a good idea? - I think the answer is no. And therefore I am opposed to the whole idea of a covenant.
Ephraim Radner writes:
It (the proposed Covenant) will seek the official and solemn commitments of Provincial (and possibly diocesan) Anglican churches around the world to a common set of doctrinal, missionary, and decision-making standards.
He is admirably clear about what it is supposed to do. He goes on:
The Covenant seeks to address how Anglicans around the world, although no longer bound by the past habits and culture of a more restricted British and Anglo-American fraternity, will maintain their unity and energy as they witness to the Gospel.
I don't see any sign in a Covenant-free Communion (such as we currently have) of the Anglicans who are not bound by being part of the British and anglo-american fraternity having any difiiculty in maintaining energy as they witness. Indeed we are always being properly reminded of the vitality of the church of the South. So how will a Covenant help that? I suspect that it is wanted in part to exercise control in a reverse direction - there is still a huge amount of post-colonial resentment washing around in all this mix, especially now that some of the former colonial churches are doing things that make other people feel uncomfortable, or which may require a more sphisticated reading of the Bible than just quoting texts.
Radner writes about the Covenant defending central Anglican values, and moreover, that covenant-making is consonant with Anglican processes in the past. I don't agree with him. Anglican churches may have have understood their local autonomy to be constrained by Scripture - but to use the 39 Articles as a kind of proof text for this is crazy. The Articles of Religion are English, they relate to a very historically-bounded 16 C English context, and when removed from it they can behave in all kinds of funny ways - just look at Tract 90 for the best example of that! It seems to me that GAFCON have done a very odd thing in the Jerusalem Declaration in making the Articles a touchstone of orthodoxy, an oddity only parallelled by their determination to see the BCP re-instated as THE source and end of liturgy (yeah right, like that is going to happen). So the 39 Articles have never been hawked around the Communion like a quasi-Covenant, and using them to butress the idea of covenanting is quite illegitimate. Just ask the Scots what they think of them!
Moreover, I cannot think of anything less Anglican than a common set of missionary standards. Anglican mission has always been a hopeless mess - but out of it God has done some remarkable things. Apart from anything else, Anglican mission has mostly been undertaken by bodies who have not been arms of the Church itself, but have been all kinds of voluntary societies. Sometimes they have worked in harmony together, but they have often not, and they have had clear and sometimes sharply differentiated identities. Now common missionary standards may or may not be a good thing (personally I feel the deadening hand of corporate creep here), but I certainly don't think historically speaking that they are Anglican.
Radner's desire, all our desire, for honesty, clarity, and transparency could be met within the present structures of the Communion. If part of the problem is that different provinces have different ways of doing things ( and they do) then the ACC is the place where a comparative study of the canons and procedures of the provinces could be done. It is there that time can and should be spent helping us all to see and understand the different ways we do things and why and how these fit with our understanding of God and God's purposes. It would be hard for the Church of England to justify its own peculiar place - remember the provocatively titled PIM report "To a Rebellious House"? But it is highly un-Anglican to want to impose a common process upon Provinces. I read with interest the report of the Nation and the remarks of the Registrar of the Anglican Church of Nigeria
“Should any Nigerian bishop be at the Lambeth, then we cannot rule out serious sanctions against him because it would be contrary to the position of the House of Bishops”.
This is a very Nigerian way of working - I hope Cyril Okorocha doesn't get it in the neck for being at Lambeth - but from an English point of view, 1. I can't think of that ever happening here and 2. wonder what kind of a Canon Law you have to have to be able to make such threats and have any hope of doing anything about it. Talk about taking collegiality to the limit! Whatever it is I don't want it reproduced in a pan-Anglican way. But then I don't necessarily want our relative episcopal independence reproduced for them either.
Strong leadership is constantly called for, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is pilloried for not providing it - for not "disciplining" TEC or whatever. But, in fact, doing what they are doing this next two weeks is, to my mind, the Anglican way of going about things. Prayer, bible Study, personal encounter. Humility and modesty about the claims you make: a common seeking after truth. But that does not look like Big Man (I use the word advisedly) leadership, and that is a very hard concept to sell to folk who want that almost above everything else. Churches that have that are successful after all! They are "effective". Well, Jesus, of course, wasn't "effective". In fact his effective ministry fell apart as people deserted him. And it was at that point that he became truly effective.
I have grave doubts about the capacity of a Covenanted Anglican Communion (Actually isn't that FOCA?) to be flexible enough in mission and governance to see development and growth and change. Nailing tent pegs in the gound makes journeying on difficult. So do men with loud voices telling us that we must NEVER NEVER NEVER go such and such a way or do this or that. I don't think with a Covenant in place we would have women presbyters yet, let alone women bishops, and yet both developments have unquestionably to my mind been Spirit-inspired, and in the case of women presbyters have released a wonderful amount of new energy for ministry and mission in our church.
I don't believe our faith needs more definition either. We have the Bible, we have the Catholic creeds, we have the "historic formularies of the Church" bearing witness - which, rather than the 39 Articles, I take to be things like the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. But if other provinces have other historic things they want to bring then let them. What we don't have, and what have never had, is a univocal understanding of how the Bible is to be interpreted. If that is what a Covenant wants to impose for any matter of faith and morals then I am flatly against it.
I have never had any difficulty in taking oaths and making affirmations ex animo but I absolutely will never sign or make any other coventantal delaration. I think the whole exercise is going to be an exercise in reducing trust by increasing definition. I am appalled by the thought of the Church of England as a whole, and both provinces separately and all the dioceses within them, and all the parishes within those dioceses (for parochial independence is something that has a longer, prouder and realler history here than it does in either the USA or Africa), going through some ghastly voting process to see who is in and who is out. Radner, note, does not even consider covenantal issues as biting at the level of parish. He should - they certainly would here in England. And if your parish votes to be in and the diocese and the province votes out, then what do you do? You have to arrange alternative episcopal oversight or what? Lord, have mercy! I think that would probably be the point at which I gave up and left.
I was re-reading some John V Taylor the other day -
This is a pre-forgiven universe. God had chosen in eternity to take upon himself the risk and the cost of creating this kind of world. As a precondition of creation he took upon himself the judgment and death of the sinner. Being forgiven is therefore a more primary condition for us than being a sinner. Being in Christ is a more essential human state than being in ignorance of Christ... So, with our minds open to recognise the reality of the experience of divine grace and salvation within all the faiths of mankind, we can say that what God did through Jesus Christ is the one act which it was always necessary that he should accomplish in time and at the right time if he was to be the God who throughout time is accessible and present to every human being in judgment and mercy, grace and truth. Wherever we see people enjoying a living relationship with God and experiencing his grace we see the fruits of Calvary though this may be neither acknowledged nor known.
I wonder what the common life of the Communion would be like if we believed that we lived in a pre-forgiven universe and a pre-forgiven church? I don't think we would be worrying about Covenants.
Posted by: RevDavid
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 12:18pm
Graham, do you think the covenant will (a) address the main issue that has caused division in global Anglicanism - ie homosexual practice, and (b) will it bring any discipline against those who have deliberately flouted Lambeth 1.10? Best wishes, David Baker
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 11:30am
The Last Post has been sounding for the Covenant for some time. St Andrews draft represented a scaling down from the much criticised and rejected Nassau Draft, and the St Andrews Draft is only acceptable to the same Churches without that appendix, and even then aspects are hardly welcome. The Lambeth Conference isn't going to decide anything, apparently, so we shall see what happens afterwards regarding flogging the dead horse of the Covenant. With the setting up of FOCA, which itself ignores the Covenant, the perceived need for a Covenant has rather lost its point, but it remains that it it is too strong it will be rejected by too many and if too weak it is useless and pointless. So it is pretty much a dead duck and would do well to be buried, presumably alongside a Kent campus pond.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 06:55am
Thanks, Thomas. Yes, I agree with you that the Covenant is central to the Lambeth Conference and should indeed be robust and not bland.
In particular, I find very helpful Ephraim Radner's excellent overview of the Covenant, on the 'Covenant' site, 'A Short Primer in Defence of an Anglican Covenant.' He also is on the Covenant Design Group. Let's continue to pray.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Thursday 17 July 2008 - 12:37am
Thank you for these challenging and yet including thoughts, Canon Weir.
Posted by: Canon Daniel Weir
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 10:45pm
The General Theolpgical Seminary's Tutu Center held a conference this past April on the Anglican Covenant. Among the addresses that can be found in both audio and pdf files at the the link below was "cov-e-nant n 1. a solemn agreement . . . A ‘global south’ perspective on Anglicans, solemnity and agreement" by Canon Dr. Jenny Plane Te Paa, St. John’s Theological College, Auckland, New Zealand. It is the most coherent explanation that I have heard of the dangers inherent in the covenant process and continues what I think may be the most important assertion of all - " I do firmly believe the majority of global Anglicans are becoming increasingly exasperated by the incessant focus either upon sexuality, or on the aberrant consequences arising, such as cross Provincial intrusions, irregular consecrations, property and other legal disputes, name-calling and game playing." Canon Te Paa made that assertion after carefully and, I think, rightly listing those groups of Anglicans who have not been part of the discussions to date, or, the very least, have been present in numbers that are much smaller than their numbers within the communion would suggest as proper. Among those not present in the conversations on any significant numbers are yourng people, indigenous people, women, and gay and lesbian Anglicans.
http://www.gts.edu/tcarchiveANGCOVT.asp
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 03:16pm
I can think of worse things -- far worse things than being nice to one another ! In fact, it wouldnt be a bad start to improved relations. The exercise would have done some good, in my opinion. But they aren't going to improve much, if one group insists on being right, alone; and trying to make the rest of us dance to your tune alone.
Similarly, insisting that your group alone is good, and the others unbiblial, immoral and so on, isn't exactly the way to make friends and influence people you know !
Things used to be that we all rubbed along quite well together - to a greater or lesser extent. So maybe all this turmoil will return us that blessed point ?
'We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
Will be to return where we started
And know the place for the first time'.
Posted by: Dermot
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 02:26pm
Thanks Graham for responding to what is my first post to Fulcrum. But I had hoped that you would give a substantive response to the cri de coeur that I made, not a jokey one to the dead duck metaphor. This really seems to me to be a make or break issue. The Archbishop of Dublin is a heavyweight player. He is a member of the Covenant Design group, and has set out his hopes for the way the covenant process will play out.
Objectively he states that:
- the covenant contains only principles ("let's be nice to each other" etc), so any teeth that it may have must be in the appendix
- the appendix is simply a suggestion of how the principles might work out in practice (and therefore might subsequently be modified in ways that are unspecified)
- the appendix is not an official part of the covenant
Subjectively he hopes that:
- the covenant, minus the appendix, will go to the Anglican Provinces for approval ("yes, we'll all agree to be nice to each other")
- the appendix will go to the Anglican Consultative Council dentist to have its teeth "amended as necessary"
Do you agree or disagree with my view that if the covenant is handled in this way it really will be a dead duck and the whole process will have been a waste of time - even a cynical waste of time?
I hope my first post to Fulcrum will not be my last. But do I hear the Last Post sounding for the Covenant?
Posted by: JB
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 11:44am
Once again I was disheartened by Bishop N.T. Wright, in his article on this website, responding to GAFCON. What I found particularly sad and puzzling was his forceful condemnation of church planting by faithful Anglicans! Mocking the attitude of those involved in GAFCON, he says:
‘We will decide who’s in this new club and who’s out of it, and if we decide you’re out we claim the right to plant new churches in your territory, “authorize” them, and send in bishops to look after them’. This is not a ‘suspicious’ reading; it is more or less exactly what the text says. And I say to my fellow evangelicals in the Church of England: do not be taken in by this. This is not the answer.
Why should God's people, seeking faithfully to work in line with the Great Commission to make disciples of Jesus, baptize them and teach them God's word, need to arrogantly 'claim the right to plant new churches' in Wright's mocking terms? Surely the more churches that grow out of true evangelical theological convictions, with which Wright claims to whole-heartedly agree, the better for the advance of the saving gospel of Jesus!
This is just one of many deeply concerning things that arose from Wright's article, which inevitably add to the increasing lack of confidence with which I see him as a faithful partner in service of the Lord Jesus.
P.S. If this so clearly 'is not the answer', will Wright ever suggest what he thinks is a better way forward?
Posted by: Dave
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 11:41am
The Covenant is not the answer to all the problems of the church. It is however required to ensure that future disagreements are handled better. A sense of Anglican Identity however loose is required. Anglicanism cannot include everybody or even all Christians it must be an acceptable home for the vast majority of ordinary believers. The question is can it do this for the people of America and North African at the same time. Theologians try to achieve this by complex and unintelligible formulas. These are likely to be found irrelevant on both continents. I think C S Lewis once said that people of deep faith in different traditions are much closer to each other their leaders.
David
Posted by: liddon
Wednesday 16 July 2008 - 08:35am
I may be wrong here, but I understood the expression 'walking dead duck' to be a jokey reference to the expression 'dead man walking' used of condemned men on their way to the execution chamber. So, I thought that Pluralist was saying that the Covenant was dead already, just walking to the place where the formalities of execution would be carried out. I hope he's right.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 15 July 2008 - 10:59pm
Thanks, Pluralist. You say that 'The Covenant is a walking dead duck'. However, in my experience 'dead ducks' don't walk...
The Covenant is, in fact, being discussed and 'walking' throughout the Lambeth Conference. We shall see what happens.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Tuesday 15 July 2008 - 06:02pm
Pluralist - you mean that you hope the covenant is a "dead duck"....that would suit you because you are a .....pluralist.
For most Anglicans in the world, a covenant is not something difficult...note that even people like Rowan Williams would have a job to reject the authoritative documents that GAFCON have cited.....
You know, the church was not created to house and pay a group with diverses beliefs in order to do social work......a covenant is no problem for those who realise what our commission actually is.
I know you would mind if Wales and Brazil objected to a covenant....I am much more concerned that those faithful Anglicans in GAFCON (that is 2/3 of Anglicans in the world) who did NOT tear the fabric of the Communion in 2003 are brought back......at the moment, we have most of the family boycotting the family gathering because those who cause trouble and division are also invited......and they are best avoided.
What you don't seem to get is that it is a tragedy for Lambeth to be missing the GAFCON crowd...it has diminished Lambeth massively.......but for GAFCON, it really did not matter not having TEC, Brazil, Canada and Wales etc.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 14 July 2008 - 09:28am
The Covenant is a walking dead duck, the latest arrow from afar being that of GAFCON setting up an alternative direction of authority and showing no need itself for one.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Monday 14 July 2008 - 12:25am
Who would want to be tied into beliefs one does not hold ? In all integrity I will not assent to such beleifs, or play along for appearance sake.
All this emphasis on propositional beliefs is a dreadful cul de sac, blind spot and waste of time and energy as far as I am concerned. As will become apparent in due course.
Posted by: Dermot
Sunday 13 July 2008 - 10:37pm
I would like test the proposition that the Windsor Covenant will provide a meaningful alternative to GAFCON. The Archbishop of Dublin (a member of the Covenant Design group) has written a piece on his own aspirations for it, see:
www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2008/3/5/Drafting-an-Anglican-Covenant
The key passage is:
The controversial area will, of course, be Section 3.2.5 which deals with the handling of difficulties within the Anglican Communion. The Covenant really sets out no more than principles that Churches should accept to remain in communion. The appendix is not an official part of the Covenant, but simply a suggestion of how these principles might work out in practice. Some will see them as too legalistic, and there is the undoubted danger of building disciplinary procedures into a 'marriage' contract. We must not reduce the Covenant into a pre-nuptial agreement. I would hope that the Covenant will eventually go out by itself for approval and the type of issues outlined in the Appendix be left to the Anglican Consultative Council to agree and amend as necessary from time to time.
Can anyone see a way in which the last sentence would not entirely thwart the purpose of the covenant?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 13 July 2008 - 04:44pm
That's the point: there is no legitimacy of a shift taking place, if any is, through GAFCON. It is just a means of signing up for those who want alternative oversight: Jensen said he remains Anglican and with those it does not represent. The point is that those who sign up can come from anywhere. In any case, legally, the Church of England as a body cannot accept direction from outside even if it wanted to - and it does not. The women bishops vote showed an entirely different ethos to that provided by FOCA, and when that was mentioned a number of people hissed.
Posted by: Deleted user 1721
Sunday 13 July 2008 - 03:04am
Thanks, Graham Kings, for the response. I think you have further clarified the problem; but I am not, in fact, unconsciously supporting Wrights arguments. Tom Wright and many others affirm orthodoxy, but they dont want to do it on demand. The obvious question is, why not? WHY is it is very unlikely indeed that they will agree to sign up to a GAFCON declaration as well ?
Several thoughts come to mind. (1) Various people throughout history have sought religious orders for less than Christian reasons, and have been quite willing to swear anything once in order to get in the door. Other people take radical turns in their theology, even after being ordained. But if they are required to affirm those truths repeatedly and claim consistency between them and their pastoral preaching and actions, some measure of decency would compel many such persons to seek a different religious association or a different profession altogether.
(2) Why should a bishop ever be unwilling to re-affirm what he believes, whether to unbelievers, to his own flock, or to other bishops? Lack of time is a legitimate reason when theological nuances are involved, but GAFCON has not asked about numerous or peripheral doctrines.
(3) It is not just anyone who is asking, but other primates and bishops. Is Tom Wright implying, as many non-Europeans surely feel he is, that these are just poor, uncivilized colonial peoples, whose bishops and primates are not REALLY of the same significance and legitimacy as Europeans? They were chosen by their own backward people, but they are not really competent to ask Europeans about their orthodoxy?
(4) Every week Bishop Wright and all C of E clerics are willing to let the world and their fellow believers know that they are not Arians but catholic Christians by repeating the Nicene creed -- why the offense at being asked to repeat an affirmation of a few other things now and then?
(5) The point of asking is not some clanish power play of picking and choosing who is in and out, just to feel good about our team. The point of asking is to define some basic terms of Christian doctrine for global communion (and these doctrines are not new ). If the C of E says your one time orthodox oath is good enough for us, thats fine for inside the C of E; but cant the global communion legitimately have its own terms? The GAFCON bishops are saying, If you want to be an isolated, provincial (in the negative sense) national church stuck on its own sense of importance, then you dont owe us anything. But IF YOU HAVE AN HONEST DESIRE TO BE IN COMMUNION WITH US, we have the right to ask what you believe.
(6) If the GAFCON primates intervene in England on any other basis than the doctrinal issues laid out in the Jerusalem declaration, then the C of E has every right to cry foul, and Wright will be proved correct in his claim that this is really about a power play by some of those involved. Note, for instance, that the declaration takes no stand on the ordination of women!
(7) Comparison with break-away churches in America can bring some external clarity to what the C of E is going to have to face. The break-aways could simply choose to be free churches in the Anglican liturgical tradition but most of them want instead to be connected to the worldwide Anglican communion, for good ecclesiological reasons. Among other things, a bishop is supposed to be that connection to the worldwide church. These American Anglicans dont particularly care about being in communion with Canterbury per se, but with the global, orthodox church -- Canterbury has just historically been a valuable tool for making that connection. But if Rowan Williams is going to invite the unrepentant and apostate TEC bishops to Lambeth, he starts to look pretty useless as the global link.
If some C of E parishes and dioceses find that their bishops or even Canterbury itself are standing in the way rather than making the link to the global, orthodox communion, they should indeed look for outside help. If their bishops just want to be Church of England bishops, and not global Anglican bishops who are willing to confess what they believe to their fellow worldwide Anglican bishops, then Christians in their dioceses may have to decide in turn whether they want to be just part of the provincial Church of England, or part of the worldwide communion. This would NOT necessarily mean that those refusing bishops are not orthodox--as Wright so mischaracterizes GAFCON; it would simply mean that those bishops are so stuck on themselves that they refuse to participate in global communion on any terms but their own.
In redefining the terms of global communion, GAFCON truly is an open invitation; but not unlike the gospel itself, it has terms. Rowan Williams has every right and obligation to take his seat at the proposed council of primates--I believe Wrights claims about the Archbishops orthodoxy, as I have no doubts about Wrights own. But he would have to do so truly as an equal and not as a supposedly indispensable linchpin of communion. Indeed, as I believe in the Holy Spirit, I have confidence that both Wright and Williams could come to acknowledge the legitimacy of the shift taking place through GAFCON. After all, didnt Peter eventually yield to the offensive attack on his authority in Antioch by that upstart Paul. Peter could have said, I was with Jesus from the start--who are you? And dont lecture to me about Gentiles--didnt I baptize Cornelius? But instead he found the grace to do the impossible, and admit that he was wrong.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 12 July 2008 - 09:59pm
The Church of England has made it clear that no cleric is required when making promises to affirm the Thirty-nine Articles except as a historic formulary. The GAFCON self-selectors have decided to raise the Thirty-nine Articles as a key indicator of orthodoxy. Therefore GAFCON has moved the goalposts from where they were moved, and has no right to interfere in the Church of England.
I have just been revisiting my copy of the 1980 book Reasonable Belief by the Hanson brothers, bishop one was and the other a professor of theology at Hull. This book would fail the GAFCON test and probably some others completely. But in those days what constituted 'orthodoxy' was a matter of debate, that involved the contingency of doctrines and the exercise of reason. Again GAFCON has no right to usurp this from the Church of England or any other Church.
There is no difference between the American situation and the English except of degree, if that. The only difference is that the Americans have duly elected and affirmed a bishop in a gay relationship and there are local gay blessings. Well, there are local gay blessings and ordinations of known gay men to the orders of ministry. It is just less honest in England.
Furthermore it is just as likely that some ministers and congregations will sign up to GAFCON for their oversight in Durham as it is in Lincoln (say, where the bishop here is listed on various right wing websites as 'revisionist') and all that can be said is that where ordained clergy decide to ignore their diocesan bishop, the person they stand in for at a local church, then they (and the section of the congregation that wishes to follow) will have to go off and rent some premises and carry out their own financial arrangements as to the person's said pay and conditions.
The vote so far regarding bishops suggests that the C of E is moving towards an identity similar to TEC not away from it, that the difference of degree will reduce.
There is only one healthy attitude to GAFCON/ FOCA and that is to show it the door. If you don't then entryism will carry on munching away at the host body - and the least affected will be the liberals. It is the liberals who benefit from this division in the evangelical ranks and the extraction of evangelicals.
I hear in the gossip shop that one east Yorkshire ministry is quite taken with the tattoed, head shaking, "bam" man Todd Bentley and the Florida outpourings. That's a bit like GAFCON with knobs on, and then knobs on that. No doubt there will be some signing up there to FOCA too, at the least.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 12 July 2008 - 08:58pm
Thanks, Sazhu (aka? - it really helps on Fulcrum threads to use your real name). In your comment you, unconsciously, back up Tom Wright's argument, when you say:
The simple thing would be for all Church of England bishops to affirm the Jerusalem confession and then go on about their business. If they cannot affirm it, then England DOES have an America-like problem
This shows the intention of the GAFCON Jerusalem declaration being used as a 'confession' which C of E bishops should really sign up to in order to be considered 'orthodox'. This is surely Tom Wright's critique. C of E Bishops already, at their consecration, swear an 'orthodox' oath, and it is very unlikely indeed that they will agree to sign up to a GAFCON declaration as well. This does not mean they are not 'orthodox' and it is precisely this point that Tom Wright is making.
You also back up Tom Wright's argument by going on to say:
-- but GAFCON has not made any claims about England either way. If some parishes/diocese in England have a genuine issue with liberal bishops (i.e. who cannot affirm the Jerusalem confession), then GAFCON would provide a solution for them as well.
GAFCON leaders, at the meetings at All Souls Langham Place on 1 July 2008, made huge claims about the vital importance of evangelicals in the Church of England standing by the flag which they had planted that day. I was at the meeting in the evening. Your definition of 'liberal bishops' in the C of E above 'ie who cannot affirm the Jerusalem confession' again is very worrying because a huge majority may agree with its basic points, but not be willing to sign up to it, seeing no need to add to their 'orthodox' oath at their consecrations.
In discussion, with a GAFCON leader, immediately after the meeting at All Souls had concluded, it was made plain to me that interventions in England from the GAFCON Primates' Council would indeed be considered if so invited by evangelical leaders in England.
So you have actually made the case, in your critique of Tom Wright, for his own major objections to GAFCON.
Posted by: John Watson
Saturday 12 July 2008 - 09:01am
I have just made a cursory glance at the online petition for English Individuals and a name caught my eye:
Brigadier
Ian Dobbie
Sevenoaks
Kent
UK
N/G
Jul 11, 2008
I thought this rings a bell from a previous scant and lo and behold
Brigadier
Ian Dobbie
Sevenoaks
N/G
UK
N/G
Jul 02, 2008
Now I know my name is quite a popular one and theat there are a number of John Watson's in the UK and I think even a few 'Rev John Watson' - but two Brigadiers of the same name living in Sevenoaks!!
Let's hope it was a simple case of forgetfulnes that he had signed it before - if not it could be read as beefing up the names!!
Posted by: Deleted user 1721
Saturday 12 July 2008 - 08:57am
I continue to be disturbed by Tom Wright's skewed public portrayals of the GAFCON statement, its claims and purposes. He keeps repeating the assertion that "the English situation is NOT like America," as though this has any relevance to the issues that GAFCON seeks to address. GAFCON does not seek to intervene in the inner workings of the Church of England. The official GAFCON statement makes no claims about "liberalism" inside the Church of England or about its (in-)ability to deal with it; this issue is a bogey that Wright keeps raising.
What GAFCON addresses is the categories that define the global communion. It is not taking a "global sledgehammer to crack the American nut" but a "global sledgehammer" to deal with a genuine global issue. The "American nut" is the collocation of organizational power and widespread heresies in TEC, but the global issue is the inability of the Anglican Communion as presently constituted to do anything about it. Only after much confusion of the issue does Wright finally get to admitting that, "The point is this: global Anglicanism has never had, and still does not have, ANY mechanisms for enabling anyone, Canterbury or anyone else, to intervene in another province." Here finally Wright's aptitude for clear articulation of ideas--which I so much admire--finally shines through. What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that this IS precisely the problem that GAFCON is addressing.
The Windsor Report, on which Wright collaborated, was a brilliant document for seeking a solution through the existing structures of communion. But without wise and purposeful implementation, Windsor is meaningless -- or as the GAFCON statement more harshly asserts, without implementation, Windsor becomes a screen for what is IN PRACTICE a "colonial structure" for ignoring theological/ecclesiological leadership from non-European/American primates. Here is the issue as the GAFCON statement succinctly puts it: "Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the Instruments of Unity, no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008." That is not an "American nut" but a global, communion-level issue.
So Wright has recognized the real issue but prefers to trust in existing structures that have proved ineffectual (to say the least). GAFCON addresses the same real issue, not with a sledgehammer, but with a scalpel--elegant, simple and precise. Do you confess historic, orthodox Christianity or not? If you do, then we are in communion with you. If not, why should we keep acting as though you are part of the same thing as we? Why create complex contortionist structures to pretend that a pantheistic TEC bishop is an Anglican Christian and to accommodate his/her voice for defining the Anglican communion? The Jerusalem confession truly is self-selecting; the proposed council of primates isn't going to exclude anyone from some private "club" on arbitrary criteria. How is it "bullying" to say at the door, "Here's what we're about. Are you sure this is what you want to be a part of?" And if a TEC bishop "opts-out" of confessing historical Christianity, he/she should not be a roadblock between an orthodox parish and the global communion. Let the global communion, with whom that parish wants to be associated, recognize a bishop who "opts-in" -- that's the global solution to the global problem AND to the American problem.
The simple thing would be for all Church of England bishops to affirm the Jerusalem confession and then go on about their business. If they cannot affirm it, then England DOES have an America-like problem -- but GAFCON has not made any claims about England either way. If some parishes/diocese in England have a genuine issue with liberal bishops (i.e. who cannot affirm the Jerusalem confession), then GAFCON would provide a solution for them as well. But if England is as orthodox as Wright claims, the CofE should be able to handle the problem of such bishops on its own. And if the CofE DOESN'T have an effective way of dealing with bishops who refuse to confess historic Christianity, then Wright should stop saying that "the English situation is NOT like America."
The real problem, however, which Wright does not articulate with his native clarity, is that GAFCON has tied confessing orthodox Christianity TOGETHER WITH admitting that the existing structures have not worked to address the communion-level problem; it consequently asserts that a council of confessing primates is a solid instrument of communion that "fits" what the communion should actually look like. If Wright really wanted to be constructive, he would say this: "I affirm the Jerusalem statement and recognize it as a solid basis for communion. BUT I do not like this council of primates idea for the following reasons: (a)...(b)...(c)...etc. AND though I have as much as admitted in this article that the present structures are not working to solve the communion-level problem, I believe that they will eventually do so, for the following reasons: (a)...(b)...(c)...etc."
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 12 July 2008 - 07:37am
Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey, in the Diocese of Guildford, has published a preparation paper on the church web site for his PCC away day. He was at GAFCON and near the end of the paper some details of future plans for GAFCON in England are given, which are copied below:
Homosexual Practice? The Biblical Answer
Christ Church PCC Away Day, Saturday 5th July 2008
This month’s Lambeth Conference will neither discuss the issue or pass any resolutions. Nor will Rowan Williams agree to meet with the Primates, the fellow archbishops of the Anglican Communion to hear their concerns. That is why some 291 Anglican Archbishops and Bishops have decided to act without him.
Let me explain what is going to happen next:
In August the Global Primates Council will meet and decide how to provide pastoral oversight for orthodox Anglicans worldwide. This will probably involve parallel jurisdiction where clergy and parishes are in impaired communion with their Bishops.
In September, Ro, Francis and I will preach a four week sermon series on the issues confronting the Church of England at the moment – namely biblical authority, homosexuality, false teachers and false gospel.
On Wednesday 10th September there will be a Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship meeting at St Saviour’s Guildford about the Jerusalem Declaration, when Stephen Hofmeyr QC and I will speak and Bishop Michael Nazir Ali has also been invited to speak.
On Saturday 11th October (mark it in your diary) we will be hosting an all day conference at which we will watch the presentations made by the three Archbishops and Jim Packer at yesterday’s All Soul’s conference, together with further material from the Jerusalem conference. During the day there will also be space for small group discussions and prayer.
Then you will be invited to respond to the Jerusalem Declaration, as will every church in the global Anglican Communion have to, sooner or later. In November the issue has been tabled for discussion by our Deanery Synod, and we hope the Diocesan Synod at some point.
As to the future, we are in God’s hands. But burying our heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away will not do any good. We cannot go back to the way things were. Like a nuclear explosion, the fall out will affect every church within the Anglican communion.
http://www.cc-vw.org/articles/homosexualityinscripture.htm
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 11 July 2008 - 08:03pm
An update on the numbers of people and of groups who have signed the GAFCON petition 11 days after it went online:
1. Individuals in England 1129
the public list of signatories is here
2. Individuals in the World (excluding England) 1117
the public list of signatories is here
3. Groups (including PCCs) in the World 13
Of these, 6 are from the USA, 1 from Italy, 1 from Northern Ireland and only 3 of those from England say they represent votes of PCCs
the public list of signatories is here
In his article 'England bypassed. Global Communion Isolated', John Richardson wrote on the Ugley Vicar site, 6 July 2008:
there is no clear way ahead for GAFCON supporters and sympathizers within England itself...
The absence of a clear way ahead is due to there being no post-GAFCON follow up group in England itself. Nor does there appear to be any coordinated strategy for the future.
Posted by: Ken Petrie
Friday 11 July 2008 - 02:38pm
Nerson,
Yes but don't forget the membership figures are rather notional the C of E may claim 25m members but we all know the vast majority are non-practising (as the RCs would put it) and probably don't consider themselves members at all. If we take the number of "real" members, England probably has a similar ratio to the USA. It is the poorer churches who cannot afford so many bishops who are truly under-represented.
But then, Lambeth is supposed to be a conference, not a governing body. If it is to become the latter it will need a quota system to ensure fair representation.
Posted by: Ken Petrie
Friday 11 July 2008 - 02:28pm
Sorry, Tim,
This thread's got so long it's difficult to read through the whole thing and I missed the discussion you initiated.
I agree most people don't read the Articles, but when formulating a document which refers to them it looks very silly not to check its compatibility with them.
There's an obvious problem with the second part of Article 26 if the person responsible for overseeing discipline is unwilling to act, but does that negate the first part? I think not.
Of course, the C of E only has itself to blame after making provision for those who reject women priests to have alternative oversight. As the 39 Articles are the nearest thing we have to a detailed confessional statement it might have been better to direct efforts into teaching what it is to be an Anglican Christian.
It seems to me that that is the way forward - not to neglect preaching the Gospel - of course not, but discipling needs to include some basic ecclesiology and teaching around the Articles, so people are less likely to fall into these kinds of errors.
But who will do that, and how is it to be organised? The current leadership, be they synods or Archbishops seem unwilling to lead here, or surely they would have done it already. Or maybe they just need the suggestion to be made.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Friday 11 July 2008 - 09:43am
If you don't believe Lambeth is skewed hopelessly - read what the TECUSA PB says about her huge numerical advantage (which comes from having a ridiculous number of bishops small numbers, just 16,000 members per bishop (canada is more over represented at Lambeth)...
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/14145/
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Thursday 10 July 2008 - 11:41am
1713,
see my post on this thread on Tuesday 1st July, 9.36am
I think it's utter tosh to say that Article 26 doesn't apply to bishops! + David Stancliffe who ordained me was very strong on the idea that when ordained priest one does not cease to be a deacon, and when ordained bishop one does not cease to be a priest. (don't quite know where that leaves those who were saying that women should have been ordained bishop first then priest)
The trouble with the 39 articles is that most people never read them, they just appeal to them from time to time, for specific reasons, rather than allow them to regulate everyday life and ministry in the church.
For example I got to know article 26 through a discussion on infant baptism, where those wishing to be "rebaptised" said stuff like "the vicar who did me as a baby wasn't a Christian, so it didn't count." (but all that belongs on a different thread)
Posted by: Ken Petrie
Thursday 10 July 2008 - 09:38am
Does anyone agree that the Jerusalem Declaration appears seriously flawed in its present form because clause 13 conflicts with Article of Religion 26? Therefore it contradicts its own clause 4.
One supporter told me I am wrong because, in his view, Article 26 only applies to the ministry of priests and deacons and not to bishops, who have a special responsibility for orthodoxy. However, I can see nothing in the article which suggests such a limitation, and Cranmer appears to have adapted his argument from the Catholic-Donatist controversy in 4th century Africa, where the validity of bishops was the issue.
If the Declaration is self-contradictory it is hard to see how it can be considered a serious confessional statement or how anyone understanding it could agree it with a good conscience.
What do people think?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 9 July 2008 - 08:16am
Riazat Butt has written an article in The Guardian today, 'Women bishops an obstacle to unity, Vatican warns'. She mention GAFCON:
Another option being explored is the Global Anglican Future Conference, the breakaway traditionalist movement in the Anglican Communion launched last month in Jerusalem.
Synod member and Gafcon leader Canon Chris Sugden said there were precedents for severing ties with liberal churches, and gave examples of US dioceses that had rebelled against progressive leadership. "It is a factor. Unless something is done, it is obvious, although not inevitable," he said.
As has been mentioned on this thread before, what is new about GAFCON is 'alternative episcopal oversight', including in the Church of England from the wider Communion. The Fulcrum briefing paper for PCCs is therefore significant as is Andrew Goddard's detailed analysis of 'The GAFCON Movement and The Anglican Communion.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Wednesday 9 July 2008 - 07:18am
Mark says "I've a feeling the Synod vote is partly a result of the 'GAFCON effect'."
I have a feeling the vote is partly the result of "open" evangelical votes swinging the result.
I think Matt is right.....is the point of being "open" to attack "conservatives" even if it means liberals get their way and the authority of scripture is watered down yet again?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 9 July 2008 - 01:16am
Obviously (is it obvious?) I think Liddon makes a very good point. I make myself very clear that I do not believe in content or manner what Peter Jensen believes. But Liddon and I do not present the most difficult situation here. It gets more difficult and strange when there are people of different background (like Archbishop of Canterbury) who claim to agree with the Jerusalem Declaration in substance but then do not support what FOCA is up to. Then we have people who are of similar background who also claim to agree with the Jerusalem Declaration in substance and yet also do not support what FOCA is doing (Tom Wright, many in the Global South). Then there are people of other background (like traditionalist Anglo-Catholics) who probably don't support the substance of the Jerusalem Declaration but do support what FOCA is doing.
Indeed the Synod was not going to offer structures that would have meant a Church was organising its own schism: if these groups want to carry out schism then they'd better do the organising. It sounds like we'll know more by February 2009 when a few unholy alliances might be formed, but it rather looks like more a shattering than a schism when you work out the patchwork of different groups, reactions and intentions.
Posted by: DonD
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 10:12pm
Don writes
From the perspective of an orthodox, conservative priest in an orthodox conservative diocese in the U.S. I applaud the insights of Bp. Wright. My diocese has chosen to remain within the framework of the PECUSA (I refuse to bow to the arrogant use of TEC.) I have thought from the beginning that my peers who have jumped ship have done so from a position as arrogant as the leadership of PECUSA. I do not discern the work of the Spirit here. I also believe that if the rhetoric can be toned down a bit that useful dialogue may be achieved. I must also confess that I quite like Bp. Tom Wright's quintessentially English way of putting things.
Posted by: Canon Daniel Weir
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 02:01pm
I applaud Dr. Wright on his taking another look at GAFCON, but I disagree with his assessment of the crisis in the Anglican Communion. As one who applauded the action of the 2003 General Convention of the Episcopal Church in consenting to the election of Gene Robinson, I know that my views may be in the minority in this forum, but the Anglican Communion will not survive this crisis if we refuse to listen to one another.
From the beginning I thought the crisis was, like the crisis over the ordination of women, a crisis of choice. By that I mean that traditionalists chose to make the ordination of a partnered gay bishop a communion-breaking issue and have viewed those who disagreed with them as unfaithful to the Gospel. Oddly, few have seen disagreements on other ethical issues as communion-breaking. I am still willing to be in communion with Anglicans who seem to ignore the Gospel's concern for the poor, or who disagree with me about capital punishment or the war in Iraq.
Making this one issue the litmus test for orthodox faith was a choice, perhaps a conscientious choice, to be sure, but a choice nonetheless. As a lifelong pacifist, I have been enriched by being in communion with those who do not share my convictions, with many who served faithfully in the military. I have been enriched by the diversity of convictions on many matters that exist within the Anglican Communion, within the Episcopal Church and my diocese, and within the parish I serve. It was a Provost of Coventry Cathedral who wrote, "If everyone in the Church were just like, what kind of Church would that be?" My answer is that the Church would be impoverished.
What GAFCON is proposing is, I believe, an impoverished Church, a Church where no dissenting or prophetic voices will be heard, a Church which will ultimately define itself over against the "wicked revisionists." Such a Church is fissiparous and we can expect to see divisions over other issues. Dr. Wright has already identified the ordination of women as one issue, but there will be others in time and those issues may well result in further divisions between the truly orthodox and those no longer orthodox enough.
Posted by: Deleted user 1668
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 12:19pm
I've a feeling the Synod vote is partly a result of the 'GAFCON effect'. I'm sure it played a part in many (once sympathetic) Synod members turning away from any idea of providing 'alternative structures'. With GAFCON's intimations of a 'church within a church' and alternative oversight, they weren't going to offer what they possibly perceived as an eventual 'back door' for FoCA into the CoE. The GAFCON attacks on +Rowan and the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury can't have made them many friends in Synod either. It appears the 'traditionalists' took the brunt of the GAFCON backlash.
A big mistake for FiF to cosy up with Reform and GAFCON and, unfortunately, they've paid the price. I sense they could see which way the wind was blowing - FiF UK has been completely silent on GAFCON and the Declaration since the Conference finished, even though they were supporting it beforehand and sent members to it. Seeing the debacle it turned into, and the bad feeling it created in the CoE, perhaps made them try to distance themselves from it - knowing this vote was coming.
Posted by: Deleted user 1143
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 10:24am
My comment on the GAFCON petition, which I've signed today:
While Tom Wright's criticism aggravates sad divisions among Evangelicals, and some reactions to his reaction have been less than charitable, I welcome FOCA as a very encouraging development for a renewed Anglican way which is global and confessing. If Rowan Williams is truly the man that God has raised up to renew Anglicanism, as Wright believes, may Williams lead Lambeth bishops to work with the Jerusalem Declaration rather than against it.
Steve
Posted by: MattS
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 09:02am
Hello Graham,
With all respect, your last post is a bit like an arsonist complaining the house is on fire! If that scenario happens over this issue then of course general synod will only have itself to blame for not providing adequate support for traditionalists. I'm worried that this vote is going to be very problematic for all evangelicals in the future, bringing greater disunity, and also setting a dangerous precedent that you can be isolated and put out on a limb if you have a biblically formed conscience on a subject.
To be frank, although I recognise that the conservatives are not perfect and have made mistakes, I'm wondering at the moment what the point of Fulcrum is, because all you (plural) seem to be doing in practice is weakening your theological allies!
Posted by: liddon
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 08:49am
What world thinks of us is not the most important thing in this debate, I know, but it is worth noting. For many of us, who think that Jensen and others are seriously defective in their use of the Bible and their ways of interpretation, the link here is significant. I find it increasingly difficult to admit to being a Christian, when more and more people think that I must therefore believe what Jensen believes. There's so much to clear out of the way before I can even begin to discuss my faith seriously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ziECzNKhM
By association, when Jensen is mocked, so am I, and I think he's ridiculous. Gafcon has helped to make evangelism more difficult. How can we publicly, and forcefully distance ourselves from this?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 06:41am
There was a clear reference to, and threat of, GAFCON's overseas episcopal oversight concept during the General Synod debate on women bishops.
Riazat Butt reports in The Guardian, 8 July 2008:
In the debate, one churchman, Gerald O'Brien, told the synod there were possibilities of receiving episcopal oversight from overseas archbishops. His comments drew boos and hisses from the assembly.
Scott-Joynt criticised such threats. "We've got people talking about defection - they were clearly talking about the Global Anglican Future conference [held last month in Jerusalem, which ended with the threat of an Anglican breakaway]. We've got a lot of soul-searching to do."
Jerome Taylor also mentions this in his article in The Independent, 8 July 2008:
One lay delegate even suggested some traditionalists may now consider breaking away from the Church of England to join more conservative or evangelical provinces abroad.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 12:58am
Call me unfair but I'm afraid if he is being ironic he is allowing the words to be used both ways. Yes, that there is a kind of quoting what someone else would say about the "wicked" bishop at New Westminster, but then the following paragraph shows he agrees with that statement:
That is the very question I have asked myself – not only in relation to Jim Packer faced with the Diocese of New Westminster (i.e. Vancouver), but in relation to many of my close friends in various dire situations in the United States and in other parts of Canada as well.
Thus it is a dire situation that Jim Packer and close friends of Tom Wright face. Thus the quotation becomes one he agrees with. The second use also has neutral reference, and although contained in a caricature of FOCA he indicates agreement with the FOCA position on the US and Canada and tries to separate England from them. As such he is painting a kind of yobbo image of US and Canada and we assume there are wicked bishops doing these acts that no English bishop has yet done.
He could have chosen entirely different wording. No I won't withdraw what I have written. I looked the first time and assumed it was ironic.
As for him being under pressure, he might be under less pressure if he didn't think he should get involved. He did it before over these letters, which never existed, as if he is a heartbeat from the action. He isn't. He just seems to see a need to wade in and swing some punches. The advice would be to stop it.
There is a darkness about his contributions, and he really ought to examine this.
Presumably he will be having an interesting set of conversations at Lambeth with the American bishops, the Canadian bishops and especially the Bishop of New Westminster. Perhaps he may feel he can't take communion with one or more of them. And if he can then he ought to use an entirely different language. Only after Jim Packer left the Canadian Church and joined another did the bishop remove him, and attempt to take back the property. We shall see what Tom Wright does as a select few of his clergy sign up to international oversight. The boot will be on the other foot then.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 8 July 2008 - 12:39am
I thought he is being ironic. Then I thought, he is not. So as I write this I'll go off again. I still think he has gone into the gutter to participate in this language. People over at Thinking Anglicans (where I didn't post, as it happens, until later, seem to agree with me in general and specifically). I'll look again.
I have to say, though, that I think on past utterances that he does himself no favours and has done himself none with this.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Monday 7 July 2008 - 10:15pm
Yes Pete, a good analysis
All that "Choose this day" business calls to mind the stuff from 1967 when Martyn Lloyd Jones made an appeal for Evangelicals to leave the historical denominations and come together. John Stott stood up and said "There is another way ..." His idea prevailed then, but who knows now?
For me the Spirit of that "other way" is what Fulcrum is about.
Posted by: pete hobson
Monday 7 July 2008 - 09:14pm
Adrian (pluralist)
I don't think you're being at all fair to Tom Wright in your assault on him of his use of the word 'wicked' and if you're the fair-minded liberal I think you are then I hope you'll think again and concede that, whatever you may think of him and the rest of his article.
In context it seems entirely clear to me that he is being neither literal nor even ironic, but sarcastic about the way others use the word. The first (of two) uses comes in the context of describing how the GAFCON-minded set up the All Souls evening. He writes of the significance of the invitation to Jim Packer, which brings with him the subtext as follows: "And now to discover that our great Jim Packer is being persecuted by a wicked liberal bishop in Canada well, clearly its time to man the barricades! Why cant the Anglican Communion do something to help this wonderful man?" It seems to me abundantly clear from the context, these are not the chosen words or thoughts of Tom Wright, but the line of thinking he attributes, no doubt correctly, to those who issued the invitation. The whole point of this thread of argument is that he's criticising them for setting it up so confrontationally.
The second use comes as he describes what he takes to be the rhetoric and policy of GAFCON, part of which he says is "(c) here is a new movement which offers protection to those persecuted by wicked bishops, and which will enable us to advance the gospel." And again, he very clearly goes on to give reasons why he does NOT support this analysis and language.
That's not to say Tom Wright hasn't a lot of problems with the actions of some American and Canadian bishops - he clearly has. But it's abundantly clear to me that he doesn't take to himself the description of them as "wicked". And it's at best disingenuous to say that he does - not just here, but also to headline a whole article on your own website to that effect. Won't the impact of such writing be not to damp down but to stir up further extremes of language and attitude?
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Monday 7 July 2008 - 08:24pm
What is the meaning of GAFCON's Final Statement/Jerusalem Declaration (FS/JD)? Tyring to make sense of recent comments in this thread, combined with reflection on articles by the likes of +Tom Wright, and reports of the All Souls meeting, I wonder if we are seeing two schools of thought emerging.
One school is that the FS/JD is about setting up a fellowship within the Communion which strengthens and safeguards those who are being buffeted by the winds of outrageous episcopal leadership. In this school of thought the fellowship is committed to the ultimate wellbeing of the Anglican Communion, seeing ahead to a day when its fabric is repaired, and has no plans to engage in schismatic action. Within this line of thinking lie (e.g.) Archbishop Peter Jensen's comments when back in Australia that GAFCON will make almost no difference to parishioners in Australia, John Richardson's comments that the C of E will continue to muddle along, and those commenters on the internet who emphasise the FS/JDs content as a kind of useful point of rallying together but (effectively) deny some wording in the FS/JD which in its "plain" meaning implies a formal structure with the JD as the basis of its fellowship and the grounds on which people might reject jurisdiction over them.
The other school of thinking is that the FS/JD is the next step in a process of setting up an Anglican structure within the life of the Communion which is a prototype of a new global Anglican Fellowship so that (say) one more "Gene Robinson" or "St Barts wedding" and the schism will be complete between the Communion and the new global Fellowship. In this school of thinking lie the comments posted below by John Rogers, the fears expressed by +Tom Wright because he takes the 'plain' meaning of the FS/JD seriously, and the 'choose this day' comments which have been reported from the All Souls meeting.
I think the first school of thought is going to prevail ... in which case Fulcrum's "centre" should be comfortable with the outcome of FS/JD ... or, is that too optimistic?!
Posted by: Peter H
Monday 7 July 2008 - 04:43pm
Pluralist,
Tom Wright has certainly mis-judged the situation, (though I think I reach that conclusion for reasons that differ from yours - see thread on FOCA and the definition of Anglicanism) but lets make sure he is being treated fairly.
He is clearly intending to be partially ironic in his reference to "wicked" bishops who have gone for Jim Packer. For a man of such learning and scholarship it is a surprising lapse of language, but we all stumble from time to time.
This is a difficult time for Tom Wright and whilst I wish he would scale back his assault on GAFCON/FOCA, he remains one of our finest Christian leaders.
Peter H
Posted by: nersenpaul
Monday 7 July 2008 - 04:28pm
Sorry you feel like that, Simon. I do believe them...
Also, I feel the GAFCON people had little choice given the ABC did not accept the Fulcrum and ACI recommendations re Lambeth invitations.....many could not, in good conscience, go to Lambeth with those who deliberately ignored multiple pleas in 2003 and tore the fabric of the communion. I can see why people did not think that, 5 years on, what was needed was 3 weeks of facilitated chats with no decisions...... so, GAFCON was born. I wish they all would come to Lambeth too...but that is a lot of money and time and energy for a conference designed to yield zero results.
What surprises me is that so many bishops went to Jerusalem....they are not leaving the AC because they represent most of the AC's communicants and certainly the youth and growth in the AC. The breadth of the ALL Souls day, too, was amazing - as +Broadbent has said here, it was not just Reform types but varied CofE clergy who do not want to see further drift in the CofE.
I pray for growing friendship and fellowship and generosity between Fulcrum and GAFCON......we are united on the big issues (just divided on what is the right way to react to current circumstances).
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 7 July 2008 - 03:31pm
Calling another bishop "wicked" is a descent into the gutter.
Posted by: Simon Morden
Monday 7 July 2008 - 03:00pm
Nersen - I simply don't believe GAFCON when they say they want to be part of the Anglican Communion, and in the next breath they rewrite all the Instruments of Communion and break the link with Canterbury. I'm a writer by trade, and any good editor would have pointed out the logical and semantic gymnastics required to hold those thoughts together.
So, yes: I have noticed... Subsequent comments by Peter Jensen, John Rodgers and others signal their intentions. It doesn't rightly matter to me anymore if they have the courage to carry these intentions out. I've had enough of my presence in my old congregation used as support for something I see as schism.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Monday 7 July 2008 - 02:17pm
Simon Morden - so sorry to hear of your decision...but perhaps it has not been made clear to you that GAFCON is remaining in communion with Canterbury and the vast majority of the AC
Posted by: Simon Morden
Monday 7 July 2008 - 01:33pm
My first post here too, Mix.
My church is a GAFCON supporter, and whilst I'm a lowly pew-sitter, I know just how you feel. We (me, the missus and the kids) are leaving after 20 years to find another C of E church which wants to stay in communion with the See of Canterbury. The break is difficult, but the sadness we feel is tempered by our sense of betrayal.
To be frank, what else did GAFCON think was going to happen? Peter Jensen was absolutely right when he urged the All Souls meeting to choose, in or out. We followed his advice and chose to stand with those who GAFCON don't think are good enough.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Monday 7 July 2008 - 12:23pm
It is well worth reading Archbishop Rowan Williams' sermon in York Minster yesterday in full.
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1881
In the Telegraph Jonathan Wynne-Jones describes him as:
"Today, however, he grew in stature as the sermon went on, emerging by the end of it as the leader that the Anglican communion so desperately needs - compassionate yet direct and vulnerable yet firm."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/07/07/do0702.xml
Posted by: Deleted user 1668
Monday 7 July 2008 - 11:27am
+John Rodgers (AMiA) certainly appears to have been pushing for a schism at GAFCON. +Paul Hewitt, of the Diocese of the Holy Cross and Moderator of the Federation of Anglican Churches in America (a member of CCP), writes in his report on GAFCON:
"Bishop Rodger’s projection for the future is that a new faithful Anglican conciliar Communion should be formed as soon as possible. The GAFCON primates would call a Council “which would begin the reformed Global Anglican Family comprised of all those provinces, dioceses and congregations as wished and were able to align with it. It would thus initiate the reformed Anglican Family allowing it to take its place in the world, unattached from the present Anglican Communion."
http://anglicanblog.org/?p=14
This is, no doubt, the view of many in the 'continuing' movement in the US, made easier by the fact they have already made the break with Canterbury. It is evident that at GAFCON this view did not hold sway - although that's not to say it isn't still there as an 'option'.
Posted by: Mike
Monday 7 July 2008 - 10:45am
Thank you, Tom Wright, for your article. It certainly helps to clear the air for me. Now will you please say something about Todd Bentley, whose exploits in Florida are causing our church more controversy than GAFCON and women bishops put together?
Posted by: Mix
Monday 7 July 2008 - 10:21am
This is the first contribution I have made to Fulcrum, indeed the first 'blog' I have ever written. It is written out of deep anxiety.
The GAFCON and FoCA solutions are not only inappropriate for England, they are deeply divisive of Evangelical Christians within the Church of England.
My parish, in which I am a licenced Reader, has on its P.C.C. agenda this week these very proposals. If my parish should decide to commit itself to these movements, a huge wedge will be driven between myself and my Incumbent. Our essential unity will be destroyed and I will be left in an untenable position.
The whole situation is a tragedy, especially for those of us members of the laity who have to sit back in anguish and observe what is going on over our heads. I write from a heavy heart.
I am most grateful to Bishop Wright for his article of 6th of July.
For the moment, I must remain in aninimity.
Posted by: Mix
Monday 7 July 2008 - 10:19am
This is the first contribution I have made to Fulcrum, indeed the first 'blog' I have ever written. It is written out of deep anxiety.
The GAFCON and FoCA solutions are not only inappropriate for England, they are deeply divisive of Evangelical Christians within the Church of England.
My parish, in which I am a licenced Reader, has on its P.C.C. agenda this week these very proposals. If my parish should decide to commit itself to these movements, a huge wedge will be driven between myself and my Incumbent. Our essential unity will be destroyed and I will be left in an untenable position.
The whole situation is a tragedy, especially for those of us members of the laity who have to sit back in anguish and observe what is going on over our heads. I write from a heavy heart.
I am most grateful to Bishop Wright for his article of 6th of July.
For the moment, I must remain in aninimity.
Posted by: User 1699
Monday 7 July 2008 - 09:35am
Dear Tom,
Thank you for your clear statement that 'same-sex blessings and ordination of practicing homosexuals is an anti-scriptural scandal symptomatic of major theological and exegetical unAnglican innovation' and that we 'urgently need to address this whole situation'. I think many of us who have complained about what the Archbishop of Canterbury has or has not done in the last few years have simply been waiting for exactly this kind of statement from him. He could then have genuinely withdrawn fellowship from those who persisted — that, I take it, requires no legal authority or structure.
Thank you too for graciously conceding that '"the Windor process" has not done what many of us wanted' and that 'the "covenant" draft has not so far reached a point where I am convinced it will do what we urgently need it to do'. I agree that the most recent draft takes us even further away from an effective response to the crisis created by false teaching and unfaithful behaviour in America and Canada (including the use of legal instruments to persecute anyone who protests at the doctrinal and ethical innovations of people like Katherine Jefferts Schori).
However, what disturbs me a little in your response is your willingness to attribute malign motives to the leaders of the GAFCON movement. You say you wish people to refrain from doing so where you are concerned but you are all too quick to claim that it is an issue of a longstanding power game and a conspiracy by right wing extremists. Casting the entire event in the framework of this kind of power play is, I would have thought, something you would recoil against. You hint in your response that some have attributed such motives to you and you do not like it. Perhaps the courtesy might be extended to those you disagree with (which would involve disowning such inflamatory language as 'bullying' and 'protection racket').
I am also a little disturbed by your portrayal of the happy state of the Church of England. The raw statistics tell a rather different story. Such a small percentage of the population actually attends C of E churches anymore. Respect for the clergy is at an all time low. Ordination candidates at major universities are still being told that if they do not abandon their evangelical convictions they cannot expect academic success. In addition, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that faithful men and women are being carpetted by bishops in English dioceses for daring to voice their opposition to same-sex blessings, the appointment of Jeffrey John as Dean of St Albans, or the prospect of women bishops. I am happy to grant that, as only a visitor to the UK from time to time, I may not pick up the subtle nuances of growth, orthodoxy and general well-being. The stories I keep hearing might all be apocryphal. But if there is even a shred of truth in them, isn't blindness to the facts a rather dangerous quality in a Christian leader?
I appreciate you are concerned about GAFCON and its consequences. But I think many, many more of us would have been concerned had not GAFCON produced a clear and effective response to years of neglect by Anglican leadership - yes, even in England.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Mark
Posted by: Craig G
Monday 7 July 2008 - 07:09am
A response to +Durham from a Yank:
Your Reverence,
Please allow me, as an ordinary, formerly-Episcopal high-church layman, to respond to your comments on Fulcrum of July 6.
First, I am sure you are quite right that the situations in America and England are not comparable. In any case, I have no knowlege of the CoE situation (beyond the generally sensationalistic public press) and have no expertise to comment on it.
But there is from an American point of view an aspect of the Current Unpleasantness that you have overlooked. You quite rightly underline, at several points, the dreadful situation in America, but you don't seem to appreciate its pressing character for those involved. A decade is a short time in ecclesiological development -- as it is a vanishing nanosecond in geological time -- but to a congregant it is, for example, the crucial period to educate a child, from the ages of six to sixteen, say -- and for this particular child, those years will never come again.
Likewise, when a building is lost in a courtroom battle, what has been lost is not merely a roof over an Anglican eucharist, but the multigenerational effort to preserve and maintain Anglican Christianity against a world which has always been full of distractions and temptations in all directions at once -- but uniformly away from the Lord, as you -- a distinguished evangelical -- understand better than most. The situation in America is not merely disgraceful, as you say, but also both catastrophic and urgent. There is a point at which you must either jump from the burning building or resign yourself to a firey death; you cannot wait any longer for a committee report.
But as to GAFCon: I have personally defended ++Rowan against what I saw as unfair and oversimplified accusations, on the Web and elsewhere, for years. I have defended the Windsor Report, even when it somehow morphed in Episcopal jargon into the Windsor "Process", and I have posted any number of blog comments urging patience and allowing Communion processes to work themselves out. But what has been clearly demonstrated over the last few years is that all Communion processes -- wooly and typically Anglican as they are -- depend ultimately on the Archbishop of Canterbury for their enforcement. Yes, indeed, as ++Rowan has maintained, authority in Anglicanism is conciliar. But unless the Archbishop is willing to take concrete -- and inherently unpleasant -- steps to enforce legitimate conciliar decisions, authority becomes not conciliar but nonexistent. Dromantine and Dar both provided demonstrable conciliarity and conclusions which called for concrete action vis-a-vis the American churches; in both cases these conclusions were undermined -- gratuitously and transparently -- by the official organs of the Communion.
If decisive action to require specific guarantees from the North American churches had been taken immediately upon issuance of the Dromantine communique, we would not be where we are. If decisive action to implement the structures proposed at Dar es Salaam had been taken immediately, whatever obscure plot you discern to take over the Communion would not have gathered sufficient support to progress. But we are where we are; and although it is pointless and uncharitable to assign blame on the basis of "what might have been", it nonetheless appears that the last clear chance (borrowing a concept from American automobile-accident insurance) to avoid this catastrophe was clearly in the hands of the Archbishop.
It was (or should have been) obvious years ago that the same tensions evident in the North American churches were present -- though perhaps less evident -- in the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury has consistently declined to take any real steps to resolve these tensions, probably because they involve irreconcilable differences and thus any effective resolution would involve not discussion but simply and unavoidably canning some clergy -- inherently unpleasant. So we continue to temporize, confident that God or Jeeves will pull things out all right in the end.
There is an old and dreadfully pragmatic American aphorism: "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." It may well be that this aphorism reflects an aspect of Creation, and "later" has come. The leadership of the Communion has been playing a game for some years now that depended on matters not reaching a head before Lambeth 08. Their risk estimate has proven wrong.
You describe darkly a conspiracy from Australia to seize control of the Communion, and a Manichean effort to force bishops to take sides in a (from your point of view) nonexistent controversy. Very well. What, precisely, are the points at issue between the GAFCon Declaration and the Church of England? What doctrinal claims does GAFCon make that are officially adiaphora in the Church of England? What is there in the doctrine or Canons of the Church of England that prohibits bishops and even archbishops from forming associations for particular Christian purposes?
And what on earth lead you to think that, once the fire had been left alone to spread in North America, it would not jump the Atlantic?
With all blessings and in all humility,
Craig Goodrich
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 7 July 2008 - 12:23am
I'm not sure theological liberalism is so unpopular when it is clear. So much of it is hidden, hidden behind a dance of mutual expectations about being orthodox. I discovered last week a woman in the congregation where I go who described herself at the edge of standard beliefs, who'd done a feminist theology diploma. So there is a sharing of books and no doubt now she'll join a group that discusses liberal theology issues, what one attender called the "radical theology" group.
The problem with the liberal approach is that it does not have the advantage of clarity: it is not one general opinion that is easily marketed. I shall of course be interested to see if my adult education theology course, it'll be of a drop-in nature too, attracts people who want to discuss religion without having to declare some sort of commitment. Why should they? There are many people interested in religion - watch such programmes on TV say by Robert Beckford, who's a liberal theologian that draws in black experience, but would not want to sign on the dotted line. But in any case, the nature of churchgoing in Britain is that it is such a minority event that if you are a believer you may go, but those who are doubtful tend to stay away - whereas in community forming America even the secularised can be churchgoers.
For example, the Unitarian Univeralist Association in the United States has year on year steady growth in numbers. It has a base to draw on of churchgoing, and then uses that base for some distinct identities of religious humanist, pagan, eastern and liberal Christian groupings. It also benefits from the lack of religious education in the state sector, and so provides non-dogmatic religious education from children through to adults. This aspect is lost to Britain because the state took over RE, and the Sunday School movement has collapsed everywhere. The Unitarian denomination struggles in this country, and cannot come to any clear identity - not a pluralist one, not a liberal-Christian one and not a humanist one. What also has defeated it too is that the liberals in other denominations stay put: whether in Anglicanism, the URC or Methodism. However, though Unitarianism is tiny now it may just be lean and distinctive enough to maintain itself whilst other denominations, like the URC and Methodism implode, as they probably will in a few decades (the liberal argument is a current argument: does anyone in the public know why they should be Methodist or URC for example?). I mean, where I live the URC has gone and the Methodist Church is at a critical point of oncoming failure, as resources are stretched out.
My view of current events is not that the liberalism of the Church of England is being weakened, but that Anglo-Catholicism has been critically weakened and that this is happening now to the evangelical side. Any liberal dispute would come much later, but the evangelical side is about to break its back through its division.
If people get recruited into being evangelicals and charismatics, people in church life are formed into being more liberal. Most liberals have already been on a religious journey. I'm different from most in that I started out liberal. Most I have encountered started somewhere else and as they read and did courses etc. changed their views. They continue in the same places and are generally quiet. Huge assumptions are made about the laity in churches as if they are all demanding orthodoxy this and that - they are not. They think practically, in a this-worldly fashion, and the faith is identifier of who they are and some general aspiration about their own life direction and moral code. They usually welcome open discussion. Some of us, though, are more ideological in our liberalism, and in the church we have a monthly group and discuss various beliefs and otherwise.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 11:50pm
It might be helpful for Fulcrum readers to see what Peter Jensen expects to happen in Australia as a result of gafcon. Answer: nothing.
'I don't expect Australian churchgoers to notice changes here because of the conference in Jerusalem. These events are being played out on the world stage. But we too have our part to play in this Anglican renewal and the first step is to recognise the crisis, and that the conference is part of the solution.'
He makes clear that the crisis is North American. "There is a saying in financial circles that when Wall Street sneezes, Australia catches a cold. Such is the global dominance of North America that whatever happens within its shores, reaches ours eventually. This is true as much of cultural and ideological matters as it is of finance. .....
.... At the moment, the problems are centred on North America. The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church in the US, is not large by American standards. What is more, its churches are closing for lack of numbers. Some would say the revisionist teaching espoused by its leaders has only hastened that decline."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/its-not-just-about-gays-africans-provide-succour-to-a-church-inchaos/2008/07/03/1214950947571.html
Most observers would regard the Australian and UK situations to be broadly similar in regard to to official actions of synods in regard to same sex blessings and gay bishops. I suspect that while Peter Jensen will wish that English Evangelicals would rally around Gafcon, he would expect roughly similar effects in the UK and downunder.
Sydney's response to the Communion Crisis has always centred on a desire to aid those like St John's Shaunessy in Vancouver who waited five years for aid from the communion.
Bishop Wright is frank about the failures of the Windsor report and the difficulties of getting the covenant to work. He is earnest in seeking to help those that Sydney and Gafcon are also trying to help.
It may be that given time to reflect on gafcon it will be seen by both Bishop Wright and Fulcrum as the best "plan B" around. There seems to be no other proposal to deal with the urgent US/canada situation alternative to the problematic Windsor and Covenant solutions.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 11:35pm
It might be helpful for Fulcrum readers to see how Peter Jensen sees Gafcon playing out in Australia, which is more similar to the CofE in the matters that Bishop Wright raises. I take Bishop Wright's essential point that the UK is very different to the US on this matter. I Peter Jensen thinks that gafcon won't be felt much in Australia, it is claer he is not expecting it to prodiuce an earthquake in the UK. More like a minor tremor at least for now.
"I don't expect Australian churchgoers to notice changes here because of the conference in Jerusalem. These events are being played out on the world stage. But we too have our part to play in this Anglican renewal and the first step is to recognise the crisis, and that the conference is part of the solution."
Peter Jensen clearly points to the US/Canada as the problem that Gafcon is trying to solve:
"There is a saying in financial circles that when Wall Street sneezes, Australia catches a cold. Such is the global dominance of North America that whatever happens within its shores, reaches ours eventually. This is true as much of cultural and ideological matters as it is of finance. What is more, much of this influence is imperceptible until you look back and see how far the ground has shifted.
I can understand why many people read about the outcome of the Global Anglican Future Conference and thought, "Crisis? What crisis?" I made the point to reporters in Jerusalem that we in Australia have been remarkably conservative on the matters which have deeply torn the fabric of the church globally."
Bishop Wright is helpfully frank about the failure of the Windsor report in dealing with the US/Canada situation. There is no optimism about the covenant process in his article either.
When he has time post Lambeth, to reflect on Gafcon, he may come to see that it is the only "plan B" around to deal with his "American Nut".
Posted by: MattS
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 11:07pm
Hello "Pluralist"
I agree with a lot of what you say below, there clearly are sociological factors why some denominations or congregations grow. However, there should be no contradiction from a Christian perspective in saying there are also theological or spiritual reasons for the same. I realise you are not from the theologically orthodox camp, of course.
I'd also be interested to hear what your opinions are on the reasons for the relative unattractiveness of liberal theology at the moment and what you think the future holds for theological liberalism.
Posted by: Jtrev
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 11:04pm
I have read +Durham's statement today. He qualifies his previous generosity to GAFCON. In my view, he starts to take a clear tilt at the power-play that underlies this exercise. St Paul had to deal with his 'super-apostles'. It seems that we have these tactics moving against the Church again. It will quicken us all to reach for that which is good and right - especially when one party claims true orthodoxy as part of their power-play.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 10:52pm
We have just published on Fulcrum the following:
Andrew Goddard, 'The GAFCON Movement and the Anglican Communion'
Tom Wright, 'Further Thoughts on GAFCON and Related Matters'
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 09:51pm
Thanks Mark for the John Richardson link. It is very encouraging reading. I am glad not to have over-looked it, thanks to you.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 09:46pm
Thanks, Mark, for the link into John Richardson's article.
Is its tone, perhaps, related to the low number of individuals in England so far who have signed up in solidarity to the Jerusalem Declaration and the GAFCON Final Statement?
After six days of the petition being online, since 1 July, the number is:
573
The number of Anglican organisations and groups (including PCCs) who have signed up so far is: 4
Posted by: Deleted user 1668
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 08:02pm
As 'Micky' suggested in the post quoted, John Richardson has admitted that FoCA will have no influence on the CoE itself:
http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2008/07/england-bypassed-global-communion.html
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 06:24pm
We understand why such churches grow: it is called culture, development, authority patterns transferred, general beliefs in the supernatural and magic, the amount of illness and early death, a comparison of the local with the biblical stories...
In this culture growing churches, so called, bleed from each other, about large car parks and pulling in people from all around - demographics over anything else. Churches with distinctive identities can do better than those with other.
Posted by: John Waldsax
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 05:00pm
I have just listened, twice, to a visiting African bishop on his way to Lambeth confirming that he and his colleagues (who mostly did not attend GAFCON) are going to Lambeth not because they do not agree with GAFCON / FOCA on the orthodox bases of our faith, but because they want to work for our unity as orthodox believers within the communion. This comes from a church which was formed and in recent long periods of war and starvation was supported by many in the C of E, for which his gratitude was sincere. He was also quite open about such African problems as polygamy, but reported that this is dying out within their church under the pressure of scriptural teaching and firm but sensitive pastoral leadership, not by mass ex-communications!. He sees no reason why this approach should not work for any other fashionable sin by church members; holiness of living is a standard response to diligently taught faith.
I am struck, after many weekly hours of blogg and news reading in recent weeks, by how rabidly irrational and manipulative both the main sides in the "liberal" / "orthodox" debate can be in their utterances. Some of the condemnation of "African fundamentalists" ( and I could quote worse) by liberal writers, borders on racism with overtones of imperalism. So much good is wrecked by the few bitter, cynical or sarcastic phrases scatterred like cluster bomblets through otherwise thoughtful Christian soil. What is always missing however from the the knee-jerk libertarian texts, from either side of the Atlantic, is the acknowledgement of which churches are actually growing. We should all be more pragmatic in assessing claims to righteousness in church life. God is actually letting the liberal Western churches wither on the vine. The fact that these same folk's culture maps perfectly onto our Western media's cynical libertarian ways should not disguise the fact that in church terms it is they who are eating the wrong food and dying of malnourishment. May God support those working for the unity of the church with a gentle and humble persistance, and please let's recognise whose churches are grwoing and understand why.
Posted by: Deleted user 1668
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 02:38pm
As if we were in any doubt. Bp John Rodgers (AMiA) reflecting on GAFCON:
"We are the Communion.
"We are not breaking away from the Anglican Communion." In essence the fellowship of confessing Anglicans took things in hand and declared that we are the true and faithful Anglicans, upholding the historic Anglican grasp of the apostolic faith, and as such we are the true representatives of the Anglican Communion. Let those who are departing from historic Anglican convictions about the authority and content of the Scriptures come back to what Anglicans have confessed all along. If they are unwilling to do so, it is they, not we, who should leave..."
"...There is a freeing aspect to the formation of the Primates Council as well. Being under the Primates Council, we can ignore erroneous and oppressive structures and leaders. In the Jerusalem Declaration we have said that we reject the authority of leaders, structures and churches that operate in contradiction of the apostolic faith as Anglicans have received it. For example, it is noteworthy that this Council of Primates will give recognition to the new orthodox province in North America.
The Anglican Consultative Council, which is the official body in the Anglican Communion which recognizes provinces, will be by-passed and not be asked to recognize the new province. Surely this is an application of the rejection of an authority which at present is not seen to be in agreement with the apostolic faith. Couple that claim to and exercise of authority with the assertion that being Anglican is not necessarily attached to recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury and one sees a very serious demarcation and hedge of protection for the fellowship of confessing Anglicans and for the call to all Anglicans to return to the apostolic faith."
It appears all the Instruments of Communion are being ignored or by-passed - The ABC, Lambeth, the ACC, and, by implication, the Primates Meeting - in favour of the new Primates Council of 'true' Anglicans.
More here - http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8547
Posted by: nersenpaul
Sunday 6 July 2008 - 10:49am
Graham- would you claim Fulcrum does not take a "political" position in church debates?
I think Fulcrum leadership should pay more attention to the political movements in the church which campaign to get the church to condone behaviour "incompatible with scripture".......and one of their political strategies is to talk the talk of communion and so to split evangelicals into those who are more confrontational and those who are not.... I fear you fall for their trap and end up attacking people with whom you agree on the big issues (ie authority of scripture) and thereby strengthen the political movements in the CofE which are working to weaken the authority of scripture in the church.....and partly succeeding because they claim all the "nice" evangelicals like you are not in GAFCON so there is no problem really......
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 06:20pm
Thanks, Peter H. People reading the web have no more idea who 'Micky' or 'Observer' is than who 'Peter H' is. None of the three of you use your full names.
Stand Firm is an interesting conservative site based in the USA and the people who write major articles for it, eg Matt Kennedy and Greg Griffith, provide strong backing for both the Common Cause Partership (CCP) and GAFCON. They see GAFCON as CCP on an international scale.
The comments I quoted by 'Micky' are accurate, it seems to me, about what Reform and Church Society have been trying for many years to do in England. They are also accurate, it seems to me, in terms of the power of 'Establishment' to hold the Church of England together. His remark, 'The only new thing is in the area of alternative oversight', seems to me to be very perceptive. GAFCON in England is at heart about 'alternative oversight'. That is the new push.
The comment by 'Observer' I quoted as an example of how someone who blogs a lot on both Stand Firm and TitusOneNine sees GAFCON and the Church of England. I thoroughly disagree with his use of the term 'war', but that word is indeed being used, and I think it is unhelpful. It is interesting to note that he says, 'take back the theological colleges' - where have we heard that before?
Both the 'Observer' quote and the John Richardson quote (at least John uses his full name now) manifest that GAFCON is indeed a 'political movement' in the Church. The letter sent out by the organisers of the meeting in London, (to eg clergy in Oxford), specifically said:
Nor do we have any intentions to start some new “political’ organisation - the evangelical world has enough of those already!
Yet we have seen:
1. a 'manifesto' - the GAFCON statement
2. a 'rally' meeting in London to present the manifesto and raise support for it - 'What of England? What of GAFCON in England? You must take sides' (Peter Jensen at All Souls Langham Place, the evening of 1 July 2008)
3. 'campaigning petitions' on the web urging people, and PCCs, to sign up to the manifesto
Yes, it was very good that we published Robert Gagnon's article on Fulcrum and the interaction it produced has been lively. Fulcrum is in touch with conservative Evangelicals and we have published some 'encouragements' about GAFCON as well as some serious questions.
What is becoming clear, it seems to me, is that:
1. GAFCON is indeed a political movement in the Church - as well as a movement for theological and spiritual renewal
2. the heart of it is about alternative episcopal oversight.
Posted by: Peter H
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 03:39pm
Graham,
Who are "Micky" and "Observing" and what on earth has convinced you that they have something sensible to say about GAFCON ???.
"Observing" introduces the language of War in a manner that leaves me speechless. This kind of language is bizzare and dangerous and in these difficult days should be treated as toxic nonsense - which is what it is.
If Fulcrum wants to be taken seriously it cannot start "cutting" and "pasting" such internet outbursts and passing them off as perceptive commentary on those who Fulcrum regards with concern
One of the refreshing aspects of the Gagnon dialogue is that it established that Fulcrum has a genuine interest in maintaining a link with what it tends to refer to as Conservative Evangelicals.
If you now engage in an old-fashioned "Hatchet Job" on GAFCON, on the basis that the ends justify (any) means you will loose that constituency very rapidly
Peter H
Posted by: nersenpaul
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 01:35pm
Pluralist - obvious candidates....you can start with patrons of Changing Attitude given they support an organisation that campaigns (even getting Lottery money in the past!) to get the Church of England to condone behaviour which is "incompatible with scripture"......
I was surprised GAFCON got more than 300 bishops......representing the vast majority of the Anglicans in the world (and all the growth) - time have changed, Pluralist....
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 02:28am
Graham,
At the press conference during the London Gafcon meeting, Peter Jensen was asked if he had a role on the Primate's committee. He replied that he would have no role as he was not a primate.
You can check this on the video of the proceedings made by Ruth Gledhill and posted on the anglicantv.org site.
Is it possible to ammend the Fulcrum response to Gafcon on this point?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 12:39am
Someone called 'Micky' on the Stand Firm site, has commented on GAFCON in England after the meeting in London on 1 July:
But how exactly will it impact the Church of England? Those clergy (Reform and otherwise) supportive of GAFCON have been believing and doing all it suggests for years. Nothing will change as to their theology or mission by them signing the Jerusalem Declaration.
The only new thing is in the area of alternative oversight. But English clergy cannot reject the authority of their diocesan without losing their parish, their church, their home, their income. Those in the CoE who wish for alternative oversight will have to leave the CoE with however many parishioners wish to follow them. Even if they do this, they may still be in communion with the GAFCON provinces but they will no longer be members of the Anglican Communion, anymore than the Church of Sweden is just because it’s in communion with the CoE.
Oak Hill and Wycliffe may support GAFCON, but the Bishops can withdraw their status as recognised theological colleges and/or refuse to license priests from them.
Surely, in the English situation GAFCON will have no more and no less impact than Reform itself, unless clergy and people are willing to abandon everything and start afresh - and that’s a big if.
This was then answered,on the same Stand Firm thread, by someone called 'Observing':
It is a call to unite, arm, defend and ultimately go to war to return the church to truth.
- Unity - when one is attacked, all will unite in response.
- Arm - take back the theological colleges. Ensure those entering the priesthood have sound training and sound doctrine.
- Defend. Educate the laymen. When boundaries are pushed, push back with united action. Refuse to fund unsound teaching.
- Go to war. Evangelise.
Yes, one person, one parish would not be able to stand up to their Bishop. But 100000 people acting in unity across 1000 parishes can stand up to their Bishops and have their voice heard and impose their agenda. You only have to look at the example of trade unions.
So again, GAFCON is indeed seen as being a 'political movement' in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion... 'Micky' then replied to 'Observing', part of which is copied below:
All of this you’ll hear at any Reform conference or meeting. And their last call to arms in the Covenant for the Church of England was a damp squib. There is little in Jensen’s call to arms that conservatives in England are not already doing. All that’s new is alternative oversight - and that’s not possible unless clergy and people are willing to give up everything and start afresh.
That comment, linking back to the so called 'Covenant for the Church of England' is perceptive. Many talked before GAFCON of GAFCON coming up with a 'Covenant'. As I've mentioned before, this word was not used in the end - perhaps because of the fate of the so called 'Covenant for the Church of England.' However, many seem to hope that the Jerusalem Declaration will eventually serve as a Covenant.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 5 July 2008 - 12:11am
'Quite what GAFCON will mean for us here in England remains to be seen. Certainly, however, the Church of England will never quite be the same again'.
This quotation - showing the hopes and seriousness of intent of GAFCON organisers in England - is by John Richardson, from his article on the Chelmsford Anglican Maintream site, 'GAFCON: for Parish Magazines and Newsletters', 3 July 2008.
He is the person who is organising, on behalf of GAFCON, the various sign up petitions on the web for showing support for GAFCON, including the PCC petitions. All this in spite of claims, eg by Peter Jensen, that GAFCON is not a 'political movement...'
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 4 July 2008 - 04:40pm
Which "liberal CofE bishops" Nersen (you read like NP of old)? You say they would not even hand out the same hymn sheets. That is a serious charge. Is there going to be a campaign against one or two (or more) named individuals for starters?
Posted by: Nigel Taber-Hamilton
Friday 4 July 2008 - 04:34pm
As a North American Progressive I appreciate Fulcrum's moderating tone and your careful reflection on the content of GAFCON's statement.
I think you're modest observation with regard to the Church of England regarding the possibility of trespass could be restated in more brash terms: "Coming to a church near you" - and not just in the Church of England but in any Province of our Communion. I suspect there are now many more conservative bishops who are indisposed to look with any favor on the GAFCON participants' intentions than before this meeting.
I would offer one further comment regarding your positive comments about the GAFCON meeting, namely that the claim within the Jerusalem document that those of us in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are "preaching a false gospel" is, in fact, quite vituperative. Whatever one might say about the motivations lying behind this document it is clear that there is a strong negative animus toward both North American provinces.
Grace and peace,
(The Rev.) Nigel J. Taber-Hamilton
Episcopal Diocese of Olympia
Posted by: nersenpaul
Friday 4 July 2008 - 04:00pm
Following the Peter Hobson's numbering below
1. Lambeth....I think +Durham and others are right....the GAFCON crowd should all be coming to Lambeth to work with him and others and show what a tiny minority the revisionists are.....
2. 'Self-organising' and 'self-appointed' ....well that applies to GAFCON, Fulcrum....and the CofE's promotions to bishop, ultimately. Rowan WIlliams, chosen by Labout politicians and rubber stamped by the Queen can hardly lecture anyone else on legitimacy...why should the 35m Anglicans represented by GAFCON bishops bow down to someone chosen by Tony Blair? (no doubt to please The Guardian)
3. Allow the process to run its course?? For how long?? Forever? Well, Peter Hobson says, there has been very little by way of discipline in the last 5 years......and, sadly, +Durham, Fulcrum and the ACI have NOT been listened to despite all their loyalty, intelligence, reasonableness (and not being Reform, which helps, of course!)
Why should the GAFCON primates and their hundreds of bishops come to Lambeth for 3 weeks of indabas.... given the experience of the last 5 years, WHAT IS GOING TO BE ACHIEVED??
Is ++Rowan suddenly going to go for the implementation of The Windsor Report in full? No.....and, I know "boundary crossing" is mentioned in the report too, but he has shown, for 5 years, that he does want to take Fulcrum and ACI recommendations re appropriate discipline onTEC....or he would not have invited unrepentant TEC bishops to Lambeth after they tore the fabric of the Communion in 2003. So, what is going to be achieved by 3 weeks of chats with liberals and a process designed not to deliver any decisions?
It's good to be loyal and patient and prayerful....but we have to be wise too, and there is a time to oppose even senior church leaders (eg Gal 2:11),
and there comes a time when, after 5 years of trying, to put resources into more fruitful efforts - eg the wonderful unity of high and low church believers demonstrated in GAFCON.
The really interesting thing is that Lambeth looks a lot poorer without the GAFCON bishops.....but GAFCON really did not miss or need the word-twisting "liberalism" of TEC, ACoC, NZ and even most CofE bishops.
Before anyone says the eye cannot say it does not need the foot etc....the point is we are not part of the same body. I DO NOT believe what Schori or Robinson or liberal CofE bishops believe and would not let them give out hymn sheets let alone preach at church...we are not members of the same body because of the "liberal" rejection of some of fundamental parts of the creeds (morality is a small issue by comparison)... people need to wake up to the reality that we are talking about people who may be ordained but are quite open that they do not believe important fundamentals of the faith....that is the point: they do not believe yet we run around trying to justify sticking toghether with them as ordained leaders - a recipe for disaster, a house divided......
Posted by: pete hobson
Friday 4 July 2008 - 01:41pm
David, Tom Wright can doubtless answer for himself, and perhaps will, but since you add "and others", and this is an open discussion thread, here's my thoughts on your three questions:
1. Attendance at Lambeth comes from the acceptance of an invitation from Archbishop Rowan, who has clearly stated that this does not presume agreement on all matters facing the Communion - so no bishop accepting the invitation is to be presumed to be agreeing with, condoning or accepting all the actions of any other bishop attending. Of course, Paul does write of due discipline of error within the church at Corinth: I'm thinking that Tom Wright might say that:
a] the Anglican communion is far more complex body than a single church or congregation, and so due discipline is similarly more complex to agree upon;
b] as in a congregation, it's not generally best for any one church member to anticipate for themselves who should be 'disciplined' pending a decision of the whole congregation, by whatever means, so in a communion it's not for any one bishop to do so;
c] there is a process under way within the Communion that will if pursued to its logic allow for such discipline. It's called the Anglican Covenant, and attendance at Lambeth is one of the more constricytive ways of ewngaging with what that will eventually look like
2. 'Self-organising' and 'self-appointed' are indeed broadly equivalent terms, applying equally to GAFCON and Fulcrum - or indeed any one of the myriad para-church organisations that exist within and beyond the Communion. But, as I have commented on the GAFCON clergy thread, Fulcrum doesn't threaten to anathematise those who don't share its definitions of orthodoxy, nor does it look to deploy the sort of institutional power that primates have within the present Communion in pursuit of such inclusion and exclusion policies. It's when people who you had a presumption you were in fellowship with start suggesting that you may not be a person or body they can work with that it becomes a more pointed question who's saying it, and by what authority.
3. It's very true that the evidence for effective discipline at present is slim and some read it more pessimistically than others. But I think one is entitled to the view that the processes initiated be given a chance to work through before leaping to the conclusion that short-cuts are necessary. I realise there are very real and painful sets of circumstances especially in USA and Canada that have caused some to feel they can wait no longer - but I'd be heedful of Rowan Williams' warning that it's possible the proposed remedy might cause more problems than the malady itself. It's a judgement call, it's true - but it's possible to believe that GAFCON have got that call wrong. I think it's clear Tom Wright does think that. As it happens, so do I.
Posted by: RevDavid
Friday 4 July 2008 - 11:29am
I love much of what Bishop Tom Wright says and does. I would like to ask him (and others who may share his views on Gafcon) how he squares his current actions with what he himself has written in his commentaries.
For example, in "Paul for everyone: 1 Corinthians," he comments on 1 Corinthians 5v6-13:
“Once more, we realize how far many churches in the modern world have travelled away from their roots. Many today have actually elevated moral indifference – on some issues at least – into part of their foundation charter, so that to suggest introducing discipline over (say) sexual misbehaviour would cause a storm of protest, accusations of legalism, Pharisaism, lack of charity, and a host of other nasty things. But Paul is quite clear.
“He had already written to Corinth on this subject, in a letter which has not survived. They hadn’t understood. They thought he was saying they should avoid all contact with immoral people, and wondered how on earth they could continue to live in Corinth at all! Now he explains: he meant simply within the church. Table-fellowship among Christians, he says, should be the sign of fellowship which is given to those who are living as the Messiah’s people should. And just as Israel was commanded not to tolerate evil in its midst (Deuteronomy 17v7, which Paul quotes in verse 13), so the church must see wickedness for what it is, a cancer which will spread if it is not cut out at the first sign. God will judge those outside the community in his own time and manner. But the Christian community, as he is going to stress in the next chapter, has the God-given right and duty to discriminate between those who are living in the Messiah’s way and those who are not…
"We can imagine the howls of anger at such a suggestion in today’s church (‘unloving!’ ‘intolerant!’ ‘judgmental!’). Paul might well have answered: is the doctor unloving or judgmental when he or she tells you that you must have the operation right away? Do we want a doctor who ‘tolerates’ viruses, bacteria, or cancer cells?”
Three questions, then:
(1) On what grounds does Bishop Tom believe it okay to attend Lambeth when many of those present are bishops who preach "another gospel" in terms of basic belief and lifestyle? And, related to that:
(2) In what sense is the leadership of GAFCON any more self-appointed than the leadership of Fulcrum? Surely both are just "self-organising" rather than "self-appointed" - which is a somewhat different (and less slanted) way of seeing things
(3) What actual evidence is there --- past or present --- that the current Windsor / Lambeth process will be more effective in disciplining North American dioceses who have departed from biblical teaching, and offering pastoral care to orthodox biblical believers, than the new Gafcon process?
I write with great respect and affection for Bishop Tom, and I mean no disrespect (please forgive me if it sounds like this - I sincerely mean none).
Sincerely
David Baker (Revd)
Posted by: nersenpaul
Friday 4 July 2008 - 10:42am
Jody says "the difficulty is not the strangeness of the coalition"........not as "difficult" as the coalition the ABC would have us all accept....i.e. one which includes bishops and clergy who reject certain fundamental beliefs.
What GAFCON shows is that there is unity on the core doctrines amongst people of low and high church views....this is very positive.....they accept each other fully.
The "strange" and "difficult" thing in the AC is that we are being asked to accept clergy and bishops who reject the teaching of the church in their personal life and public ministry.....this is very strange.
Posted by: Jody
Friday 4 July 2008 - 08:51am
the difficulty is not the strangeness of the coalition - Tom simply stating that a coalition of that sort will likely implode at some stage - nor is it even the muddled style and content of the Jerusalem Declaration - difficult though that makes it to work out what they are actually trying to say.
no, the difficulty is that once you work through all that, you discover that, in terms of faith in Jesus Christ, it is not saying anything particularly new - hence the ability of most evangelicals to say they could sign up to it - and so you begin to wonder 'what is the point'.
the 'point' is then found in the statements about 'orthodoxy' and 'jurisdictions' - this enables who exactly to make pronouncements on who is 'orthodox' and who is...well not.
+Tom was not even invited to GAFCON, no ordained women from England were invited - it does not take too much savvy to work out that there is a huge political agenda going on beneath the surface in which those who consider themselves part of the the evangelical family will soon find themselves given short schrift.
For those who had misgivings about the so called 'Covenant for the Church of England' that Reform et al published over a year ago - this is it in global language!
As a disciple of Jesus Christ I am committed to loving Him, serving Him and His people and bringing in His Kingdom - that's my own 3 point manifesto, I'm thinking of calling it 'becoming a Christian', I may even draw up some petitions and invite people to sign up to them, I will call my petitions 'the books of life'.
Jody
Posted by: nersenpaul
Friday 4 July 2008 - 07:50am
+Tom, as always, makes good points.....but I am afraid he is commenting on the symptoms when it is the disease which needs treating if the Anglican patient is going to recover.
Sure, GAFCON is not monochrome....is that not a good thing?
But note. GAFCON attracted more than 300 bishops....representing more than 35m of the 55m Anglicans in the world..... it deserves some respect and not questions re legitimacy from an ABC who is chosen by British politicians (and with the current one, a choice to please the left, very obviously)
Also note, the All Souls days got 750+ CofE clergy......much more than expected by its organisers....and as +Broadbent said, it was not just a Reform gathering by any means.....so, maybe English bishops need to realise that it is not just a few crazies who do not accept the liberal drift (eg civil partnerships for clergy etc)
MAIN POINT: sadly, the ABC has NOT listened to +Tom, Windsor, The ACI, Fulcrum on important issues.....eg he invited to Lambeth TEC bishops (scapegoating just one) knowing that because of their teaching and ACTIONS (in 2003), many of them would be unacceptable to GS bishops and even +Rochester and +Lewes. The ABC made deliberate choices which led to GAFCON. No doubt his advisors expected GAFCON to be smaller and weaker....so, now it must be attacked.
As for Lambeth....do you realise that dioceses like Nevada (Schori's old one) have just a couple of thousand people in them attending on a Sunday ....i.e. less than single churches in London.....yet they get a bishop. Such bishops are coming to Lambeth....but those that represent millions and millions are not.......the result of the decisions of Dr Williams. Error
Posted by: Rosemary
Friday 4 July 2008 - 03:19am
Unless we are reading two completely different documents Bishop Tom, it's entirely voluntary. If you don't want to be part of it, no one is going to twist your arm, and I'm quite sure they don't mean to be 'deeply offensive.'
As I understand it, the people who attended Gafcon had IMMENSE differences, but they worked hard to find what their common ground was. If you don't agree, fine, don't support them. It's strange [to me] though, that you feel the need to condemn them.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 07:12pm
Tom Wright was interviewed about GAFCON by Christopher Landau for the BBC Radio 4 World at One programme, 3 July 2008. Click here to see the BBC article copied below, with the audio link:
The Bishop of Durham has attacked the Anglican traditionalists behind a new movement against what they consider liberal views on homosexuality.
Dr Tom Wright, a traditionalist himself, said Gafcon's plans to let parishes break from liberal bishops were ridiculous and "deeply offensive".
"The idea they have a monopoly on Biblical truth won't do," he said.
It comes as the Church of England's ruling body, the General Synod, gathers for a five-day meeting.
The meeting, being held at the University of York, is set to be dominated by the issue of women bishops
'Global sledge hammer'
The Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) attracted about 300 bishops to a gathering held last month in Jerusalem.
It called for the creation of a council of primates and said the Archbishop of Canterbury's authority over the Communion should end.
Many of the 300 attendees plan to boycott this month's Lambeth Conference - a meeting of the Anglican Communion held every 10 years.
Speaking to the BBC's World at One programme the Bishop of Durham said Gafcon was "taking a global sledge hammer to crack the American nut".
"There's a lot of bits that's going to fly around the room if you do that, especially here in England where we do not have the same problems that they have in America," he added.
"The coalition of Gafcon is a very odd combination of hard-line evangelicals, who would never use incense in a communion service, who would never wear Eucharistic vestments, along with Anglo-Catholics from America for whom those things are absolutely de rigeur.
"You've also got people who are totally and passionately opposed to the ordination of women, and others who are not only happy with it, but promoting it. That's not a coalition that's going to last very long, to be honest.
The idea that they have a monopoly on Biblical truth simply won't do and we must stand up to this, it's a kind of bullying
Bishop of Durham
Attack reveals division
"For me this is particularly frustrating. I spend 90 to 100 hours a week doing the work of the gospel and the kingdom of God in my diocese and around the place.
"And to be told that I now need to be authorised or validated by a group of primates somewhere else who come in and tell me which doctrines I should sign up to is not only ridiculous it's deeply offensive.
"The idea that they have a monopoly on Biblical truth simply won't do and we must stand up to this, it's a kind of bullying. 'We're the true gospel people, therefore you must listen to us'."
He said most traditionalist bishops in England did not support Gafcon and were "deeply worried about it".
"When one finds people coming high-handedly, who don't actually know what's going on, and say, 'We've now drawn up this list of 14 points and you've got to sign up to them and then we'll authorise you and you can be part of our club, and if you don't then we're going to sweep you aside'... anyone has a right to feel angry when faced with that kind of thing."
Christopher Landau gives some background to the interview here, copied below:
When conservative Anglicans met in Jerusalem last week, forming "a fellowship of confessing Anglicans", the implication seemed to be that anyone who shared their concerns about the erosion of traditional values would wish to join them.
But the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, is a senior evangelical bishop - and he is fiercely critical of their approach.
He shares many of the concerns expressed at the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) - but he is critical of the new movement's proposed solutions to current disunity within the Anglican Communion.
Speaking on the World at One on BBC Radio 4, Bishop Wright dismissed plans to form a self-appointed council of conservative national church leaders opposed to active homosexuality.
He said: "To be told that I now need to be authorised or validated by a group of primates somewhere else, who come in and tell me which doctrines I should sign up to, is not only ridiculous, it's deeply offensive".
He said that the idea that those who were part of the new movement had a monopoly on Biblical truth was "a kind of bullying".
The bishop also said that among evangelical bishops in the Church of England, "the great majority would not have gone to Gafcon, didn't go, and remain deeply worried about it".
His remarks are significant because Dr Wright is a senior evangelical leader who commands international respect as a teacher and Biblical theologian.
He remains a key figure in the Anglican Communion's own attempts to safeguard unity: he was one of the authors of the 2004 Windsor Report, which proposed a "covenant" which member churches of the communion would join.
His intervention underlines the fact that this dispute is not simply one between liberals and conservatives.
Even among those fiercely opposed to the ordination of gay bishops, there are substantial divisions.
Posted by: Fern
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 01:10pm
In reply to Graham's comment, yes, the question-and-answer session at All Souls, Langham Place on Tuesday evening was heavily stage-managed. It is, of course, one of the supreme ironies of the supposed 'global south led' movement for biblical orthodoxy that the media savvy white guys don't trust the likes of Akinola or Orombi near a microphone without a script and minders.
The difficulty some of the African bishops had in dealing with questions at the press conference in Jerusalem is, no doubt, why there was no genuine Q&A session at Langham Place. It was interesting that the first 'question' was directed to Archbishop Orombi and asked him to confirm firstly that he condemned violence towards gays and secondly that polygamy is not tolerated in the Ugandan church. Obviously, shades of Jerusalem when the silence of the African primates on the acceptability or otherwise of violence against gays and the refusal of many to even countenance that such violence and oppression existed in their own countries led Peter Jensen to intervene and condemn such violence on behalf of GAFCON.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 11:17am
hello liddon,
I don't think I accepted your point....I did not bother responding to a weak point as it was made about someone who said extremely things like, "You are children of the devil" and "I am the way, the truth and the life..." You can say he was "nuanced" if you like, but you cannot show he would have disagreed with the very clear standards God has always set for leaders.....right from the OT and continued in the NT.
You appear to be trying to evade my point in a classic "liberal" and inconsequential way, i.e. "but who wrote that?" - bit of a waste of time replying to you in that case - maybe you should read up on why the books in the bible are in the bible (but I suspect you know all that and are just muddying the waters for lack of a credible response to my point).....anyway, I note that you have failed to come up with a single strong argument to show that your ever so "nuanced" Lord would have disagreed with the clear biblical standards we have clearly set out for leaders in the church....
All are welcome in the church...to hear the transforming message of new life which comes from repentance and faith (not all are to be leaders and certainly not the unrepentant...however nuanced you would like to be)
As the ABC and +York had to make clear recently, clergy are free to disagree with church teaching but are not free "merely to disregard it".....that is, if integrity is to be retained, of course.
Posted by: liddon
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 10:22am
nerson, thank you for accepting my point about the way that Jesus rebuked the plain, blunt speaking of the apostles. i'm having difficulty with your new point, as i suspect that most of the things you are talking about when you refer to paul's writings about church leaders are actually in the pastoral epistles, which were not written by paul.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 08:27am
liddon - I would be interested if you have a single example which shows that the Lord would have disagreed one bit with all the Holy Spirit inspired St Paul to write about what makes some people fit and others unfit to be church leaders......
Posted by: liddon
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 08:02am
Nersen, the apostles were, indeed, plain, blunt men, who spoke out, but my memory of the scriptures is that pretty well every time they did, Jesus rebuked them and gave a much more nuanced response. i'll give examples, if you like, but you should know them already.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 3 July 2008 - 12:01am
John Martin and I were present at the evening meeting at All Souls Langham Place on Tuesday 1 July 2008. We had interesting conversations with Chris Sugden, before the meeting, and with Henry Orombi, Greg Venables and Peter Jensen after the meeting.
Fern mentioned on the English GAFCON Clergy thread that:
The key was the theme initiated by Greg Venables and picked up by Peter Jensen. Archbishop Venables argued that there are, and indeed have been for many years, two versions of Christianity; one is biblically based while the other is determined by the prevailing culture. Archbishop Jensen then took this assertion and sought to apply it to the CoE by repeating the statement "You must choose which side you are on" several times.
During the evening, there was a Question and Answer session with the panel made up of Greg Venables, Henry Orombi, and Peter Jensen. However, no questions from the floor were invited and only questions which the chairperson already had on a clipboard were asked...
If questions from the floor had been allowed, I would have asked:
Are there only two versions of Christianity?
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 01:32pm
CanonChris Sugden,one of the most prominent organisaers of GAFCON but also an elected member of General Synod writes today on "Guardian" ' Comment is free' at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/02/religion.anglicanism .
Gafcon can save Anglicanism
We are a response to the current authorities' unwillingness to check the flouting of Bible teachings and can lead it forward without a split.
For five years, the Episcopal church in US, the Anglican church of Canada, and elements of the Church of England and church in New Zealand have acted precisely like the student unions of the 1970s and Militant tendency in putting facts on the ground and defying the authorities to do anything about it. Some bishops and others have been presenting a different Christian gospel, expressed in disobedience to the teaching of the Bible, and continue to persecute and harass those who resist and object.
If the current dispute is merely a matter of different perspectives and emphases, as the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests, why are the bishops who are promoting this different gospel driving people out of their churches and removing licences from priests such as Dr Packer?
Gafcon became necessary following the persistent failure of the current authorities in the Anglican Communion to do anything about this deliberate flouting of Christian teaching and decisions of the whole Anglican Communion and its leadership.
What would be an ideal response of the Archbishop of Canterbury? The Gafcon pilgrimage was about relationships above all else. The pilgrims came to meet with God, through prayer and worship, through study of his word, and pilgrimage to recall his mighty acts of redemption in history. They came to meet with each other in fellowship, Bible discussion, meals, and pilgrimage together. One presiding bishop of a dispersed Anglican group in America, the Reformed Episcopal Synod, said he now had a family.
An ideal response of the archbishop would be to focus on relationships: to meet with the primates' council of Gafcon on neutral territory: not at the Lambeth conference, which is already a compromised gathering since those who initiated this crisis, the consecrators of Gene Robinson, will be present, and since the issues are fundamental questions about the authority of scripture in the church.
Written responses from afar raising issues of legitimacy and details of constitution-making have more in common with Yes Minister than godly dialogue in the church of Christ. Gafcon is a Primates' council, designed to bring order. It is also a movement. Movements begin with vision statements such as Tracts for the Times for the Anglo-Catholic movement, or clear bold action such as the Evangelical Movement for Social Reform under the Clapham Sect, not with detailed governance procedures.
The primates of the Anglican churches of Nigeria, West Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda (six out of 12 African provinces in Africa) and the Southern Cone, churches of over 40 million members out of 55 million churchgoing Anglicans worldwide, have decided that there is a way forward within the Anglican church that can bring order out of chaos and which does not involve a split. As elected leaders of their churches they are hardly unrepresentative. The whole provincial governance of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria took this decision as provinces at Jerusalem to support the Jerusalem declaration and statement. Their solution is not a church within a church, since that would entail drawing the lines more tightly than the church does.
The Jerusalem declaration and statement restates what the Anglican church has always affirmed. Its importance for Anglicans is summed up by the many who said that Gafcon Jerusalem 2008 was one of the most significant weeks of their lives, the most fulfilling Anglican Conference they had attended, and where they discovered the reality of the global Anglican fellowship, united in seeking to live in obedience to the Bible.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 11:57am
liddon - St Peter, St Paul and their Lord were all pretty blunt speaking men....were they not. Gracious, of course, but saying what they meant and meaning what they said, never accomodating false teaching.
John Marshall says "I am sad that a new generation has failed to learn from recent history and is gleefully making the same errors in the same spirit of self-righteousness." Not sure you are right on this given what has happened at GAFCON (see +Durham's assessment of it)....and, of course, many errors were made in recent history. For example, "don't ask, don't tell" approaches from bishops which left many clergy in leadership positions while they taught various things which are "incompatible with Scripture." This failure, in recent history, has led to the arrogant and rebellious actions we have seen in a City church recently.
Also, in recent history, heretics have been tolerated as bishops....what should we learn from that? There have been bishops and clergy, not just in the US but also in the CofE, who have denied basic Christian truths...but nobody was brave enough to do anything much about it. Recent history is tainted by apathy in the face of liberalism ....... it is that apathy which led to TEC thinking it could do what it did in 2003 and nothing would happen.....and so far, they have been right and are very pleased with themselves and the "indabas" which will make no decisions ahead.
Sadly, recent history in the CofE is very far from what we are taught about how to deal with false teaching....see Galatians 2:11 - I imagine nice Anglican-types being furious with Paul for being so rude and to such a senior person in the early church....but he was because truth matters more than being nice....and his Lord told us to beware of wolves dressed as sheep, not to accomodate them and pretend all is well and we are one happy family united in the gospel when people are teaching opposing things (on various fundamental issues)
Sorry, recent history is that of too many people in CofE parishes being let down by the false teaching of their clergy and the lack of courage of orthodox Anglicans in challenging false teaching in the church. Not much to be proud of, I am sorry to say. Too few have stood up against the decades of liberalism infecting the church. Houses divided cannot stand.....the tragic thing about the CofE is that it has paid and promoted people who were openly working against its core beliefs, bringing division.
Posted by: Dave
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 11:35am
There are detailed reports of the talks at the All Soul's conference on the Anglican Mainstream site. It is a pity that so many of the attendees are not going on to Lambeth to express their views to the ABC.
David
Posted by: Sergei
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 10:59am
Yesterday I was talking to a rather centrist bishop from 'north of the Watford gap' who told me of a case in his diocese where one parish leadership did not want him to take a confirmation service. He had not been in conflict with them, but they were unhappy about one comment he had made, and he (in my opinion) rather graciously invited a bishop from another province to take the confirmation service while he sat in the congregation. But once we get on this ladder of pick and choose who is orthodox it becomes, as a lot of people have pointed out, a very slippery slope. And would any of the GAFCON bishops be willing to provide a liberal or centrist bishop for a confirmation service because the local parish priest did not agree with the 'orthodox' bishop on theological principles - or does that not count because they are upholding orthodoxy.
And on an entirely different matter, and perhaps I am being unduly cynical, did anyone else notice the resemblance between the Bishop of Rochester's speech at GAFCON and an election manifesto - references to the Reformation and conversations with John Stott (evangelical legitimacy), to Henry Newman (I understand Anglo-Catholic concerns), theology may develop in accordance with changed understandings (appeals to broad church), but change must be in conformity with traditional understandings (rejection of liberals)!
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 10:35am
The Newswatch item and link to http://covenant-communion.com/?p=787
Craig Uffman 'On the "irrelevance" of Rowan' is relevant to the way forward.
Please read it carefully.
Posted by: John Marshall
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 09:39am
As I read all this depressing stuff my mind goes back to some verses written by Dr Eric Mascall, something like 50 years ago. His target was a certain kind of Anglo-Catholic - it was rumoured that he had a particular cleric in mind, but there were several to choose from. It includes these lines:
I teach the children in my school the Penny Catechism,
Explaining how the C of E's in heresy and schism.
The truths of Trent and Vatican I bate not one iota.
I have not met the Rural Dean. I do not pay my quota.
The bishop's put me under his 'profoundest disapproval'
And though he cannot bring about my actual removal,
He will not come and visit me, or take my confirmations.
Colonial prelates I employ from far-off mission stations.
What goes around comes around. This time the problems may not be dressed in lacy albs and birettas, but they're not very different. I thank God that the bulk of my ministry has been spent in a time when Catholics and Evangelicals at least spoke to each other, and when ecumenical co-operation was at its height. I rejoice that a sound and committed evangelical like Ken Sawyer and an AffCath like myself have been able to count ourselves friends as well as brothers in Christ. I am sad that a new generation has failed to learn from recent history and is gleefully making the same errors in the same spirit of self-righteousness.
John Marshall
Posted by: liddon
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 08:52am
Gerard Manley Hopkins was one of the greatest poets of the 19th century, a Jesuit and a homosexual. He wrestled with the complexities of life and faith and the scriptures with wisdom, and intelligence, and subtlety and grace and charm. I think there is no evidence that he ever expressed his sexuality through a sexual act with another person. On the other hand, as a Jesuit, he would not have expressed his sexuality through a sexual act with another person if he had been heterosexual either. What is important is that it informed his faith and his poetry.
What troubles me is that this debate in being carried out on the Gafcon side by people who lack wisdom, and intelligence, and subtlety and grace and charm. They like to present themselves as plain, blunt men, who take the simple message of scripture. Some of them post here, as plain, blunt men. This carries weight, of course, but it lacks substance. They do not have the ability to grapple with the complexities of life or faith or the scriptures.
Here's a poem by Hopkins. Either you get it or you don't. If you get it, you'll reject Gafcon with all its brutal certainty. If you, you shouldn't dictate terms of faith to those who do.
"As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame"
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Chríst--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
Posted by: nersenpaul
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 08:30am
Yes,+Pete, it would have been good if you had addressed them at All Souls!
Great to hear clear speech from a bishop.....big contrast with Schori and, dare I say it, the ABC.....one never knows if they mean what they say or say what they mean.
I think your fellow bishops, especially the ABC, don't "get it" because they take people like you for granted.....the ABC has received much loyalty and despite fudging Windsor, ignoring Tanzania and holding secret Eucharists for those who promote behaviour "incompatible with Scripture". He has expected and got the loyalty of "open" evangelicals.....this is why your fellow bishops "don't get it". They are quite happy to lose Reform .....because they think they will never lose you. (TEC is happy to lose Duncan because it thinks it has Howe and Lee's support forever.) Your fellow bishops will "get it" when they realise the fact that you, +Durham and the other non-revisionist (i.e. faithful, if I may use that word) bishops will in the end choose truth and not expediency or institutional unity at the cost of truth.
I think people have been too patient with the ABC and his Lambeth invitations to the "consecrators" of Gene was the last straw...the ABC chose to make GAFCON a reality, it is the result of his deliberate decisions....but maybe this is, in the end, a great thing, bringing clarity about the heart of the issue we face......i.e. false teaching and how to deal with it......and "indabas" are not what St Paul suggested, of course!
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 07:44am
Well, of course, decbass, you wouldn't expect a vicar in North London to want or need alternative oversight!
I think you've fallen into the trap of thinking that there needs to be a major realignment in order to have a huge effect on the CofE. It's more likely to resemble the Gruyere cheese effect described in the Manchester Report. Parishes will take oversight from whatever overseas bishop offers it; they'll stop paying Common Fund; they will dissociate from their diocesan bishop. It's not a step that all will take, but it will have a significant impact on catholicity and finance.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 12:19am
I don't think Peter Jensen is terrified of Barbara Darling, soon to be a bishop in Melbourne and educated at protestant Ridley College in the city of the South. Nor she of him.
In his speech Peter did not seek to impose a particular plan on English evangelicals. So no more comment from this Sydneysider.
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 12:06am
It is very helpful to have Pete Broadbent's inside report of the Langham Place meeting.
In response to Ken Sawyer's request for comments re Arhcbishop Peter Jensen's talk, I offer the observation that there is a moderateness in what he says which one would never detect from reading (say) Riazat Butt on GAFCON.
But Archbishop Peter does make one error in his talk when he says, "Nothing terrifies more than an educated Protestant lay woman." I think some are terrified most by an educated Protestant woman bishop :)
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Wednesday 2 July 2008 - 12:00am
Pete
for someone as politically acute as you I am surprised that you don't see the game that is being played. There is still a (faint) hope that the asylum can be taken over. This aint going to happen - you know this - I know this - the C of E is not ready to be assimilated into Sydney, Abuja, Oxford or anywhere else like that. So that will leave people only the option of setting up their own show. No doubt some will join them. But I was speaking to a respected evangelical vicar in north London tonight who who is far from being convinced that this is the way to go.
FOCA - or whatever it is that they call themselves - is playing with separation... I hope they don't do it, but if they push it to the edge then I think they should be allowed to fall over. Good luck to them. I mean that most sincerely.
Whether they can carry the Agnlo-banglos is less certain - I am ASTONISHED that they consider themselves to be founded on the 39 Articles of Religion and the 1662 Prayer book. Most of the GAFCONites I know whould be hard put to find their way about it - let alone use it!
I am assuming by the way - that MinDiv will withdraw recognition from Wyciffe and Oak Hill shortly.....
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 10:24pm
I was at All Souls today to hear what was being said. I think I would say that I was surprised at the broad spectrum of evangelical Anglicanism that was represented - it was by no means just a gathering of Reform and Church Society. And I had huge sympathy for the concerns that were being expressed by parishes that were just fed up with the oversight they were getting. It was a pity that no English Bishop addressed the meeting - which sets it up a bit as though solutions come from over the water.
It does seem to me that the jury is out. If Lambeth doesn't deliver the Anglican Covenant in a form that is going to be recognisably orthodox and with which the North Americans will comply (and I think there is huge doubt that either of those things will happen, given the reception the covenant has already had, and the track record that ECUSA has of pretending compliance but then doing the opposite), then there will be a major fracturing throughout the communion, including in the CofE. Parishes who are out of relationship with their bishop will simply opt for alternative oversight, and no amount of huffing and puffing by diocesan bishops will be able to prevent it. I'm not sure why my fellow bishops in the CofE don't get this.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 06:31pm
And now what of the C of E in England. This is part of what has been said by Arbp Peter Jensen at All Souls', Langham Place today:
"What about England? You are bounded by Ireland, Scotland and Wales — what about them?
You have to find English solutions to English problems. This is not a ‘Cargo Cult’ where the Americans are going to bring the solution.
First, England gave us the Bible and the gospel — thank you. We look to you, still! We look to you for leadership in obedience to the Bible and sacrifice for the gospel. If England can be what England was, what a power would be released in the world for the gospel.
Secondly, incumbents are the most important people in the church. Incumbents teach the church, you are crucial to the good health of the churches. Only more recently have we moved from this. Your theological education has to be first class — top class. I say this to you as an Archbishop. My job is to preach Christ in every situation in which he finds himself and to oversee recruitment, training and deployment of clergy. Being a bishop is an important and difficult job, but the local church is where the action is. Support your orthodox bishops, but the incumbent is doing the work of the gospel.
Thirdly, we will not get anywhere without laypeople, and we have not done enough to teach the about these issues. You are frightened to teach things that will bring about disunity. If you teach these things there will be a reaction. Your people are constantly being told the Christian view of sexual morality is wrong. If you don’t teach them, you will not succeed. Nothing terrifies more than an educated Protestant lay woman.
Fourthly, we must be theologically well-equipped. Evangelicals are spread around and can be very lonely. Get the Evangelical fellowships going. Become aware of the importance of the strength of the network.
Fifthly, evangelism must be the sharp point in fellowship with one another. English Evangelicalism is terribly divided. We cannot continue our tribal warfare [applause]. We need to advance, and it is the gospel and evangelism which will bring us together under godly focused leadership.
You will find Evangelical brothers and sisters doing things you wish they wouldn’t before the coming pressure. But before you rush to judge — and to the website — put yourselves in their shoes. Remember, they are doing it to serve Christ. Rebuke them if necessary, but stand with them.
Remember, there is a global fellowship. GAFCON exists and is on your side. This giant doesn’t have to go to England and will support you, and is a means by which you can support others. We need mutual support within the Anglican Communion and across it. This is the moment. England, don’t fail us.
Henry Orombi, Greg Venables, Jim Packer have all spoken about the situation. It is not for me to tell you what you must do here, apart from saying you must stand for the gospel and the Bible. We are looking to you. We need you to be strong and brave and true. We will help you. And together we will resist the forces of evil and secularism which seek to extinguish the gospel and are using the Church to do that. Stand firm."
Comments?
Posted by: Mark Bennet
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 05:09pm
This consideration of Art XXVI is quite interesting, because it refers to deposition after "just judgement". Now what does that mean? - well the reason that no-one swears allegiance to "instruments of communion" is that they operate at an entirely different level.
The basic unit of discipline is the Diocese and it is the Bishop's role to administer discipline within the Diocese which forms his or her jurisdiction. The actual operation of discipline falls within the realms of Church Law (different in different places).
In promising obedience to a Bishop clergy place themselves under the Bishop's jurisdiction, and implicitly acknowledge that it is the Bishop's role to administer discipline in the Diocese, and not, for example, their own.
So there is a move to impose discipline, which fails to recognise the existing disciplinary structures, and creates new ones, unknown to the authors of the articles.
At least that is how I understand things.
Posted by: pete hobson
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 01:12pm
A helpful reminder Tim. I'm one for whom the Articles carry significant weight, as well as a fair measure of commonsense, this one included.
I guess a key question for GAFCON would be what in today's Anglican Communion context constitutes the "just judgement" after which 'evil ministers' may be deposed? This would have been much more self-evident to the 16th century authors and 17th century endorsers of the Articles, as in an established church, for better of worse, due authority is clearly defined (and indeed sworn to by all clergy in their declarations of obedience and assent). But in the present-day AC we have evolved 4 'instruments of communion' which by and large people have not sworn anything to, and are increasingly free to turn away form if they fail to deliver what is expected - hence the moves in the GAFCON statement to marginalise the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ironically he himself has indicated he sees a need to develop thinking and practice in this area, and has shaped Lambeth around the Windsor Statement and Covenant processes for that reason. But impatience seems to have led GAFCON into a preemptive strike in defining "just judgement" on a global Anglican scale.
I fear this will, in the end, be a schism by another name - because once an organisation takes to itself the authority to declare who is 'in' and 'out', in other words to set sand police boundaries to the visible church, it becomes yet another visible church, with all the imperfections and compromises that entails. To be honest, I prefer the one we've got.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 09:36am
This business about the 39 articles sent me running to my prayer book to remind myself of Article 26 - (or rather XXVI).
XXVI. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments.
Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.
Nevertheless, it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty, by just judgment be deposed.
(pasted in from Anglicans online)
It's fairly strong stuff, and I can't help but wonder whether it is Gafcon's desired intention to invoke the last bit about deposing ministers, whilst forgetting the initial point that the nature of the minister has (hath) no effect on the efficacy of word and sacrament.
This is why I find myself in a cleft stick, as I would happily receive the grace of the sacrament from (say) Gene Robinson, since he has been ordained and consecrated as a minister of the sacraments in God's church (paragraph 1), but I am probably in agreement with many individuals at Gafcon when it comes to the personal sexual morality of such ministers. I guess the bit about mingling might be what ++RW is referring to in his response. I hope +NTW's response gets a good airing too as it is right on the money really
peace
Tim
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 02:14am
Yes, Chris Sugden has achieved what Tony Higton failed to bring about with ABWON.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 1 July 2008 - 02:12am
My view is here:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/07/tom-wright-agrees-with-focas-but.html
A piece of writing that agrees and agrees before it puts in its punches; however, the horse has already bolted and shutting the stable door (supposing they could, supposing it would work) is too late. After all, the GAFCON came first, before Lambeth, and deliberately.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 30 June 2008 - 10:12pm
After GAFCON
Reflections by the Bishop of Durham
30 June 2008
I spent this last week in a great celebration of the love and power of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I confirmed many new believers. I installed a dynamic new rector in a key parish. I assisted in consecrating a wonderful man as the new Bishop of Stockport. I spent four days in prayer and pastoral conversations with twenty-seven ordinands, listening to their breathtaking
stories of God’s power, guidance, and (in some cases) profound healing, and praying with them for their new ministries. All this climaxed in two wonderful ordination services, with great crowds, great singing, great praying, and above all a delight in and celebration of God’s presence, God’s gospel, and the power of God’s Spirit to love Jesus and make his good news known in our diocese and parishes.
So it was with great interest that I heard that many Anglicans had spent that same week in Jerusalem – which has been, over the years, a special place for me, too – to celebrate the same gospel, the same God, the same love and power of Jesus, the same dynamic and life-changing message through the work of the Spirit. As I read the GAFCON communiqué, phrase after phrase said to me ‘How wonderful that my brothers and sisters gathered there were joining with me in this great adventure we call God’s kingdom!’
I warmed, too, to GAFCON’s statement of our contemporary context. I have long believed and taught that our new century presents new problems (secularism, pluralism, the decline of modernity with nothing to put in its place, and much else) and that this means a great, fresh opportunity for the gospel. I have been saying for years that, in this context, we shouldn’t be
surprised that serious challenges arise from within the church itself, offering the world a pseudo-gospel, a caricature of the world-changing love of God in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, an attempt to hold the outward form of godliness while denying its real power. I have believed and taught for years that we will have to work through these challenges if, instead of merely being distracted and having our gospel energies soaked up, we are to come through with the fresh message our culture (and individuals within it!) so badly need. If mission is our priority – as it certainly is for me and my diocese – then we should expect to face serious theological and moral challenges, and to have to overcome them in prayer and deeper study of scripture.
And of course I have found myself involved in the troubled situation of our Communion following the disastrous events of 2003. I have grieved at the muddled teaching which has allowed all kinds of confusions about Christian doctrine, behaviour and even the nature of Anglicanism to abound, with disastrous consequences. I have shared the frustration of many at the fact
that we don’t possess the kind of structures that would enable us to deal straightforwardly and clearly with the complex problems that have faced us. As Archbishop Rowan has said, our present ‘instruments of Communion’ were not designed to meet this kind of problem, and we badly need to find new ways forward. I, with others, have given a lot of time and energy to work on all this, and the Archbishop’s statement that the forthcoming Lambeth Conference will take Windsor and the Covenant as its basic road-map were very heartening. So I fully agree with the GAFCON statement – and with Archbishop Rowan – that the Communion instruments have not been able to deal with the problems, and that we need to find better ways of going about it. Part of the genius of Anglicanism has been to be reformed by the gospel but always ready for fresh reformations by that same gospel: to recognise that God has more light to break out of his holy word, and that this may lead us to do things in new ways, sometimes setting us free from tired structures and sometimes creating new structures for new gospel purposes. That is precisely what Windsor is proposing, and what Lambeth will be pursuing.
What’s more, it is enormously exciting to live at a time when new leadership is arising from places completely outside the north Atlantic axis. Africa was one of the great cradles of early Christianity, producing such towering minds as Tertullian and Augustine. Most of us have long ago moved away from any idea that Christianity, or even Anglicanism, somehow ‘belongs’ to England or northern Europe. In my own diocese we love our link with Lesotho, and always find that visits from our friends there bring new energy and joy to our parishes and schools. Just as you don’t have to go to Jerusalem to meet Jesus – he is alive and present to heal and save in every place! – so it’s obvious that you don’t have to go to Canterbury to be part of the Anglican family. However, as I know, going to Jerusalem can help. Pilgrimage can add a new dimension to our awareness of who Jesus was and is; it has done that for me, as it clearly has done for those attending GAFCON. Likewise, the historic link with Canterbury is not to be dismissed. Cutting your links with the past can be like cutting off the roots of a tree. Reconnecting with our roots – and, where necessary, refreshing and cleaning them – is always better than pretending we don’t need them. But what matters is of course the fruit. Here in my diocese, as in so many in England, we are refreshing our roots and seeing real fruit; but we don’t imagine we are self-sufficient. On the contrary, we know we have a great deal to learn from brothers and sisters in many other parts of the world, Africa included. I would have hoped, actually, that all this would now go without saying: that we have long moved beyond the sterile stand-off between ‘colonialism’ and ‘post-colonialism’. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s what matters.
I and my colleagues in this diocese, like so many others, share exactly in the sense that we are a fellowship ‘confessing the faith of Christ crucified, standing firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context’, sharing too the goal ‘to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world’ and ‘to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ’. For this reason, I know that the GAFCON leaders can’t have intended to imply (as a ‘suspicious’ reading of their text might suggest) that they are the only ones who really believe all this, that they and they alone care about such things. The rest of us, no doubt – including several of us who were not invited to GAFCON – are eager to share in any fresh movements of the Spirit that are going ahead. And as we do so I know that the GAFCON leaders would want us to express the various questions that naturally come to mind as we contemplate what they have said to us. Just as they wouldn’t want anyone to swallow uncritically the latest pronouncement from Canterbury or New York, so clearly they wouldn’t want us merely to glance at their document, see that it’s ‘all about the gospel’, and then conclude that we must sign up without thinking through what’s being said and why. It is in that spirit that I raise certain questions which seem to me important precisely because of our shared goals (the advancement of the gospel), our shared context (the enormous challenges of contemporary society and of a church often muddled in theology and ethics and lacking the structures to cope), and our shared heritage (the Anglican tradition with its Articles, Prayer Books and historic roots).
Central to these questions is the puzzle about the new proposed structure. I am sure the GAFCON organisers are as horrified as I am to see today’s headlines about ‘a new church’. That doesn’t seem to be what they intended. But for that reason it is all the more strange to reflect on what the proposed ‘Primates’ Council’ is all about. What authority will it have, and how will that work? Who is to ‘police’ the boundaries of this new body – not least to declare which Anglicans are ‘upholding orthodox faith and practice’ (Article 11 of the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’), and who have denied it (Article 13)? Who will be able to decide (as in Article 12) which matters are ‘secondary’ and which are primary, and by what means? (What, for instance, about Eucharistic vestments and practices? What about women priests and bishops?) Who will elucidate the relationship between the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, on the one hand, and the 14 Articles of GAFCON on the other, and by what means? It is precisely questions like these, within the larger Anglican world, which have proved so problematic in the last five years, and the ‘Declaration’ is actually a strange document which doesn’t help us address them. Many at GAFCON may think the answers will be obvious; in some clear-cut cases they may be. But there will be many other cases where they will not. It is precisely because I share the officially stated aims of GAFCON that I am extremely concerned about these proposals, and urge all those who likewise share that concern to concentrate their prayers and their work on addressing the issues in the way which, remarkably, GAFCON never mentioned, namely, the development of the Anglican Covenant and the fulfilment of the recommendations of the Windsor Report. I am delighted that many of the bishops who were at GAFCON are also coming to Lambeth, where their help in pursuing these goals will be invaluable.
In particular, though, there is something very odd about the proposal to form a ‘Council’ and then to ask such a body to ‘authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations’ – and then, as an addition, ‘to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith’. Many Anglicans around the world intend to do that in any case, and will not understand why they need to be ‘recognised’ or ‘authenticated’ by a new, self-selected and non-representative body to which they were not invited and which will not itself, it seems be accountable to anyone else. Of course, within the larger global context, not least in North America, I can understand the perceived need for something like this. I know how warmly the proposals have already been welcomed by many in America whose situation has been truly dire. But I also know from my own situation the dangerous ambiguities that will result from the suggestion that there should be a new ‘territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread.’ Sadly, as I suspect many at GAFCON simply didn’t realise, that kind of language has been used, in my personal experience, to attempt to justify various kinds of high-handed
activity. It offers a blank cheque to anyone who wants to defy a bishop for whatever reasons, even if the bishop in question is scrupulously orthodox, and then to claim the right to alternative jurisdictional oversight. This cannot be the way forward; nor do I think most of those at GAFCON intended such a thing. That, of course, is the risk when documents are drafted at speed.
In short, my hope and prayer is that the spiritual energy, the sense of celebration, the eagerness for living and preaching the gospel, which were so evident at GAFCON, can and will be brought to the forum where we badly need it, namely, the existing central councils of the Anglican Communion. I understand only too well the frustration that many have felt at these bodies. But if GAFCON is to join up with the great majority of faithful, joyful Anglicans around the world, rather than to invite them to leave their present allegiance and sign up to a movement which is as yet – to put it mildly – strange in form and uncertain in destination, it is not so much that GAFCON needs to invite others to sign up and join in. Bishops, clergy and congregations should think very carefully before taking such a step, which will have enormous and confusing consequences. Rather, GAFCON itself needs to bring its rich experience and gospel-driven exuberance to the larger party where the rest of us are working day and night for the same gospel, the same biblical wisdom, the same Lord.
+THOMAS DUNELM:
Executive Summary
GAFCON was a great celebration of the gospel of the love and transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church needs this energy and vision. But this doesn’t mean the GAFCON proposals can be accepted without question. The proposed ‘Primates’ Council’ is a strange body, just as the ‘Declaration’ is an odd document which leaves many ambiguities. It gives far too many hostages to fortune, inviting us to trust an unformed and unaccountable body to make major decisions and giving licence to all kinds of unhelpful activities. It isn’t so much that GAFCON should invite people to sign up to its blank cheque. Rather, GAFCON itself should be invited to bring its Christian vision and exuberance to the larger party where the rest of us are working for the same gospel, the same biblical wisdom, the same Lord.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Monday 30 June 2008 - 07:33pm
An interesting observation about the long term work of Chris Sugden in all this by Andrew Brown in his article "Meet the Focas" on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free'.
"Their money may have come in the first place from America, and their numbers from Africa, but their firmest base, paradoxically, may well be in England. A group of fervent evangelicals centred around the Oxfordshire priest Canon Chris Sugden has been working towards this schism with patient determination for the last 10 years at least. It may be the English influence which accounts for the otherwise inexplicable choice of Queen Elizabeth's 39 articles of religion as the new church's central statement of faith."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/30/anglicanism.religion
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Monday 30 June 2008 - 06:43pm
I agree with the ABC's response to the GAFCON final statement.
I am disappointed at what it does not say!
Archbishop Rowan acknowledges there are significant problems in the Communion when he asks, "how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity ...". To then urge renewed patient commitment to existing Communion structures seems to miss the point that GAFCON represents despair at effective response to genuine crises of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, most especially in terms of the crisis in North America, not all of which can be explained in terms of personality clashes etc.
I am prepared to suspend judgement to the end of Lambeth, but if some recognition from Archbishop Rowan of the genuine need for an alternative validated North American Anglican province does not emerge from it, then the prestige of his See will be diminished. (Of course he would be helped if the Lambeth non-attenders attended!)
Posted by: David
Monday 30 June 2008 - 05:55pm
I find all this deeply worrying.
The whole GAFCON statement turns on the axis that those who accept same-sex relations are ALSO preaching a false gospel in which those people do not proclaim Christ as Lord or the only way. I think that's a HUGE reach on their part and I think a fair number who support same-sex unions would be deeply offended to be accused of such a thing. Acceptance of same-sex relations is definitely not the same thing as saying that Jesus is just an alternative way to God amongst many. No doubt there are some that may say that on the periphery, but I've certainly not read any of the major thinkers who would say such a thing... I maybe out-of-touch and in need to get out more, but I'm pretty sure about that. I find that a horrendous thing to say of those who support same-sex unions.
Of course, GAFCON have had to do that to set up all that follows because they clearly see that same-sex relations on their own aren't enough to justify all that follows. I think its deeply wrong, duplicitous or, adopting a generous view, misguided to put two and two together like that and make five.
I thought this statement was a bit rich:
"We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters."
And yet deny freedom to anyone with whom we disagree on a secondary matter like same-sex relations?
There's also some deeply worrying stuff in terms of unity. This primates council; Graham rightly identifies the wording about acknowledging Canterbury as important but not that important - that sounds like a prelude to alternative power structures to me; and, of course, painting themselves as defenders of the faith gives opponents little hope. For example, I might say I can't sign up to this GAFCON stuff for some of the reasons I've outlined above and some of the things others have pointed out here (and more besides) but then if I don't sign up, this wording paints me as a proponent of a false gospel, a false teacher. Anyone of good evangelical conscience who disagrees is going to be horribly misrepresented... perhaps even by a GAFCON dissenter's own congregation who might assume all good evangelicals must sign up to this by virtue of it being all couched in basic gospel stuff.
>>Let's not be under any illusions about this GAFCON development. There is a meeting on July 1st at All Souls Langham Place and George Conger says 600 clergy will turn up - that's 7.5% of paid clergy of the C of E if so.
That assumes all those present agree with GAFCON. I wouldn't mind betting a significant number are going to hear what is said but may not, when push comes to shove, align themselves in such a way.
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Monday 30 June 2008 - 05:53pm
I'd never taken Pluralist for a Prayer Book fundamentalist! It is, of course, the Canons that make the Prayer Book partially determinative for doctrine, but which also allow for liturgical development (A3, A5, B6). Category differentiation - calendar and lectionary are part of the approved variations, not part of the foundation texts!
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 30 June 2008 - 05:46pm
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has responded to the final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement:
The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The ‘tenets of orthodoxy’ spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON’s deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion
However, GAFCON’s proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.
A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical – theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides.
Two questions arise at once about what has been proposed. By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?
No-one should for a moment impute selfish or malicious motives to those who have offered pastoral oversight to congregations in other provinces; these actions, however we judge them, arise from pastoral and spiritual concern. But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.
It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.
The language of ‘colonialism’ has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.
I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.
I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: ‘wait for one another’. I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord’s field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.
© Rowan Williams
Posted by: Peter Head
Monday 30 June 2008 - 04:12pm
It is interesting to me that the Jerusalem Declaration avoids particular evangelical Shibboleths in relation to Scripture (nothing about trustworthiness, inerrancy, etc.) and Atonement (nothing specific about penal substitution, important 'and' in: 'his atoning death and glorious resurrection'). It also appears to me a little hyper-Anglican: 39 articles as authoritative, 1662 BCP as trans-culturally authoritative in worship, 3-fold orders with 'historic succession'. The Gafcon statement is not a simple reflection of any particular brand of evangelical anglicanism in England. It was also nice to have God's love mentioned in the first point.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 30 June 2008 - 03:18pm
Yes, Pete, but the GAFCON people used the Feast of St Peter and St Paul in their Final Statement, but had they looked at their new standard of Prayer Books for determining orthodoxy, they should have kept Paul out of it.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Monday 30 June 2008 - 02:58pm
Thing is, how can you be out of communion with someone whose ordination was the same as yours, who made the same vows and signed up to the same creeds and church order. As long as people (of whatever end of the spectrum/candle) don't formally leave and start a new church (which, pace some posters, no one has actually literally said they would), we are de facto still in communion. You can shout "I'm not!" as loud as you like (again, at both ends of the Anglican spectrum) but it won't make a difference.
And another thing, are we not in some sense "in communion" with other denominations? How stupid to be in communion with a baptist church or a Methodist church but not with one which has the same name and heritage as our own
And one more thing, what will happen if/when an evangelical is appointed as ++ of ECUSA or Canada, or when a liberal is ++ of the southern cone or Uganda or Nigeria?
I think our ordination vows and hence church order are founded upon the office of the bishop, not the person who happens to be the bishop at the time.
Posted by: Steve J
Monday 30 June 2008 - 11:06am
There is the very (sinful) human part of me that kind of hopes that someone at Church House has had the foresight to perhaps register 'Anglican', 'Anglicanism' and 'Episcopal' as registered trade marks which can only be used by license where there is full agreement to the four instruments of unity (including See of Canterbury) as reiterated in the Windsor Report.
Seeing how for GAFCON the label 'Anglican' matters more than 'Christian', it just might cause them to slow down and think about the implications of their 'knee jerk' reformation.
Just a thought - albeit a very human one!
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Monday 30 June 2008 - 10:13am
Graham - you do right to be worried - GAFCON (or FOCA?) is moving fast. I hope that someone somewhere (in Lambeth) has a response ready to this kind of unprincipled expansionism.
To my mind the only response is to call it what it is - a separation (won't use other more loaded S words), And that if people choose to align themselves with this movement then the C of E will de facto regard them as having moved themselves out of communion. I do not think that this should be allowed to drift on - nor, frankly, should too much more energy be expended on trying to draw people back to sit around a table that they now despise.
++Rowan has had enough insults hurled his direction to at least make clear that people will no longer align themselves to his leadership - and if they won't do that then they are setting themselves up as their own arbiters. So be it.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 30 June 2008 - 08:57am
'When asked how far the archbishops were prepared to go to intervene, Akinola replied: "If you receive an SOS from anywhere in the world we will move in."'
This is a quotation from the article 'Conservative Anglicans form breakaway church in revolution led from the south', by Riazat Butt and Toni O'Loughlin, The Guardian, 30 June 2008.
This goes right against The Windsor Report and is very worrying in its implications. It seems to provide evidence that the Fellowship may indeed be a 'church within a church' as was mentioned earlier in the week, but was carefully left out of the final statement.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 30 June 2008 - 12:34am
Let's not be under any illusions about this GAFCON development. There is a meeting on July 1st at All Souls Langham Place and George Conger says 600 clergy will turn up - that's 7.5% of paid clergy of the C of E if so.
Let us suppose the Bishop of Lincoln, described on some websites as "revisionist", decides to offer prayers in his chapel to a gay couple after a civil partnership, like he said he would (he supported a decision to refuse to have a bigger blessing event). Then he finds that a church or two - let's say the one in Stamford, the one that has people driving in from all around - seeks alternative oversight from the Primates' Council. It's not on, is it? Aparently there are even people in Tom Wright's diocese that are interested in alternative oversight.
The Common Cause partnership was the model for oversight, that is turned into a new province. What would happen differently now is that the oversight would be collective almost straight away, but as the Primates' Council declared some bishops unorthodox, say Tom Wright and John Saxbee, then eventually the patchwork of congregatations refusing to obey their bishops would grow into the logical extension of another imposed province.
I keep being told that clergy have made promises and that this is backed by the law of the land. Certainly they can't take any property with them, like they can try in the United States, but it does not stop congregations leaving on mass and producing the money themselves to keep themselves going.
It could start by some independent Anglican style congregations coming under the Primates' Council - for example, somewhere like that chap in the Wyre Forest, who seems to produce material for the likes of Anglican Mainstream. Once it starts, others join.
We shouldn't be under any illusions that in time these international tentacles will be in every Western Church area.
The whole thing makes a mockery of any attempt by Rowan Williams to tackle the weakness of episcopal organisation he sees in Anglicanism. For some time he has pressed a centralising solution based on the diocese and primacy, and now it is even worse because authority is running in different directions. Now that orthodoxy so called is being siphoned off in another direction, there is no way that a Covenant with any restriction is going to be acceptable. It has been rejected already by many provinces, those most likely to be targeted by the Primates' Council, and the Archbishop's policy will just run into the ground. Anglicanism will gravitate to a confederal or autocephalous relationship, the centralisation solution is unsuitable - but if the New Puritans wish to be centralised internationally, that is their business supporting their kind of Anglicanism.
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 10:51pm
29th June is Peter or Peter & Paul in the Common Worship lectionary.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 10:07pm
Interesting and challenging comment. --' intelligently argued and thoughtful'.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/religious-condemnation-of-homosexuals-denies-human-rights-20080629-2ytn.html?page=-1
Posted by: User 1174
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 09:46pm
The incredible thing is that womens priestly ordination is not a test of GAFCONIAN orthodoxy...presumably to keep Nazir-Ali, Kenya, uganda and Rwanda on board.
There is no mention of Christ's teaching on marriage and divorce in either the declaration and the Hand book. Rather ironic when one considers the book is entitled, " The Way , the Life and the Truth." To have pronounced on this would have caused a split within the "orthodox" ranks.
Can Bishop Iker and Bishop Schofield sign the declaration and return home, to continue the Anglo-Catholic rituals and doctrines condemned in the articles!
For persons who are zealous fror truth, this seems more of a deceitful sham.
By the way the declaration is dated St Peter and St Paul..the joint feast day is a Roman feast and the 1662 BCP has only Peter the Apostle.
Posted by: Sergei
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 08:27pm
I'm rather new to all these debates but I guess I have a number of responses or questions:
1. Have all the bishops at GAFCON signed up to this statement?
2. Graham Kings says the tone is measured and not vituperative, but it may not seem so to those bishops defined as 'false teachers';
3. What does it mean for British bishops there and their relationship with the Archbishop?
4. And Graham's question about the potential for a 'church within a church' and yet further divisions is central, as (a) there may emerge divisions within the GAFCON coalition and (b) we may end up with a war of jurisdictions as some want oversight from 'orthodox' bishops, others might prefer oversight from 'liberal' bishops, then some from bishops who don't accept women in the priesthood, etc, etc
As someone who attends a Scottish episcopal church that by virtue of being in a small town has to encompass a range of parishioners, from people who genuflect to people who would prefer to dance in the aisles, and from 'conservatives' to 'liberal', I would be sorry to see my own province become divided on ideological/theological grounds.
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 08:20pm
Graham
Thank you for your helpful summary! The question of two+ provinces in North America (Canada, TEC, new province or Canada, TEC, two new provinces?) lobs the ball into ++Williams, ++Schori, and ++Hiltz's court. If they play legal, Nicea canon hardball then there would appear to be 'schism' in North America (i.e. if they absolutely refuse to recognise the validity of new province(s)). If they play authentic Anglican cricket, they will recognise a new form of the game is 'emerging' and engage with it as a 'new expression' of Anglicanism.
Archbishop Williams should consider doing this for the sake of the Communion and the prestige of the See of Canterbury. Primates Schori and Hiltz should consider doing this as penance for poor treatment of faithful Anglicans in their midst.
Are they going to be leaders or dividers?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 05:07pm
For various reports and comments today on the GAFCON Final Statement, see Fulcrum newswatch.
On first reading, there is much to be encouraged about in the Final Statement and also some very serious questions which need considering:
Encouragements include:
No schism in the Anglican Communion - it seems that Peter Jensen, amongst others, has insisted on this
the tone is serious and not vituperative
the Jerusalem Declaration sets the controversies in a wide context and is likely to become an important document in the future
there has clearly been joyful fellowship and worship during the conference
Fellowship is a good word to use in this context, much better than 'church' or 'network' or 'federation'
Questions which need considering:
the substantial authority that the Primates' Council claims for itself to define who is authencially Anglican - it specifically excludes the Archbishop of Canterbury from such a role, though there is the interesting word 'necessarily': 'While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.'
who has the authority to gather this new Primates' Council - ie who will preside? The natural leader who emerged in the planning of GAFCON, and during it, is Peter Jensen. However, he is not a Primate. It is likely, however, that he would be included in the Council - perhaps as its chair or covenor.
Concerning the following quotation:
We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons.
Would this allow clergy in dioceses of the Church of England who say their bishop is 'unorthodox' or who is 'preventing their church planting' to claim to be under the authority of the Primates' Council? It seems to open up the potential for grave divisions and the possible license, which some have longed planned for, of importing into the Church of England the divisions of The Episcopal Church. It is here that the real test comes whether this is in fact a 'church within a church' - or even 'a church in fellowship's clothing'...
there may not be schism in the Communion as a whole, but the Primates' Council is being called upon to authenicate a split in the USA from The Episcopal Church in the very near future. How is a split in one province not a schism in the whole? On the answer to this question much of the future of the Communion depends.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 11:32am
In view of this GAFCON statement and the global movement within the Anglican Church what are the expectations within the C of E and the consequences of the Global Anglicanism & English Orthodoxy briefing for incumbents and local church leaders on next Tuesday July 1st 2008, 10.30am - 4.30pm at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London.
Fresh from Jerusalem the speakers are Henry Orombi (Archbishop of Uganda): Orthodoxy and Effective Mission ; Greg Venables (Archbishop of the Southern Cone): Orthodoxy and Wider Connections; Jim Packer (St John’sShaughnessy, Canada): Orthodoxy and Personal Experience; Peter Jensen (Archbishop of Sydney): Orthodoxy and True Anglicans;
Be interesting to know the Fulcrum response to this briefing and possible consequences.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 29 June 2008 - 09:18am
George Conger has written in The Washington Times, 29 June 2008, 'Anglicans poised to split from church' and the subheading is, 'Move on gays short of schism.'
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 11:48pm
Yes, it was taken down by 'Titusonenine' after a few moes too ! It's so gaffprone it must have something going for it ! A sense of humour seems divine to me.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 11:24pm
There seems to be some confusion at GAFCON and at the Stand Firm site. Apparently, the GAFCON Final Statement was not due to be released until 10.00am Jerusalem time tomorrow, Sunday 29 June.
By mistake, it seems, it was put up on the Stand Firm site for a few minutes, during which it was copied on this thread, and then taken down again from the Stand Firm site. Now that it is on the web, it has gone up again on the Stand Firm site, with a slight correction:
Please note that the uncorrected versions of the statement have "recognise GAFCON's Primates' Council". The corrected text is "encourage GAFCON's Primates' Council".
What do people make of the statement and of that change?
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 11:18pm
Thank you Graham for prompt posting of this.
First reaction to this. One: I don't think being a confessing church is very Anglican at all. Certainly the Church of England isn't - after all we take rather broad and general affirmations - we never ever subscribe to doctrinal confessions. We just keep on saying the catholic creeds in our worship.
Two: the identification of proponents of "another gospel" assumes that they are clear and organised. But while I don't agree with GAFCONites on pretty much anything, certainly not their politics, their ecclesiology, their soteriology, their sexual ethics, or their liturgical taste - neither do I align myself with the radical and "unorthodox" fringes of TEC religion. I don't suppose that lots of ordinary TEC folk do either, even in dioceses which have some of the radicals in them.
Three: I think the declaration is pusillanimous. Take this:
While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Well - the historic point of Anglicanism was that it is in fact precisely this communion with the See of Canterbury that defines you as Anglican. Under that shared communion resided all kinds of diversities - and still does. But the sees in communion with Canterbury are the Anglican Communion. So they can dress a donkey in a lion skin and call it Anglican, but it wont be the real thing if they start to dissociate from Canterbury. They are pusillanimous because they dont see this fact, and actually separate.
Four: this is a club of the like-minded. Not a reformed catholic church. Look at the way they deal with orders -
We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
How can any self-respecting Anglo-Catholic live with that? It is pure Donatism. My orders are valid as a priest in the Church of God irrespective of the purity of those who ordained me or indeed me myself, because there was a valid intention to ordain me Priest.
Five: to give them credit, they said they were going to be a movement and that is what they are.
We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.
My only beef with it is that it is a fissiparous and interfering movement. Because:
Six: they declare their freedom and intention to carry on interfering in territorial jurisdictions and ignoring what Windsor asked of them, by extending uninvited and overseas oversight in any church they deem to be below their particular standard, or deficient in its adherence to their confession. So I expect to see a little rash of these kinds of things in England soon.
Not a very impressive piece of work for $5 million.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 10:13pm
Why so grandiose ? It doesnt impress one bit. What makes them think the Holy Spirit has been leading them all week ? Again very grandiose. Only time will tell..... Time will tell ....
Signs following ? ....... Fruits ? ....
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 10:09pm
The Stand Firm site has just published the GAFCON communique:
STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE
Praise the LORD!
It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2) Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!
Introduction
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).
GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:
- launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
- publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
- Recognise GAFCON Primates’ Council.
The Global Anglican Context
The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.
The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism. The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.
The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold. The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honour promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure’. Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.
A Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world. Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship. Global Anglican Future Statement, 29 June 2008 3 The Jerusalem Declaration In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.
1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.
The Road Ahead
We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation.
Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead. Primates’ Council We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans. We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith. We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons. We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.
We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.
Conclusion: Message from Jerusalem
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.
The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.
It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.
Jerusalem
Feast of St Peter and St Paul 29 June 2008
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 04:59pm
Matt Kennedy, in a blog from GAFCON entitled, 'Report from Jerusalem', Stand Firm, 27 June 2008, seems to be pleased with the draft communique, which he has seen, in that he says:
Pray that the text remains essentially intact throughout the editing process.
The previous day he wrote about his hopes for a 'communion within a communion', coming out of GAFCON, 'GAFCON: just another meeting?', Stand Firm site, 26 June 2008.
As Greg [Griffiths] insightfully points out, what Canterbury does or says is now largely irrelevant. He has made himself irrelevant by virtue of either his inability to uphold the commitments of the Communion or his passive aggressive decision not to. Whatever structure emerges from GAFCON (if in fact one does emerge) should maintain the Canterbury tie but should not let concerns about the mind Canterbury determine her course.
Such a Communion within a Communion, united in purpose, structure, and faith, would over time have the weight necessary to influence and, ultimately, reform the more disorganized and confused whole. Canterbury, the ACI, the ACO, Fulcrum, et all will not like it but there is not much they will be able to do about it either.
Posted by: pete hobson
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 01:33pm
actually George has accepted this is an 'absurd' suggestion and is correcting his article accordingly.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 11:14am
George Pitcher is insistent that Bishop Peter B is at GAFCON!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/george_pitcher/blog/2008/06/27/dr_nazirali_is_being_exploited_at_gafcon
‘The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, is sometimes described as Britain's "most significant" or "leading" conservative bishop. Well, he is at Gafcon, accompanied as he is from the Church of England by the bishops of Lewes and Willesden.’
Posted by: John Martin
Saturday 28 June 2008 - 08:24am
Very early on I was saying not all potential Gafcon delegates would be allowed into Israel (I was thinking of Sudan, Malaysia, Pakistan and other places where governments don't allow any dealings with Israel). It's one of the factors that makes holding a big international conference in Jerusalem complicated.
We had the spectre of Archbishop Akinola being denied entry to Jordan.
Now Ruth Gledhill (see today's Newswatch) confirms what I predicted and unpicks the mystery of +Bob Duncan's invisibility.
But when Dr Akinola attempted to cross the border, he was held for three hours before being turned back into Israel. So the decision was quickly made to move the entire event to Jerusalem three days early, leaving the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan, the leader of the US conservatives, no time to deliver his keynote address.The address was emailed out worldwide, as if it had been delivered, but in fact it had been merely handed to delegates in printed form before they left last Thursday morning on buses for Jerusalem. Bishop Duncan stayed behind in Jordan to look after the Pakistani and Sudanese bishops, who were not allowed into Israel, and then flew off to Italy to celebrate his 60th birthday with his family, leaving the Jerusalem gathering without one of its most important figures.
Posted by: Paul Dyson
Friday 27 June 2008 - 10:21pm
So will the GAFCONites be in the church but not of it, or of the church but not in it? And if English bishops, priests and deacons join, where will they live and who will pay their salaries?
I suppose in these serious times one should not be too frivolous, but a relatively ignorant layman, watching the match from beyond the boundary rope, cannot but think of another, albeit fictional, quarrel and its resolution.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle; For Tweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew down a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel; Which frightened both the heroes so, They quite forgot their quarrel.
Oh for a monstrous crow!
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Friday 27 June 2008 - 08:15pm
Graham et al
Does Post-GAFCON have to choose between being a movement and a 'church within a church'? If it continues to be a gathering of Anglicans in conferences (another in Jerusalem in 2010 is hinted at), a network of Anglicans working together for support and mission, and a voice calling the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglicans to remain faithful to biblical orthodoxy, its a movement. If it continues to include bishops who are utterly 'legit' and wholly in communion with Canterbury who also ordain bishops for work in territories claimed by other bishops (cf. current events in North America) then it is also a 'church within a church'. Ditto if it sets up systems for discerning candidates for ordination, training schemes oriented around Wycliffe, Oakhill, etc, and provides means for ordaining these candidates if they are not accepted by bishops-in-historic-diocesan roles.
One of the interesting parts of GAFCON is the common accord with Anglicans not otherwise deemed to be in full communion with Canterbury (cf. news about agreement for oversight of an Anglican congregation in Portugal). I sense that the next Lambeth Conference - should there be one - will be faced with strong pressure to include all PostGAFCON bishops, no matter what the previous history of their episcopal roles/territories.
Peter Carrell
Posted by: Deleted user 1143
Friday 27 June 2008 - 05:10pm
That makes sense, Graham. It's sort of like the church -- para-church distinction, I guess. I wonder if GAFCON may produce something that isn't quite one or the other, though? If Matt Kennedy worries that it will be a mere movement, others presumably that it will become a separate church, it wouldn't be un-Anglican to come up with something in between. Hard to imagine what that would be though at this point.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 27 June 2008 - 04:40pm
Thanks, Steve. It seems to me that a 'movement' is like the Church Mission Society (CMS) or the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC) - note the word 'in' which was deliberately chosen over the word 'of'. BTW, where is EFAC in all these discussions?
These have bishops involved in their organisations and councils but do not have separate Bishops or Synods. They are 'voluntary' organisations within the Anglican Communion.
A 'church within a church', would have separate bishops and synods and ecclesiastical structure - or shadow structure. The Global South Anglican movement is a movement. GAFCON has to choose between being a 'movement' and being a 'church within a church'. If the latter choice is made, it is difficult to see how this would be different from 'splitting'. A nod towards Canterbury having a mere titular role, while in reality setting up a separate ecclesiastical structure would be a split.
Posted by: Deleted user 1668
Friday 27 June 2008 - 01:38pm
Can someone tell me how this constitutes the protection of the orthodox from evil revisionist dioceses and bishops?:
"Delegates at the revolutionary Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) being held in Jerusalem learnt this week that for the first time in history, three senior church leaders agreed to give official oversight to an independent Anglican church, which is based in the Algarve.
In a statement sent to The Portugal News from the ‘Holy City’, where more than 1,200 delegates from around the world had gathered, it was revealed that a Concordat had been signed at the seven-day conference allowing the All Saints Anglican Church Algarve to be looked over by three bishops...
...In a radical break with tradition, three church leaders, The Most Rev. Emmanuel Mbona Kolini, Archbishop of the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and Bishop of Kigali, The Most Rev’d Dr. Justice Ofei Akrofi, Archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa and Bishop of Accra and The Rt. Rev. Frank Retief, Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa signed the Concordat in Jerusalem, the document of acceptance which brings All Saints Anglican Church into their care."
The Portugal News
www.the-news.net/cgi-bin/google.pl
Posted by: Deleted user 1143
Friday 27 June 2008 - 01:18pm
Graham,
How, precisely, would GAFCON as a 'movement' be substantially different from 'church within a church' or even 'communion within a communion' (which is what Matt Kennedy hopes for)? I have no bone to pick here, and I think the distinction is worth making. I just wonder if a movement can effectively be a new denomination, or at least pre-denominational, as with the Wesleyan movement, or in the Latin American context, in which movimiento is basically synonymous with denomination.
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Friday 27 June 2008 - 09:42am
John Martin makes a very good point. Wales is still recovering from her colonial past. It's domination by the English government. The attempted destruction of her language and culture. Her miraculous, yet painful survival-- those scars yet visible ...
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 27 June 2008 - 02:02am
My take on her article is this:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/06/galcon-report.html
What is the difference between the moderate voice she maintains that has won against hardliners, producing a "church within a church", and the hardliner that would have produced a church within a church?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 11:58pm
Ruth Gledhill has written an article concerning GAFCON, 'Formation of a 'church within a church' for conservative Anglicans', in The Times, 27 June 2008. It includes the following quotations:
The new body will possess its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges, and eventually its own structures, constructed entirely within the legal constraints of existing Anglican institutions.
Two theological colleges in England — Oak Hill in North London and Wycliffe Hall in Oxford — have been earmarked for the training of evangelical clergy of the future.
It may be worth remembering the so called 'Covenant for the Church of England', written by Chris Sugden and Paul Perkin, which attempted to lay the foundation for something similar to this in the Church of England - it does not seem to be still available on the Anglican Mainstream site. Concerning this, see the Fuclrum response, an article by Andrew Goddard and an article by Tom Wright.
If Ruth Gledhill proves to be right, then this would be a similar attempt at a global level and there may well be similar responses - but let us wait to see the GAFCON statement. The executive secretary of GAFCON is Chris Sugden.
A 'movement' within the Anglican Communion - which has been the language of Peter Jensen - is very different from a 'church within a church' or even a 'communion within a communion', as Matt Kennedy has described it in his article, 'GAFCON: just another meeting?', Stand Firm site, 26 June 2008.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 10:15pm
The article in The Guardian, 25 June 2008, which John referred to concerns an address which Vinay Samuel gave to GAFCON. The following are some quotes from the article by Riazat Butt, 'Anglican Conservative accuses 'relic' Williams of colonial mindset':
Canon Vinay Samuel, a member of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) leadership team, said Rowan Williams did not adequately appreciate the intellectual subtlety and depth of the developing world.
"We know a little more than he gives us a credit for. People like me are taken for granted. The church is such a mess and unable to understand the post-colonial reality," Samuel said...
"Rowan Williams is too much of a relic of the old left ideology which is not pragmatic enough. I think it's that rather than racism."
He described the appointment of the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, as a "symbolic gesture", arguing that the first black primate in the Church of England had done little to influence the establishment or advance the cause of African churches.
"Maybe it will make a difference, it's a beginning, but I'm not sure it has a great deal of promise." ...
"I would dismantle Canterbury and Lambeth, they have little influence and do not reflect the reality of the world," Samuel said.
What do people think about these extraordinary comments? It may be worth remembering that:
John Chew, the Bishop of Singapore and Archbishop of South East Asia is secretary of the Covenant Design Group and is on the Windsor Continuation Group
Michael Poon, Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Singapore, and the leading theologian of the Global South Anglican movement, has been invited to lead two self select sessions at the Lambeth Conference on 'Our Post-Colonial Communion'.
Joseph Galgalo, Professor of Systematic and Contextual Theology at St Paul's University, Limuru, Kenya, will be joining Michael Poon in one of those sessions.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was involved in all of these appointments.
Posted by: John Martin
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 10:09pm
Isn't it a bit strange to label a Welshman a "relic" of a colonial mindest?
See Guardian report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/25/anglicanism.religion1
Posted by: George Day
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 06:02pm
I've just come back from holiday and am catching up on various things, including all the stuff on Fulcrum. I noticed decbass's posting of 23rd June asking about how Rochester Diocese Fulcrumites view their diocesan bishop being involved with GAFCON. I realise nobody else has responded immediately to this question, (are there any others in Rochester Diocese who read the Fulcrum postings? - if so do please get in touch, I would love to hear from you; my details are in the diocesan handbook), so even though the posting is several days old, let me make a few comments.
When I first discovered that +Michael was involved in GAFCON (not going at that stage because of a diary clash) I expressed my strong concern to my sympathetic archdeacon, and then with his encouragement wrote to +Michael about my concern over his involvement with something that seemed so divisive. I got back a standard letter that others have received, which was all about why he was unsure about attending Lambeth; i.e. it didn't address my comments at all, and it was very much a prepared line, without discussion of others' concern.
The archdeacon told me that there was no discussion at the bishop's staff meeting over these issues. And that is one of the concerns in the diocese among many clergy - that Michael, perhaps partly because of his Pakistani background, is inclined to be autocratic and not good at discussing areas of disagreement. This can lead to frustration, and worse.
Subsequently it turned out that +Michael was able to go to GAFCON, and he decided not to go to Lambeth. I find that deeply disturbing, (particularly the latter), and I know that others in the diocese share that feeling. The bishop is supposed to be a focus for unity, but this makes him anything but.
I suppose the one good thing that can be said is that a number of things that he is currently saying (e.g. about the spiritual state of this country and about the need to share the Gospel with all, including Muslims), are very important and soundly based. But within the diocese many clergy and laity (whether evangelical or not) do feel a deep concern about the direction in which he wants to lead us and a deep concern about the clampdown on open discussion. In a sense, I am fortunate - I am in my last post before retirement in 2 years' time, and so can basically say what I like. I know that others find themselves in quite a difficult position.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 04:22pm
I have produced some rapid notes as the afternoon conference was going on. It is clear to me that a self-financing structure will emerge, whatever the name may be or some precise details. It was always thus, nothing has been back-pedalled. The journalists have been feeding off each other in their own boredom and exclusion whereas GAFCON has been busy with its intentions.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Thursday 26 June 2008 - 12:07am
Look, it hasn't finished yet. There is a lot of press writing in the middle of this conference, and it suits GAFCON to play it low - much is out of sight of the press. Ruth Gledhill just seems confused to me, but there is a lot of impatience about.
There are two possibilities here. One is an intent to go out and provide international oversight via some fellowship or other method (still oversight) by which the hard right can defy geographical bishops and get themselves excluded - schism. The other is yet another evangelical failure. Of the two, I reckon they'll try the first. They may put a gun to the Lambeth Conference first but it is soft and will slow a bullet to a halt.
The press is like operating in a vacuum except when they get the presentations and questions answered. So they are speculating on who is there and who is not there. It's as good and as weak as idle gossip.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 25 June 2008 - 10:20pm
David Van Biema, has written an article for Time Magazine, 25 June 2008, entitled 'Threat of Anglican Schism Fizzles'. It is copied below:
The would-be Anglican rebels gathered with storm clouds brewing around them. But now, even though the conservative Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFcon) has not concluded its meeting in Jerusalem, the secession it threatened to bring to the 78 million-member Anglican Communion looks like a confused bust.
This all comes as a bit of surprise to the press, which — with ample encouragement from the Church's right — had been framing GAFcon as a decisive step toward schism in the Anglican Communion, the third biggest global religious fellowship. GAFcon seems to be falling apart on several fronts. First came the venue problems: the conference ping-ponged embarrassingly at the last minute from Jerusalem to Jordan and back to Jerusalem.
Then there was attendance. The clerics at GAFcon were really supposed to sit out the Communion's once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in July. But it turns out several key conservatives did not even show up at GAFcon (or simply made brief appearances) and will go on to the church-wide meeting in Canterbury in July. Meanwhile, conservative Southeast Asian bishops have fallen out with some GAFcon leaders. The conservative conference now seems reduced mostly to Africans and some first-world ideologues, not all of whom are as gung-ho as Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, the meeting's prime mover. Cheered on by several influential U.S. churchmen, Akinola has ridden high for several years as the point man for the ambitions of Anglicanism's populous, conservative "Global South" movement and for widespread outrage at the consecration of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson by the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A.
GAFcon's message was scrambled from the get-go. An opening statement by Akinola castigated "apostates" within the Communion and included the firebreathing line, "There is no more any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion." But he subsequently admitted in a speech, "We have no other place to go, nor is it our intention to start another church." Sydney Australia Archbishop Peter Jensen, a rising conservative, told reporters in Jerusalem yesterday that GAFcon "is a coalition of people who would not necessarily work together. Will it work? We don't know." Other speakers have been similarly vague.
Jim Naughton, an outspoken canon with the liberal Episcopalian Diocese of Washington, D.C., had been predicting a GAFcon meltdown for months. He feels that Akinola began losing influence at last year's meeting of Anglican archbishops in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. There Akinola pressed for formal approval of a new, conservative branch of U.S Anglicanism competing with Episcopalianism, a prototype of which he has already created. The move was seen as a harsh slap at the Communion and had the effect of reminding each primate that if schism occurred he too could be subject to such competition on his own turf. "People began to see that and fear," Naughton says.
Naughton's next tea leaf came last fall when a relatively moderate bishop defeated Rwandan hardliner Emmanuel Kolini to succeed Akinola as head of the African Anglican group CAPA. "Even within Africa," argues Naughton, "we saw the emergence of a large group of bishops who disagree with Episcopal Church on homosexuality but think Akinola and his American friends present a far greater threat to the Communion."
In the months before GAFcon, says Naughton, a leading Southeast Asian theologian criticized some of the planning of the conference. That elicited a scathing reply from one of Akinola's U.S. bishops. When that became public, conservative unity seemed suspect. Meanwhile, allegations in The Atlantic magazine that participants in an anti-Muslim massacre in Nigeria had worn tags with the initials of a Christian organization run at the time by Akinola contributed to the devaluation of his leadership. That loss of stature was further accelerated this week by the unwillingness of both Akinola and his Ugandan ally Archbishop Henry Orombi to condemn the alleged rape and torture of gays in their countries. Australia's Jensen had to step in with a blanket condemnation.
Naughton believes that the combination of Akinola's problems and a tension between conservatives more concerned about gays and those who increasingly regard that issue as a sideshow have combined to stall their movement, at least for now. "They overplayed their hand, and the tide has turned against these guys," he says.
Kendall Harmon, a canon with the diocese of South Carolina and in many ways Naughton's conservative counterpart, continues to hope that GAFcon may be the start of "a new thing." But Harmon agrees that GAFcon will not have the impact some had hoped for, and that barring a surprise conservative rebellion at the Lambeth conference, the big blow-up around homosexuality many had expected this summer will be deferred. Anglicans, says Harmon ruefully, are incrementalists, and "that has continued through this season."
This is good news for the survival of the Communion and bad news for the resolution of its tensions. It may slow down the defection of conservative Episcopal parishes, but probably won't stop it. It is also an object lesson for anyone who believes predictions of rapid change in a Communion whose strength former Archbishop Desmond Tutu reportedly described thusly: "We meet."
Posted by: John Martin
Wednesday 25 June 2008 - 09:35pm
L Roberts
The pastoral epistles commend study as a proper occupation for people in leadership roles, so no apologies for me citing "earned PhDs" as a measure. I'm awfully reassured that Anglicanism still values serious study as a prerequisite for leadership in the Church.
You say, "Get out on to the council estates of Britian & Africa and DO something for the most dire set ups." Sorry. You seem to assume this would be something new as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: pete hobson
Wednesday 25 June 2008 - 09:57am
Couldn't agree more, decbass, about badmouthing. It just saddens (but doesn't surprise) me that this is not a prerogative of one or the other 'side' in this division. On each side there are badmouthers and there are more patient listeners - going alongside strong convictions of what is right and wrong. Of course if you only speak to those who agree with you, or to others in order to score points off them you are more likely to slip into rhetoric that depersonalises the others, and so legitimises badmouthing - and I'm sure for some of those at GAFCON that's what's happening about both TEC/Canandian Anglicans and also Abp Rowan. I certainly recognise a strand of rhetorical preaching which evangelicals may be more prone to than liberals (but what do I know?) that demonises opponents in order to rally supporters. What's harder to do is for us to recognise the humanity of those we disagree with (even strongly) and treat them with equal courtesy - even, or perhaps especially, when we think they're behaving badly! As to what the proposed 'Anglican Fellowship' will look like - well at the moment the vibes appear to be that it's still all to play for even within GAFCON, so I'm still waiting and seeing...
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 11:37pm
John Martin perhaps if they'd spent less time 'earning Phds' and more time doing something more Christian --or humanly down to earth, so many African bishops wouldnt be shamefully undermining gay people, as a number are, and so well publicised. I know devoted people like the Kings went. But I wonder about the state of African Anglicanism now rent by intollerance, that is rather novel in anglican circles.
You and Rob Gagnon seem to imagine 'scholarship' and 'research' to be NT ministries -- they arent. Get out on to the council estates of Britian & Africa and DO something for the most dire set ups.
I notice the thread I started ' Are we being called' has had one taker. I am not surprised. Disappointed. JUST imagine if Gafcon and indeed all those primates meetings had targetted genocide in Darfur or world hunger --what might they not have achieved !
I think i'll make my own mind up about the 'calibre' (are you status mad on here btw ?) of people and their efforts. Well actually I don't think in terms of calibre --not a very Jesus kind of word, really.
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 09:33pm
I don't think I was hasty Pete, I think I was accurate IF they go for some kind of parallel ecclesial structure. If they want to re-invent a mission society they are welcome to do so and that, if it what the "Fellowship" is, will clearly not influence their ecclesial standing.
What I frankly loathe is the bad-mouthing of others, ++Rowan being the most maligned, and the boycott of Lambeth. Can't help it - just makes me feel sick and furious all at once. If people want to separate themselves, then have the guts and the grace to get on with it and then leave the rest of us alone - don't just attack everyone who disagrees with you and then piously tell us that you love the Communion and have no intention of leaving. Love like that we can all do without.
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 08:27pm
L Roberts asks what CMS was doing in Africa all those years. Can I suggest:
1. Be very careful making generalisations about 'Africa'.
2. CMS was sending people like Graham Kings and others of similar calibre to Africa to be theological educators.
3. There are certainly more earned PhDs per head on the Bible among the bishops of Africa than in the 'North' - one of the things CMS has contributed to all these years.
I have always found Andrew Brown entertaining, but that's no reason to take his analysis as 'gospel'.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 07:56pm
Ruth Gledhill has just written a prompt summary of the address to GAFCON by Michael Nazir-Ali, 'Nazir-Ali: there must be development in terms of doctrine', Articles of Faith, The Times online, 24 June 2008.
Martin Beckford has also published an article on the address, 'Western world is losing Christian values, says leading bishop', The Daily Telegraph online, 24 June 2008.
The GAFCON site has issued a press release on the address, 'Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali on authentic Anglicanism' and video of his address and press conference was recorded by Anglican TV.
He focused on the concept of inculturation. On this issue, see the Fulcrum Submission to the Lambeth Commission. In the appendix to that submission, we quoted Philip Jenkins on the Global South and North and church expectations. Jenkins wrote in his article, 'After the Next Christendom', International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol 28, No 1, Jan 2004, pp. 20-22:
I would make a caveat about what we might call the usefulness of the rising churches of the global South and their relevance to the ecclesiastical debates in the North. As I tried to argue repeatedly in the book [The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: OUP, 2002)], the Southern churches will define themselves according to their own needs and interests. In understanding recent rhetorical uses of the Solid South - for instance, within the Anglican Communion - I describe what I call the "two dreams" that have dominated Western Christian approaches over the past half century or so. One is the Liberation Dream, the idea that the new Third World Christianity would deploy the radical texts of the biblical tradition in the service of insurgent liberation theology. The other is the Conservative Dream, the more modern idea that the conservative churches of the South would cling to fundamentalist readings of the Bible and help restrain liberal trends in the North, especially in matters of gender and sexual orientation. My argument is that both expectations, liberal and conservative, are substantially wrong. Each in its different ways expects the Southern churches to reproduce Western obsessions and approaches, rather than evolving their own distinctive solutions to their own particular problems.
Wise words worth pondering...
Posted by: pete hobson
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 07:12pm
Well I found Andrew Brown deeply depressing - which by extension extends to those who seem to think he writes perceptively. Firstly because to me his writing has a profound air of cynical depression running through it, as does so much religious journalism. It's as if they claim to "see through" all that's said to the innate nastiness at the heart of all speakers. Well I know a few bishops and conference goers, and have been to a few myself, and I have to say I just don't recognise that description.
And secondly because the 'real Christians' I work amongst are most definitely not like that. they do care about global poverty and the environment and justice. they are also ordinary ,mixed-up people grappling with life's failures as much as successes. But the ones who try and live by love far outnumber the ones who don't. So why so cynical?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 02:48pm
Ruth Gledhill has written an interesting article, 'Anglican Church schism recedes over gay issue with African leaders', Articles of Faith, The Times online, 24 June 2008.
She mentions that Bob Duncan is not present at GAFCON in Jerusalem - even though he gave the opening address at Pre-GAFCON in Amman. Any ideas why he is not present in Jerusalem?
Ruth Gledhill also points out the significance of the leadership of Peter Jensen in seeing off a GAFCON outcome which is not based on Canterbury:
The emerging figure that is crucial in the softening of the line on schism is the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, who has become the key player on the Anglican conservative wing, shifting the emphasis from the US and African conservatives to Australia. Significantly, the Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan, who heads the US conservative grouping Common Cause, is not in Israel although he is named as one of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) leadership team in the programme.
Who is the chair of GAFCON? It has not been clear from the beginning, but sometimes it is implied that Peter Akinola is the chair. However, at the first press conference it was announced that Peter Jensen has been chair of the organising committee/programme committee.
Riazat Butt in her article, 'Cracks begin to show at summit discussing gay clergy rift', The Guardian, 24 June 2008, also has some interesting comments:
Jensen is seen at the conference as the bridge between the hardline conservatives who want nothing to do with liberal churches in the US and Canada and those who wish to stay in the communion despite profound ideological differences over the ordination of gay clergy. It is agreed among the clutch of westerners at the conference that the real power will lie with the Australian delegates, not those from Africa.
George Conger has written in similar vein on the Living Church site, 'GAFCON Pilgrims Face Questions on Communion's Future'.
Tobias Haller, on his blog 'In a Godward Direction', 23 June 2008, has written some perceptive comments, 'GAFCON Repackaging'.
The Guardian has three articles on GAFCON today. The other two are by Stephen Bates, 'Vicious hot air currents' and the Leading article, 'Clerical Errors'.
Posted by: liddon
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 08:41am
Excellent article, as ever, by Andrew Brown. If anyone would like to see his personal experience of the Church which informs his writing, go here:
http://www.darwinwars.com/cuts/oddsnsods/lambeth/love_at_lambeth.html
it's a picture I recognise all too well.
Posted by: MattS
Monday 23 June 2008 - 10:28pm
Just read the comment by Andrew Brown. I'm surprised anybody gives that kind of lazy knee-jerk polemic any attention whatsoever.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Monday 23 June 2008 - 08:48pm
It makes me wonder what CMS were doing in African for all those years. As a former CMS supporter, I cannot say I am much encouraged by the fruits of their labours, if some loudly proclaimed aspects of African anglicanism are anything to go by.
These thoughts by andrew brown seem to the point.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/anglicanism.gayrights1
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 23 June 2008 - 08:12pm
Thanks, Pete. Paul Butler, the Bishop of Southampton, is also chair of CMS, a mission society with historic links to some provinces prominent at GAFCON. I don't know of other evangelical bishops who are there and would be interested to learn more...
Posted by: Pete Broadbent
Monday 23 June 2008 - 07:27pm
I'm trying desperately to remember who apart from Michael Nazir-Ali and Wallace Benn are there. I know that a couple of bishops were going to go (with Rowan's knowledge) because their dioceses are twinned with dioceses that are involved in GAFCON. In other words, you can't judge peoples' attitudes to these things by whether they are present or not! I think Southampton was going? Someone from CMS??? Dunno. I don't keep count.
Posted by: liddon
Monday 23 June 2008 - 04:40pm
oo, Graham. Are you pretending you don't know the answer to my question? ;-)
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 23 June 2008 - 04:23pm
If some sort of 'International Anglican Fellowship' is proposed at GAFCON, as reported by Ruth Gledhill today, this sounds like claiming to be 'in the Anglican Communion but not of it'...
Posted by: pete hobson
Monday 23 June 2008 - 03:57pm
I think that's a bit hasty, decbass. We've no source yet but Ruth Gledhill for the fact of an 'Anglican fellowship' (I'm not saying she's wrong - just that there's clearly a difference between leaks, reporting and formal announcement), and have no ideas yet what it might look like. Of course a formal 'alternative Anglican communion' (by whatever name) would either need synodical endorsement from across the semi-autonomous churches of the existing AC (unlikely in the extreme!) or else would involve extra-synodical choices being made. But supposing it's more like some sort of pan-Anglican society (liker CMS, USPG etc), which parishes affiliate to as well as, not instead of, ecclesial structures? I think that's past of what GAFCON is trying to decide, if i read the introductory stuff rightly. perhaps we'd bette wait and see.
And liddon - "I think we should be told"??? Come on! This is journalistic claims, that may or may not be true. Since when did reporters offer to reveal their sources? Or maybe you're offering a bit of light-hearted banter?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 23 June 2008 - 03:45pm
You're right, Decbass. No agreement to seek alternative oversight but doing it is tantamount to walking out. Reciprocal action (discipline) would seal it. They'll try and bang away at the Lambeth Conference about it, but without a revolt there it is a marshmallow as regards any decisions and, in any case, the Church of England is by law autonomous (inc. as regards the dead duck of a Covenant).
Posted by: liddon
Monday 23 June 2008 - 03:19pm
but why aren't we allowed to know? are there six? who are they?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 23 June 2008 - 02:15pm
Thanks, John - but Pete Broadbent is not at GAFCON...
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Monday 23 June 2008 - 02:12pm
Errata - I would NOT rate their chances of getting through Synod!
Posted by: John Foxe
Monday 23 June 2008 - 02:11pm
Who are the six English evangelical bishops at GAFCON? Broadbent, Benn and Nazir-Ali I know about. Who are the others?
Intriguedly yours,
The Foxe.
Posted by: Deleted user 1543
Monday 23 June 2008 - 12:47pm
I would be interested to hear from Rochester Fulcrumites what they think of their diocesan so strongly and clearly aligning himself with GAFCON. I would be writing in protest if I lived in that diocese. It is hard to see how he can remain an English diocesan if he participates in the coming 'Fellowship'.
As I understand it there have been no negotiations with the General synod about setting upo aternative jurisdictions, so for all ++Akinola's protests that they are not separating and setting up a new church, if English parishes decide to place themsleves under the jusisdiction of 'Fellowship' bishops, then they are de facto doing precisely that - leaving the Church of England and going to join another ecclesial grouping with which the church of England has no formal association. If they want it different then they would have to negotiate a special status thorugh the General Synod - and I would rate their chances of getting it through. As for the bishops who participate in this - well, if they can carry their whole national churches, then they can do what they please from the point of view of that autonomoud Anglican province, but in the case of Nazir-Ali and Benn I would have thought that they are again de facto separating from the Church of England as a whole.
It has been fairly clear for some time for the GAFCON leaders that they are not going to be able to take over the Communion and reshape it in their own image from inside. So, an enclave of the pure within is now the preferred option. I don't think it is a luxury they should be permitted. I think that if this 'Fellowship' is launched, then its separateness from the Church of England should be made abundantly clear. In other words, that the consequences of the choice should be made to stick. No property, no money, no fudged ecclesial home.
Posted by: Deleted user 1143
Monday 23 June 2008 - 09:43am
I'd find Graham's two 'extreme edges' compelling if it weren't for a couple of things. If I were an 'autonomous rootless liberal' I'd probably object that my movement is quite rooted, thank you very much, since it involves a dynamic orthodoxy which is not only open to the Spirit but willing to act on a perceived injustice even if it must be seen as 'unilateral' and many can't go along with it (yet). If orthodoxy is to be dynamic, someone, somewhere, has to initiate the innovation in the form of public actions, ceremonies, and doctrine. In this case the difference between me and a 'communion' liberal would be a matter of degree not kind, since I'm aware that RW and others in the institutional centre hear and share my concern but would advise me to be prudent and patient. I just don't understand the call for patience when for 'pastoral' reasons I have an urgent situation on my hands.
To take independent actions at the other end of the spectrum, I'd need to know why various movements which seek to recover or gather up something (eg. the centre of Anglican evangelicalism, as someone here has pointed out) aren't also acting independently, even if they aren't 'relentless' in style or temperament.
The ABC has served as an icon of the Anglican Communion. But his gathering role can't be exclusive, since God evidently raises up movements apart from official leaders, congregations apart from bishops, etc. It seems to me that the first task, when it comes to the via media principle, can't be simply to define it (hastily?) so we can get on with the wisest course of action, but to mediate between the various visions of a via media which are already in action. I'm aware that TEC/ACC as well as GAFCON folk appeal to Hooker too. If for the sake of argument we say there are three basic visions of the Anglican via media today, the centrist or Canterbury one will need to recognize that its relative or perceived inaction is also action, like that of Erasmus in his time.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 23 June 2008 - 09:12am
Ruth Gledhill, in her article in The Times today, 23 June 2008, has some very significant information of what may be the outcome of GAFCON - an international 'Anglican Fellowship' (an interesting choice of words, neither Communion, nor Federation but Fellowship). It would seem to be planned as a 'shadow' structure within the Anglican Communion, what Ruth Gledhill calls 'a church within a church', and eg within the Church of England:
Senior sources said that the most likely outcome of the divisions over homosexuality and Biblical authority was an international “Anglican Fellowship” that would provide a home and structure for orthodox Anglicans...
The new fellowship for orthodox Anglicans would have a leadership of six or seven senior conservative bishops and archbishops, such as the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Bob Duncan, who chairs the US Common Cause partnership that acts as an umbrella for American conservatives, Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, and the Church of England’s Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.
The aim is not to split with the worldwide Anglican Communion, which counts 80 million members in 38 provinces, but to reform it from within.
Formal ties will be maintained with the Archbishop of Canterbury but fellowship members will consider themselves out of communion with provinces such as the US and Canada.
Members of the fellowship could attempt to opt out of the pastoral care of their diocesan bishop and seek oversight from a more conservative archbishop, either from their own country or abroad.
The success of the fellowship in averting schism will depend on the response of the local leadership.
It is understood that hundreds of parishes in England could be interested in joining such a fellowship, if it did not mean schism from the Church of England.
The dioceses most affected by parishes looking for more conservative leadership are understood to include Chelmsford, St Albans and Southwark.
London could also be affected, depending on how the Bishop, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, responds to the recent gay “wedding” presided over by the Rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City. Some parishes in Durham are also interested, even though the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, is the Church’s leading evangelical scholar.
Ruth Gledhill also reports the accusations of Peter Akinola, in his address to GAFCON, concerning the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Episcopal Church and his fellow African and Global South colleagues:
Addressing signs of disunity within the ranks of conservatives themselves, he accused the Archbishop of Canterbury and the US Church of a policy of “divide and rule” and said that they had used “money and other attractions to buy silence and compromise from some gullible African and Global South Church leaders”.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 23 June 2008 - 01:26am
I think Ruth Gledhill has done her job regarding the intentions of GAFCON and I give an interpretation and pull some elements together.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 21 June 2008 - 02:17am
Ironically it was the puritans as English Presbyterians, who relied on the Bible and nothing else, who moved in congregations to Unitarianism, a separate expression of liberalism.
O'Donovan's article simply assumes liberalism to be a unified approach that has become hinged to some unstated ethical. He sees it as rootless, unlike attachments to pre-existent dogmas. Beyond a liberalism that is more organisational and constitutional, liberalism is an approach to the other, and that other includes critically examining Christian traditions, issues arising in the Christian community, and in that there are multiple techniques across academic disciplines and an awareness that the modern and high modern themselves may be transient, liberalism continues drawing on them in its dealing with the movement into postmodernism and postmodernity as it impacts Christian traditions. So whilst some Evangelicals and Catholics now live in their postmodern bubbles, as self-performing, self-regulating, self-resourced, semi-critical worlds, the liberal retains an ability to hop between bubbles and applying a wider range of critical apparatus, sometimes bursting a few of these bubbles on the way. Liberals seeing an ethical issue crippled by a slavish tradition, can innovate (as at St. Bartholomew's) to break through and cause a new or extended awareness of the issues. Thus liberals retain quite an important role.
The difference now is that with the Anglo-Catholic traditionalists broken-backed, the liberals end up in a bipolar rather than triangular arrangement. But it is a moving situation, where the Evangelicals are now about to break their own backs down in Jerusalem. Against both groups, the liberals in their diversity remain quite unified, and aware of what is necessary.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 21 June 2008 - 01:40am
The list of non-negotiables (page 15) is extended (pages 18-20) in all effect when they are much more evangelical.
I regard them as debating points. Locally a group I attend had a discussion on the historic Jesus. None of these were relevant to that discussion. It makes no difference what this GAFCON demands as to how any of us express our reasoning, beliefs or faith. They are debating points, and not in every context. They do not impact on our theology, except a recognition of a backlash. They don't impact on anything in the area I and even people a fair distance from me are coming from. GAFCON has to admit to worship diversity, because of what has happened in evangelical circles and because, for the time being, extreme Anglo-Catholics are also joining their ranks. Some of us also wish to preserve space for theological diversity.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 20 June 2008 - 11:11pm
In a week which included the news of the service at St Bartholomew-the-Great and the beginning of GAFCON in Amman and now in Jerusalem, it may be worth quoting again the phrases from my Fulcrum newsletter for September 2007, 'The Edge', of 'autonomous rootless liberalism' and 'independent relentless puritanism'.
Here is the context of those phrases:
[Richard] Hooker defended the Church of England on two edges: against Roman Catholicism and the Puritans - or Rome and Geneva, as Hooker often put it. As an Anglican, he was 'Reformed' in theology but drew on 'natural law'. Rather than respond with an instant tract to the Puritan opposition to him in his church, The Temple, he retired to a quieter parish and wrote his magisterial, multi-volume Of The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity.
What are the two extreme 'edges' that the Anglican Communion needs defending against today? It seems to me that they are the 'autonomous rootless liberalism' that too often has undergirded the actions of The Episcopal Church and the 'independent relentless puritanism' that ignores the pivotal, gathering role of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both positions, in effect, have tried to trump the 'interdependence' of the Communion with their pre-emptive actions and reactions.
Immensely learned and biblically founded, Hooker drew on a hinterland of classical literature, patristics and 'natural law'. His works were read by Roman Catholic and Puritan theologians. Sounds familiar? Oliver O'Donovan is Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh. Formerly he was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology in the University of Oxford, and a member of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. It was he who coined the phrase concerning the Windsor Report, 'the only game in town', and this was echoed by Rowan Williams in his speech to General Synod in February 2005.
Like Hooker, instead of reacting with an instant tract on the current crisis in the Anglican Communion, O'Donovan responded with a series of seven monthly articles for Fulcrum. They provide crucial, challenging and nourishing background reading for this week.
It would be good indeed to ponder again the series of sermons by Oliver O'Donovan during GAFCON and the Lambeth Conference. They are going to be published as a book later this summer by Wipf and Stock (Oregan).
It may also be worth quoting again a wonderful passage with a contemporary ring from C. S. Lewis in his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century:
In the first place the Polity marks a revolution in the art of controversy. Hitherto, in England, that art had involved only tactics; Hooker added strategy. Long before the close fighting in Book III begins, the puritan position has been rendered desperate by the great flanking movements in Books I and II. Hooker has already asked and answered questions which Cartwright and Travers had never considered and which are fatal to their narrow scripturalism. He also provided a model for all who in any age have to answer similar ready-made recipes for setting the world right in five weeks. (Travers is dead: the type is perennial).
C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Oxford: OUP, 1954) p. 459.
With the GAFCON rhetoric of a new Reformation, we see indeed that the type of Travers is perennial...
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 20 June 2008 - 07:56pm
Graham. Good point. Interestingly, a few years ago Archbishop Peter Carnley took on some of the Sydney theologians saying their view of the ordination of women meant they down-played this aspect of the Trinitarian formula. Of course the point was denied.
Liddon. Yes. Take any of these bullet points any further and the hard work begins. Here's a whole agenda for discussion and debate. I like it.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 20 June 2008 - 04:38pm
Thanks, John. A surprising omission from the GAFCON creed you quote is the full humanity of Jesus Christ. He was, and is, fully human as well as fully divine.
Posted by: liddon
Friday 20 June 2008 - 03:41pm
No problem with any of these bullet points. No more than Newman had with the 39 Articles.
• the authority and supremacy of scripture;
Ok. But are we agreed on the limits of that authority?
• the doctrine of the Trinity;
Ok. But is it a mystery or is it a demonstrable truth?
• the person, work and resurrection of Jesus the Christ;
Ok. But by whose understanding?
• the acknowledgement of Jesus as divine, and the one and only means of salvation;
That’s the tricky one. Not much wiggle room there, unless you go for the Christ and the Universe of Faiths thing.
• the biblical teaching on sin, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation by the Holy Spirit through Christ;
Ok. But let’s decide who interprets what the Bible says and what it means by these.
• the sanctity of marriage;
Ok. But does that exclude the sanctity of other forms of sexual relationship and commitment.
• teaching about morality that is rooted and grounded in biblical revelation;
Ok. No problem with that, either. Just let me choose my interpreters.
• apostolic ministry.
Ok. Great. Women apostles, now, please.
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 20 June 2008 - 02:27pm
Bullet points on the core of what GAFCON is advocating from Paul Handley's Church Times article:
• the authority and supremacy of scripture;
• the doctrine of the Trinity;
• the person, work and resurrection of Jesus the Christ;
• the acknowledgement of Jesus as divine, and the one and only means of salvation;
• the biblical teaching on sin, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation by the Holy Spirit through Christ;
• the sanctity of marriage;
• teaching about morality that is rooted and grounded in biblical revelation;
• apostolic ministry.
As I alluded in an earlier post, I can't disagree with any of that and it's surely what evangelical Anglicans have always held. And I also agree with a Jim Packer comment, "Anglicanism is evangelical in essence."
So where does this leave us?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 20 June 2008 - 10:09am
The title of Bob Duncan’s opening address at the Pre-GAFCON meeting in Amman is, ‘Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the 21st Century’, Anglican Communion Network site, 19 June 2008.
George Conger wrote an article on 5 September 2007 which gives a decidedly 'colonial' impression of American involvement in the Province of Rwanda from the Anglican Mission in America.
There are 16 bishops in the House of Bishops of Rwanda: 9 are Rwandan and 7 are American.
George Conger’s article is as follows:
Rwanda appoints more bishops for USA
Wednesday, 5th September 2007. 6:40pm
By: George Conger.
Almost half of the Church of Rwanda’s bishops will be former priests of the American Episcopal Church by the year’s end, the church announced today.
Three more American bishops will be added to the roster of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), the Church of Rwanda announced on Sept 5; increasing the size of the Rwanda House of Bishops to 16: seven missionary American bishops and nine Rwandan diocesan bishops.
The House of Bishops of the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda (PEER) on Sept 4 elected the Rev Terrell Glenn, the Rev Philip Jones and the Rev John Miller as missionary bishops to the United States under the jurisdiction of Rwandan Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini.
The election of the three comes as a result of the “the significant growth of the missionary outreach initiated” by the Rwandan church in the United States, a statement released by the Church’s provincial secretary read.
The three former Episcopal priests will be consecrated on Jan 26 in Dallas, TX, during the AMiA’s annual winter conference.
A former member of the standing committee of the Diocese of Central Florida, the Rev John Miller, III was rector of St John’s Episcopal Church in Melbourne, before seceding with a portion of his congregation to form Prince of Peace Anglican Church in 2004. The Rev Terrell L. Glenn, Jr., a one-time deputy to General Convention from South Carolina and former rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Mt Pleasant, has served as rector of the AMiA’s flagship congregation, All Saints, Pawleys Island, since 2005. The Rev Philip Jones has served as rector of St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Little Rock since 2005 after serving seven years as Dean of St Clement’s Episcopal pro-cathedral Church in El Paso, Texas.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 20 June 2008 - 09:42am
A key quotation from Tim Butcher and Martin Beckford, 'Orthodox sect justified by gay clergy row, say Conservative Anglicans', The Daily Telegraph, 20 June 2008
As The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday, a document produced by the leaders of the Gafcon conference states that "there is no longer any hope for a unified Communion" because of divisions over homosexual clergy and same-sex unions.
Some hardliners say the only way they can remain faithful to scripture is through "amputation" from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the establishment of a new wing outside the existing church.
However Dr Jensen said the crisis over sexuality would just lead to a "realignment" in the balance of power to Africa and South America and a new movement within the Communion.
He said issues such as homosexual clergy are of "such monumental significance' that the creation of a new orthodox branch was justified.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 20 June 2008 - 12:33am
A key quotation from George Conger, 'GAFCON will set the future for the Church', Church of England Newspaper, 20 June 2008, Anglican Mainstream site, 19 June 2008:
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 meeting 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.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 19 June 2008 - 11:36pm
A quotation from the leading article in The Daily Telegraph today, 19 June 2008:
Many of Gafcon’s members will boycott Lambeth, and the Archbishop of Canterbury will therefore preside over a ruptured communion. But, before Dr Rowan Williams runs up the white flag, he should take a closer look at the reality of Gafcon, as opposed to its self-important pronouncements. The truth is that the conference has so far been a shambles. Its leader, the belligerent Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, has been denied entry to Jordan. Other conservative church leaders are missing because they have chosen not to attend. Significant absentees at Gafcon include the Rt Rev John Chew, Primate of South-East Asia, and Dr Mouneer Anis, Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East and treasurer of the “Global South” group of conservative provinces. And even those leaders who are attending the conference make up a volatile compound. Gafcon, in other words, is far from the united force it claims to be, and it does not fully represent Anglicanism in the developing world.
Posted by: Dave
Thursday 19 June 2008 - 04:45pm
John,
There is a link to the GAFCON book on Virtue online at:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8450
The link downloads thr PDF.
I have not read all of this but the conclusion does inducate that the Telegraph report is overstated and misrepresents their stated intentions.
David
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Thursday 19 June 2008 - 12:29pm
I feel for Peter Akinola. An awful thing to have happened. And in a foreign land.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 19 June 2008 - 12:03pm
See Fulcrum newswatch for various reports of the Amman pre-conference meeting having to move to Jerusalem because Peter Akinola was not allowed to enter Jordan.
Posted by: John Martin
Thursday 19 June 2008 - 07:41am
Has anyone else out there seen the GAFCON document referrred to in this somewhat over-stated Telegraph report?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2153935/Hardline-archbishops-declare-Anglican-split.html
I had a chance to skim-read it last week. The first section, authored by Archbishop Akinola, contained little that hasn't been said before. The rest of the hundred-odd pages is very well written. It didn't say a lot I disagree with and re-states some of the basics about what the Church should be. I wasn't sure, however, how well it engages with the Anglican world that's a given, and it's not clear to me what practical course of action post-GAFCON is advocated. But maybe the Telegraph knows better.
Posted by: AndyW
Wednesday 18 June 2008 - 06:31pm
An interview with Bishop Tom Wright about Gafcon and the future of Anglicanism is available here:
http://www.premier.org.uk/news/current/gafcon%20getting%20underway%20in%20the%20holy%20land.aspx
Posted by: Phil Almond
Tuesday 17 June 2008 - 10:21pm
I agree with Tony that the question of the wrath of God is better addressed on the new thread The God of Christ and the God of wrath. I surmise that the positions of Jody, Liddon, Tony are not identical with Clare's position. But I suggest that the points I am trying to make contra Clare's position are also points to be answered by Tony Liddon and Clare.
Phil Almond
Posted by: Tony
Monday 16 June 2008 - 10:26am
Hi Jody. Good to hear you again. I wonder if 'interpretation' isn't a bit too easy. Surely Laurence's claim that parts of the Bible advocate slavery (I would add), polygamy, concubinage, judicial murder and genocide is incontrovertible. Just as its tenor is patriarchal and in so much christian tradition antisemitic -- that's why there was such a furore when a group of German scholars, convened by the President of the Evangelische Kirche in Hessen und Nassau ventured to produce a different kind of translation, The Bible in a Language of Justice (Bibel in gerechter Sprache) that faced up to the patriarchal assumptions, misogyny, and suppression of Jewish contexts. And of course, it's open to all kinds of objections both in principle and in detail; but it's unfailingly illuminating. But unless we face rather than ignore ('interpret') this violence, perhaps in the ways that Clare has been offering on another thread, the conservative ideology of wrath is going to remain as a bad conscience. Tony
Posted by: liddon
Monday 16 June 2008 - 09:49am
Laurence and Jody are both right. That's what the Bible's like. The task is to try to tease out which of the two very different pictures of God most represents reality. I remember a long time ago there was conference of clergy. One of those present, now an prominent blogger, was put on the spot and asked to explain whether putting the Canaanites to the ban, killing all men, women, children and even cattle, was God's will. He strenuously asserted that it was. As a result, he was known as 'Mr Genocide' for the rest of the conference.
Until evangelicals can honestly admit that the Bible is more complex and its witness more flawed than they presently do, we will not make much progress either in understanding, or in evangelizing.
Posted by: Jody
Monday 16 June 2008 - 07:15am
Hi Laurence
I have to disagree with your interpretation of scripture! There are many horrific things documented in scripture, and for some we do have to wrestle with how it impacts who we understand God to be, but I see a God who partners with human beings - and that means messiness! and very early on there is a God who makes female as well as male, in his image. a God who rescues Sarah when Abe would have ditched her and who stays silent as sheer silence when the Levite murders his concubine.
x Jody
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Sunday 15 June 2008 - 10:08pm
'But, nowhere in the Bible is being a woman described as a sin..'
Hardly ! This is quite untrue. We may wish it were otherwise. But that won't change it. But then the Bible advocates polygamy,concubinage, capital punishment, genocide and homocide -- often seen as the will or act of God.
Some of us no longer accept that it is a sin to be female--- not all of us , I realise.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 15 June 2008 - 01:10am
No one is sugesting violence, but you can come with a sword. My point is that those who hope to 'contribute' to GAFCON and see it 'develop' seem not to realise that GAFCON is out to precisely avoid all those disappointments experienced by Conservative Evangelicals in the past. They will do this by control, and have shown clearly the methods they will use.
If you go back to Wycliffe and Richard Turnbull, you can see that whilst he is reacting against liberalism, his method is to pick off and pull his way evangelicalism. When GAFCON sets up its alternatives and gets busy, evangelicals will be divided between that and between something called an Anglican Communion that seems unsatisfactory to them. What GAFCON will not allow is for their outcome to be unsatisfactory. So all these negotiators and compromisers in the Global South and the West will be bypassed or excluded and the rest, whatever may be their claimed orthodoxy.
It has all been done before in the political field. People who are liberals are not going to be directly affected, as they are and will organise themselves. It is the evangelicals who are facing yet another failure: they seem to have the numbers and the money and yet consistently undermine themselves, and here it comes again.
And now we have a very symbolic act of the Book of Common Prayer based gay relationship binding, that gives the GAFCON crowd all they need. Notice already the importing of articles attacking the integrity of the Archbishop of Canterbury (that was always necessary) and now, as liberals push ahead with their inclusive agenda, GAFCON has another "example" it can draw upon. The point is that the Communion is now divided, and any hopes it might cobble along together are gone - so what are the evangelicals going to do about it?
Posted by: Fern
Saturday 14 June 2008 - 03:47pm
Pluralist, yours is an interesting analysis. GAFCON itself, of course, is not composed of an homogenous group of people but rather is an alliance of convenience for many, quite theologically different, strands of opinion.
Only this morning, Anglican Mainstream posted an article "The Background to GAFCON" from the Church of Uganda. Much of it is what you would expect but the final paragraph contains something a bit different:-
What is the Church of Uganda’s position on the ordination of women?
The Bible is very clear that homosexual practice is sin. But, nowhere in the Bible is being a woman described as a sin. The ordination of women and the ordination of practicing homosexuals cannot be compared. They are not the same issue. People of equally strong evangelical conviction come to different conclusions about the ordination of women, but we in Uganda have understood the Bible to teach that God created men and women in His image and both can be ordained to serve God in His Church.
Mmmm, wouldn't resonate within the Sydney diocese, methinks.
There are those active within GAFCON who are determined, for whatever reason, to split the Anglican Communion and there's very little that anyone can do to stop them. They have played a long game - in the UK, it is surely no accident that conservative evangelicals are at the helm of many wealthy churches and ideally placed to withhold funding to cash-strapped dioceses.
GAFCON or, more accurately, the northern leading lights driving it, cannot split the church without splitting itself - the alliances of convenience that GAFCON represents will unravel pretty quickly. What will bind when the gay issue no longer exists?
So I don't think it's fair to dismiss Fulcrum as having "these delusions of being in the centre, and fawning at the present Archbishop of Canterbury." Rather, it's about recognising the truth inherent in the Archbishop's statement that if the church splits, it will not divide into two halves but shatter into a thousand shards.
Posted by: Jody
Saturday 14 June 2008 - 07:49am
Hi Adrian
'If they continue to punch above their weight, and if you evangelicals cannot do a Kinnock and knock them out, they will have evangelicalism divided and all messed up'
my purpose is to see the kingdom of God come. any input or activity that I give to church politics is because they directly affect this purpose of the church, and particularly have devastating effects on the local church.
in that sense the language of 'you evangelicals' and 'knock them out' and 'evangelicalism divided and messed up' is not where I am in my thinking. I am an evangelical, more specifically an open evangelical - and, quite obviously, have been happy to pitch my tent with Fulcrum. But it is for the glory of God that I do this and for the bringing of the Kingdom. Jesus never fought violence with violence - his way was much more subversive and it did away with the power of violence. violent behaviour, however that manifests, will not have its way.
:-) Jody
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 13 June 2008 - 06:35pm
I do not think GAFCON is like NEAC. NEAC had a reality that Roger Harper descibes, but had a publicity that came from a core group. GAFCON is the core group. The reason I refer to Religious Trotskyism is because all these directions and disappointments that come from the likes of NEAC will be countered by the core group of GAFCON - which is in charge. It is not some sort of growing association of evangelicals. When those evangelicals show signs of doing the reality of NEAC - such as Michael Poon, or Mouneer Anis, they get slapped down and their motives are attacked.
This is no place for the Tom Wrights or Rowan Williams's even.
I've just been writing to someone considering activity in a small group of Liberal Catholics, and I went into that tradition in depth, and its Old Catholic origins. In the English Old Catholics, the founder was forever encountering and running away from homosexuality. His priests and later bishops of Liberal Catholicism were homosexual or accepted it. Today Old and Liberal Catholicism is completely inclusive: the most mainstream and ordinary and ecumenically seeking of these groups, the Open Episcopal Church, is fully inclusive - its only difference from mainstream Churches. At the same time as the continuing homosexual story, we have Anglo-Catholicism which is duplicious, and Liberal Anglicanism that is quiet, and evangelical Anglicanism that is against. There are these continuing and deep undercurrents that are indeed splitting the Church at a point where society has become open and accepting of gay love and the Church is forced to decide - and of course one goes one way and one goes the other.
As this deep undercurrent goes on, feeding into the body religious (by the way, I used to observe this effect in a Buddhist group too), so too has it been joined by the fiercest selective literalism of a fringe in the West that is acting well above its weight. The Religious Trotsyist does not care if, in the process of acquiring power and institution, it splits the Global South and causes rupture in the West. It does not care about such a split - it will not want to allow the Global South to become like the West in terms of religion, and it will make casualities on the way.
If you think I'm nuts, just look at the evidence. What happened over Jerusalem. Have they actually, in any serious sense, heeded the warnings over Jerusalem? No - they did a dance, and carried on as before, and if it has created problems between an American-supported Bishop Sulheil Dawani and the Archbishop Mouneer Anis then GAFCON will be more than pleased with that outcome.
They are out to make an omlette and crack eggs. The evangelical movement is characteristically showing its weaknesses and ability to divide, but in the end that is the Trotskyist business. While you lot divide up and talk communion and the rest, they get on with it. That conference in Jerusalem already has its outcome - it is just that we are waiting to hear it.
If they continue to punch above their weight, and if you evangelicals cannot do a Kinnock and knock them out, they will have evangelicalism divided and all messed up. As I have suggested before, Fulcrum has these delusions of being in the centre, and fawning at the present Archbishop of Canterbury. But because GAFCON are getting on with it, you will end up divided and in pieces. The Archbishop, rather than being this centre of your orthodoxy, has never been himself (except with some of those multi-faith based lectures and on multiculturalism) and in the face of GAFCON has been pathetic - as with that Advent Letter of 2007. What I think is that if you cannot see it, then you will when the consequences come down - the liberals do see it, and they will put up a defence. The split is real, and the losers will not be liberals (probably be everyone to some extent) but will be the evangelicals - yet again.
Posted by: Roger Harper
Friday 13 June 2008 - 04:14pm
What English involvement will there be in GAFCON? Mainstream will be there in force, but what about anyone else? If significant non-Mainstream Anglican Evangelicals are not at the moment planning to be there, please will they reconsider, even at this late stage?
Matt Kennedy is right. GAFCON has in mind a mass exodus from fellowship with Canterbury. Not that this is the definite plan, but it is a clear possibility. Many attending will not think of the future in those terms, but, from what they have written, some strong voices in the GAFCON leadership, including Stephen Noll and Henry Orombi from Uganda, have this in mind. The symbolic choice of Jerusalem points to the possibility of looking for a focus of unity beyond Canterbury and Rome, a focus more relevant to Global South Anglicans. If the Mainstream voice is the only one heard at GAFCON, it is likely that what comes out of GAFCON will be in line with this voice, however loyal many attenders may want to remain to Canterbury.
I am reminded of the last NEAC. The platform was weighted towards the Conservatives, who had been most involved in the planning. Many attending did not, however, support the Conservative agenda. I remember being in a small crowd looking at newspaper reports of the reception given by NEAC to Rowan Williams, pasted up on the Saturday morning. The reports all highlighted the grudging coolness of the reception. The majority in the crowd were clearly of the view that this was a gross distortion. They thought they had given their Archbishop a warm welcome. I also went round asking as many people as I met what they thought of the prospect of a separate Province etc. as looked to by Reform. Not one supported the idea. But the voice that was heard from NEAC was the Conservative, separatist, cool-to-Rowan, voice.
GAFCON is NEAC International, but with even more dominance by the Conservative leaders. Ideally Rowan Williams needs to be there, if only briefly, as at NEAC. This would signal his continuing desire to be a force of unity across the whole Communion. His not even trying to attend could well be taken as a sign that he is happy for the Conservatives to go their separate way, or that he dismisses them as insignificant.
With or without Williams, it would be excellent if people like Tom Wright and Pete Broadbent attend GAFCON and contribute their view. The Mainstream ‘case’ is simple: ‘Homosexuality is against the Bible. The Liberal North Americans are therefore against the Bible. How can we continue in fellowship with people who are against the Bible?’ They may be putting this as a question at the moment, but framing the question in this way will lead inevitably to one answer: ‘We cannot remain in fellowship!’ We need people to challenge the putting of the question in this tendentious way. We need people to make the case that gay marriage is not as clearly against the Bible as some say it is, that this is not a Primary Issue in the Bible, nor in the life of the Church (cf the Creeds), that the Bible clearly teaches that we are to make every effort to maintain unity – even when this is very difficult.
Making every effort to maintain unity is surely the key imperative. Making the effort to carry on talking with people with whom we disagree. Making the effort to cross over, to stop major gatherings being addressed by only one voice.
Rowan Williams has precipitated GAFCON by his uncritical welcome of all N American Liberals to Lambeth, a welcome that refused to wait for the endorsement of the Primates. If he meets at Lambeth with the Liberals and not in Jerusalem with the Global South Conservatives, it will seem that he is ‘with’ one side rather than the other. (This will confirm the suspicion that many of these Conservatives had of him from his appointment.) If he attends both, he may still be able to claim to be somewhere in the middle, working for the unity that he says he wants.
Attendance at GAFCON by Rowan and his Evangelical friends might, even at this late stage, avert a separatist declaration from Jerusalem. Who is going?
(I know this is very late in the day and apologise for taking a break from making Fulcrum Contributions for a few months, partly due to moving house…)
Posted by: John Martin
Wednesday 28 May 2008 - 05:01pm
Here's the rub. The blog-o-sphere is packed wall to wall with people who think they speak for "the majority". In fact they are self-appointed and in a world where the majority don't even know what a blog is, they are liable to believe their own publicity. Having said all that I have to concede that I think Baby Blue is very entertaining and at least on occasions very perceptive.
Posted by: Fern
Saturday 24 May 2008 - 01:29pm
Who or what is BabyBlue? What does it matter what he/she thinks? Why do we pay so much attention to these self-appointed 'stars'of the blogosphere?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 23 May 2008 - 06:59pm
BabyBlue has been criticised for her comments on the letter by Mouneer Anis on the conservative web site Stand Firm.
On that thread, the agenda for a 'non-Canterbury centred Communion' is again discussed. There is a particularly helpful comment, and then an illuminating, creative 'parable', by Sarah Hey concerning GAFCON and this letter: she is against a non-Canterbury centred Communion.
Ruth Gledhill reports that Fulcrum obtained the letter. However, we merely linked to the article concerning it on the Anglican Mainstream site and commented on it.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 22 May 2008 - 11:33pm
There have been some extraordinary responses to the letter from Mouneer Anis about not attending GAFCON.
The blogger BabyBlue, began by calling him wise yesterday, 21 May 2008 but since then has crossed out the words:
His advice to GAFCON, though is wise and should be taken to heart. As we recall, Bishop Anis was one of the first Anglican bishops to indicate his alarm after the events of General Convention in Minneapolis in 2003. He has proved himself a leader, a wise leader, indeed.
There have been second thoughts. BabyBlue has posted another, longer, article with scornful comments intersperced into the text of the letter, which aim to interpret it. They are not polite, do not take into account differences of cultures, and seriously misinterpret his motives.
It is worth reading, I'm afraid, because the irony of all this is that the harsh comments of 'elucidation' back up the very contention of Mouneer Anis that 'northern agenda and northern personalities' are 'driving' GAFCON.
Another commentator, JamesW, has written on TitusOneNine:
I think that most of the GAFCON attendees have made it also clear publically that there is no intent at all to leave the Anglican Communion as such. Why would they? This talk that GAFCON intends to set up a *seperate* non-Canterbury Communion is, I think, completely misunderstanding what they are doing, and there is no evidence in anything that they have said that they will do so.
The GAFCON folks believe that the “Anglican Communion” is already a defacto federation and are responding as such. Their intent is to create the “inner tier Communion” and that inner tier will not include the ABC, at least not to begin with. That does not imply that they are leaving the “Anglican Communion.” Rather I think it implies that they believe that the GAFCON inner tier Communion will gradually swallow the wider Anglican Communion/Federation as the liberal churches die out.
I think that Anis and some others believe that while parts of the Instruments are corrupt, including the current ABC, they nevertheless think that there is a chance of pushing through a communion-restoring Covenant. They believe that GAFCON is moving too quickly and too unilaterally and that this poses great risk of disrupting the unity of the orthodox Global South. I think that Anis believes that this hastiness and unilateralness is attributable to the impatient North Americans. In his talks at the Anglican Mens’ Weekend, even Orombi alluded to the fact that the GS sees the Americans as being impatient and demanding of instant reaction (and Orombi is amongst those GS primates most allied with the North American conservatives).
It may be worth remembering Humpty Dumpty's attitude to words in Alice through the Looking Glass:
'When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is', said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean different things.'
'The question is', said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 22 May 2008 - 04:53pm
Terry Wong has published a perceptive article, 'Lambeth, GAFCON and my two 'sense' worth', on the Global South Anglican site, 22 May 2008. I copy it below in full. It is well worth reading.
Much can be gathered through reading articles on the Net on how Lambeth and GAFCON are being perceived. What is obvious is that there are a range of views, as one would expect, depending on one’s churchmanship, theological views and personal experience of the communion or those wider ‘instruments.”
I don’t wish to take any personal stand here and those of my Province (Southeast Asia) have been made known .
However, I have ‘sensed’ two things in my personal interaction with Anglican leaders across the board.
Firstly, there are many Anglican clergy/leaders who have felt isolated and ‘displaced” through this period of crisis. GAFCON provides an opportunity for such clergy and leaders to meet others to find encouragement, bonds of fellowship and mission partnership together. I have met clergy who are quite clueless or indifferent towards communion politics but are nevertheless emotionally and spiritually affected by the crisis, with very real impact on their work on the ground and in their parishes. GAFCON provides an important pastoral relief and I will say, a needed redirection for many of them. As this gathering is not just for bishops only, it open doors for ministry to arguably the group most affected by this communion crisis – Vicars and clergy. Their voices are not often heard. It is my prayer that they do not become casualties (no lack of intention, just attention) as we continue to find a ‘covenant way’ through this crisis.
GAFCON will meet this critical need. As a clergy myself, and from this perspective this gathering can be a timely and needed blessing.
On the other hand, in interacting with some others (and this will include clergy as well), I have sensed that there is a very real anxiety that this ‘breaking up’ may be happening within the ranks of the orthodox or Global South folks. Some have good reasons to wonder whether there is a global perspective or wisdom to this, as to whether others understand what the breaking up of (or a certain kind of realignment in) our Communion may mean for other parts of her, some who are bearing the light in very strenuous conditions.
Again this group of clergy are quite clueless regarding the politics. But the impact on the ground is very real.
If they wake up one day to find that they have lost their connection to a historic church or that she is so fragmented that she can no longer provide any real covering (or in any remote sense of the term “Mother Church"), the future looks bleak indeed. Every member church seeks to be a part of a historic one. It is a primal cry. Nouveau organizations won’t do in regards to that deep seated call and need. To have to even ponder on this possibility is puzzling to some who have wondered whether this crisis could have provided a fresh opportunity for a renewed and as many have dared hope for, a stronger Communion.
Just sensing two responses and I think they are both worthy of our prayerful considerations.
Canon Terry Wong
Editorial Team [of Global South Anglican site]
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Thursday 22 May 2008 - 04:17am
They won't set out to create a communion, even if that is what they get. They will create Common Cause Partnerships in boundary crossings, and probably an Instrument of Communion that they control, with some statement. They will claim it over the same communion, but in effect reciprocal actions will force a different communion.
To me the Anglican Conference will achieve nothing much other than a stalemate. This Indaba group explanation that came from TEC won't do anything - I am sure this is what the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted, but there is not some "incarnate" face to face method that absorbs all this that has a continuing conversation. They've only adopted - indeed they have adapted - indaba group methods. Mouneer Anis realises that a Covenant won't be possible, and thus a "holding Covenant" will come from elsewhere - either GAFCON or the Global South. No one else will pay attention to it. Who is going to follow the catechism that the Global South is producing.
The argument was made by Christopher Seitz - that the Anglican Communion will divide without a Covenant, and a Covenant will divide it. That's it really, and the game is up. It has the drivers to do it: the GAFCON religious trotskyism and a Lambeth Conference that will be like a marshmallow.
The prospect does keep changing. GAFCON itself will split between its extreme Protestants and its extreme Anglo-Catholics, and now it could also split the Global South. Certainly there will be a group of Anglican Churches, mainly northern, that will remain friendly with each other.
Go back months and months: the attempt to centralise when a body is spinning outwards simply leads to a bigger explosion. The policy from Canterbury has been a disaster, the actors in GAFCON are disaster-mongers and the result could almost be everyone falling out with each other.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 21 May 2008 - 11:53pm
The clue to the letter by Mouneer Anis, it seems to me, is in the sentences I quoted earlier, particularly about ‘northern agenda and northern personalities.’
Some of the organisers of GAFCON are clearly planning a non-Canterbury centred Communion.
The secretary of GAFCON, Chris Sugden, has written in ‘Not Schism but Revolution’:
In other words, since the Archbishop of Canterbury has not provided for the safe oversight of the orthodox in the United States, he has forfeited his role as the one who gathers the Communion.
The article itself was published in Evangelicals Now in September 2007, and was on the Anglican Mainstream site too, though it does not seem to be there now.
On the GAFCON website there is the key article,
‘The Global Anglican and Anglican Orthdoxy’ by Stephen Noll.
On Stand Firm there is the key article, ‘CCP and GAFCON: What does it all mean?’ by Matt Kennedy.
I discussed the dangers of setting up a non-Canterbury Centred Communion in both ‘Subtance and Shadow’ and ‘Faith and Fellowship in Crisis’.
Mouneer Anis, it seems to me, does not wish the Global South Anglican movement to be run by the ‘Global Anglican Future’ movement. He points to the key conference of the former movement in 2009. Before that, is the key conference at Canterbury this summer.
There is still time for bishops from the Global South to attend Lambeth 2008. Presence is more powerful than absence.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 21 May 2008 - 04:48pm
Mouneer Anis, Bishop of Egypt and Presiding Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and treasurer of the Global South Anglican movement, has written to the organisers of GAFCON saying that he will not be attending GAFCON and he urges bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference.
This is a very significant letter of withdrawal of acceptance of the invitation. He maintains his strong criticism of recent actions of The Episcopal Church, but also appeals to the organisers of GAFCON :
For this reason I appeal to you to take the above statements fully into your consideration and to be careful not to make binding decisions which may result in dividing Anglicans in the Global South and elsewhere...
I would respectfully add that the Global South must not be driven by an exclusively Northern agenda or Northern personalities. The meeting of the Global South in '09 will be critical for the future, and the agenda will need careful preparation ahead of time.
It is worth reading closely.
Presiding Bishop Mouneer's Letter
08 May 2008
My very dear brothers in Christ,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
First I want to make it clear that this letter expresses my views as the Bishop of the Diocese of Egypt, not the views of the whole Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. I count it a great honour to have been invited to GAFCON.
I appreciate the fact that GAFCON provides an important meeting place for leaders from the South and from the North. I very much understand the frustrations as well as the hopes that led to the organisation of this conference.
I do share your frustration in regard to what is going on in our Communion, as well as your hopes for strong and faithful Anglican church.
I am very disappointed with the direction taken by the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church in Canada. This direction is not only about sexual ethics, which are contrary to Scripture, but also in regard to the fundamentals of the Apostolic Faith as we received it, like the Nature of Christ, the authority of scripture and God's Salvation through Jesus Christ.
In addition they use very ambiguous language and contradictory phrases in their responses to the clear Windsor recommendation as well as the Dar es Salaam ones. It was shocking for me to hear that some now ask for the definition of 'moratorium' after four years of issuing The Windsor Report!
I am deeply concerned that The Windsor Report and Dar es Salaam recommendations were not followed through and now the very people who caused the Communion's crisis are invited to the most important Anglican council which is the Lambeth Conference. It is wrong to sweep all these problems under the carpet!
I also share your hopes that we can go forward to advance the mission of the Gospel and be instruments in building the Church of Christ, founded on the Biblical truth.
Having said all this I am sorry that I will not be able to be with you at your Conference but I assure you that you will be in my prayers. Please accept my apologies. I also look forward to receiving your recommendations before going to Lambeth. My brothers I want to draw your attention to the following: 1) The unity of the Global South (GS) is our great concern.
As you know the Global South was established in 1997 and has been recognized by the whole Anglican Communion. It has been effective in strengthening the South to South links. The GS is composed of more than twenty provinces.
There is now increasing interest from Orthodox Bishops in the North to be affiliated with the Global South. This is because we use a moderate but form of language. In our last Steering Committee of the Global South in March we, in our statement, affirmed the importance of the Global South and its mission: We see an increasing conviction and confirmation of the prophetic and priestly vocation of the Global South in the Anglican Communion.
As Primates coming from different contexts, we were led into deep conversations and helpful clarifications on the challenges before us (Ps 133; Eph 4:1-6; Phil 2:1-5). We reaffirmed our total and collegial commitment to the solemn vocation of the Global South. We resolved, and urge all in the Global South and other orthodox constituencies of the wider Communion to strengthen our hearts and wills to work together for the fundamental renewal and transformation of the global Anglican Communion.
We also stated: Through our conversations together and clarifications made, we are led to understand and appreciate the principled reasons for participation in GAFCON (June 2008) and Lambeth Conference (Jul 2008). Even if there are different perspectives on these, they do not and should not be allowed to disrupt the common vision, unity and trust within the Global South.
For this reason I appeal to you to take the above statements fully into your consideration and to be careful not to make binding decisions which may result in dividing Anglicans in the Global South and elsewhere. At the same time I would like to share with you a little more of my own thinking.
I believe that 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. Orthodox leaders in the South and in the North need to continue to work together and support each other.
I would respectfully add that the Global South must not be driven by an exclusively Northern agenda or Northern personalities. The meeting of the Global South in '09 will be critical for the future, and the agenda will need careful preparation ahead of time.
The constitution of the Global South needs to be reviewed in such a way as to clarify representation and appointment of office bearers. The Global South has contributed much to the initiation of the Covenant process, and will need to consider how it is progressing.
If there is no prospect of a Covenant that safeguards orthodoxy and unhindered mission within a reasonable timescale, then the possibility of adopting a "holding covenant" may need to be considered. I urge you all to consider participating in the Lambeth Conference.
The absence of any of your voices will be a great loss. God has spoken to me through the Book of Jonah. So I decided not to withdraw but to go and speak the truth, and leave the rest to God. Please remember that there will be bishops who are not fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. They need to be alerted. Your presence would be a help, as indeed it was in 1998.
I am reminded by the words of Jesus that we continue to live in the world: "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." John 17: 14-16 One last point: we need to combine steadfastness, a peaceable spirit and gracious language.
I believe that the language we use needs to be especially appealing to the "people in the pews" who may be confused or misled, having less understanding of the issues of the controversy, but who want to remain true Christians and Anglicans. "He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it." 1 Thess 5:24 May the Lord bless you.
Yours in Christ,
+Mouneer Egypt
The Most Rev Dr Mouneer H. Anis
Bishop of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
The text of the letter is on the Anglican Mainstream site, 21 May 2008.
Responses to the letter may be seen on Stand Firm and Episcopal Life.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Monday 31 March 2008 - 11:49am
L Roberts asked whether Chris Sugden has a parish. Simply the answer is NO.
He is a licensed priest in Oxford Diocese, Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream, a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies including being part time Research Tutor. A Canon of St Luke's Cathedral, Jos in Nigeria.
He is an elected member of General Synod. Must mix with some theologically dodgy people there?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: John Martin
Sunday 30 March 2008 - 10:30pm
I'm fascinated at the way GAFCON has tried to use numbers to claim its consultation will represent a majority of people of Anglican allegiance. It's all a bit hollow, but then that has always been so with a global Anglican head-counts whatever their source.
I notice Chris Sugden is claiming that of 53 million active Anglicans about 33 million belong in the Gafcon orbit. In doing so he has revised down the official figure that is regularly given out as representing the number of Anglicans - I think the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) says it's 80 million. I wonder where Chris derived the figures he's using.
The ACO numbers have their basis in statistics prepared by David Barrett, latterly editor of The World Christian Encyclopeadia, for the 1978 Lambeth Conference. There have been no officially sponsored global Anglican statistics since then.
Even in those days there was a lot of denial in high places. The Archbishop of Canterbury rejected Barrett's first manuscript because it offered the painful conclusion that church attendance in the West was in serious decline and this would accelerate.
Barrett was asked to submit a revised book and he put the global number of Anglicans at 65 million. When I was Communications Director for ACO (1979-84) I began to give out the figure of 70 million based on advice from Barrett that the Communion was growing at a Pentecost-like 3000 souls a day. It's only very recently that ACO has revised that number upwards to 80 million.
If Chris Sugden feels it's necessary to repeat himself may I repeat a point I've made before on this thread? But this time with reference to Barrett's research. We've known since the mid-70s that Christian numbers are in recession while they are increasing south of the Equator. We have Barrett's idea of overall growth being at least 3000 a day. Ergo. If people from the South want to shape the Communion their way, their best strategy is to play the long game. They will have the numbers they need to shape Anglicanism as they please.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 28 March 2008 - 12:35pm
Not only is it peculiar, it is a rehash of points made some months ago.
Posted by: Fern
Thursday 27 March 2008 - 12:44am
Canon Sugden's central argument - that 'western' Christians are to be kept honest because they're accountable in some way to non-western Christians - is a tad peculiar, is it not? In fact, the whole obsession with numbers (30 million out of 55 million Anglicans etc, etc) is odd. What happens if the opinions of non-western Christians on sexual ethics undergo a sea-change - would Canon Sugden and his ilk join 'Changing Attitude'?
And as for teaching on morality, well, the rates of HIV infection in muslim sub-saharan Africa are much lower than those in christian Africa - perhaps the globe-trotting primates from these countries (and who is paying for the not inconsiderable air miles they're clocking up?) would be better occupied by addressing the lapses in sexual ethics by their own flocks.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Wednesday 26 March 2008 - 09:56pm
Interesting use of the passive voice, but it increases my distrust of Sugden and the other meddlers. Have they no work to do ? Do they receive a stipend for this ? Indeed not. They are neglecting their true duties to attend all these meetings and conferences. Talk about 'accountability' ! They are not accountable to their ecclesiastical superiors at all. Does Sugden not have a parish ?
In fact they seem very taken with that which 'is hammered on their own anvil.'
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Wednesday 26 March 2008 - 08:01pm
Dr Chris Sugden, Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream, has provided reasons for "Why hold a Conservative Anglican Conference?" on the Anglican Mainstream web site today.
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2008/03/26/why-hold-a-conservative-anglican-conference/#more-3042
He concludes with:
"This gathering of orthodox Anglican leaders will enable Anglican Churches in all parts of the world to develop their understanding of the gospel by building relationships across the usual dividing lines of humanity, race, culture, gender, and economics. This expresses the true inclusiveness of the gospel — that all who receive the good news of Jesus have a contribution to make to the spiritual health of the whole.
This is one of God’s ways of ensuring that Churches in the West are not overwhelmed by the power of their surrounding culture, because they are in fellowship with and accountable to Christians in other cultures and contexts. “We as Anglican leaders hope to re-commit ourselves to our apostolic call, under the Word, as we examine the emerging outlines of a missionary and post-colonial global Anglicanism for the 21st Century,” Duncan said.
God is clearly at work. This is a time of asking people to reaffirm their Anglican identity by being clear about their commitment to the biblical gospel and the faith of the Church as expressed in its creeds and formularies. We have to be ready to make a clear witness, not to compromise what has been entrusted to us for the health, wholeness, and salvation of men, women, and children.
We must put our hope in God; we must pray for his will to be done; we must be ready to be willing instruments of his purpose; and we must look for him to give the increase."
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Thursday 20 March 2008 - 09:51am
The hatred of gays is breath-taking. Or are we just an excuse, a pretext for hateful language and bad behaviour ?
I can't believe you are tearing each other apart because some of us are gay. Let alone one honest, otherwise ordinary bishop in New Hampshire.
As for the future of 'Anglicanism' -- Evo or otherwise, those who most claim to represent and love it, are hastening its / your demise.
Few outside the charmed circle / coterie take it very seriously any more. How could we ?
(Notwithstanding a good radio talk from Tom Wright last night in the Lent series on 4. )
Posted by: Iconoclast
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 10:05pm
Correct me if I am wrong but in Craig's argument, by the same token, could not the breaking away of the of the Church England from Roman Catholicism be equally seen as putting Anglicanism in a 'schismatic bad light' in respect of Calvin's prerogatives?
And if discipline is to be exercised through the instruments of Communion and one province blatantly ignores or refuses to be disciplined by them, what is to happen then?
Perhaps 3 things?
1. Obfuscation ?
2. Procrastination?
3. GAFCON-like initiatives?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 07:10pm
We have just published on Fulcrum the fourth and final article in Craig Uffman's series 'Eccelsiology and Social Ethics'. It is entitled, 'Calvin on the Church, Disciple and Advocates of Schism'.
Posted by: Peter Carrell
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 06:31pm
The future of Anglican evangelicalism is in your hands. You seek advice concerning a strategic conference coming up in the next few months. One adviser says this:
"To those bishops who go to Lambeth knowing that unrepentant homosexual activity is wrong - your profession of evangelical credentials will always be tarnished. You cannot expect God's people to trust you as you pick and choose which parts of the Bible apply to others and apply to you." (Philip Jensen in a paper noted in previous posts)
Another says this:
"encourages the bishops of our Province to participate in the Lambeth Conference 2008 yet also fully understands and respects the decision of some who for their own principled reasons may choose not to attend the Lambeth Conference 2008;" (The SYNOD of the Province of the Anglican Church in South East Asia, meeting in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, 27 - 28 February 2008, also noted previously).
Which advice will you follow? Tough choice to make!
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 06:01pm
Thanks, John. You stress that Phillip Jensen does not mention GAFCON. Maybe not in his particular address, but he did not need to do so, for the whole the context of his address makes the Lambeth/GAFCON alternative obvious. His address was part of a briefing in Sydney Cathedral, of which he is Dean, which included 4 addresses. The fourth was by Russell Powell, entitled, 'What is GAFCON all about?'
I was responding to a comment on this forum by another 'John' on 15 March who also saw the significance of the context of the 4 addresses when he wrote:
There was an important briefing at Sydney Cathedral last week on the GAFCON/Lambeth situation where four important papers were presented by the Dean and others. Details are here: your.sydneyanglicans.net/media/audio/are_there_limits_to_fellowship
It is well known that the Dean's brother, Peter Jensen, is Archbishop of Sydney and is a leading member of the organising committee of GAFCON.
Are you really suggesting that in urging Bishops not to attend Lambeth, Phillip Jensen would imagine they should not go to GAFCON?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 01:58pm
I know what Craig Uffman is trying to write, and Andrew Goddard too, but my point is that the logic of their positions (Uffman so far) is to put them in the GAFCON camp, whether or not they want to be there.
As for my name, there is no secret as to who I am, and you may call me as you wish, but my web presence name is Pluralist as it indicates my past, my stance and my website.
Posted by: Deleted user 1579
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 11:22am
May I chip in? Thanks, Graham, for the link to Phillip Jensen's thought-provoking and closely argued paper on the Limits of Fellowship especially as that refers to the Sydney bishops' decision not to attend Lambeth this time.
You categorise his paper as shrill and with strong language. That's not how I read it.
You also suggest that this gives the lie to those who deny that GAFCON is an alternative to Lambeth. I don't have a strong opnion on that but I wonder how you draw that conclusion? I have listened to the excellent paper twice (in the MP3 format) and I have searched the pdf file carefully, and as far as I can tell the Dean makes no reference to Gafcon either explicitly or in an implied way. He is simply defending a decision about the Lambeth Conference, and encouraging others to take it too. But nowhere in this paper does he either encourage or discourage others to attend GAFCON. He may elsewhere I guess.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 09:30am
Thanks for your comments, Erasmus and Pluralist - from the right and from the left. Maybe Fulcrum is indeed in the centre...
1. Erasmus, on the moves to depose Bishops Schofield, Cox and Duncan, see the following two fine articles which fit well and illustrate Fulcrum's consistent, central position following the Windsor Report, the Covenant Process and the Advent Letter:
Ephraim Radner, Christopher Seitz and Philip Turner of the Anglican Communion Institute, 'On the Matter of Deposing Bishops at a Time of Communion Self-Assessment', ACI site, 17 March 2008
Tony Clavier, 'To Encourage Others: The Canon-Legal Cunundrum', Covenant site, 16 March 2008
See also the following key statement which backs the Lambeth Conference, from a Synod chaired by John Chew:
'Statement by the Synod of The Province of the Anglican Church in South East Asia', Global South Anglican site, 18 March 2008
2. Adrian (aka Pluralist). Fulcrum is not shifting towards a more conservative Evangelical position. I think you misread Craig Uffman's series of articles and Andrew Goddard's letters with that comment. Craig is writing against the line of many at the Stand Firm site who are advocating a Canterbury-less Communion. Andrew is arguing against Giles Goddard's Inclusive Church line on issues of homosexuality.
Again, arguments against the right and the left from the Evangelical Centre...
BTW, I reiterate my earlier plea that people comment with real names. Click on 'my account' on the menu above to edit your screen name.
Also, how about commenting on the Holy Week and Easter with Fulcrum thread?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 19 March 2008 - 02:35am
It is not a perceptive article at all - it is rehash. I see increasing signs that Fulcrum is hardening its position but in doing so it is arguing itself into a corner out of which there is no further to go. Anglicanism is like a supertanker and not only can you not turn it around as you would wish but there are many other hands on the steering wheel and pushing in a different direction. After Lambeth 2008 when things just seem to go on as before, what are you going to do?
Posted by: Iconoclast
Tuesday 18 March 2008 - 10:38pm
A very perceptive article on the boundaries of Anglican belief can be found at
http://acl.asn.au/resources/the-anglican-debacle/
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Tuesday 18 March 2008 - 06:34pm
Graham Kings responding to 'Reform Vicar' wrote: BTW, we encourage people to write on Fulcrum forums in their real names, rather than pseudonyms. To edit your Forum name to your real name, click on 'my account' on the menu, then 'options'.
I would actually prefer that pseudonyms are not used or even allowed! I have a name I was baptised with and a family name. I am happy with them!!
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 18 March 2008 - 04:16pm
The latest article by Radner and company:
http://anglicancommunioninstitute.com/content/view/131/1/
really will not do. The Episcopal Church, like the Church of England is not some sub-Church of something called The Anglican Church. If Rochester decided to take him and his diocese off to Nigeria (say) then the Church of England would take it back and replace him. This is what TEC is doing regarding Schofield, who has attempted to take his diocese out of his Church. The Church in effect is restoring its diocese and removing him, and all those who are doing the same. The "unity of Canon Law" is under the Churches, each and every one, and not some multi-national body. The Anglican identity is not some pseudo-Roman Catholic Church, but closer to the Eastern model of autocephalous Churches, and perhaps if this was understood better we might have fewer fantasies about what is involved at Lambeth.
As for Fulcrum's position - well, reading the latest letter by Andrew Goddard and the argument so far by Craig Uffman, it seems to me that Fulcrum is getting closer to the Conservative Evangelical position. So I would agree with Erasmus this much - given that the Covenant is a dead duck in terms of disciplining anything, and it looks like it will stretch out before it appears as anything, and there is no centre (it is indeed a fantasy) for decision making, then Fulcrum had better decide whether to support its brothers going down to Jordan and Jerusalem where, indeed, Jefferts Schiri has met Dawani - Dawani so badly treated by the religious Trotskyites that are GAFCON.
Posted by: Erasmus
Tuesday 18 March 2008 - 03:14pm
Now TEC are showing more of their colours: moving swiftly to depose Bishops Schofield, Cox and Duncan, and going to Jerusalem to 'see what they can do' before Lambeth/GAFCON.
And Lambeth Palace is now said to deferring the implementation of any covenent 'til 2015 or so.
I hope the Fulcrum leadership realise that time is of the essence. Although working within the system is important, it may be necessary in-extremis to take firm stands or even make direct challenges before the time is passed and we end up being 'worked round' by an organisation unsympathetic to our concerns and convictions.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 15 March 2008 - 08:38pm
Thanks, 'Reform Vicar', for pointing to the briefing at Sydney Cathedral on GAFCON and Lambeth. BTW, we encourage people to write on Fulcrum forums in their real names, rather than pseudonyms. To edit your Forum name to your real name, click on 'my account' on the menu, then 'options'.
I note that Philip Jensen, the Dean, uses some very strong, shrill language in his address 'The Limits of Fellowship', including urging bishops who are conservative on the issue of homosexuality to 'repent and apologise' if they have already accepted the invitation to attend the Lambeth Conference.
He continued:
It is not good to go back on your word. But you should not have given it in the first place. And to reinforce your error of judgement by attending is to make the same mistake as Herod when he executed John the Baptist. Such faithfulness to your word and promise is perverse rationalisation for continued wrongdoing...
To those bishops who go to Lambeth knowing the unrepentant homosexual activity is wrong - your profession of evangelical credentials will always be tarnished.
So much for continued claims by some that GAFCON is not an alternative to Lambeth.
In the light of this address, it is worth reading Michael Poon's article and Craig Uffman's article published yesterday on Fulcrum.
Posted by: John
Saturday 15 March 2008 - 05:32pm
There was an important briefing at Sydney Cathedral last week on the GAFCON/Lambeth situation where four important papers were presented by the Dean and others. Details are here: your.sydneyanglicans.net/media/audio/are_there_limits_to_fellowship
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 11 March 2008 - 09:46pm
Michael Poon published a very significant article on the Global South Anglican site, on 10 March 2008, 'The Global South Anglican: its origins and development'.
Concerning GAFCON, he comments:
In this sense, the ‘Global South Anglican” furthers the original aims of the South to South Encounter (as outlined in the MISSIO Report). Churches in the South are able draw on their own resources in pursuing intra-South collaborative projects.
There is however a persistent undercurrent within “Global South Anglican” that defines itself doctrinally against the wider Anglican Communion, and posits itself against “liberal leadership” in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. The primates of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda are at the centre stage of the transatlantic conflicts in the Communion. Strictly speaking, they are true to the “global South” spirit (and methodologies). The GAFCON movement that suddenly erupted in late December 200[7] brought this undercurrent to the surface. Doctrinal matters are not central to GAFCON. It is telling that Archbishop Peter Jensen did not clarify what “Biblical Anglican Christianity” entails. (He was silent on whether such biblical Anglican beliefs, for example, include particular views on ordination of women and lay presidency at the Holy Communion.) The central issue is in fact the restructuring of the Communion. It would be reconfigured by the geopolitics of globalisation and of the “global South”. Transnational alliances – with the aim in expanding interests through border crossing – replace geographical dioceses and historic ties as the building blocks of the Communion, and with the same stroke dethrone Canterbury as the focus of unity.[33] This of course is in line with Hassett’s earlier analysis.[34]
GAFCON holds before the Communion a new and unfamiliar utopia that is post-modern to its core. Webmasters and web bloggers render synodical processes irrelevant. They preside over web blogs in the virtual worlds of their own fabrication. Its power in shaping public opinion on ecclesiastical authorities simply cannot be ignored. A communion that is no longer dependent on patient face-to-face encounters and governed by geographical proximity: it is a Gnostic gospel that renders the Cross in vain.
For discussions of this see:
Dale Rye (on TitusOneNine) and
Ruth Gledhill
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 11 March 2008 - 05:10pm
The speculation is a lack of finance from their once American backers, but it is just that. It does not stop them trying to raise their own money.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 11 March 2008 - 07:13am
Simon Sarmiento, on the Thinking Anglicans site 8 March 2008, published a document from the GAFCON organisers appealing for funds for GAFCON.
Posted by: Deleted user 1154
Friday 29 February 2008 - 10:48am
The last line seems to me to be the most significant:
"The present order is passing away. Behold the Global Anglican Communion is coming."
The most obvious understanding of this statement is that GAFCON has gone way beyond seeking a simple purging of the Anglican Communion as it presently stands and that a new denomination is being created. It is going to be very difficult to maintain any pretence that someone can be a part of GAFCON and remain within the Anglican Communion.
My rather cynical nature leads me to suggest that the "pilgrimage" in Israel will be nothing less than a grand public announcement of the new Global Anglican Communion denomination. What are the odds on a press conference in Jerusalem, with Archbishops Akinola and Jensen unveiling the new denominatinal logo?
Posted by: John
Friday 29 February 2008 - 08:15am
There is now an important paper by Stephen Noll (Uganda) on Global Anglican Orthodoxy up on the GAFCON website here:
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=15
Posted by: Graham Kings
Tuesday 5 February 2008 - 04:48pm
In the Sydney Morning Herald today, 5 January 2008, there are three artilces concerning Australian responses to the Lambeth Conference and GAFCON:
1. Peter Jensen, 'Lambeth boycott needed to stand by biblical view':
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/lambeth-boycott-needed-to-stand-by-biblical-view/2008/02/04/1202090320695.html
2. Malcolm Brown, '[Australian] Bishops condemn Sydney dissent':
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bishops-condemn-sydney-dissent/2008/02/04/1202090322454.html
3. Editorial, 'Absence is no argument':
http://www.smh.com.au/news/editorial/warm-relations-to-hot-seat/2008/02/04/1202090317556.html?page=2
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 5 February 2008 - 12:30pm
Compare these extracts and tell me if this is any guide to the identity of Ruth Gledhill's anonymous source about the state of play in Jerusalem Diocese.
From Ruth Gledhill's Blog, Times Online 1 February 2008
'Bishop-elect Dawani cut short the debate, saying those innovations
would not take place in Jerusalem---and the issue has not since been
revisited.
Article in Religious Intelligence by George Conger, 29 January 2008
Bishop Suheil cut short the debate saying those innovations would not
take place in Jerusalem under his watch, and has discouraged the gay
issue from being revisited, though he has forged links with Los Angeles.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 3 February 2008 - 02:59am
More on roughing up, starting with the odd document Ruth Gledhill received and the Religious Intelligence piece on the same topic, and the treatment also received by Bishop Tom Wright.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/02/ethical-question-on-methods-of-gafcon.html
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Saturday 2 February 2008 - 06:46pm
My old vicar would never have anyone unsaved in his pulpit. Maybe the Jerusalem bishop feels the same. Who could blame him ?
For myself i set great store by the story of Balaam's ass (I don't have much choice--do I ?! Who said that! ). It's the other exreme, but it does put the unsaved in a different less troubling context. (But I guess, that's the Arminian spirit for you !
'Whosoever will may come"
"Oh felix culpa ! " Happy Candlemass -- hope you enjoyed further testimony to the unquenchable light in todays celebrations !
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 2 February 2008 - 02:56pm
As before: the treatment given to would-be friends who disagree with GAFCON is to rough them up, as happened to Michael Poon.
Posted by: John Martin
Saturday 2 February 2008 - 09:55am
Further to Ruth Gledhill's blog about the backdrop to Gafcon and controversy in the Diocese of Jerusalem:
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2008/02/gafcon-power-st.html#more
None of it explains why Bishop Suheil Dawani has reservations about Gafcon, but it manages to project a lot of mud in his direction.
There is at least one simple explanation to Suheil's attitude i.e. that it's a long-established basic courtesy that someone who's an Anglican bishop who wants to visit another diocese informs the local bishop of the intention to do so.
It would really help that instead of playing the man, people who care about all this would stick to the issues.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Saturday 2 February 2008 - 04:01am
'...So as I see it the battle lines are being drawn far too rigidly on both sides of the orthodox divide, ...' Steve Griffin
Yes this insight comes rather late in the day, and is notheless welcome for all. Apply this now to TEC, Gene Robinson and the situation of lgbt people throughout the Church....
Far too much rigidity about the lives and love and spirituality of gay folks.
It's not too late to repent and embrace us. There's a world beyond the Churches too --- full of gay people.
Posted by: Deleted user 1143
Friday 1 February 2008 - 11:28am
If, as NTW sees it, GAFCON organizers regard scriptural authority as GAFCON's monopoly, that's very sad. It's also very sad that NTW thinks that what we have is a small group of Westerners who are marshalling support from senior African leaders. That only invites the kind of reaction that Vinay Samuel has written. It's sad, too, that in his reminder that he is orthodox and evangelical NTW feels it's necessary to put down fellow evangelicals as not quite as Biblical as himself and not quite with the full program when it comes to mission. The new evangelicalism he calls us into may have a lot going for it, but the matters he raises are part of ongoing debates within evangelicalism -- not ones that separate the orthodox from the rest. So as I see it the battle lines are being drawn far too rigidly on both sides of the orthodox divide, making me wonder whether any of the three emerging Anglican ships (forget lifeboats -- three identifiable vessels are sailing in quite different directions) is viable. While I remain hopeful for the church captained by Abp Peter, if membership in it comes to mean that NTW and Fulcrum are unorthodox then how can I stay on board for long? In the wider evangelical world we're on the same team.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Friday 1 February 2008 - 11:12am
'I am doing a great work, so I cannot come down.'
I wonder if they have made this their motto ? Quite appropriate perhaps taken out of context from Neh. Or even in context perhaps -- should they see themselves as his successors -- as they rebuild the walls of the metaphorical Temple, and meet near the ruins of Nehemiah's !
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 1 February 2008 - 03:05am
I have commented on both the open letter, the GAFCON Lagos Press Conference and Stephen Noll's blueprint. As well as the blog there is a Pluralist website page that outlines and comments on Prof. Stephen Noll's blueprint for a Global Anglican Communion. It really does tell all we need to know.
The aims and intentions of GAFCON are early Reformation in ideology and replacement or alternative structures of international Anglican governance.
The Conference (not a Pilgrimate then) will look at:
* Challenges
* Why some deviate from the orthodox faith
* Why some allow modern culture to overwhelm the word of God
The future intentions are:
* GAFCON should keep ties with those who are organising a Covenant.
* The Covenant emerging from the Anglican Consultative Council is the basis for another ecumenical Anglican Covenant that would prevent heresy and chart an orthodox future.
* The Primacy of Scripture must be restored on early Reformation principles
* Scripture comes first, then reason under obedience, and only then the Church's interpretation
* Salvation is by faith alone (i.e. Luther's interpretation)
* Northern Africa provides the best rationale of "right remembering" of the apostles' teaching and the best examples of martyrdom
* Episcopal authority is not the same as episcopal totalitarianism - many Global South churches need to address this
The structural changes are:
* A Central Synod of Bishops that every ten years has the authority to address matters of doctrine, discipline and mission
* Primates as an Executive body carries out the will of the synod in between synod meetings
* A Presiding Primate AND Canterbury or other historic See would exist (the latter presumably for more ceremonial occasions). The Presiding Primate is elected by the Synod of Bishops.
* A Secretariat would assist (not the ACC)
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 31 January 2008 - 10:07pm
Interestingly, from the point of view of my newsletter 'Substance and Shadow', I have just discovered that Stephen Noll, a mission partner from the USA and the Vice Chancellor of Ugandan Christian University, Mukono, actually uses the language of 'shadow structures' in his essay published today on the GAFCON site, 'The Global Anglican Communion and Anglican Orthodoxy':
If the Canterbury-based Anglican Communion continues to tolerate heresy in its midst and welcome false teachers to its councils, then the day will come when an orthodox assembly must break communion with Canterbury and set up alternative structures. Since the trend-lines seem to doom the current Communion to endless compromise or worse, the sooner the shadow structures begin take form the better.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=15
In a comment on TitusOneNine on 22 September 2006, Stephen Noll admitted that he had been involved in drafting of the document, 'The Road to Lambeth' (or should it have been called 'The Road Away from Lambeth'?):
As to the attribution to Abp. Okoh, Bp. Niringiye and myself, this is true: we were commissioned to draft the report. However, when the CAPA Primates received and commended it, they in effect took over the responsibility for authorship.
http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=15316 [comment #53]
Andrew Goddard, echoing Michael Poon, mentioned the status of the 'Road to Lambeth' document in his article 'Fulfilled or Finished? The End of the Anglican Communion':
[The Kigali Communiqué] presumably refers to a part of the 'Road to Lambeth' document which is a CAPA document that the Kigali meeting received and commended for wider reflection but which (as Michael Poon has subsequently noted) must not be treated on a par with the communiqué. As the South African primate has made clear, "Our 'commending' should not be interpreted as 'endorsing' the text as it currently stands".
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2006/20061006goddard.cfm?doc=144
[section 7.0]
Posted by: Graham Kings
Thursday 31 January 2008 - 01:57pm
Peter Akinola has spoken at a press conference on GAFCON. See:
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=1
The following is a key quotation:
Those of us who will abide with the Word of God, come rain come fire, are those who are in GAFCON.
Those who say it does not matter are the ones who are attending Lambeth. There might be a view, for whatever it is worth, that they want to be there to observe what is going on. But Uganda, Rwanda, Sydney, Nigeria: we are not going to Lambeth conference. What is the use of the Lambeth conference for a three weeks’ jamboree which will sweep these issues under the carpet. GAFCON will confer about the future of the church, which will set a road map for the future. We are a movement that will move away from the “maybe - maybe not”.
It is worth noting two particular points concerning the above:
1. Kenya is not included in the list of those Anglican churches who are not coming to Lambeth
2. GAFCON has now come out into the open as a deliberate alternative to Lambeth 2008. This clearly contradicts the earlier claim which is still on the GAFCON site under FAQs. On the home page menu bar, click Holy Land 2008 and FAQs appear. The seventh question is:
Is it not really an alternative to the Lambeth Conference?
No.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4&Itemid=4
Also, Vinay Samuel has written a letter to the Church of England Newspaper, published today, responding to Tom Wright's article in the Church Times last Friday. See:
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2008/01/31/dr-vinay-samuel-responds-to-bishop-tom-wright/
Fulcrum will be co-publishing the Church Times article by Tom Wright tomorrow, when the Church Times move it from their subscribers only section to their public section.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Thursday 31 January 2008 - 11:39am
Graham Kings begins with: "On 17 February 2004, the executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream, Chris Sugden, gave an address at the London Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship, at All Souls’ Church Langham Place. I remember his statement that the Lambeth Conference 2008 would never take place."
Chris Sugden has been at the centre of all the movement since February 2004 to hinder Lambeth 2008 from taking place. Why?
Posted by: Simon Cawdell
Wednesday 30 January 2008 - 10:20pm
Graham Kings's Fulcrum Newsletter for January, 'Substance and Shadow: Lambeth Conference and GAFCON', also in the Church of England Newspaper, has been published today:
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=270
Posted by: Celinda
Wednesday 30 January 2008 - 06:18pm
Two responses to Pluralist's comments on N.T. Wright: 1) perhaps he's forgetting that N.T. Wright is one of the authors of the Windsor Report, which seems to me to be the opposite of over-confident assertion, male domination, etc.--and
2) what other scholar has been willing to "take on" Marcus Borg and Crossan in polite dialogue, obviously listening to and responding to specific arguments made? Perhaps N.T. Wright is better in dialogue than in monologue--as he appears solo on TV, or in talks around the country, perhaps he is too assured. But he is a genuine, skilled theologian, deeply rooted in faith, and his strength is in the dialogue that the church so sorely needs today.
Posted by: George Day
Sunday 27 January 2008 - 07:15pm
Thanks, Simon, for your response to my post. I fully agree with you that we also need to keep relationships open with "liberals" - and actually I share the same position as yourself on same-sex relationships.
Currently I and a few others are in e-mail contact with John Richardson of Chelmsford Mainstream, with me at the more liberal end of the group and John obviously at the more conservative end. Where it will lead I am not sure, but it is a calm, charitable and yet probing conversation, and so I hope is illustrative of Christian debate as it should be. May there be moire of this across all the divides, in all directions!
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 27 January 2008 - 02:43pm
I don't regard say Fulcrum and those in it as similar to Sugden and Minns etc.. It is reasonably easy to see the difference: one lot is showing a methodology of deception and the other is not.
However, I would be - I am - uneasy about a Church of England that would be reflective of the theology of Tom Wright. It seems to me to be an over certain, over assertive, quite male gender-wise in flavour theology, and illusory in its dive for doctrines when the area he studies is far more fluid in potential interpretation. Actually my difficulty with the Church of England is in its ethical mess: it is almost like a Church in denial of the realities on the ground, its make-up, the way it treats people so badly. Anyhow, the idea that the Advent Letter is something that can be praised (as Tom Wright has pointed to it) is so hugely offputting, and some (I mean liberals too) are clearly in denial about what that awful letter implied and the fact that it could even be constructed troubles me.
The Advent Letter can be seen as a document to unite Conservative and Open Evangelicals, it might even unite them and some more extreme Catholics. Quite possible, but unsustainable given the broader constituency. Trying to appeal to GAFCON, even in the absence of many at Lambeth 2008, might mean a Lambeth 2008 outcome on the lines of the Advent Letter. If so, I'm off for sure. If these GAFCON people are absent, and given the responses to the Draft Covenant (it is a non-starter in too many responses) then the Advent Letter will fail too, but this is a world of illusions as well as realities and the Advent Letter is one of these illusions in its very construction.
The difference between GAFCON and other evangelicals is parallel to the difference between Trotskyites and other red socialists: I'd be against much in socialism but I can speak with socialists and even have places of agreement, whereas Trotskyite methods are always to be distrusted.
Posted by: Simon Butler
Sunday 27 January 2008 - 12:23pm
George is right, everyone, I was a bit OTT...but only to make the point he says needs to be attended to (and apologies to Messrs Sugden, Eddy and Turnbull if they're reading!).
But I have another concern which comes out of what George says. It's this: in all this talk about 'reaching out to the conservatives', who among us are ' 'reaching out to the liberals'? Because of where I stand in the spectrum of evangelicalism I feel I need to maintain a role of hearing the concerns of liberals. I'm not just concerned about 'keeping the conservatives on board'. 'Liberals' need to see the value of maintaining relationships with evangelicals too. The eye cannot say to the hand 'I do not need you'.
In my opinion this small group of 'reasserters' are given to too much (effective) self-publicity, which in turn only feeds the widespread perception on the liberal side that (as one of them put it to me rather pointedly), "you're all like Sugden". In other words, once group of conspiracy theorists reinforce the anxieties of another, this creating mutually-assured destruction. And where's the gospel in any of that?
I've just spent three months on sabbatical in the US, in the heart of the so-called 'liberal conspiracy' (Dioceses of Washington, DC & Los Angeles mainly) and I've discovered churches that are passionate for the gospel and far more motivated for mission than the typical evangelical parish is here. I've come back more fired up for the gospel and I have liberals to thank for it.
The picture painted by Anglican Mainstream/GAFCON/Sydney/Abuja, etc. is imbalanced and unfair. I realise that the same can be said of the perspective on evangelicals from the 'progressives' in the US. What needs to happen is for everyone to take a step back because these small groups on both sides are driving the church into schism.
Posted by: George Day
Saturday 26 January 2008 - 08:21pm
Simon Butler raises an extremely important question about the influence of a limited number of people on the very conservative wing, and I would strongly share his concern about Chris Sugden.
However, he makes his point in a perhaps somewhat OTT fashion that risks unnecessarily adding to the division between conservatives and opens. (It isn't just "guys", even if they do predominate. And the bit about "cliques and cadres" that "claim to represent 'the silent majority' when in fact all they represent is themselves" is too sweeping in its implication that this is what is happening re GAFCON).
There are many others on the conservative side with whom we need to be talking in a way that aims to build bridges. Yes, we must ask penetrating questions, (and ask them repeatedly if they are not answered), but those of us on the open wing must try to keep relating to the conservative wing in a genuine bridge-building fashion. One of my reasons for being so concerned about the influence of Chris Sugden is that he seems to me to just itch for division, but that makes it all the more vital that we don't play the same game from our side. Let's itch for constructive dialogue instead!
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 26 January 2008 - 06:12pm
The wobble is extending:
One of the main supporters is now saying the purpose of GAFCON is to write resolutions for the whole of the Anglican Communion, while Lambeth 2008 is a set of study sessions:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/01/gafcon-to-upstage-opnion.html
Posted by: Simon Butler
Saturday 26 January 2008 - 04:20pm
Hi everyone, it's been a while since I posted.
Being more of an anorak than I should be (and following in the illustrious footsteps of the 'reasserters' by assuming conspiracies everywhere), I've begin to notice that the same names keep popping up all over the place. Now, we all know that Chris Sugden has a finger in a lot of pies, but now I've noticed that there are some other names occurring. I've noticed, for example, that one Mr Paul Eddy is involved in the organisation of GAFCON. I'm wondering if this is the same Paul Eddy who is a member of General Synod and who is leading a conservative lay attempt to 'protect' clergy housing from the wicked clutches of the Diocesan Boards of Finance? And is it the same Paul Eddy who is a member of Christ Church, Chineham, where one Richard Turnbull was vicar until recently? I think we should be told...
I guess what I'm getting at is this: when you get behind all the official acronmys, impressive websites and official sounding press releases, all you end up with is about ten over-anxious guys (I use the word advisedly) in a room who believe the world is going to the dogs and who are 'bigging themselves up' in an attempt to stop it. It's the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Roswell Incident.
Those of us who are parish clergy know that we have to deal with such cliques and cadres from time to time and often they claim to represent 'the silent majority' when in fact all they represent is themselves.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 25 January 2008 - 11:34pm
I suggest that there is a wobble at GAFCON, and what it often means behind the scenes.
See Thinking Anglicans and mine - and mine now has a cartoon of Tom Wright.
Posted by: Jody
Friday 25 January 2008 - 01:53pm
aah, tim, back in december I suggested that the name might raise an eyebrow and a chortle - http://radical-evangelical.blogspot.com/2007/12/im-back-and-anglicans-are-still.html
It reminded me of the story of the CE vicar who wanted to introduce a 'dick' day (that's 'Dad's In Charge of Kids' by the way) and the rest of us who promptly almost wet ourselves (childish? hmmm maybe, but you have to admit that a lot of you would find it hard to announce that one to the congregation!)
I think that there's a bit of a public school language difficulty sometimes, (not that I'm making any particular comment here about private education) perhaps we should have a little book of all the words and phrases that used to be okay to use but now are not.
suggestions welcome....
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Friday 25 January 2008 - 10:30am
In the light of the minutes from TA and the CT article, am I really the only person to think that an enterprise whose acronym gives us the words "gaffe" and "con" was probably bound to be a self-fulfilling prophecy from the start?
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 25 January 2008 - 09:09am
Cartoon by Dave Gaskill in The Church Times, 25 January 2008.
It illustrates the article by Tom Wright, 'Evangelicals are not about to jump ship', concerning the Lambeth Conference and GAFCON.
It is in the subscriber only section of The Church Times website till next Friday and will also be co-published on Fulcrum then. I copy the sub heading and first couple of sentences:
Despite rumours to the contrary, plenty of ‘orthodox’ bishops will be at the Lambeth Conference.
ST PAUL, facing shipwreck off Malta, spotted the soldiers getting into a small boat to rescue themselves. “Unless these men stay in the ship,” he said ...
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50392
For some early reaction to the article from some commentators who support GAFCON, see the Stand Firm site: David Ould, 'Tom Wright attacks GAFCON':
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/9509/#175148
To read about the flying visit to Suheil Dawani, the Bishop in Jerusalem, by Chris Sugden, Peter Jensen and Peter Akinola, see Pat Ashworth's article in The Church Times today, 'Dawani fails to divert GAFCON ‘pilgrims’:
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50423
Posted by: Stottyfan
Wednesday 23 January 2008 - 08:11am
This is a total mess. almost as bad as the Wycliffe Hall fiasco. Are James Jones and Richard Turnbull by any chance involved in this? Doesn't iot make you wish that John Stott was back in charge? There is nobody of his stature or wisdom on the evangelical scene today. GAFCON is just an embarrassment to orthodox Anglicans. Let's hope wiser counsels prevail and that better leaders emerge. George Carey was a good thing and even he's saying this is 'crazy'.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 23 January 2008 - 02:36am
I think you will find that the organisers of GAFCON have not back-pedalled anything. The shop window may be rearranged, but the goods sold are exactly the same.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Fern
Wednesday 23 January 2008 - 12:59am
The determination of Archbishop Akinola and our own Canon Sugden to enforce their will over GAFCON is quite chilling is it not? Israel is in the news every day more-or-less so when the local archbishop says, look, your coming here poses risks for the already hard-pressed Christians in this neck of the woods, you'd have hoped the circus organisers might have credited him with knowing what he was talking about and reconsidered. Instead, the sheer arrogance, ego and pride apparent in their response is breath-taking.
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 22 January 2008 - 10:33pm
Over the last two weeks what was being touted as the alternate Lambeth has been seriously downgraded. According to the record of this meeting the organisers back-peddled even further.
The GAFCON team have been outflanked.
1. The Bishop in Jerusalem has seen to it that his version of events became a matter of public record ahead of any version his visitors might have published. It's left his visitors on the back foot.
2. I suspect the GAFCON team were badly advised about tactics. As Palestinian Christians Bishop Suheil and his colleagues live under constant pressure from the Israelis on the one hand and their Muslim neighbours on the other. They know how to stand their ground when pressurised over matters of principle. From the Minutes it seems clear the GAFCON team didn't appreciate this and employed the wrong tone.
Posted by: Simon Cawdell
Tuesday 22 January 2008 - 07:45pm
The minutes of the meeting between the Bishop of Jerusalem and respectively on the different date Archbishop Jensen, and Archbishop Akinola make devastating reading. GAFCON is now held up to ridicule as ++Akinola offers to call it a pilgrimage, and attempts to claim it is not political. See http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/uploads/gafconjerusalemminutes.html
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 20 January 2008 - 05:33pm
Well he has not taken any account of GAFCON, so it rather renders the article insufficient.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/01/hobsons-end.html
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 19 January 2008 - 10:47pm
Theo Hobson, a liberal Anglican, has written a very significant article in The Guardian today which seems to be a response to the Advent Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and which is well worth the leadership of GAFCON, Anglican Mainstream and Common Cause Partnership considering in depth, when they reflect on the importance of attendence at the Lambeth Conference 2008:
'The Church of England's gay crisis makes clear that liberal Anglicanism is finished'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2243272,00.html
I copy it below:
This year Anglicanism will define itself with new clarity - the once-a-decade Lambeth conference will confirm the anti-liberal mood of the last five years. The humiliation of liberal Anglicanism will be complete. Its demand for equality for homosexuals has been thrown out in the most decisive possible way.
I think it's time to admit that the tradition of liberal Anglicanism is finished. Those Anglicans who carry on calling for an "inclusive church" are relics of a previous era. They should face the fact that the religious landscape has changed utterly. Liberal Anglicanism has become oxymoronic. For the first time this church has defined itself in opposition to liberalism, taking a decisively reactionary stance on a crucial moral issue.
An institution that discriminates against homosexuals is without moral credibility - and moral credibility is rather important in religion. Furthermore, it contravenes the spirit of Jesus's teaching. His commandment "Judge not" could almost have been invented for the problem of homosexuality, which most straight people find challenging on some level, but must learn not to condemn. Tolerance seems the only moral response, and a rule against gay priests obviously falls short of tolerance. It institutionalises prejudice.
But surely, says the liberal Anglican, this can change. Surely the church can change its mind, reject its homophobic tendency, and regain its moral authority? I don't think so. The problem goes far deeper than the campaigners for an "inclusive church" seem to understand. In fact the gay issue highlights the authoritarianism intrinsic to the very concept of the church.
According to the liberal lobby, the church must return to its natural liberalism, derailed by the rise of homophobic theology in the 1990s. But this is naive. What actually happened in the 1990s is that the church's official teaching (no sex outside marriage) was tightened. So what the liberals actually want is a break with the entire tradition of the church in respect of its teaching on sexual morality. This amounts to a revolution, for churches have always issued moral rules about sex. To say the church should withdraw from sexual moralism is to jeopardise its entire claim to authority. However, the liberal Anglicans cannot admit that this is what is going on.
The liberal Anglican priest (let's call him Father Giles) is bitterly critical of the church's collusion in homophobia. But he fully believes in the authority of the church, and his own authority. He affirms the right of the church to define orthodoxy: the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is decided by the corporate mind of the church. Likewise a true sacrament is something authorised by the institution. He claims to have authority by virtue of having been ordained into the church. Christianity is not a subjective free-for-all, he insists: it is a communal, traditional thing, with rules.
Yet when the church claims authority to rule on sexual morality his tune changes. This aspect of its teaching is mistaken, he says, and amounts to a betrayal of the Gospel. The problem is that this tradition of sexual moralism is part of the traditional authority of the church, which Father Giles claims to affirm. In other words, he accepts the authority of the church when it suits him and rejects it when it does not.
In my opinion, the gay crisis shakes the foundations of ecclesiology. Organised religion has always been authoritarian, in calling certain moral rules God's will, in saying that moral and doctrinal orthodoxy must be upheld. As I see it, Christianity rejects this; it dispenses with the moral "law". It claims, scandalously, that God wills a new freedom - from "holy morality", from the bossy legalism inherent in religious institutionalism. Liberal Christians should be truly liberal, and see that the concept of an authoritative church has had its day - that God calls us to something new.
Posted by: Deleted user 974
Wednesday 16 January 2008 - 12:40am
If you carry on broadening, at this rate we'll back with the status quo ante and the old AC with mixes and diversity ! And you will rub your and wonder why all the angst ? What was all the fuss about ? And no-where- not even in CCP and APA ( or Church Society, Reform or FiF) etc etc will you find a gay-free zone. (After all that pain).
Oh, yes you may find places were homos mind *their ps and qs, and travel always, in the back of the bus -- and that is the 'best' you can hope for. And even that will be over-taken by developing standards of decency in the civilised world, increasingly reflected in Equal Opportunites and other forms of legislation ( e.g. Civil Partnership Law, now accepted by the Law of the C of E-- see the Clergy Pensions booklet, obtainable from CC Pensions Dept., free of charge)
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Wednesday 16 January 2008 - 12:03am
Graham,
Thanks, "Anglican chgurches have bishops is a good answer. I was not impying anything about Charles Raven's church having a relationship with any bishop. You have a more subltle brain than I perhaps.
But now you mention it... would Raven coming under the authority of a bishop, other than his previous diocesan or a PEV, be sufficient for him to be regarded as an Anglican in your view? I only ask since you sugggested a possibility i had not thought of.
Your comments on CANA and AMiA raise a further issue. Were you in the circumstances those congregations had found themselves in within TEC (losing members opposed to national church policies, forced to a "full inclusion diocese perhaps), what would you have done? Assuming that you would stay within TEC how long would you be telling your congregation they should wait before a solution is found?
I do not wish to imply that I would have advocated jumping out of TEC necessarily. But it seems to me those folk are in a very hard place, and Fulcrum's views and strategy seem to fit the UK situation rather than theirs
Posted by: Erasmus
Monday 14 January 2008 - 06:39pm
ps I completely agree that all Anglican bishops should be at Lambeth. And I think that the definition of who is an "Anglican" bishop might fruitfully be broadened to include more conservative folk who have already felt forced out (or their successors). That way the ABofC could really argue that Lambeth is not a test of perfect rectitude... At the moment you don't have to be doctinally "sound" but do have to be ecclesiastically "sound" - which gives the impression that, in reality, episcopal structure is more important to the Anglican heirarchy than Truth!!
Posted by: Erasmus
Monday 14 January 2008 - 06:30pm
Ken, sorry, I was being somewhat cheeky. My main point would be that websites are written with a particular audience in mind - usually existing congregation and local folk who might be thinking about attending. I don't think it is too surprising if most Anglican-monded churches in the UK (inside or outside the provincial system) don't highlight the Anglican label much.. I wonder how many people outside the clergy/synods even know what Anglican means?
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Monday 14 January 2008 - 03:33pm
The main point for me is that instead of cleaving apart Anglicans should be seeking unity. My concern about GAFCON is that ALL bishops should be at Lambeth 08 if their concerns for the future of the Anglican Communion are to be prayerfully discussed.
Charles Raven writes from outside the C of E and any active involvement in the Anglican Communion.
Erasmus, as to your fun the website of Giles Fraser's parish does say that it is a parish and part of the Diocese of Southwark and that the parish, the diocese and the C of E are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Paul Perkin, a Covenant for the C of E signatory, is a member of General Synod. He is described as Vicar, has an assistant minister and 2 curates! The Durie Hall was dedicated by the Bishop of Southwark!
So the future of the global Anglican Communion should be considered by its bishops at Lambeth.
Posted by: Erasmus
Monday 14 January 2008 - 02:03pm
Ken Sawyer, just for fun I thought I'd look at two other typical CofE churches' websites to see whether they mention the word "Anglican" in their self-desciption... neither do! So here is an excerpt from "who we are" at the websites of the churches ministered to by Giles Fraser, and by his mate down the road, Paul Perkin:
"We are a very lively parish in the liberal catholic tradition but made up of people of many different styles. We aim to be a place of spiritual, intellectual and emotional refreshment. We seek to give people the chance to learn and grow in their faith through challenging sermons and a variety of educational courses."
"St Marks is a vibrant church in the diverse community around south Battersea in London. We hope our site provides some useful information about who we are and what we do. Our aim as a church is to grow.... deeper with God, closer to one another and further out in society."
Is no-one proud of being Anglican ?!
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 11:10pm
Thanks, Neil. That is certainly not my advice to Charles Raven. As you will know from previous articles and posts, I do not think AMiA or CANA provide an appropriate way forward out of this crisis.
That way forward, it seems to me, is the way of the Windsor Report, the Covenant and the Advent Letter.
Posted by: Neil
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 11:03pm
Graham, it seems to me that Charles not having a Bishop is precisely because he is orthodox and he has been driven out by his Bishop who is unorthodox.
I know what I would rather have: give me orthodox belief, upholding Scripture and the Anglican formularies anyday over a Bishop!
The implication of your post is that Charles should go and get a foreign Bishop and then you'd let him be Anglican? I wonder if he is reading this and might take your advice.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 10:14pm
Thanks, Obadiah. It seems to me that the answer to your question as to whether Charles Raven's church is Anglican or not is, 'it is not'. Anglican churches have bishops. His does not.
Or are you suggesting, in the light of your mentioning of AMiA and CANA, that a bishop of another province in the Anglican Communion, eg Sydney or elsewhere, is actually quietly 'acting' as his bishop? On the surface, his church is nothing like AMiA or CANA.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 08:57pm
Ken Sawyer writes that Charles Raven writes from outside the current life of the Church of England. Does that resolve the question of whether his congregation is Anglican? Is AMiA anglican? Is CANA Anglican? These are outside the life of the official province in their part of the world.
Posted by: Michael
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 05:00pm
What do you expect? I have followed virtueonline for several years and find it rather lacking in both virtue and accuracy. It's a good reason to move into the diocese of New Hampshire
Michael
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Sunday 13 January 2008 - 03:58pm
Some will have noticed the footnote at the end of Charles Raven's Virtueonline article, "The Church of England's Global Anglican Future".
It states: The Rev. Charles Raven is Senior Minister of Christ Church, Wyre Forest which is an independent Anglican congregation but located within Worcester Diocese.
The website of said church reads: We are a community of people of all ages drawn from varied backgrounds who share a common belief in Jesus Christ as God and as Saviour and seek to serve the people of Kidderminster, Bewdley and Stourport in the Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire. And: ChristChurch exists to reach the spiritually lost in the Wyre District and beyond so that they may become wholehearted followers of Jesus Christ.
There is no mention of Anglican there. It is also a less than honest statement in the footnote that the congregation is located within Worcester Diocese. Geographically true of course.
So Charles Raven writes from outside the current life of the Church of England.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 11:14pm
I think what Charles Raven says is another clue to GAFCON, in its intervention likely for the Church of England (as on Anglican Mainstream).
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/01/raven-interventionin.html
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 09:02pm
The wonderful Python satire at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Z_b-06BDk
will help us remember that we are all supposed to be on the same side and hopefully keep us smiling. It probably fits on the WH thread too.
If you want a more serious angle, I'd always thought of Galatians 3:28 as a core principle and the apostle doesn't say "you are all supposed to be one in Christ Jesus", or "you can all pretend to be one in Christ Jesus". Our unity in Christ is not something we have to achieve, it has been achieved for us by Christ. We just have to work out how the pieces of the jigsaw fit together - and that's been going on since the council of Jerusalem in AD49
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 08:48pm
It's not meant as an insult, nor was it really a proper contribution to the debate - just trying to lighten the mood - and make sure we remember who Charles Raven is, and what his ecclesiology is.
The thing is, I think we don't actually have to listen to everything everybody says, it is OK to say sometimes, sorry, I'm not going to take that into account, I'll choose my own path through this minefield, for whatever reason - in this case, for me the key is the last line of Charles Raven's article, reminding us of his departure from ministry in the Anglican church. While of course it is useful sometimes to hear the opinions of those from other denominations, I am a bit loath to take on board the exaggerated (and one might say inaccurate) opinions of someone who has already jumped ship.
In retrospect I'm quite surprised the moderators let me through on that last one and if they want to delete it because people are upset that's OK
There was something about that word escapologist I just couldn't let go though.
Tim
Posted by: Neil
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 08:01pm
You know, that's what I like about Fulcrum discussion and debate, Tim. Some proper ad hominem attacks on people. Always nicely obscure so that everyone knows the true meaning of the insult but hands can be thrown up in the air in horror when someone comments.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 05:06pm
Charles Raven was a liberal theologian and naturalist who died in 1964.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 02:43pm
When you put Charles Raven into Google this is the number 1 hit.
Charles Raven
Charles Raven. Real Name: Charles Raven. Identity/Class: Human mutant (?) Occupation: Greatest Escapologist of the Victorian Age ...
www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/charravn.htm - 4k -
But the other entries all refer to the real Mr Raven’s “previous form”. Before we take him too seriously perhaps we should have another look at some of his exploits.
Posted by: John Martin
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 11:07am
Whew! The assumptions in Charles Raven's scenario as reported by Fern need close examination. I agree that the Christian faith is in recession here in Western Europe. But the solutions probably aren't the obvious ones.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Saturday 12 January 2008 - 10:30am
The full article is at http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7457
Posted by: Fern
Friday 11 January 2008 - 11:53pm
Charles Raven is playing a cat-out-of-the-bag role over at virtueonline - he has seen the future and this is what it looks like:
"The urgent need of the Church of England, therefore, must then be for overseas intervention by orthodox Primates who are willing unambiguously to break fellowship with the current Archbishop of Canterbury and act jointly to initiate a new Global Anglican missionary movement in England.
The GAFCON Primates would be the obvious point of reference so that overseas intervention in England would be genuinely global rather than somewhat piecemeal as has happened with the emergence of various parallel jurisdictions in the Untied States. Such an initiative would have credibility because it would be genuinely Anglican, yet free from the Erastian undertow which has now become a liability to the Church of England, and it would not be identified with any one 'party' or Province, but represent a common mind of growing Anglican Provinces around the globe.
Such a movement in England would therefore be a formidable challenge to revisionist bishops as they could not question the Anglican credentials of its members nor convincingly represent them as belonging to some sectarian tendency. The aim should not, of course, be to destroy the Church of England as an institution, but to come alongside and stimulate evangelism, spiritual awakening in the power of the Holy Spirit and faithfulness to the classic Anglican formularies, setting up parallel structures where necessary, but building strong relationships with those still within and always having in view the long term restoration of the Church's unity and identity.
So how could this to happen? Much of the groundwork for such intervention has already been accepted by the signatories to the Covenant for the Church of England published in December 2006 which encompassed evangelical and orthodox Anglicans of various persuasions.
There are also signs of encouragement emerging; Reform and Church Society are no longer alone in recognizing that the Archbishop of Canterbury is in the revisionist camp and the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali, has indicated that he and up to a quarter of English Diocesan bishops are not willing to attend the Lambeth Conference. Nonetheless, so far few steps have been taken to put the covenant into practice - there is a strong impression that leaders at national level are waiting for grassroots initiatives and those at the grassroots are waiting for national level initiatives!
To break the logjam, I believe that we now need to look outside the Church of England and issue an urgent 'Macedonian call' to the GAFCON Primates to 'come over and help us' (Acts 16:9). Surely this would be fruit in keeping with repentance, an expression of humility and an admission of spiritual poverty on behalf of a Church which was once a hub of missionary enterprise, but is now so signally failing to fulfill God's purposes."
Posted by: Erasmus
Friday 11 January 2008 - 04:37pm
John is right. History shows that old Establishments eventually have to give in to the New Majority... it's just a question of time, and how stubborn and how fierce they are prepared to be to try to preserve their position.
I guess that GAFCON needs to show that they are not going to just conform to the old status quo - which could be done well by coming to Lambeth after Jerusalem...
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 11 January 2008 - 02:03pm
Yes but even if this happens the provinces in the north will maintain their independence and their general Anglicanism, and this the drivers of GAFCON cannot stomach - they need to have spurs into the north to take over northern Conservative Evangelicalism and produce a new Anglican Communion based on the south and sympathisers in the north. The odd thing is the way that so much of it is being run Militant style from England, the US and Sydney.
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 11 January 2008 - 10:51am
Take a look at this string of Anglican numbers and future projections from the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (1990).
Year
1900
1970
mid-1999
2000
2025
Number of Anglicans
30,573,700
47,520,000
74,500,000
77,000,000
110,000,000
Boycotting Lambeth is a serious strategic mistake. If the leaders of the Anglican Churches of the majority world are patient, there is every chance they will ultimately be in the position to remake the Anglican Communion.
Why a matter of patience? We know Anglicanism is growing spectacularly south of the Equator but in recession north of the Equator (and in Australia and New Zealand where the trends affecting the north apply).
According to these figures, between 2000 and 2025 the number of Anglicans will increase by 33 million. We should assume that growth south of the Equator will be larger than 33 million because it will have made up for a running deficit in the north.
If so by 2025 the church in the north will be thoroughly dwarfed by the south. It must follow that so long as the south isn’t fissiparous it will be in a position to shape Anglicanism in the way it desires.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Friday 11 January 2008 - 08:33am
Yes I agree that the bishop in Synod is a fair marker for Anglican representation. But how many bishops will bring going to lambeth or GAFCON to a synod vote? Having said that, the numbers of bishops going to GAFCON will be the closest we will get to a guage of how much of Anglicanism is represented there, and the same for Lambeth. Very rough measures in both cases, and open to a lot of interpretation i would think.
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 11 January 2008 - 06:37am
OK. All that's interesting. But what of the GAFCON claim about how many Anglicans it "represents". In the Anglicanism we are accustomed to saying that the mind of the Church is expressed by "the bishop in Synod" and that's the basis for understanding what is represented.
Posted by: Erasmus
Thursday 10 January 2008 - 07:08pm
Ken Sawyer,
The figures come from the Church of England themselves. I didn't find the latest figures, but here is 2001 Christmas attendance (the highest of each year I believe):
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/provisional_2001_church_of_england_attendance.html
And for baptised and active 'members' here:
http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/communion/iss_communion_howbig.asp
Which also gives membership numbers for other provinces - where much higher proportions actively attend church, and where the churches are growing..
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Thursday 10 January 2008 - 09:32am
Erasmus stated: (about half the people living in the UK were baptised as children but only about 3 million ever attend church).
Wherever does that figure come from? I find that kind of statement by people on USA blogs such as TitusOneNine. It must be a wild guesstimate.
I'm 80+. I have never known infant baptisms on such a scale.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 9 January 2008 - 10:10pm
Bob Duncan, is his role as Moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, has invited the Common Cause College of Bishops to join him at GAFCON. The following is worth reading in full.
http://www.united-anglicans.org/stream/2008/01/invitations-to-jerusalem.html
Note the implication that the Common Cause Partnership is indeed a 'Province' of the Anglican Communion. There was much discussion about CCP not yet declaring itself as a 'Province' at its recent meeting, but here there is a clear implication in the following words:
The Primate or Moderator of each Province is responsible for providing the list of invitees to the leadership team (see below). Please signify to me your intention to attend. Having heard from you I will then send the central office (Oxford, UK) your contact information so that details of travel, registration, accommodation, conference and cost can be sent directly to you.
Posted by: Erasmus
Wednesday 9 January 2008 - 09:06pm
John Martin, I understand that 55 million is (roughly) the number of people who attend Anglican churches (in coimmunion with Canterbury) - the 77-80 million figure usually quoted includes many who were baptised but are not active members (about half the people living in the UK were baptised as children but only about 3 million ever attend church).
Of those 55 million, about 30 million are in the "rebel" provinces that do not accept the judgement of the current ABofC that TEC has conformed adequately - either to the Windsor Commission's requirements, or to the Dar Es Salaam Primates questions.
Maybe the problem is that, in both cases, the ABofC allowed the questions to be asked by a fairly representative group, but then took his decisions on the responses in collaboration with a small, unrepresentative group.
So he hasn't achieved a position that commands a broad consensus within the communion. I don't understand why he didn't adopt a mechanism for the second half of each case that would have allowed a greater consensus.. After all, the whole reason for these arduous "processes" was that whole swathes of the Communion objected very strongly to what TEC has done... yet in the end they were somehow supposed to be satisfied with assessments of TEC's responses made by an unrepresentative group ??
I think that this is what let down the whole process.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Wednesday 9 January 2008 - 03:40pm
Peter Toon has published a very important article on the Prayer Book of the USA site, yesterday, which relates to Lambeth 2008, GAFCON and has a significant appendix on the Anglican Communion Network:
http://pbs1928.blogspot.com/2008/01/windsor-process-and-lambeth-conference.html
I copy it below in full:
The Windsor Process and the Lambeth Conference 2008
Reflections from Peter Toon, January 8, 2008, to try to understand what is going on and to answer questions!
Peter Toon has published a very important article on the Prayer Book of the USA site, yesterday, which relates to Lambeth 2008, GAFCON and has a significant appendix on the Anglican Communion Network.
The Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion of Churches assembles every ten years—and has done so since 1867. It is by invitation only, and the person who has always sent out the invitations and then presides, is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus the invitations for the Conference of July 2008 at Canterbury have been sent out by the present Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams.
But there is a major possibility—indeed probability— that those attending in July 08 will be much less than the number of those invited.
Why?
The answer may be stated in a sentence. The very assembling of the Conference at the appointed time (ten years after the last) comes within (and maybe towards the end of) what is usually called “The Windsor Process:” therefore, the Lambeth Conference of 2008 is inevitably and inextricably bound up with this “Process” and this is problematic for many bishops.
Now let us fill out some of the background and context of this sentence.
First, The Windsor Report. After The Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., in open defiance of the members of the Global Anglican Communion, went ahead with the consecrating of Gene Robinson, a divorced man living with a same-sex partner, there was a major outcry in the Anglican Family. A commission was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the request of the Primates’ Meeting, to look into this event and its meaning. Its Report was called “The Windsor Report,” and the reception of it in the Anglican Communion, and especially in the U.S.A. (in the General Convention, dioceses and the House of Bishops), soon was termed “The Windsor Process.” In brief, the Report called for The Episcopal Church to cease both the blessing of same-sex couples and the ordaining of persons in same-sex relations. After much water has flowed under the bridge, there is in January 2008 no shared view or judgment in the Global Communion that The Episcopal Church has actually done what the Windsor Report called for and has ceased its innovations. And amongst those who are not sure one way or the other is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And meanwhile “The Windsor Process” as such is still ongoing for one of its major suggestions, the creating of an Anglican Covenant, is on the agenda for Lambeth 2008.
Secondly, The Non-Attenders. If a bishop, or a college of bishops of a province, believes that “The Windsor Process” has already resulted in failure, because The Episcopal Church is seen to have no genuine intention of doing a real U-turn as requested by the Global Communion, then he or it may, as a matter of practical reality, judge that going to the Lambeth Conference in July 08 is a waste of time. Indeed, not merely a waste of time, but a crime against the Gospel and Orthodoxy for joining with those who will not repent of their sinful innovations.
Why this strong judgment? Because Lambeth 2008 is seen not as standing alone as an event but closely tied to the “The Windsor Process;” and thus it will be business as usual, business that has not led over several years into anything positive, but, rather, into more confusion. So there arises the positive alternative for Anglicans to meet together for a Conference in Israel (Jerusalem) to study the mission of the Church in the world, as a means of re-focusing Anglicans on essential things commanded by the Lord Jesus. ( And this is precisely what a part of the membership of The Global South has decided to do, having called a Conference for June 08, a month before the Lambeth Conference.)
Thirdly, The Attenders. There will not be a common mind amongst those bishops who do attend Lambeth 08. At one end will be the group of Americans, who took part in or attended the consecration of Gene Robinson, and at the other will be those of The Global South, who believe that The Episcopal Church has failed to meet the requirements of “The Windsor Report” and ought to be disciplined in some way or another. In between them will be a wide spectrum of opinion reflecting the generally confused state of the Anglican Family in 2008.
Fourthly, Reflections. If the bishops of such large and important Provinces as Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda do not attend—and right now it seems as if they will not do so— and go to Israel instead, then there is no hope at all that the Lambeth Conference will take strong, traditional, orthodox positions on anything of substance. Further, if they do not attend, and put all their energy into making the Israel Conference into a success, then one may draw the conclusion that the Global Anglican Communion does not exist any longer in its 2007 form, for it has lost a third or so of its membership. Also, if they do not attend, then one may draw the conclusion that the See of Canterbury is no longer the symbolic center for them, and that, henceforth, they will create their own form of a worldwide Communion and Fellowship, into which only “the orthodox” will be admitted.
In fact, if they do not attend, it would seem that the Global Anglican Communion as we have known it is finished and its resulting parts will form alliances over the next few years.
For devoted Anglicans in the West these are difficult times to live through.
Appendix—the impact on the U.S.A.
The Anglican Communion Network of the U.S.A., the Global South of Africa and the See of Canterbury
Has the ACN changed its affiliation without the members knowing?
According to the official website of the Anglican Communion Network, the following dioceses and convocations make up its membership:
Dioceses: Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina, Springfield
Convocations: Forward in Faith, Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Continental, New England, Southeastern, Western
One of the aims of ACN has been to work for the renewal of the Episcopal Religion (or of basic Anglicanism in the USA), whilst staying within the Anglican Communion, which means in real terms being in communion with the See of Canterbury. And the ACN has from time to time made known this desire to listen to, and be in meaningful relation to, the Archbishop.
Now we turn to Africa.
Well known Global South leaders met before Christmas 2007 in Nairobi and decided to arrange a Conference in Israel a month before the Lambeth Conference. They said it was not intended as a rival conference to Lambeth; but many have taken it to be such, and some Provinces have announced that funds earmarked for Lambeth 08 will now go to Jerusalem 08.
In deciding on this Conference in Jerusalem this group of leaders (Primates mostly) apparently did not first (a) consult the rest of the Global South leaders [mostly in Asia] as to the plan; or (b) seek the agreement and cooperation of the Bishop of Jerusalem or the Presiding Bishop of the Middle East Province where the Anglican Conference was to occur; or (c) ask for the input of the See of Canterbury or his advisors.
In effect, the leaders in Nairobi decided to plan and announce this conference solely on their own authority and initiative—as if the rest of the Anglican Communion did not exist or did not matter. And one reason for this way of operating was that this group of Provinces has a major part of the total membership of the Anglican Churches of the world.
And here is where we get to the Anglican Communion Network.
Present at this Nairobi meeting were several American bishops with ties to African Provinces, but only one of them, Bob Duncan, is a bishop in TEC and also the Moderator of the ACN. Apparently he was part of the decision making but it is perhaps possible he was there merely as an observer without voice.
Whatever precisely was his standing, he was in some minor way at least a part of the decision-making in East Africa.
And therefore, it would seem, he effectively decided—perhaps unwittingly-- to put into serious question the policy of the ACN to be specifically and clearly in communion with the See of Canterbury. That is, he placed ACN with Nigeria and the several other Provinces that planned the Israel Conference. For, let us make no mistake in evaluation, the decision (a) to pay no attention either to the Presiding Bishop of the Middle East or to the Jerusalem Bishop; and (b) to have the Conference so near to the Lambeth Conference, is a clear statement of the loosening of ties with the historic See of Canterbury—maybe preparing for total severance.
Conclusion:
If it is NOT the case that the Anglican Communion Network is now only committed in practical terms to those Provinces of the Global South which support the Conference for June 08, it would seem that the best way forward for the ACN, if the ACN is still committed to the See of Canterbury, is for ALL the ACN bishops, all without exception, to be at the Lambeth Conference.
drpetertoon@yahoo.com www.pbsusa.org
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 8 January 2008 - 07:23pm
Mark (Bennett)
Thanks for the call for patience. We can learn a lot from looking at what the Bible narratives suggest about the patience of God. With the created order going awry in such quicktime we might wonder why God didn't send his Son right away. Instead we have a story of his patient engagement with humanity until "the fulness of time." Then God could surely have actioned his plan of Redemption simply by sending his Son for a long weekend as opposed to Jesus living a human life.
I suppose I should add that I don't want to appear Luddite when it comes to blogging, websites etc. Advent of these means, for instance, that more people have easy access to primary documents. They can investigate for themselves as opposed to being dependent on the interpretations of others. That, by the way, constitutes as huge challenge for the weekly Christian press and I'm full of admiration for erstwhile colleagues who occupy the editors' chairs at Church Times and The Church of England Newspaper.
We have been considering how web and blogging have contributed to where we have come to with the emergence of GAFCON. The flip side of the story is that the aims and methods of any individual or group which utilises this technology makes them relatively easy to scrutinise - that goes for Fulcrum as much as anything else. So there are no places to hide inconsistencies, fudge or worse.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Tuesday 8 January 2008 - 01:58pm
Never mind the inflated numbers, what about the inflated claim that the Mind of the Lord has spoken!
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/01/gafcon-mind-of-lord-happens.html
This massive representation however comes with a more realistic assessment of the numbers attending.
Posted by: Fern
Monday 7 January 2008 - 10:53pm
John Martin, you ask "...... what do people out there make of the claim on the GAFCON website that it represents "30 million Anglicans out of the 55 million active Anglicans?"
Well, it's a lot of nonsense, isn't it? Passing over the strangeness of playing a numbers game - if might is right, why don't those behind GAFCON urge conversion to Rome since the Pope has some pretty big battalions? - it is clearly absurd for those pushing this particular agenda to claim to have, in any way, consulted with those they are deemed to 'represent'. Are we to believe that every African Christian is fully aware of and totally on board with their leaders' plans even if they wreck the Anglican Communion? Of course not.
Posted by: Mark Bennet
Monday 7 January 2008 - 10:35pm
John (Martin)
There may be a great deal of truth in your observations about the manner in which the 'Anglican Crisis' has come about. In the days of Bishop Colenso and the first Lambeth Conference things happened in a different timescale and environment. No doubt the crises of the past felt as severe as that of the present.
It does, though, bear reflection that those of us who are engaged in these issues through blogs and websites are but a small minority of those who are affected by the issues being discussed and the decisions which may be made.
Lambeth 1.10 calls for a 'listening' process, not a 'shouting' process - ears open rather than mouths open, giving time for all to contribute rather than merely those who have powerful voices and easily articulated opinions. There is a theology in that, and an ecclesiology, which the presumption of the bloggers elides or places in the background. This is not trivial, but a largely unexamined assumption - why was Jesus born as a baby, and why did he have to live a whole human life, if his message could be reduced to soundbites on websites? Why Christmas, if Easter would be sufficient?
My view is that the longer timescale, which allows those who know where they stand to complain so much about lack of progress, is essential to what it means to be in communion, and that many of the bloggers and would-be opinion formers need to learn the virtue of patience (love is patient ...). [I out myself as a sympathetic to the virtue ethicists].
That is why the Lambeth Conference is really important, and GAFCON is a potential distraction, unless there is a greater self-awareness amongst participants than has so far been evident.
Posted by: John Martin
Monday 7 January 2008 - 10:02pm
To Ken Sawyer. Sorry if I have wearied you by labouring a point. I do so, however, because I'm convinced we'll never understand how it is that the Anglican crisis has emerged unless we appreciate the role of weblogs and websites in creating it. Media hermeneutics are among the essential tools for analysing GAFCON and all that's led up to it.
On another front, what do people out their make of the claim on the GAFCON website that it represents "30 million Anglicans out of the 55 million active Anglicans?"
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 7 January 2008 - 06:06pm
I've written something for Crosslincs, the Lincoln Diocese magazine, on this - the centrality of blogs in divisions - but whether they accept it or not it's on my website anyway. Go via here.
More recent GAFCON comment from me is here.
This might interest one or two people, about authority in Christianity.
As for the rest of it, I'm more interested personally in liberalism and religion as it evolved, even more historical (including Puritan origins then) and Liberal Catholic (also the very different approach of Peter Owen Jones than any of that GAFCON nonsense).
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Monday 7 January 2008 - 04:49pm
Interesting discussion between Obadiahslope and John Martin, professionals both, but to this layman very off subject of GAFCON!
Posted by: John Martin
Monday 7 January 2008 - 02:56pm
Thanks Obadiahslope. I think one day soon, if no-one isn't already doing it, there could be a fruitful research project on the role of websites and bloggers in the current Anglican crisis.
It seems to me one reason why Lambeth Palace and the Anglican Communion Office have been so much on the back foot is down to their not appreciating how changes in global communication have changed everything. This is an instant world, as your response within half and hour from 12,000 miles indicates. Online Newspapers are "live". Emails demand instant responses even when not all the information needed to frame a reply is available. No email can ever be guarranteed to be kept private and confidential. Libel law in connection with blogs and websites is unclear, not least because they are simultaneously global and local. So there are all sorts of challenges for media awareness education and hermeneutical awareness.
A lot could be learned from how the British Labour Party re-invented its media operations in the period leading up to the 1997 election. One example is that they established a rebuttals unit that immediately corrected misinformation. In contrast Lambeth and the ACO has constantly left swathes of outrageous misinformation unchallenged.
One principle Fulcrum operates is that it's not necessarily a virtue to be the first to comment on an issue. We prefer to wait and frame a considered response and I think this has served us well among thoughtful people.
You mention that Fulcrum could do with creating more permanent links. We will give that some more thought.
Like everyone in this new media environment we're learning as we go. Yes, there was a lot of stuff out there critical of the Bishop of Southwark, but to post it without comment or analysis would be a risky choice. That's as much as anything a resources issue and Fulcrum's decision not to post doesn't necessarily imply an entirely uncritical position as regards the said Bishop.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Monday 7 January 2008 - 01:39pm
John,
You make my point:
"A quick comment about journalistic standards for websites, with reference to Fulcrum. It's a fact that unless a news website has complete editorial independence, part of the challenge to readers is the permanent need to be discerning about where it's "coming from". It applies both to how stuff is written and to what's selected for publication and what is left out."
Anglican-mainstream (and Fulcrum) DO need to be read with a view to where they are "coming from". If I were running Anglican-mainstream I would put a link to Conger's article for sure. If I had been running Fulcrum i would have linked to more of the stuff that criticised the Bishop of Southwark at various times. (I seem to recall reading some articles that never made it to Fulcrum. But i hardly expected them too. That is what google is for. ) Both sites have a patchy record when it comes to providing links. This does not surprise me. Not everyone can be a Ted Olsen (of Christianity Today).
And I would encourage more robust stuff on the Sydney Site as well. I do my humble best from time to time.
There is no Anglican site that priviledges journalism over it's own perspective that i know of. Some come closer than others.
Posted by: John Martin
Monday 7 January 2008 - 01:09pm
Yes, thanks to Obadiahslope. I somehow knew you were from Sydney and one cue is the time of posting!
A quick comment about journalistic standards for websites, with reference to Fulcrum. It's a fact that unless a news website has complete editorial independence, part of the challenge to readers is the permanent need to be discerning about where it's "coming from". It applies both to how stuff is written and to what's selected for publication and what is left out.
By the way I have the highest regard for "Sydney Anglicans" Website which has a culture of high quality journalism (I may even be somewhat biased in its favour, for reasons I give below). However, it's right to surmise that it's remit means it needs to be read with an eye on where it's coming from: a remit to build up the community of the church in Sydney and to represent the ethos and views of the Diocese.
As to Fulcrum, yes, unlike Anglican Mainstream we are a part time outfit and without editorial staff. We have a definite perspective that informs our editorial policies and priorities. Newswatch aspires as far as possible to be a website "of record" that will serve evangelicals with "must read" news and comment. Forum while moderated is exactly that - a forum. People have occasionally cited material from it as indications of the views of the Fulcrum Leadership Team and this has not always been fair or reasonable.
What you (Obadiahslope) may not know is that as Fulcrum's Media Adviser, I bring a background that includes having worked with Sydney Diocese in its Information Office (what is now Anglican Media and producers Sydney Anglicans) and for almost a decade as Editor of The Church of England Newspaper. I hope that means that despite human imperfections, the Fulcrum Leadership Team is well informed about standards in journalism.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Monday 7 January 2008 - 12:57pm
I draw a distinction between those sites run by people with journalistic experience and those which are not. Jim Naughton of Episcopal cafe has written for the Washpost and the NYT. I would hold him to a higher standard of journalism than Father Jake. That's just my way of looking at it, but I think it is reasonable.
If you consider that Anglican-Mainstream has to render an accurate account of George Conger's output, then can I suggest that Fulcrum should be held to the same standard? Both sites fail that test. As does most of the net. It is part of its charm, or at least its nature.
The lesson for all of us is that when on the net we should all be small c catholics and read widely.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 7 January 2008 - 12:02pm
Thanks, 'Obadiahslope', for your comment. You say:
'The [websites] run by clergy in their spare time I am inclined to give a bit of slack to'. This is appreciated, but I think you would agree that Anglican Mainstream (and GAFCON) do not come into this category of yours. Chris Sugden is a full time employee of Anglican Mainstream. The website is the front page of the organisation. It is not edited in his 'spare time' but a key part of his job. He was given George Sumner's first article before it was published in the Jerusalem Post and would have been given his second article too. There has been a deliberate decision not to publish the second article, or a link to it, on the Anglican Mainstream site or the GAFCON site.
I had not realised that you were from Sydney. I liked the irony of Philip Jensen supporting the Archbishop of Canterbury - which is appropriate, for both were making Reformed Anglican points ie Scripture trumpts tradition when there is a clash.
I also liked Philip Jensen's sentence, '...but on this occasion, [the Archbishop of Canterbury] was seriously misrepresented.'
This returns us to our discussion of the highly repected conservative professional journalist, George Conger. I believe he is being 'seriously misrepresented' by the Anglican Mainstream and GAFCON sites not linking into his second article in the Jerusalem Post on GAFCON.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Monday 7 January 2008 - 10:42am
(Checks in wallet to make sure Journalists Union card is still there....) By making the presentation of the work of George Conger (who I agree is a very professional journalist) in a balanced way a criterion for judging a website, it seems to me you are applying the standard of journalistic ethics to Anglican-Mainstream, Covenant-community, Fulcrum, Gafcon and whatever. And that is fair enough, except that I am reasonably confident that measured against the code of ethics of say the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (here in Australia) or your NUJ, they would all fail. To take (the excellent) Covenant-community as an example, it is clearly a discussion site run by a group of people who present opinion or theological papers. it is not a journalistic enterprise. It puts a point of view, like the oped pages of a paper rather than (at least in theory) the news pages. There are some Anglican sites maintained by professional journalists on the other hand (including Anglican Journal, Episcopalcafe, SydneyAnglicans, Church Times). I think they can and should be held to journalistic standards. The ones run by clergy in their spare time I am inclined to give a bit of slack to. On a lighter note: To provide some wry amusement for you and to prove that just anything is possible in the anglican blogosphere, here is the Dean of Sydney defending the Archbishop of Canterbury! http://www.cathedral.sydney.anglican.asn.au/pages/posts/three-kings175.php
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 7 January 2008 - 10:13am
Thanks for your comment, 'Obadiahslope'. There is, however, a difference between reporting and propaganda.
George Conger is a professional journalist and currently, without the links into his second article in the Jerusalem Post on GAFCON, the Anglican Mainstream site and the GAFCON site both seriously misrepresent his reporting on this issue.
Posted by: Obadiahslope
Monday 7 January 2008 - 08:05am
I guess all website editors have a tendency to post more articles that support their position than the other sort. So "Fatherjake" is not known for putting conservative evangelical articles on his website, for example. And Fulcrum, while quite legitimately posting questions to Peter Jensen, does not make a practice of reporting everything he writes - even on GAFCON.
Most people I am sure shop around for their news.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 6 January 2008 - 10:59pm
George Conger's first article in the Jerusalem Post on GAFCON, 31 December 2007, was entitled 'Anglicans Choose Jerusalem for Key June Conference':
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1198517248310
It was headlined on the Anglican Mainstream site, one day earlier 30 December 2007, as 'Jerusalem Post Welcomes GAFCON':
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/12/30/jerusalem-post-welcomes-gafcon/#more-2635
and as 'Jerusalem Post on GAFCON' on the GAFCON site, on 31 December 2007:
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=1
He seems now to have had second thoughts on the very one-sided nature of the article in a very complex context, and has written a second article for the Jerusalem Post, 3 January 2008:
'Regional Anglicans fear Jerusalem conference could 'inflame tensions'
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517289975&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Interestingly, this second article has not been mentioned at all on either the Anglican Mainstream site, or on the GAFCON site.
It is a severe embarrasment to GAFCON. I copy the article by George Conger below:
Regional Anglicans fear Jerusalem conference could 'inflame tensions'
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."
It could "inflame tensions here" between Christians and Muslims, Darwani wrote, adding that he was also perturbed that the organizers had not consulted him before announcing the meeting of conservative bishops, meant to chart the future course of the 80-million member Anglican Communion.
The head of the Anglican Church in the Middle East, Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, has also urged caution about the date and venue of the Jerusalem meeting. In correspondence with the meeting's chief organizer, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Anis cited internal Anglican political considerations in opposing a June gathering.
He also questioned meeting in Jerusalem, saying it was unlikely Palestinian Anglicans would support the meeting "for various reasons."
Arab Anglican leaders are concerned the conference, known as GAFCON, could wreck the Anglican Church's carefully balanced position within Palestinian society and the Anglican Communion.
The Palestinian church is strongly opposed to gay or female clergy and follows the conservative tradition within Anglicanism. However, it receives financial support from American dioceses that are at the forefront of the gay rights movement. Highlighting the diocese's conservative position in the midst of the Anglican Communion's civil war over homosexuality could have immediate financial consequences, church leaders note.
In addition, the strong pro-Israel sentiments of the African and American bishops could have physical consequences for Anglicans living in the West Bank and Gaza, Jerusalem Anglican leaders fear.
"It is my region, and I know it better than you," Anis told Akinola, cautioning against an overt pro-Israel spin to the meeting. "To say we will do a pilgrimage to attract bishops, and [that] yet it is not entirely a pilgrimage, is not right in my point of view."
Akinola responded that the organizers had considered the Egyptian bishop's concerns, but had come to the "unanimous conclusion" to go ahead with the Jerusalem meeting.
Under former Anglican bishop Riah Abu el-Assal, the diocese was closely linked to Fatah and late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, and was an outspoken champion of the Palestinian political cause. Darwani has quietly moved away from some of the policies espoused by Assal, and has been instrumental in setting up the archbishop of Canterbury's dialogue commission with the Chief Rabbinate.
Nonetheless, public identification as a pro-Israel church has leaders of the small Arab Anglican community in the Palestinian territories worried.
The version of the article appearing on the Religious Intelligence site, 2 January 2008, headed ‘Warning over Anglican conference’ may be seen on:
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1391
There are some very interesting comments on the thread discussing the article on TitusOneNine:
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/8875/#comments
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 6 January 2008 - 09:52pm
Dale Rye, writing on TitusOneNine on 4 January 2008, had an interesting suggestion for a venue for GAFCON:
My suggestion for an alternate venue is Ephesus. Look at the history of the second council held there in AD 449 to see why. The council was called without the participation of the central instruments of orthodox communion. Any bishop who did not agree with the preordained agenda of the organizers was cast out, thus producing exactly the desired result. The council is generally known today as the Latrocinium ("Robber Council").
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/8899/#166435
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 1 January 2008 - 12:36pm
David Virtue's report (Newswatch, 1 January) raises even more issues about the proposed GAFCON "alternate Lambeth". From what the Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East says, it's clear that the goodwill of the local bishop has not been sought. Just as importantly the views of the local Primate are over-ridden as well. This cuts across all the customary courtesies that apply over what should happen when an international event or visit is planned.
Posted by: John Martin
Monday 31 December 2007 - 09:39pm
When the organisers of GAFCOM chose The Holy Land for their conference venue I wondered immediately how widely they had taken soundings about their choice. 1. It's impossible for people from many Muslim majority states to get visas for Israel 2. There is always the risk that the Israelis will use something like this for their purposes and this has started already, see Newswatch for the comment in the Jerusalem Post. 3. I'd like to know a bit more about the provinence of the research cited by the Jeruslem Post re trends in Anglican views on Israel. See report http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/12/30/jerusalem-post-welcomes-gafcon/#more-2635
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Monday 31 December 2007 - 02:52pm
I'm afraid that the slap-down Michael Poon received from a metadata revealed author is rather par for the course, if you would accept my understanding about how these groups work.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/slapped-down-by-metadata-author.html
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 31 December 2007 - 12:33pm
Michael Poon, in an emailed letter, has received ‘a swift rebuke from an Anglican Primate’ who is ‘a senior member in the GSA leadership team’. However, from the ‘metadata of his Word-document’, this was drafted by ‘an equally esteemed new bishop in America’.
Simon Sarmiento, of Thinking Anglicans, has posted the following today on his site, which I copy in full.
It is worth noting Michael Poon's description of the importance of the Anglican Catechism in Outline (ACIO), its process and progress and the danger GAFCON poses to it.
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002827.html
The following appeared earlier on the Global South Anglican website as a comment to this article, but has now been removed. I have added some typographical emphases.
7. I just received the following confidential letter by e-mail from an esteemed Primate. I am overwhelmed that my remarks on GAFCON – posted as a mere comment in the Global South Anglican web blog, would attract such swift rebuke from an Anglican Primate. I am not sure whether he himself would be so out of character to use such harsh words to a priest begging for clarifications from the authorities. After all what will take place in GAFCON affects my future. The metadata of his Word-document reveals that it was in fact drafted by another person – by an equally esteemed new bishop in America. The issues he raised are public in nature, and are decisive to the future of the Global South Anglican movement. They call for considered response.
First, I enclose his comments:
I can only use the very words you yourself have chosen to express my great concern at your public statement - shocked and saddened.
How could you possibly believe it to be God’s will to make such a public scandal against your brethren without first consulting with us? Common courtesy and politeness alone would have insisted on that and the scripture clearly teaches us to exhaust private attempts at reconciliation before doing something public.
You assume authority and superiority (neither of which are yours to assume) and assault not only the entire enterprise but the integrity of those involved.
You use rhetorical questions thus adding inappropriate scorn to what you have perpetrated.
On top of this you used the Global South website for a personal matter. With whose authorization did you do so?
This conference is designed to move beyond the current paralysis in the Communion and pursue mission with those who have a common mind about what Biblical mission means. We are not suggesting that we are the only ones who have the “real” faith to share, but neither are we so naive to believe that all who call themselves Anglicans agree with what the church has always described as the content of the faith and the mission of the Church. If the intention were to foment division, there are far more effective ways to do it than the plans we are making. In addition it is being set up by leaders who believe that the theological crisis (which you wrongly limit to being a North American problem) has damning implications in real people’s lives.
Given that every clear statement on unity, faith, and order has been summarily ignored, it is unreasonable to suspect that continuing to do the same things will bring different results.
Please seek God over this and recognize the great wrong you have done to those who have trusted you and never imagined you might behave in this way.
I leave aside his questions on the use of web blogs and authority in blog posting, which I consider as confusion on his part on the nature of web blog. The Primate, as a senior member in the GSA leadership team, should well be aware that GSA has two important arms working for the long-term strengthening of churches in the Southern Hemisphere and in the Communion at large. They are the Economic Empowerment Task Force and the Theological Formation and Education Task Force, the latter of which I am the chair. The chairs of both Task Forces work closely with the central leadership in the GSA Primates Steering Committee. For myself, I keep in touch with the GSA Primates chair and General Secretary on weekly basis over the past year – if not more – on our long-term work outside of the limelight. Successive GSA communiqués have commended the work of these two tracks.
In particular, the Primates have commissioned the Theological Formation and Education Task Force to produce a draft of the theological framework for an Anglican catechism. The committee with Primate-representatives from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and South East Asia, alongside corresponding members from Northern churches endorsed by the Primates, has been working very closely together (and very hard) for the past year on this project. We have taken great care to produce a unitive and building document for the whole Communion, that it would complement the GSA theological input to the Anglican Covenant processes. We took particular care in defining orthodoxy in the Anglican Communion in the document. The 60-page Interim Report Anglican Catechism in Outline (ACIO), with Key Recommendations—that has received unanimous endorsement from all members— has important ramifications for Christian discipleship throughout the Communion. It will be submitted to the GSA Primates very soon. The GSA Primates who went to China in October 2007 saw an earlier draft and have commended on its work in their communiqué. They “urge [their] dioceses to make it available to all strata of leadership in preparation for its formal adoption in the first quarter of 2008”. According to agreed plans, it will be released it by mid February 2008, if not earlier, to the whole Communion for feedback. The Final report is due to be released by June 2008. All these plans were agreed by the Primates at least six months ago. The GSA Chair and General Secretary have received the successive drafts and were consulted on all major decisions as the draft was amended and re-crafted.
The drafting committee met in Singapore from 11 to14 December 2007, I believe it was in the same week as the Nairobi meeting took place. Archbishop John Chew was with us throughout the meeting and gave us vital leadership. I do not think any of us meeting in Singapore knew about the Nairobi meeting.
I hope this sets the scene in explaining why I was shocked and saddened by the GAFCON Statement.
I ask pose your questions gently back to you: Did you and those in Nairobi consult all GSA primates on such an important conference on Anglican future? Could there be better coordination between Global South Anglican initiatives and that of the GAFCON organizers? Are you setting up a new structure (Global Anglican) other than GSA to move the Communion forward? Would you not think given the publicity that GAFCON has attracted (quite aside from my humble questions) as splitting the Communion, how would others in the Communion perceive the ACIO Interim Report that is meant to build up the whole Communion upon the authority of the Holy Scripture when it is released? (Have you seen the document?) Would they not be prone to dismiss it off hand as another radical proposal from the Global South? This would be a great pity and great setback to the good work of the Global South Movement.
The GSA Primates leadership team has a prime responsibility to work and discern together with all churches in the Southern Hemisphere. Its authority is derived from this mandate. Consultation is vital to this.
I suggest GSA Steering Committee to meet soon to clear up the matter.
Please be assured of my continued effort to work to the utmost in defending orthodoxy with you in the Communion.
Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He’ll with a giant fight,
He will have a right
To be a pilgrim.
Affectionately in Christ,
Michael
Posted by Michael Poon on 12/31 at 01:29 PM [on the Global South Anglican site]
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 11:11pm
‘Mick’, on the TitusOneNine thread concerning Michael Poon’s second article, has spotted a report that:
Mouneer Anis, the Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and Treasurer of the Global South Anglican movement,
has written to
Peter Akinola, the Primate of Nigeria, and first Primate mentioned on the Leadership Team of GAFCON, and President of the Global South Anglican movement,
asking him to reconsider the timing and venue of GAFCON and
Peter Akinola has said no to Mouneer Anis.
If this report is accurate, then this is a very significant development indeed.
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/8792/#164514
Again, if the reported texts of the letter and reply are accurate, then it is clear that GAFCON is indeed planning for a structured network for orthodox Anglicans with statements of faith, constitution and organisational structure.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 11:09pm
I think that part of the concerns expressed by various people, on various websites, relates to comments in at least two published articles which are to do with
1. a ‘non-Canterbury Communion’ and 2. ‘GAFCON seeking to plan for the future’.
In his article ‘Not Schism but Revolution’, in Evangelicals Now (September 2007), Chris Sugden stated, after a quotation from Bishop Bob Duncan:
‘In other words, since the Archbishop of Canterbury has not provided for the safe oversight of the orthodox in the United States, he has forfeited his role as the one who gathers the Communion.’
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/08/30/not-schism-but-revolution/
In my critique of this categorical statement, I wrote on this site and on TitusOneNine:
The consequential question resulting from Chris Sugden’s view concerning the Archbishop of Canterbury is: ‘Then who does gather the Communion?’ His view leaves a vacuum. It also means that the Primates’ Meeting can’t be gathered, since Canterbury presides at those meetings. It also means the Lambeth Conference can’t meet. Of the Four Instruments of Communion, that leaves only the Anglican Consultative Council and that is not seen as respresentative by him.
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/8002
When people notice that:
1. the author of that article is now one of the key organisers of GAFCON - and in fact registered that domain name and runs the website and
2. the Archbishop of Sydney mentions in his article on SydneyAnglicansNet,
[GAFCON] therefore seeks to plan for a future in which Anglican Christians world-wide will increasingly be pressured to depart from the biblical norms of behaviour and belief.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=1
then is it surprising that people raise questions about what has been announced and what has not been announced and wonder about plans being discussed at GAFCON for a ‘non-Canterbury based Communion?’ These plans are openly being discussed on Stand Firm and TitusOneNine already.
There is nothing on GAFCON’s site about the Windsor Report and the Covenant. Why not? Is it because the whole direction of GAFCON is away from the Windsor Report and the Covenant process?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 07:59pm
I have two long pieces on Michael Poon's further questions and a criticism of J. I. Packer and his caricature of liberalism.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/j-i-packer-you-are-wrong-about.html
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/more-poon-questions-gafcon.html
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 04:35pm
There is a very important editorial note by Terry Wong, editor of the Global South Anglican site and vicar of St James's Church, Singapore, on Michael Poon's article concerning questions to Archbishop Peter Jensen.
It is easy to miss, because it is on the Global South Anglican home page index and not on the article itself. It is very significant indeed.
Editorial note:
Both Dr Michael Poon and Archbishop Jensen have articles featured on this site regularly. It will be in the interest of our readers and Anglican faithful that we continue some open conversations on the nature and direction that our Communion is taking. This is a critical time for our Communion and churches. If we are just fighting for biblical orthodoxy and nothing else, we might as well splinter into independent churches. Even ‘mission’ is not a good enough reason to be together - for we are working quite well across denominational boundaries. If it is both biblical orthodoxy AND the catholic order of our Church with our identity/mission as an ecclesial family, then it calls for careful, deeper reflection, longterm vision and clarity in our strategy - that the 2003 crisis and our subsequent responses may not tear the fabric of our Communion even further.
http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 04:09pm
We have just published on Fulcrum, with permission from the author and from the Global South Anglican site, Michael Poon's second article in two days, 'Questions from Singapore to Archbishop Peter Jensen on GAFCON':
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=263
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 02:37pm
When one looks at the listed Leadership team of GAFCON questions may be asked as to who is leading who.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=5
Canon Chris Sugden is at the bottom of the list. From an England (C of E) viewpoint Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and Bishop Wallace Benn are on the list too.
To what extent are all/any of the people listed on the Anglican Mainstream's site as members of the UK Steering Committee supportive of this new organisation or for that matter AM's Episcopal Adviser, Bishop Graham Cray?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 01:48pm
My more liberal take (and I'm adding more shortly, given the addressing of Peter Jensen by Michael Poon, and I want to consider Packer's more specific anti-liberal comments).
Poon Questions (of GAFCON)
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/poon-questions-of-gafcon.html
Packer Obsession and GAFCON Plans
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/packer-obsession-and-gafcom-plans.html
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 08:37am
Further comments from Ephraim Radner yesterday, this time on the TitusOneNine site:
As I have said, I really have no idea about “who represents whom” anymore in the Communion, certainly not among those who are “applying pressure”, which seems to be a favorite justification for just about anything.
Dr. Poon’s remarks could be without significance. Still, I doubt it. He is close to many in the Global South, has played important roles in the organizing of the South-South Encounters, been an independent thinker vis a vis Western “party lines” (which are numerous) and offered counsel to many in the churches of Asia and South-East Asia. I suppose a good question, that few people here seem to want to address, would be “why is he upset and what does this say about the Global South ‘movement’ within Anglicanism?” I doubt that simply dismissing his concerns is really a very responsible approach from anybody, of any orientation, within the current struggles.
From my perspective, I read him as raising a concrete worry over whether the Global South movement for traditional Christian Anglicanism, within the specific contours of the changing world church, has been hijacked by narrower interests and commitments. This seems to be particularly the case because key people—I am presuming those in South-East Asia, for instance, who have been central leaders in all of this—have not been consulted in the GAFCON planning. Does he know more about what is behind this than we do? I would guess he does, given his location. But even if he doesn’t, this lack of consultation appears to strike Dr. Poon as deeply problematic and potentially destructive. Why might that be the case?
What observers (both those who support and those who oppose the goals, apparent and hidden, of GAFCON) should consider is whether Dr. Poon’s public concerns augur any shift in the dynamics of our common life. Apart from South Africa—which, we know, is a special case—I am not aware of any public criticism of ‘Global South’ policy from within before. This fact alone merits some attention.
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/8764/#164272
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 12:18am
Ephraim Radner has just commented on the Covenant site concerning Michael Poon's questions about GAFCON:
Secretive organizational plans, lack of open consultation, ignoring of consensus, rushed strategies aimed at creating influential "facts on the ground" -- we have been dealing with this kind of thing for too long. In the TEC, we have, as has been noted, had to suffer from it at the hands of innovating advocates of change to the point of splitting our American church in multiple bodies. What is interesting now is perceiving how the same tactics, carried out by factions within the "Global South" (along with allies -- or is it the other way around?), are finally being identified for what they are by other "Global South" Anglicans; and identified with unease and even dismay. One should not put too much world-ecclesial weight upon the remarks of a single person, but Dr. Poon's set of questions, the tone of their enunciation, and the stated context of their concern are highly significant, given the place of respect and influence he holds in the councils of the Global South as a whole. Basically, he is asking whether the traditional Anglicanism that has been nobly upheld by numerous non-Western churches, driven on by their unwavering faith in the Gospel of Jesus, is not in the process of being hijacked by a much narrower and perhaps more venal set of interests. That is news.
http://covenant-communion.com/?p=367#comments
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 30 December 2007 - 12:06am
We have just republished on Fulcrum, with permission from the author and from the Global South Anglican site, Michael Poon's article 'Questions from Singapore on the Global Anglican Future Conference':
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=262
Posted by: Graham Kings
Saturday 29 December 2007 - 03:37pm
Michael Poon, the leading theologian on the Global South Anglican site, has raised several serious questions about the organisation of GAFCON. The following article was published today on the Global South Anglican site:
http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/questions_on_gafcon/
“Everything is permissible” — but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible” — but no
“Everything is permissible” — but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible” — but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. (1 Corinthians 9: 23-24)
I am saddened and shocked by the Statement on “The Global Anglican Future Conference, June 15-22, The Holy Land”, issued on December 26, 2007. Perhaps the Primates responsible need to clarify their views on the matter.
1. On what basis was the Statement “announced by Orthodox Primates”? What is the basis of orthodoxy? Historically, the Communion takes Canon A5 “Doctrine of the Church of England” and C15 “On the Preface to the Declaration of Assent” of the Church of England as the basis of its belief. This underpins Section 2 (“The Faith we share”) of the proposed Anglican Covenant. On what basis did the Primates of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Southern Cone, and Tanzania declare themselves as orthodox primates?
2. Did the Primates at Nairobi act on their personal capacity or as primates of their respective churches that “represent over 30 million of the 55 million active Anglicans in the world”? It would be helpful if the Primates and bishops are able to have their Statement ratified through due process by their Provincial/National/Diocesan Synods.
3. Has the Global South Anglican Primates Steering Committee endorsed this Statement? So far, it has remained silent on the matter. It is important to note that the authority of the Global South Anglican “movement” and of the Steering Committee arise from the South-South Encounter and most recently the Kigali Meeting in 2006. The Global South represents a broad spectrum of Anglican churches that hold onto the historic faith and ecclesiology informed by the historic formularies. It does not answer to the dictates of the radical evangelical wings within the Communion. It is regrettable that Asia, West Indies, and Middle East are glaring omissions among the “conveners” of the proposed Conference. Have they been consulted? Have they rejected the proposal? In their place, we find names of colleagues (with due respect) from a particular strand in the Northern churches. Why was this Statement issued with such haste? and without broader representation?
4. Was the Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem of the Middle East consulted? After all the proposed Conference takes place in Jerusalem? Furthermore, by holding it in Jerusalem, it makes it quite impossible for orthodox Christians from Muslim countries to attend. And yet, what is that insignificant minority in the face of powerful numerical blocs?
What should our discipleship be at this stage? Primates are pledged to uphold the unity and the faith of the church, and not their private judgments and personalities—even their interpretation of orthodoxy. Please be constructive in your decisions at this stage.
Michael Poon
Feast of Thomas Becket, 2007
For more on Michael Poon's context, see:
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=178
There seems to have been:
1. a misuse of the name ‘Global Anglican’ in the title of the Conference, which is (deliberately?) close to Global South Anglican.
2. no consultation with the Global South Anglican steering committee, including John Chew the Primate of South East Asia who is the secretary, and Mouneer Anis, the Primate of the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, who is the treasurer.
3. no consultation with the local bishop Suheil Dawani, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem nor with Mouneer Anis, the local Primate.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Friday 28 December 2007 - 01:38pm
I think my interpretation of standing under scripture, that it is linked to the Mind of the Communion, and to the expecetations of Churches one to each other (to preserve their geographical monopoly) stands. These connect to the centralisation via clarity of Instruments of Communion produced through the Covenant process, the basis of the invitations. I went through the Advent Letter several times, and with a text editor to throw text around, and checked each result. I am sure I am not making connections that are too tight.
My view about GAFCON being uninterested in the Advent Letter I don't think I've mentioned anywhere (oddly perhaps) but it amounts to this. The Advent Letter cannot be taken on its own. It has to be understood according to those in the know, who have had private conversations. So whereas it has the hard public face, it may be softer in reality. In other words, the tightness of the connections as above is there to get the GAFCON people on board. The problem is that they know this too - that it is essentially tactical. Therefore they are ignoring it as they have their agenda already set out, as when the website domain name was acquired before Nairobi.
The danger I see it, of a tactical approach, is that if you set out with an agenda then it is likely you end up with the result of the tactic. Everyone goes along with it. Plus they might end up with this result because they will try to limit the success of the GAFCON afterwards. Nevertheless the Canterbury Communion cannot sustain the Advent Letter agenda - its constituency is just not like this, especially when the GAFCON people have gone.
Posted by: Jody
Friday 28 December 2007 - 12:54pm
oh hurrah
Chris Sugden, why am I not surprised.
It makes me weep, it really does.
And not a little bit frustrated. It comes across as quite arrogant and a deliberate attempt to be another Lambeth (for the 'real' Anglican Christians?) Anyone out there with more knowledge wish to elaborate on the reason behind this CE instigated event?
Jody
ps. liked the picture adrian....
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 28 December 2007 - 11:22am
To find out who is the 'Registrant' of the domain name of GAFCON - and who is the Administrator and Technician of the domain name, see:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=gafcon.org
Adrian, on your Pluralist site, you are still misrepresenting the Advent Letter as saying: 'that there is one way of reading the Bible only'. It is worth reading the following section of the Advent Letter in full:
Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. We recognise each other in one fellowship when we see one another 'standing under' the word of Scripture. Because of this recognition, we are able to consult and reflect together on the interpretation of Scripture and to learn in that process. Understanding the Bible is not a private process or something to be undertaken in isolation by one part of the family.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2007/12/14/ACNS4354
The announcement of the conference does not make any reference at all to the Advent Letter. Has anyone seen any response to the Advent Letter from any of the listed leaders of the conference - apart from a couple of brief dismissive comments on the Anglican Mainstream site when it was announced?
Why the silence?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 26 December 2007 - 06:01pm
Here is the launch party, the one that will disable much of one tendency that might have influenced the Lambeth Conference 2008 and derail all those whose intentions is to centralise the Canterbury Communion.
For my take on this and a nice piccy of Peter Jenson go to my blog on the topic.
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