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.)
Reclaiming Orthodoxy
Archbishop Peter Jensen interviewed for Christianity Today:
“… Evangelicals find themselves in all sorts of different denominations. The convulsions which are striking [Anglicans], if they have not reached your mainstream denomination, will do so without a doubt. Evangelicals will then have to decide whether their denomination comes first or whether their adherence to the gospel comes first.”
Christianity Today features an interview with Archbishop Peter Jensen.
‘Hard-line bishops make a mess of it in the Holy Land’
“If it was being held in a brewery, it’s a fair bet that the organisers of the supposedly greatest threat to authority in the Church since the Reformation would not be feeling particularly tipsy. …”
– This piece, by George Pitcher in The Telegraph in the UK, ably demonstrates that you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.
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.)
Official GAFCON study document released
The official study document for the GAFCON Jerusalem Pilgrimage – a 102 page book to be published by The Latimer Trust – has been made available as a free download from the GAFCON website. The document will be launched at a press conference in Jerusalem later today.
The Way, the Truth and the Life is the product of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group. It’s a 484kb download in PDF format. Click here for a direct link to the PDF file.
Oregon offers woman death, not treatment
Barbara Wagner discovered recently her state would not cover chemotherapy for her lung cancer but would underwrite her death by physician-assisted suicide. …
– Report from Baptist Press.
GAFCON leadership team travels to Jerusalem
The GAFCON leadership team and key participants in the week long conference are on their way to Jerusalem for the final preparations for the meeting beginning Sunday.
The Pre-GAFCON consultation in Jordan wound up early, and the participants move to Jerusalem today. …
– Russell Powell at GAFCON writes for SydneyAnglicans.net.
(Photo: SydneyAnglicans.net)
Key document to be released as GAFCON moves to Jerusalem
The pre-GAFCON preparatory consultation in Jordan wound up early, and the participants moved to Jerusalem on Thursday, 19th June. Hotel and meeting rooms previously unavailable in Jerusalem became available at the same time GAFCON leaders learned that previously granted permission for the Jordan consultation was deemed insufficient.
The time in Jordan was very valuable for prayer, fellowship, and networking. The group made pilgrimages to Mt. Nebo and the Baptism Site of Jesus. GAFCON Chairman Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, and Archbishop Greg Venables of Southern Cone, were for different reasons unable to be in Jordan. Both are, however, expected to play significant roles at GAFCON in Jerusalem.
GAFCON book, The Way, The Truth and the Life, will be released on Thursday, 19th June, in Jerusalem. A press conference will be held at the Renaissance Hotel on Thursday, 19th June at 19:00 hours. …
– Read the full story from the GAFCON website.
David Virtue has a report on the reason for the re-location – as does Ruth Gledhill in TimesOnline.
Bishop of London on St. Bartholomew the Great
“I read in the press that you had been planning this event since November. I find it astonishing that you did not take the opportunity to consult your Bishop. …”
The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, has made available a letter he wrote to Dr Martin Dudley, St Bartholomew the Great, where the ‘gay wedding’ service was held. Read it, and a related public letter, at Thinking Anglicans. (Photo: Diocese of London.)
Joint statement by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on ‘gay wedding’
“We have heard the reports of the recent service in St Bartholomew the Great with very great concern. We cannot comment on the specific circumstances because they are the subject of an investigation launched by the Bishop of London.
On the general issue, however, the various reference points for the Church of England’s approach to human sexuality (1987 Synod motion, 1991 Bishops’ Statement Issues in Human Sexuality, Lambeth motion 1:10, House of Bishops’ 2005 statement on civil partnerships) are well known and remain current.
Those clergy who disagree with the Church’s teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the Church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it.”
– from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website. (Photo: Abp of Canterbury’s website.)
From the Files: The Limits of Fellowship
Dean Phillip Jensen’s paper, The Limits of Fellowship, was delivered at the Sydney Lambeth Decision Briefing, at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, on Friday 14th March 2008.
With whom can, and should, we have Christian fellowship? And when should we withdraw fellowship? These are important questions for turbulent times in the Anglican Communion.
‘Why I blessed gay clergymen’s relationship’
Robustly heterosexual since early adolescence, unable to see that any love surpasses the love of women, and once branded by the odious Daily Mail as ‘Dud the Stud’, I may seem miscast in the role into which I have now been thrust, that of the turbulent rebellious priest who defies bishop and archbishop to bless two gay men, also priests, in their civil partnership.
Yet there is a sense in which I have been moving towards this point for more than thirty years. The 1970s shaped my thinking. …
– Dr. Martin Dudley, the Rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, explains his actions to New Statesman.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…