GAFCON Slideshow Day 3
Here’s a slideshow of photos taken at GAFCON on Day 3 – Tuesday.
See also yesterday’s photos from the Mount of Olives.
Tentative steps to a new future
Bishop Bill Atwood, a US-based Kenyan bishop, told a press conference that agreed upon principles will lead to a new awareness of voluntary association which will, in turn, lead to a shared purpose and vision, and ultimately to shared structural mechanisms.
He stopped short of declaring a new Anglican entity or that GAFCON would be a rival or alternative Anglican Communion. “Structural life proceeds out of the realities of relationships. There is no constitution in the wings that people can line up…it has to grow out of relationships,” he said.
“Our authority is to the Holy Scriptures and the historic way in which the church has received and interpreted scripture.” …
– Report from David Virtue. (Photo: Russell Powell)
The Big Question: an inevitable split?
In recent decades the Anglican Communion has been sharply divided over a number of issues, particularly whether homosexuality should be accepted and tolerated in the Church. But things are really coming to a head. …
– from The Independent.
Bp Michael Nazir-Ali: Recover your nerve
The most senior English Bishop to appear at the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem has spoken of the need for Christian churches in the west to “recover their nerve”.
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, of the diocese of Rochester in the United Kingdom, announced this week that he would not attend the Lambeth Conference. …
– Story from SydneyAnglicans.net. (Photo: Joy Gwaltney)
Sola Panel on GAFCON
“Back at the Renaissance Hotel Ballroom, Henry Orombi (Archbishop of Uganda) preached a powerful sermon on ‘Jesus is Lord’, the high point of which was his emphasis on the powerful, transforming word of God. Expounding the story of the paralysed man healed by Jesus in John 5, Archbishop Orombi pointed out that Jesus exercised his Lordship by speaking a creative, healing word of power, and that he continues to do so today. …”
– Tony Payne is blogging from GAFCON. Catch his posts here.
Bible exposition central
“We turn to the Bible every day at GAFCON because we wish to hear the word of God saying what God wishes to speak to us,” said the Rev. David Short as he introduced GAFCON’s series of daily scriptural expositions. David spoke to introduce Archbishop Justus Akrofi, primate of the Anglican Church of West Africa as he began the expositions on Tuesday.
– Outline of this week’s Bible expositions from the GAFCON website. (Photo: Joy Gwaltney)
Henry Chadwick dies at 87
The Very Rev. Henry Chadwick, an Anglican priest, professor, editor, translator and author whose historical voyages into early Christianity won praise for depth, insight and evenhandedness and helped shed light on modern religious problems, died Tuesday in Oxford, England. He was 87. …
– Obituary from The New York Times. (Graphic: Chadwick’s best known work, The Early Church.)
GAFCON Slideshow – Mount of Olives
We’ve added a slideshow of photos taken on the Mount of Olives – with a focus on people our Australian readers will recognise. Photos thanks to Russell Powell.
Dr. Mark Thompson: Just what is the Bible?
GAFCON participants have been organized into about 6 different workshops. I’ve fortunately been placed in the workshop that has to do with scripture. The first session was led this morning by Dr. Mark Thompson from Sydney. He discusses the nature of scripture, its clarity, its truthfulness, and its place in the church. These are my notes from his talk. It was brilliant and incredibly encouraging. …
– Matt Kennedy of Stand Firm blogs from GAFCON.
See also Mark’s Authority in the Church – on the GAFCON website.
(Photo from the pre-GAFCON leaders consultation – by Russell Powell.)
Sowada and Forsyth write from GAFCON
SydneyAnglicans.net has posted comments from Dr. Karin Sowada and Bishop Robert Forsyth – on their experiences so far at GAFCON.
(Photo: GAFCON Media team.)
Pilgrims help draft GAFCON statement
There is no advance text of a final statement of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), nor prepared plans for future organization and action. And there won’t be one until the 1,200 bishops, priests and laity meeting in Jerusalem June 22 – 29 has had a chance to seek God’s guidance and contribute their thoughts to the Statement Committee.
“The final statement is going to emerge as the work of all the participants of GAFCON,” said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of the Anglican Church of Kenya and chair of the Statement Committee. …
– Press release from GAFCON. (Photo of Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi: Joy Gwaltney.)
GAFCON Pilgrims on Mt of Olives
One thousand two hundred Global Anglican Future Conference pilgrims visited the Mount of Olives on Monday, June 23.
Traveling on close to 30 tour buses, the pilgrims worshipped, prayed together, and had their picture against the backdrop Jerusalem’s Old City. The Rev. David Pileggi, rector of Christ Church, Jerusalem, reminded pilgrims that it was on the Mount of Olives, which separates Jerusalem from the desert, that Jesus wept over the city. Pilgrims took time to pray for their own cities, provinces, dioceses, congregations, and families.
Pilgrims also walked down the valley slope to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus wrestled with God’s will and was arrested the night before his crucifixion.
The Rev. Martin Foord, from Perth, Australia, said of the experience: “It has revolutionised my reading of scripture. I can’t read the Bible the same way again. I can now visualise Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.”
His compatriot, the Rev. Gary Nelson, concurs: “I got this sense of history, being in the very place where real events happened. I got a feel for the distances. It has helped me visualise portions of scripture. You can understand how news (2,000 years ago) spread so quickly.”
– GAFCON Press release. (Photo: GAFCON media team. Click for a larger version.)
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.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…