Open letter to the Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council
David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle upon Tyne, has responded to last week’s letter from William Nye, Secretary General of the Church of England Archbishops’ Council:
“I write this open letter to you following your open letter to Revd Canon Andrew Lines, the chairman of the GAFCON UK Task Force. Your letter alleged that a GAFCON briefing paper is ‘significantly misleading’.
The briefing was regarding irregular homosexual activities in the Church of England. In support of its criticism of named Church of England bishops and clergy, the briefing referred to a resolution of a former Lambeth Conference. You wrote to ‘correct some of the erroneous assertions’ in the paper. However, the supposed correction included the following statement …”
– Read it all at GAFCON UK.
Letter from Secretary-General of the CofE Archbishops’ Council shows why GAFCON UK is needed
“The open letter to Canon Andy Lines of GAFCON UK from the Secretary-General of the Archbishops’ Council is very significant. It can be taken as the official position of the C of E leadership. Helpfully, the letter moves away from matters of tone and motive which tend to dominate discussion and gets to the real issue, namely, what is, or should be, the teaching of the worldwide Church on sexual ethics, and how do we apply this in the Church of England?
Underlying the letter is an institutional mentality which does not locate ecclesial authority with the unchanging Scriptural principles of apostolic Christianity, as affirmed by the global Church. Rather it puts confidence in legal process, with the effect that what is not ‘legally binding’ can be disregarded or relegated to the respected status of a historical curiosity. More than ever, GAFCON UK with its clear confessional grounding in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration has a vital role to play in our current context. …”
– Read it all at the GAFCON UK website.
The perversion of Lambeth 1.10
“The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt. Rev. Rachel Treweek, will preside at an ‘LGBTI Eucharist’ on 15 Jan 2017, the diocesan chapter of Inclusive Church reports. …
Will this be a violation of Lambeth 1.10? A plain reading of the document coupled with the original intention of the authors would say ‘yes’.
The presence of the Bishop of Chichester at a Brighton Gay Pride march and the Bishop of Salisbury at a similar affair, was raised in GAFCON-UK’s paper, ‘The Church of England and Lambeth 1.10’, released last week. They were cited as examples of the problematic stance of the church hierarchy on issues surrounding human sexuality — and as a violation of Lambeth 1.10.
The Bishop of Salisbury denounced GAFCON-UK’s criticism as “outrageous” and a perversion of the spirit of Lambeth 1.10. In a letter to the Church Times the Rt. Rev. Nicholas Holtam said he too had offered prayers at a Gay Pride parade, explaining: ‘The blessing of Gay Pride in Salisbury was a joyful celebration of a people who are part of our community and among the rich diversity of all God’s children. This is in keeping with Lambeth I.10, which calls us ‘to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals’…”
– At Anglican Ink, George Conger provides some personal perspective on Lambeth 1.10. It’s clear that Lambeth 1.10 can’t mean whatever you want it to mean.
Photo: Bishop Rachel Treweek, Diocese of Gloucester.
The Lambeth I:10 Briefing: Process and Motive, Truth and Love
“We have received inquiries about the way the Lambeth I.10 briefing was developed, the reasons behind why it was created, and its accuracy. Below is some more information about each topic …”
– Earlier this month, GAFCON UK released a briefing paper for GAFCON Primates. Its release has been criticised in some quarters. Here’s the GAFCON UK response.
GAFCON Jerusalem 2018 dates announced
GAFCON has announced that the Jerusalem 2018 Conference will be held 17th – 22nd June 2018.
Read the prayer bulletin here.
The Church of England and Lambeth 1:10
“This paper was recently presented as a briefing to the GAFCON Primates on the situation in the Church of England regarding attitudes, teaching and practice on sexual ethics, official and unofficial.
It argues that the Church of England has already ‘crossed the line’ by allowing a culture to develop where violations of Lambeth Resolution 1:10 are increasingly prevalent. It is published with permission…”
The topics covered are:
What is Lambeth 1.10?
The History of Lambeth 1.10 in the West
The Situation in England
- Clergy have officiated over same-sex unions and marriages and remained in office
- Clergy have entered into same-sex marriages and remained in office
- The Blessing of Gay Pride Parades
– from GAFCON UK.
The heart of GAFCON
“At the heart of GAFCON is communion.
When I became Archbishop of Sydney in 2001, I had a lot to learn. Even though I had been ordained for over thirty years by then, had lived in England for three years and had been the Principal of a theological College with students from many places in the world, there was so much that I did not know.
Two of the many things I had to discover through experience may sound strange and you may wonder where I had been all my life. But I suspect that many of us are in the same position…”
– GAFCON General Secretary, Dr. Peter Jensen, on The heart of GAFCON.
GAFCON website updated
GAFCON has a revamped website.
GAFCON Chairman’s Letter October 2016
Archbishop Nicholas D. Okoh, Primate of All Nigeria and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, has released this Pastoral Letter, reflecting on developments in October 2016 –
“The call to be peacemakers is also a call to evangelism because peace with one another cannot be separated from peace with God, and peace with God cannot be separated from faithfulness to the biblical and apostolic gospel of God. I therefore warmly commend the Global South Chairman, Bishop Mouneer Anis, for his bold warning about the ‘ideological slavery’ which some Western Churches seek to impose on the Global South by using their money and influence to promote teachings which overturn the bible and offer a false gospel.
Many of us were therefore deeply disturbed that the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (TEC), Michael Curry, was a prominent member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s delegation in Rome, despite the fact that the Canterbury meeting of Primates in January this year had resolved that, among other things, TEC should not be involved in representing the Anglican Communion in ecumenical or interfaith relations.
This incident is just the most recent of many failures which the Cairo Communiqué describes as ‘the inability of the existing Communion instruments to discern truth and error and take binding ecclesiastical action’. We need alternatives. …”
– Read it all on the GAFCON website.
Statement from the Global South Primates and GAFCON Primates Council Concerning Same-sex Unions
This Statement has been posted on the Global South Anglican website. We reproduce it here in its entirety –
“Statement from the Global South Primates and GAFCON Primates Council Concerning Same-sex Unions
6th October 2016
1. We acknowledge that God is the Creator of the whole cosmos and of humankind. Male and female, God created them in his own image and likeness to know him, worship him and share in his glory and love.
2. We affirm the dignity and value of every human being, as each bears the image of our gracious God. We recognise that humankind’s rebellion against God has tainted that image, but not eradicated it. Yet every person is precious to God.
3. God’s message of hope is therefore addressed to every man, woman and child around the globe, that they might be redeemed, restored as image bearers of God through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and inherit eternal life.
4. As we proclaim the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to a broken and wounded world, we acknowledge our own failures and weaknesses in the light of God’s word, the Bible. As God’s love was declared to us, before we loved God, so we declare God’s love to those who neither know him nor love him. Yet our love for God is both to believe and obey, and so our message is to call people to repentance and love for God, that they might be forgiven and live their lives in accordance with God’s pattern for humankind as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. We recognise that the brokenness of our world produces many aspects of human behaviour which are contrary to God’s good design. These include slander, greed, malice, hatred, jealousy, dishonesty, selfishness, envy and murder, as well as fornication, adultery and same-sex unions. In addressing the issue of same-sex relationships, we are not minimizing the sinfulness of other forms of behaviour that are contrary to God’s character and pattern for humankind. Rather, we are addressing an issue that continues to be contentious in both the Church and society and that strikes at the very heart of biblical authority.
6. We affirm that the clear teaching of Jesus, and the Bible as a whole, is that marriage is an estate for all people, not just for believers. It is a holy institution, created by God for a man and a woman to live in a covenantal relationship of exclusive and mutual love for each other until they are parted by death. God designed marriage for the well-being of society, for sexual intimacy between a husband and a wife, and for procreation and the nurturing of children (Genesis 2:18-25).
7. We contend that sexual intercourse between two persons of the same sex is contrary to God’s design, is offensive to him and reflects a disordering of God’s purposes for complementarity in sexual relations. Like all other morally wrong behaviour, same-sex unions alienate us from God and are liable to incur God’s judgment. We hold these convictions based on the clear teaching of Scripture. We hold them not in order to demean or victimise those who experience same-sex attractions, but in order to guard the sound doctrine of our faith, which also informs our pastoral approach for helping those who struggle with same-sex impulses, attractions and temptations.
8. In this respect, the Church cannot condone same-sex unions as a form of behaviour acceptable to God. To do so would be tampering with the foundation of our faith once for all laid down by the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2: 20-22; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11; Jude 3).
9. Any pastoral provision by a church for a same-sex couple (such as a liturgy or a service to bless their sexual union) that obviates the need for repentance and a commitment to pursue a change of conduct enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit, would contravene the orthodox and historic teaching of the Anglican Communion on marriage and sexuality. Such pastoral provisions, while superficially attractive in giving a more humane and socially acceptable face to the church, actually hide the contravention of doctrine involved. We must be faithful in guarding the good deposit of the gospel, in all its gracious gifts with all its covenantal obligations as well, not for the mere sake of orthodoxy but out of genuine love for God and our fellow human beings.
10. Our faithfulness to God and knowledge of his love empowers us to offer sensitive and compassionate ministry to those who are sexually broken in the area of same-sex attractions and unions. Our pastoral approach is to accept people for who they are, just as God accepted us for who we were. We oppose the vilification or demeaning of those who do not follow God’s ways. We affirm that every person is loved by God, so we too must love as God loves. Our role is to restore them to God’s divine patterns by inviting them to receive the transforming love of Christ that gives them the power to repent and walk in newness of life. We rely on the Holy Spirit’s power to reveal to them the measureless goodness of God and the greatness of God in setting the captive free as a new creation.
11. We recognise that discipleship involves growth and while we long for all new believers to come to maturity in Christ, we know that this is a process. For those who are same-sex attracted, the path of discipleship and living in conformity with God’s Word can be difficult. We commit ourselves afresh to care pastorally for them as members of Christ’s body, building them up in the Word and in the Spirit, and encouraging them to walk by faith in the paths of repentance and obedience that lead to fullness of life (John 10: 9-10).”
– Source, Global South Anglican. PDF version here.
Photo: Global South Anglican, which has also posted this Communiqué.
Unity – The Real and The Counterfeit
“I am always puzzled by the way in which the petition of Jesus, ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17:21), is so frequently assumed not to have been fulfilled. Why would it have failed, when the other two petitions were so gloriously answered? After all, one of the major themes of the New Testament is a demonstration that the gospel and the Spirit belong to all who own the name of Christ, on the same terms and conditions.
Even more puzzling is the careless way in which the petition has been plucked from its context and turned into a command. The true command is to ‘maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’. Even denominational divisions do not destroy the spiritual unity of the one church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, they may be necessary so that the apostolic truth can be preserved.
When John 17 is constantly plucked from its context and quoted to demonstrate that we are to seek a form of Christianity which is institutionally uniform, we go well beyond the text. …”
– GAFCON General Secretary, Dr Peter Jensen, looks at some implications of Christian unity.
GAFCON Chairman’s letter, September 2016
“My dear people of God,
As I write, GAFCON is about to launch a project which I believe will be very significant for the future of the Anglican Communion. Under the leadership of Director Dr Samson Mwaluda, the recently retired Bishop of Taita Taveta in Kenya, the GAFCON Bishops Training Institute begins its first conference in Nairobi on 29th September for some twenty recently consecrated bishops drawn from GAFCON affiliated provinces. We already have a waiting list for our next conference!…”
– Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, shares some encouraging news in his latest pastoral letter.
New website for GAFCON UK
GAFCON UK now has a website.
(Thanks to Anglican Mainstream for the tip.)
GAFCON UK responds to Archbishop Nicholas Okoh’s August Letter
“GAFCON UK welcomes and is very encouraged by the Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council’s recent August Letter. In it Archbishop Okoh states that the ‘greatest cause for concern continues to be the British Isles’. We share this analysis and hear Archbishop Okoh’s call on GAFCON UK and the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) to ‘demonstrate that they have the necessary courage and faith in a context which to a large extent they alone can grapple with’.
GAFCON UK has recently been reconstituted precisely to meet the challenges that Archbishop Okoh outlines and is committed to grappling with the departure from orthodoxy in the UK. The AMiE is about to launch an ambitious plan for pioneering church-planting in the context of the ReNew Conference in September, where the aim is to encourage regions throughout England that pioneer, establish and secure healthy local Anglican churches.
Andy Lines
Chairman of the GAFCON UK Task Force.”
– via GAFCON.
GAFCON Chairman’s Pastoral Letter, August 2016
“My dear people of God,
I have just returned from a very encouraging visit to the United States where I met with my brother Archbishop Foley Beach and I rejoice to see how the Anglican Church in North America is growing strong and standing firm.
As the steep decline of The Episcopal Church (TEC) of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada continues, despite the hope of its leaders that reshaping it in the image of secular culture would attract, we give thanks for the Anglican Church of North America and remember the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew16:18).
GAFCON recognises that the Church is not ours. It belongs to Jesus and it is Jesus who builds the Church through his word. …”
– Read all of Archbishop Nicholas Okoh’s pastoral letter for August 2016 at the GAFCON website.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…