From the Files: To Lambeth or not?
Decisions about the Lambeth Conference have not been made in haste. Here’s news from our website from one year ago –
“Standing Committee … respectfully requests the Archbishop of this diocese to communicate to the Archbishop of Canterbury our dissatisfaction at the attempt to maintain union with the unrepentant while continuing to refuse fellowship to faithful and orthodox Anglicans such as the Church of England in South Africa …”
Read this excerpt from the minutes of the Standing Committee of Sydney Diocese on 25th June 2007 – Read more
Day 2: The Mount of Olives, Gethsemene
Almost everyone at the GAFCON conference visited the Mount of Olives today. There was a short prayer service, a group photo thanks to a hired helicopter photographer, and a second group photo for bishops and primates… Our guide led us to … the church built over the place where tradition says Jesus wept over Jerusalem…
– Matt Kennedy continues to blog from GAFCON at Stand Firm. (Members of the pre-GAFCON consultation visit the Jordan River last week in this photo by Russell Powell.)
The Anglican Division Looms
The world-wide Anglican Communion has been skating on thin ice for decades now, skirting disaster only by an infinitely creative arrangement of compromises. Now, with the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops coming in just a few weeks, a group of 300 conservative Anglican bishops is meeting in Jerusalem. Their meeting will make history, and may well define the ultimate breakup of global Anglicanism. …
– Al Mohler on the challenge facing the Anglican Communion.
The Guardian on GAFCON and Lambeth
“In the latest blow to Williams’s plans for Lambeth, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, became the most senior Church of England figure to decline an invitation, joining a growing boycott movement by scores of bishops unhappy with the liberal agenda of some provinces of the church. …”
– from The Guardian.
(Update: Bishop Nazir-Ali spoke about GAFCON and Lambeth during a talk for Reform London recently. Here’s an excerpt – 5 min 14 sec 1.8MB mp3 file – direct link. Bishop Nazir-Ali was asked if GAFCON is divisive. With thanks to Reform London – full unedited audio here.)
Archbishop Akinola on error and apostasy
This is Dr Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, addressing Gafcon this evening. ‘A sizeable part of the Communion is in error and not a few are apostate,’ he said, questioning whether the Communion could be rescued from within or without. It was an important rallying call that will set the tone for the rest of the conference. …
– From Ruth Gledhill’s blog at Times Online. (Photo: Ruth Gledhill. Note ACL President Mark Thompson and Oak Hill Principal Mike Ovey on the right of the picture. At centre, Cesar Guzman from Chile speaks with Archbishop Peter Jensen.)
Archbishop Jensen on BBC World Service
Part of an interview recorded with Archbishop Peter Jensen in Amman last week has been broadcast on the BBC’s “Reporting Religion” programme. Archbishop Mouneer Anis is also interviewed.
Worth listening to. The relevant section is at the start of the programme and runs for 14 minutes – from the BBC.
(Picture: from a photo by Russell Powell.)
GAFCON opens in prayer
More than 100 leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference joined Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem in a prayer service just hours before the opening session addressed by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola.
Despite the Jerusalem bishop’s public disagreement with the conference, GAFCON organisers believed that it was important for them to pray with and hear from him as the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem. … – Russell Powell reports for SydneyAnglicans.net.
In his Cathedral address to the GAFCON visitors, Bishop Suheil Dawani appealed to them not to bring any ‘decisions’ to Jerusalem –
“…I note that you say your coming here to Jerusalem is a ‘pilgrimage’. Pilgrims here do not bring decisions with them. They come here to seek prayerfully the decisions God wants them to make. And God will always surprise us. …”
The full text of Bishop Dawani’s address is available from The Episcopal Church website (link to a Word doc). VirtueOnline also has a report.
(Archbishop Peter Akinola is greeted by Bishop Suheil Dawani at St George’s Cathedral. Photo: Tundi.)
“A Rescue Mission” – Archbishop Akinola’s welcome message
Read Archbishop Peter Akinola’s opening address at GAFCON on Sunday night – via the GAFCON website.
(Dr Ajakpo from Nigeria and Sylvia and Robert Tong from Sydney singing on the first night of GAFCON: Photo: Russell Powell.)
Brisbane removes barrier to women bishops
“The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane has cleared the way for Queensland to have its first woman bishop.
The synod of the diocese, which held its annual meeting in Brisbane this weekend, removed an obstacle in the church canon that stopped women from becoming assistant bishops, and therefore, bishops. …”
– Report from The Sydney Morning Herald. (See also this story from 25 May 2008.)
(Photo of Abp Phillip Aspinall: Diocese of Brisbane.)
Anglican TV to stream GAFCON sessions live
The main GAFCON sessions in Jerusalem will be streamed live on the Internet by Anglican TV.
They can be seen via this link.
Attendees set for GAFCON
Attendees have been streaming into Jerusalem ahead of this evening’s opening session.
Matt Kennedy, who is now in Jerusalem, comments at Standfirm on the first media reactions to the meeting –
It is fascinating to read the various leftist and mainstream accounts of the “failure” of GAFCON since, in fact, it hasn’t started yet. Many key leaders have only just arrived. I was on the bus with many of them this afternoon and on an airplane with them earlier in the day.
I do not know whether GAFCON will be “successful”. I do not know what measure to apply to assess that. I do think, especially now that we are here, that it was a good thing to come to Jerusalem.
If you have not read the “The Way, The Truth, and the Life” I encourage you to do so. It is not, as some have said, simply a regurgitation of previously published material.
– See also Official GAFCON study document released.
(Photo: The queue for GAFCON registration on Saturday – by Joy Gwaltney / GAFCON.)
Where the responsibility for schism lies
Dr Peter Jensen addresses British press reports that claimed GAFCON leaders were planning “schism” –
“What the Americans did in 2003 and what the Canadians did was to rip the Communion. If we’re talking about schism and the breakup of the communion – that’s where it starts and that is where the responsibility is. What GAFCON is doing is saying that given that new state of affairs, how now can we live together and how can we sustain the highest level of communion and work well together. My way of putting it is to say that the British Empire has now ceased to be and the British commonwealth of nations has come into existence or the nuclear family has turned into an extended family. This is the new reality. I don’t hear GAFCON saying or GAFCON being a further cause for schism. …”
– from Archbishop Peter Jensen’s remarks to the press – via the GAFCON website. You can listen to the 4 minute excerpt in this 3.6 MB mp3 file (direct link). (Photo: GAFCON.)
‘Sun sets on Church of England’
“The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has declared a formal split in the worldwide Anglican communion over the consecration of openly gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions. …”
– Jason Koutsoukis in The Age reports on the press conference at which Dr Jensen actually spoke of an effective – but not a formal (in the sense of “officially sanctioned”) – split in the Anglican Communion.
(Photo: Abp Peter Jensen at the BBC’s Amman bureau last week – by Russell Powell.)
GAFCON set to start tomorrow
More than one thousand Anglicans from 25 nations, including 300 bishops are on their way to Jerusalem to attend the Global Anglican Future Conference. The meeting, which will be held June 22 – 29, includes daily addresses from key Anglican pastors, teachers and leaders. …
– GAFCON press release. (All attending would be glad of your prayers.)
Phillip Jensen on the Anglican family
You can’t split a marshmallow. You can melt it. You can even cut it. But, marshmallows are too malleable to be split. Something has to be brittle to split.
So there will be no split in Anglicanism. It is just not the kind of thing that is open to splitting.
The heat of the society in which we operate may melt us. Outside forces can even cut into us. But we have no mechanism to split even if we had the desire to do so.
Here is the strange strength and weakness of Anglicanism. Having resisted the tyranny of Roman rule, Anglicanism could not replace it with Lambeth rule. Thus each national church is free to follow the Lord Jesus in their own culture. Read more
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…