GAFCON leaders seek renewed Anglican Communion
The pre-GAFCON conference, which began in Amman, Jordan, was suddenly terminated for reasons beyond the control of those planning the event. …
Secular media outlets are saying the Anglican Communion is at an end. GAFCON leaders are saying that is not true. …
– full report from David Virtue in Jerusalem.
See also David’s story, “Leaders Disavow Accusation of Schism”.
From one San Joaquin bishop to the other
Bishop John-David Schofield of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin has written to Jerry Lamb, who was appointed bishop of the ‘remnant’ diocese of San Joaquin by Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori.
Last week Bishop Lamb changed the locks and took control of a mission church building after an allegedly irregular parish meeting. Bishop Schofield:
It is not our intention to rush back in and change the locks, as you have done, and cause further upheaval in this small mission. Our actions, however, are not to be construed as a waiver of any rights on our part. The civil courts and our ongoing investigation will ultimately settle the matter of title to the real and personal property of the Mission.
Read the full letter below – Read more
Anglicanism Come of Age
The Anglican Communion Network has published online Bishop Robert Duncan’s opening plenary address written for the leaders’ GAFCON meeting in Jordan.
Entitled “Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the 21st Century” it’s available as a 100kb PDF file (direct link).
GAFCON: The end of the Communion is not nigh
A report in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper referring to the book was headlined Hardline bishops declare Anglican split and went on to declare that they had “formally declared an end to the Anglican communion”.
That was firmly rejected by one of the GAFCON leaders, Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, who referred to the actions in North America by churches in defiance of the Lambeth decisions of 1998 on homosexuality.
“If we’re talking about schism and the break up of the communion, that’s where it starts and that’s where the responsibility is,” Archbishop Jensen says. …
– Report by Russell Powell for SydneyAnglicans.net.
– Also hear Archbishop Peter Jensen at this morning’s press conference in Jerusalem.
(Photo: Archbishop Peter Jensen speaks to the BBC in London from the BBC’s Amman bureau – Russell Powell.)
Holy smoke! What a headline!
Again and again, we need to stress that newspaper reporters rarely, if ever, write the headlines for their stories.
I mention this because of a stunning headline in The Telegraph about the pre-Lambeth strategy meeting that conservatives are having right now in Jerusalem (after making a quick exit from Jordan, for complicated and perhaps political reasons). There are many complex angles to the Global Anglican Future Conference, or GAFCON, which is why this particular headline simply leaps off the page:
Anglican church schism declared over homosexuality
– Terry Mattingly at GetReligion comments on some of the more sensational reports about GAFCON.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…