‘England bypassed. Global Communion isolated.’
Many years ago a Dutch friend of mine told me about a cartoon which expressed what they thought about the English attitude: an English newspaper headline read, “Fog in the Channel. Continent cut off.”
In the same way, we have seen English bishops, and indeed Archbishops, complaining that GAFCON has not shown due regard for Anglo-centric structures and personalities — that they, and not ‘self-appointed’ individuals and bodies, have the right to define the terms by which Anglicanism is constituted and operates.…
– John Richardson writes on the mindset of the Church of England at the Ugley Vicar.
If I were a Patron
What can be done to halt the Liberal drift of the Church of England identified at the post-GAFCON gathering at All Souls Langham place on the 1st July?
The answer is not “Sign a petition in support of the GAFCON principles,” although I suggest you do exactly that…
The problem with the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, is that it declares what every minister working for the Church of England is required to declare on their appointment. …
– John Richardson reminds us of the influence of patrons and parish representatives in the appointment of a parish minister. At the Ugley Vicar.
‘Figure behind Anglican schism is a puritan who sees no room for compromise’
Until a few weeks ago few people outside the city where he preaches would have been familiar with Peter Jensen. …
The 64-year-old cleric, one of the architects of the Global Anglican Future Conference, Gafcon, the new power bloc that rejects a liberal stance towards homosexual clergy and same-sex unions and which plans to “reassert the authority of the Bible”, has been a thorn in the side of Australian Anglicans for years. …
– Story by Barbara McMahon in Sydney for The Guardian.
(These excerpts give a feel for the story – “puritanism, power bloc, thorn in the side, limited parish experience, inner circle, said to rule the diocese with an iron hand, churns out hardline evangelicals, fundamentalism, narrow, almost worshipped, a threat, bullies, culture of fear”.) Photo: Joy Gwaltney.
Peter Jensen: We should not be naive
The Sydney Morning Herald today publishes an op-ed by Archbishop Peter Jensen –
“We should not be naive about the slow and steady influence of revisionist teaching and why the seven men who lead some of the largest Anglican churches in the world have decided to stand up and be counted. …”
– Read it in The Sydney Morning Herald. (Photo: Joy Gwaltney.)
GAFCON is vital for the Anglican Communion
If the current dispute is merely a matter of different perspectives and emphases, as the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests, why are the bishops who are promoting this different gospel driving people out of their churches and removing licences from priests such as Dr Packer?
Gafcon became necessary following the persistent failure of the current authorities in the Anglican Communion to do anything about this deliberate flouting of Christian teaching and decisions of the whole Anglican Communion and its leadership. …
– Canon Chris Sugden writes in The Guardian.
British media misses GAFCON message
In all my years as a journalist, first working on large city dailies, then Christian magazines, a brief stint as an Episcopal Diocesan Managing Editor and now as an Internet Online news writer, whose website annually draws more than 4 million readers from 172 countries, I have never encountered such appalling spin, outrageous lies, pure mendacity and gay-baiting towards a group of godly men and women of orthodox faith as I encountered recently in Jerusalem by the secular press. …
– David Virtue, who reported from Jerusalem during GAFCON, comments at VirtueOnline.
(See also this comment from Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream on one newspaper report.)
No split in Anglican marshallow
“Like all old style bureaucracies, the Anglican denomination worldwide moves at about the same pace as the friendly slugs on the morning kids’ programme my youngest daughter likes to watch. But at long last, it looks like something may actually be happening within the normally staid and stodgy Church of England. …”
– The Daily Telegraph in Sydney published this opinion piece by Gordon Cheng.
(Photo: Joy Gwaltney)
My other Gafcon
The one thing you have to realise in order to understand the Global Anglican Future Conference – if you are indeed burning to understand a Global Anglican Future, and dedicated to doing so properly – is that it is not really anything to do with sex. …
True, sex may have been one of the presenting issues. But that’s not what Gafcon is about. Gafcon is about the Gospel. It’s about what kind of a creature a Christian is, what nature of God we believe in, and who is the Lord we follow. …
– Anne Atkins (profile) writes in The Guardian.
GAFCON day whatever-it-is: Acceleration
This afternoon, the draft Conference Statement was presented to the whole conference, and then discussed in detail by all the participants meeting in their different provincial groups. There is a strict media embargo on the text of the Statement, and those of us who are blogging have been sworn to secrecy. I will therefore say no more about it, except to promise that when the final text is released (on Sunday), you will want to read it. …
– Tony Payne at The Sola Panel.
Dawn in Jerusalem
According to the schedule the final communiqué will be reviewed and put forward for adoption on Sunday morning. Participants will discuss a draft of the final this morning in small workshop groups.
The process by which the communiqué is being drafted is an interesting one. The purpose is to include the whole conference in creating the final draft. Cynical observers (like myself unfortunately) might assume that the content of the communiqué is foreordained; that the pretence of pilgrim participation is just that, but I do not think so this time. …
– Matt Kennedy posts at Stand Firm.
Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi (Kenya) with Mrs. Kwashi (Nigeria) at press briefing. Photo: Joy Gwaltney.
The pointy end of GAFCON
“As GAFCON makes its exciting, inspiring and exhausting way into its second half, the question of ‘What next?’ is becoming more and more urgent. So many are looking for so much from this conference. We are facing a danger of unrealistic expectations.
And yet, as GAFCON has already, from my point of view at least, achieved so much more than a realist would expect, then just maybe the crucial final statement will do the job.
There are at least four distinct groups of delegates here, all with different approaches to GAFCON. …”
– Bishop Robert Forsyth writes from GAFCON at SydneyAnglicans.net. So does Dr Karin Sowada. (Photo: Russell Powell.)
Secular media response to GAFCON
Secular media covering the Global Anglican Future Conference are seriously distorting both the content and message of the 1200 mostly Global South Anglican leaders, which includes 300 bishops from 38 countries …
– David Virtue comments at VirtueOnline.
(Photo: Joy Gwaltney)
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
‘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.
Another chilling precedent
A recent court decision in Canada should send chills down every parent’s spine. The ruling is so out of bounds that the news story sounds like a parody – but it isn’t. A Canadian judge ruled that a 12-year-old girl was “excessively” punished when her father told her she could not go on a school camping trip because she had broken rules for use of the Internet. …
– from Al Mohler’s blog.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…