Archbishop of Canterbury to visit Melbourne
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will attend the installation of Dr Philip Freier as the new Primate at a service of Choral Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne on Wednesday August 13. Archbishop Welby will preach, after flying from the Solomon Islands the day prior, and before to a trip to New Zealand the next day.
Bishop Edwin Ngubane
“Many Sydney Anglicans are grieving the death of a very dear brother in Christ.
Rt Rev Edwin Ngubane, the Area Bishop for Johannesburg and Pretoria with REACH (Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa, formerly known as CESA) and Rector of Christ Church Hillbrow in the heart of Johannesburg’s red light district, died on Sunday 29th June. Edwin was 44. He succumbed to a series of strokes following many months of battling TB and pneumonia.”
– Very sad news via David Mansfield. It would be good to pray for Edwin’s wife, Genevieve, and family, and for the church at Hillbrow.
Tribute from Gorge Whitefield College Principal Mark Dickson.
Related: Rescued From Hell in Hillbrow. (Photo: REACH South Africa.)
Andrew Symes on the ACNA Assembly
“The Anglican Church in North America exists as a kairos response to a crisis in a mainline denomination.
The leadership of the official Anglican denomination in the USA and Canada became more and more liberal. Bishops regularly pronounced that Jesus is one of many possible Saviours , that the Bible contains some of the word of God, that Christian mission is to help fulfil the Millenium Development Goals of the United Nations. It became commonplace to have multifaith services where occult pagan practices would be celebrated in Cathedrals as part of Holy Communion Services, as ‘the Spirit’ can apparently be discerned in all faiths and none…”
– Anglican Mainstream’s Andrew Symes reflects on the just-concluded Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America.
Anglican Church in North America elects new Archbishop
“The College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America elected today the Rt. Rev. Dr. Foley Beach of the Diocese of the South. Bishop Foley Beach will succeed the Most Rev. Robert Duncan, the first archbishop for the Anglican Church in North America…”
– from The Anglican Church in North America.
And a response from Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Glenn Davies:
“Bishop Foley will be a strong conservative voice within this newly formed province, among the GAFCON Primates and throughout the Anglican Communion. He is a man who has stood firm for the gospel in difficult circumstances, and has not been afraid to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.”
Credo: Shadow and Substance in Contemporary Anglicanism
The Rev. Charles Raven gave three lectures last month at George Whitefield College in Capetown. His topic: “Credo: Shadow and Substance in Contemporary Anglicanism.”
Charles is well qualified to speak about the key issues facing the Anglican Communion.
“My personal story has been closely bound up with these momentous events. What you will hear from me is not just the product of academic study.
The church of which I was incumbent in England was the first after the Lambeth 1998 Conference to act on the biblical principle that fellowship cannot be continued with leaders who persistently and publicly contradict core truths of Christian doctrine and morality.
In February 1999, my diocesan bishop likened the Lambeth Conference to a Nazi Nuremburg rally and claimed that those bishops who had affirmed the historic biblical understanding of sexuality were a manifestation of the demonic powers and principalities of Ephesians 6:12.
After a period of prayer and reflection, my Church Council declared that it could not receive the ministry of the bishop. The result was that after some two years, I lost the parish church, the vicarage and my stipend. I did not however lose the congregation.”
You can read the text of his lectures at the GAFCON website. Summaries (from the GAFCON website) here –
Since the Lambeth Conference of 1998, there have been two basic reactions to radical revisionism in the West. The theological response, focused by GAFCON, is recovering the confessing Anglicanism of our Reformation title deeds, whereas the Lambeth based ‘Instruments of Unity’ have succumbed to the pragmatic attraction of an illusory middle ground where biblical truth is relativized to culture.
Whereas in Thomas Cranmer we find hermeneutic confidence and ecclesiological pessimism, in Rowan Williams we find the reverse – hermeneutic pessimism and ecclesiological optimism. While the former, as developed by his successors such as Jewel and Hooker, offers a stable paradigm of what it is to be both Catholic and Reformed, the latter is neither Catholic nor Reformed and is irretrievably unstable.
The great sign of hope among the chaos is that there is a consciousness within the Communion that it must define itself by the history of God as revealed in Holy Scripture rather than the history of England. Paradoxically, it seems that what I believe to be my country’s greatest contribution to the world, the English Reformation, will only come to its full fruition in the Anglican Communion when England is no longer at its centre.
Charles is also the author of Shadow Gospel: Rowan Williams and the Anglican Communion Crisis.
Latimer Fellowship engages with ‘Ma Whea?’
NZ General Synod members will gather in the Bay of Islands for the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, May 10–15.
The recently-published report of the ‘Ma Whea?’ [Where to?] Commission on Same-Gender Relationships, Ordination and Blessing will be a topic for discussion.
The Latimer Fellowship has published some brief reflections to help Synod members think through the issues raised in the report.
“To aid General Synod representatives, and to encourage evangelical thinking and engagement with the Report and the issues contained within it, various members of the Fellowship have written short reflections on it. Our prayer is that these pieces might strengthen confidence in God’s word revealed in Scripture, and be widely disseminated.”
Communiqué from the GAFCON Primates Council, April 27 2014
The GAFCON Primates Council has been meeting in London, and at the conclusion of the gathering released a Communiqué, which addresses current issues in the Anglican Communion.
On The Church of England:
“We are particularly concerned about the state of lay and clerical discipline. The House of Bishops’ guidance that those in same sex marriages should be admitted to the full sacramental life of the church is an abandonment of pastoral discipline. While we welcome their clear statement that clergy must not enter same sex marriage, it is very concerning that this discipline is, apparently, being openly disregarded.”
Read the full Communiqué here.
GAFCON Easter Message 2014
“What a wonderful truth we celebrate at Easter! The bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead assures us that our sins are atoned for and death is defeated. This is the reason we can be confident that despite failure, frustration and the things that perplex us, God’s saving purposes will certainly be fulfilled…”
– Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council, with the GAFCON Easter Message 2014.
Anglican Network in Canada Easter Message
“Imagine someone announcing that:
- The problem of death has been dealt with completely.
- The power of sin has also been broken so that complete forgiveness is available to all and so that guilt is gone and the power to live a new and worthy life is now possible.
- Satan and all his demonic realm – who have long ruled this dark world wreaking evil havoc, cruelty, violence, all sorts of injustice and abuse, filling the world with lies – has received a death blow that guarantees his and their condemnation.
This, of course, is exactly the message we bring and would remind you of …”
– Bishop Charlie Masters’ Easter Letter.
NZ Report on same sex blessings and ordinations released
“The long-awaited report of the Ma Whea? Commission into the question of same-gender blessings and ordinations has been released.
The report, which is the fruit of 15 months’ work by five eminent New Zealand citizens, lists 10 options to inform the General Synod debate at Waitangi next month.”
– The Ma Whea? (Where to?) Report can be downloaded from this page.
Photo Anglican Taonga.
GAFCON Chairman calls for Repentance, not Indaba
“The need for repentance, without which we cannot have true unity, is obscured when the authority and clarity of Scripture come into question.
Sadly, this is the inevitable result of the Continuing Indaba project. By assuming that all differences are matters of context and interpretation, it becomes a way of affirming a false gospel. Much of its funding comes through the Episcopal Church of the United Sates.
We see here the repetition of a subtle and ancient strategy. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent says to Eve ‘Did God really say…’ (Genesis 3:1) and the consequences are tragic. By grace, we have been rescued from the power of death and sin. So how then can we once more set ourselves above its truth, we who are a made a new creation through hearing and obeying the Word of God?
I do therefore need to make an important clarification. Contrary to the claim made on the website of the London Anglican Communion office that there is a Kenyan ‘Resource Hub’ for Continuing Indaba, neither the Anglican Church of Kenya nor any of its learning institutions are participants in this project. We are strongly committed to the work of reconciliation within the Church and within civil society, but the gospel ministry of reconciliation is given to us by God and must not therefore compromise the Word of God. …”
– Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council writes in his March 2014 Pastoral Letter. Read it all here.
Diocese of South Carolina ‘joins Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans’
“The Diocese of South Carolina has been formally recognized as a member in good standing of the Global Anglican Communion.
On Saturday, March 15, the Diocese’s 223rd Annual Convention unanimously accepted an invitation to join the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GFCA) and temporarily enter into a formal ecclesiastical relationship known as provisional primatial oversight from bishops in the Global South. Read more
U. S. Supreme Court Denies Falls Church Petition
“The order list published this morning by the United States Supreme Court shows that, after relisting the case for its conferences four times, it has denied certiorari (review) in No. 13-449, The Falls Church v. Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, et al.”
– A S Haley, The Anglican Curmudgeon, with bad news for The Falls Church in Virginia.
Church of Pakistan college Principal says he was beaten, told to leave
“The Principal of Edwardes College in Peshawar, Pakistan, has revealed he was beaten by ‘intelligence agents’ who destroyed his visa and warned him to leave the country…”
– Story from the Anglican Communion News Service.
Pilgrimage to mark Marsden Bicentenary
“Anglican bishop Kelvin Wright will not be just walking when he makes a 27-day pilgrimage around his huge Dunedin diocese this month to commemorate the bicentenary of the first Christian sermon preached in New Zealand…”
– Story from The Otago Daily Times. Photo: Anglican Taonga.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…