St. Andrew’s draft text of Anglican Covenant flawed – GAFCON
Posted on July 19, 2008
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“… An Anglican Covenant was intended as a response to a crisis in the Anglican Communion which has been accurately described as ‘a rending of the Communion at the deepest level’. Determined departures from the teaching of Scripture on human sexuality by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are the immediate cause this situation.
There appears no prospect of repentance from this repudiation of biblical authority on the part of either of these bodies (or from those elsewhere who have followed their lead in endorsing behaviour which Scripture explicitly forbids).
Underlying these actions is a long history of marginalising, avoiding and at last rejecting the plain teaching of the Bible. In other words, the issue which we should expect this covenant to address is one of apostasy. …”
– This response from the GAFCON Theological Resource Team points out serious theological flaws in the draft Anglican Covenant.
– See also this earlier post with links to the Draft Covenant.
GAFCON responds to the Archbishop of Canterbury
Posted on July 19, 2008
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“The Global Anglican Future Conference gathered leaders from around the Anglican Communion for pilgrimage, prayer and serious theological reflection. We are grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for engaging with the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. We wish to respond to some of his concerns. …”
– from the GAFCON Primates.
See also the Archbishop of Canterbury’s response to GAFCON, published on June 30 2008.
One Bishop’s reflections on Lambeth 1998
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Featured article: In 1998, the then Bishop of North Sydney, Dr. Paul Barnett, attended the Lambeth Conference as part of the Sydney contingent. Human sexuality was the crucial issue.
Bishop Barnett spoke at the ACL’s Sydney Synod Dinner in October 1998 and gave his personal reflection on Lambeth. His perceptive talk is well worth re-reading in the light of all that has happened in the last ten years.
Spong said the fight for gay rights would go on and that Lambeth 2008 would be a different story…
– in the ‘old’ section of our website.
David Ould reports on the ACL’s AGM
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Last night (17th July) the Anglican Church League (ACL) of Sydney held their AGM, which included a panel session with delegates from GAFCON. …
– David Ould summarises the panel discussion for readers of Stand Firm.
We’ll have more on the ACL’s 2008 Annual General Meeting in coming days.
More bishops than members?
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Stand Firm has pointed us to this interesting graphic relating to the Church of England – from The Times.
Click on the image for the full size graphic as a PDF file.
Cavalcanti on ‘Anglicanism: The System in Crisis’
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti, Bishop of the Diocese of Recife, now under Primatial Authority of the Province of the Southern Cone of America, writes on ‘Anglicanism: The System in Crisis’ —
What has become evident to the global media is the fact that the leadership of the Anglican Communion is unwilling to accept things as they really are, that the hegemonic Anglo-Saxon centre is unwilling to lose its hegemony, and that the only objective is the maintenance of the institution, whatever the cost…
The heavens declare the glory of God
Posted on July 18, 2008
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On May 29th, as GAFCON was wrapping up, an unmanned NASA spacecraft captured images of the Earth and Moon from 50 million kilometres away.
The pictures, taken every 15 minutes over a 24 hour period, have been assembled into a short movie.
Watch here – and perhaps you could use the words of Psalm 19 to praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
First daily Lambeth update
Posted on July 18, 2008
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This is the first of regular daily blogs which will come live from our support team at Lambeth. You will get to know us as the days go by.
… a bishop from Canada has said freely that once Lambeth is over the Canadian church will be moving forward apace with same-sex blessings etc. This gives substance to the observation that there is denial in what looks to be a potentially schizophrenic conference. Everyone knows that the North American lobbies are determined to have their agenda affirmed. However, all the processes of the conference in plenary addresses and small discussion groups mean that there is no place for the whole conference to hear itself think and address this elephant in the room. …
– Anglican Mainstream plans to keep us up to date on the unfolding (should that be unravelling?) Lambeth Conference.
Lambeth underway: please pray
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Bishop Robert Forsyth has called for Sydney Anglicans to pray for the outcome of the Lambeth Conference, as it gets underway this weekend in England. …
– A timely exhortation from SydneyAnglicans.net (Photo: Russell Powell.)
Archbishop Akinola to stay till 2010
Posted on July 18, 2008
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Bishops of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) on Sunday rejected a notice of voluntary retirement from Archbishop Peter Akinola as Primate of the Church. They requested him to complete his tenure, which ends in 2010.
The Dean of the Church, Archbishop Maxwell Anikwenwa, said in Abuja that the bishops prevailed on Akinola to rescind his decision to retire by January 2009. Read more
Steel yourselves for Lambeth’s real message
Posted on July 17, 2008
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“Evangelical Anglicans are going to have to get used to two-and-a-half weeks of being accused, lied about and generally having their views abused, during the Lambeth Conference. I’m not saying that to invite pity or suggest that evangelicals are persecuted and so on, but that the climate in the church and media makes it inevitable. …”
– Andrew Carey writes at Stand Firm.
(Photo of Canterbury Cathedral: Matthew Davies / Episcopal News Service.)
Phillip Jensen on Roman Catholicism
Posted on July 17, 2008
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“[I]f Martin Luther came into Sydney and saw Roman Catholicism and its Stations of the Cross, he’d say, “Ah, they’ve cleaned up their act.” So there are certain aspects of Catholicism in the Protestant world which are much more acceptable to where Luther would have been.
But no. Things are actually worse than in Luther’s day because since Luther’s day the Roman Catholic Church not only calcified itself explicitly against justification by faith alone, or the authority of the scriptures alone, or salvation by grace alone, et cetera; not only calcified itself against that back at the Council of Trent but since then you’ve had the Vatican I Council in 1870, which clarified the idea that the Pope can speak infallibly. …”
– Dean Phillip Jensen in an edited transcript from The Chat Room – published by The Sydney Morning Herald.
To see the Dean’s comments in context (highly recommended!), watch the full video via SydneyAnglicans.net here. The programme runs for 28 minutes.
A higher quality (but large – at 160MB) mp4 video file is available from this direct link.
No other Name – The uniqueness of Christ for Salvation
Posted on July 17, 2008
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David Phillips, General Secretary of Church Society, wrote this before the recent Church of England General Synod –
A survey conducted by Christian Research six years ago asked Clergy whether they believed without question that Jesus is the only way of salvation. Only 51% of the Clergy questioned could agree. …
there is good reason to think that less than a half of the Bishops believe that Christ is the only way of salvation.
The issue of the uniqueness of Christ for salvation has been bubbling up for some time and has shown every sign of erupting in the last few months. Many are now trying furiously to prevent any such eruption for fear of the consequences. Read more
Bishop of San Joaquin ‘recognised by Canterbury’ – but withdraws from Lambeth
Posted on July 16, 2008
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“Bishop Schofield has elected to decline the invitation to the Lambeth Conference issued to him last year although that decision does not signal any withdrawal from the Communion.…”
– Archbishop Greg Venables writes to the people of the Diocese of San Joaquin. On the San Joaquin website (pdf – direct link).
Gene Robinson called to repent
Posted on July 16, 2008
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Last Sunday, Gene Robinson (who was not invited to Lambeth, but is the one on whom the media are focussing) spoke at St. Mary’s Putney in London.
His sermon was interrupted by a man calling him to repent.
It’s a sobering interruption. Could these issues really be that important?
– See the BBC report. (The service was telecast live on the BBC’s news channel.)
– See the video of the ‘sermon’ at The Gene Pool (it’s the ‘Be Not Afraid’ video).
And be encouraged to listen again to Dr. James Packer’s very helpful talk at Holy Trinity Eastbourne last month.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…