Reflections on GAFCon by the Bishop of Durham

I have been waiting to learn what Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, would have to say about GAFCon, and here is a sample:

And of course I have found myself involved in the troubled situation of our Communion following the disastrous events of 2003. I have grieved at the muddled teaching which has allowed all kinds of confusions about Christian doctrine, behaviour and even the nature of Anglicanism to abound, with disastrous consequences. I have shared the frustration of many at the fact that we don’t possess the kind of structures that would enable us to deal straightforwardly and clearly with the complex problems that have faced us. As Archbishop Rowan has said, our present ‘instruments of Communion’ were not designed to meet this kind of problem, and we badly need to find new ways forward. I, with others, have given a lot of time and energy to work on all this, and the Archbishop’s statement that the forthcoming Lambeth Conference will take Windsor and the Covenant as its basic road-map were very heartening. So I fully agree with the GAFCON statement—and with Archbishop Rowan—that the Communion instruments have not been able to deal with the problems, and that we need to find better ways of going about it. Part of the genius of Anglicanism has been to be reformed by the gospel but always ready for fresh reformations by that same gospel: to recognise that God has more light to break out of his holy word, and that this may lead us to do things in new ways, sometimes setting us free from tired structures and sometimes creating new structures for new gospel purposes. That is precisely what Windsor is proposing, and what Lambeth will be pursuing…

The rest of us, no doubt—including several of us who were not invited to GAFCON – are eager to share in any fresh movements of the Spirit that are going ahead. And as we do so I know that the GAFCON leaders would want us to express the various questions that naturally come to mind as we contemplate what they have said to us. Just as they wouldn’t want anyone to swallow uncritically the latest pronouncement from Canterbury or New York, so clearly they wouldn’t want us merely to glance at their document, see that it’s ‘all about the gospel’, and then conclude that we must sign up without thinking through what’s being said and why. It is in that spirit that I raise certain questions which seem to me important precisely because of our shared goals (the advancement of the gospel), our shared context (the enormous challenges of contemporary society and of a church often muddled in theology and ethics and lacking the structures to cope), and our shared heritage (the Anglican tradition with its Articles, Prayer Books and historic roots)…

In short, my hope and prayer is that the spiritual energy, the sense of celebration, the eagerness for living and preaching the gospel, which were so evident at GAFCON, can and will be brought to the forum where we badly need it, namely, the existing central councils of the Anglican Communion. I understand only too well the frustration that many have felt at these bodies. But if GAFCON is to join up with the great majority of faithful, joyful Anglicans around the world, rather than to invite them to leave their present allegiance and sign up to a movement which is as yet—to put it mildly—strange in form and uncertain in destination, it is not so much that GAFCON needs to invite others to sign up and join in. Bishops, clergy and congregations should think very carefully before taking such a step, which will have enormous and confusing consequences. Rather, GAFCON itself needs to bring its rich experience and gospel-driven exuberance to the larger party where the rest of us are working day and night for the same gospel, the same biblical wisdom, the same Lord.

The rest is here. It (as always) is worth a careful read, although at the moment I do not share his optimism that the Anglican Communion as it currently stands will ever find “better ways” to deal with the issues confronting it.

Archbishop of Canterbury responds to GAFCON statement

Wow! That was fast! Here is what Rowan Williams has written about GAFCon:

The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The ‘tenets of orthodoxy’ spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON’s deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion

However, GAFCON’s proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.

A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical – theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides…

…One question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.

It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.

The language of ‘colonialism’ has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.

I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.

I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: ‘wait for one another’. I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord’s field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.

Like the GAFCon statement itself, there are elements of Archbishop Williams’ statement that can be challenged, e.g., how does “wait for one another” differ from putting up with another ten years of stalling tactics while the whole house burns down? On the other hand, the Archbishop makes some points which, though far from fatal flaws, GAFCon needs to take into account. You can read his statement in its entirety here. The torrent of comments at TitusOneNine and StandFirm are also worth a read.

“My take on the Jerusalem communiqué”

Neal Michell, Canon Missioner for Strategic Development in the Diocese of Dallas, offers his perspective on GAFCon:

Cra-a-ckk!! Can you hear it? Can you hear the cracks of the foundations of Christendom cracking in the Anglican Communion? The 1148 Anglican laity and clergy meeting in Jerusalem in June 2008 just applied a sledge hammer to the Christendom-based unity of the Anglican Communion. And they did it in a brilliant fashion.

Under Christendom, the person at the top of the food chain is in charge, and you’re either in or out. Christendom is hierarchically-governed… A Christendom-view of the Anglican Communion says that there is one Anglican franchise in each country. And it is the Archbishop of Canterbury determines who is granted the franchise in each country (some would say that the Archbishop of York has a say-so, and others would say that the Anglican Consultative Council also has a determinative voice). And, under Christendom, you’re either in or you’re out. You’re either authentically Anglican, or you’re an Anglican wannabe…

The Americans at GAFCON really wanted a Christendom-based solution which would have split the Anglican Communion and called for the formation of an alternative Communion.
An alternative Christendom solution would have been the formation of a network of like-minded dioceses and provinces wholly within the Anglican Communion. This “network within a Communion” is what the Anglican Communion Network and the more recently proposed Communion Partners have called for. Instead of the Christendom solution calling for a “you’re either in or out but not both,” the Jerusalem Communiqué says “you can be in and out, yet still in relationship, and we will still recognize your holy orders.”

Some have said that Anglicanism is now, in effect, a federation. I don’t think so. A federation still has Christendom writ large over it. Under a federation, all those in the federation agree that they are all a part of a federation. Under the auspices of the Jerusalem communiqué, not all of these Anglicans even want to be a part of the Anglican Communion (federation) if it means that the Americans and Canadians are a part.

The Jerusalem Communiqué changes Anglicanism from a Communion to a series of networks, or a series of relationships. And some of these members are in relationship with others and not in relationship with still others. Some are out of relationship because of their opposition to women’s ordination; others are out of relationship because of their opposition to the blessing of same sex unions. Some who oppose women’s ordination are in relationship with those who support women’s ordination because they both oppose the blessing of same sex unions. Sounds complicated, I know. But then, things were much simpler under Christendom.

His whole reflection can be found at Covenant-Communion here.

There, Richard Kew comments (very wisely in my opinion),

It is very dangerous to claim too much for any event, and this Jerusalem gathering is no exception. I don’t know how many times in my nearly four decades of ordained ministry I have heard an event that is long forgotten described as ground-breaking, the church would never be the same again, and so forth. GAFCON as far as I can see is part of a process, and right now it is difficult to see where that process is going to eventually lead. I wouldn’t want to claim too much for it, nor would I want to claim too much against it. Perhaps the wisdom of Gamaliel needs to be applied.

GAFCON Reflections

Grant LeMarquand, Associate Professor of New Testament and Mission at Trinity School for Ministry (and also leader of our June all-church weekend at Messiah), was present at GAFCon. Here are his initial reflections:

It would be stating the obvious to say that the last years have been difficult ones for ‘conserving’ Anglicans of various stripes—anglo-catholic, charismatic and evangelical—within North America. The increasing rejection of the faith in the Anglican Church of Canada and in The Episcopal Church has led some to abandon Anglicanism as a failed experiment. It has caused others to capitulate to the pressure to conform. Still others have given in to despair and anger.

We have watched as traditional Christian morality has been rejected, the scriptures mocked and central theological truths such as the atonement and the resurrection of Jesus overturned. We have watched faithful leaders persecuted, marginalized, deprived of a livelihood and deposed. We have cried, “how long?”

GAFCON has provided a sign of hope. Here we have gathered with sisters and brothers from many nations, tribes and languages. We have worshipped together with great freedom and joy. We have heard words of hope and encouragement from Anglican leaders from around the world. We have shared our hopes and fears with one another in small groups, workshops and provincial gatherings.

It is becoming clear, I think, that we have a long way yet to go. There are some deep disagreements here regarding some important (and less important) issues. We will need to treat each other with grace and charity in the days ahead.

That said, there is hope here. We will need patience as we move forward, but we do have a hope that we can move forward. We may make mistakes as we attempt to walk together, but we do have a confidence here that there can be a faithful Anglican future.

No doubt some of the disagreement centers in the roles and ordination of women in the church. Found on the Anglican Communion Network website.

London Times Cryptic Crossword for June 29

Here is the latest offering from the Sunday London Times. You can click on it to get the full-sized version.

GAFCon speaks…

Here is the much anticipated final statement from the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem:

The Road Ahead
We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation.

Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.

Primates’ Council
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans. We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith. We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons. We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.

We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.

Conclusion: Message from Jerusalem
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.

The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.

It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.

The whole statement can be found all over the internet, but it first appeared here (in error!) on Stand Firm. It makes heart-warming reading, and pretty well delivers everything that one might have hoped from the conference. However, now the real work begins, and it will be interesting to see what the liberal backlash will be in the United States and Canada especially, and at Lambeth.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for June 22

Here is my proposed solution to last Sunday’s puzzle from the London Times:

Anglican traditionalists set to form a ‘church within a church’

More news of GAFCon from George Conger, this time in Religious Intelligence:

Traditionalists are set to form a “church within a church”, keeping in formal relation with the Archbishop of Canterbury but severing ties with the progressive wings of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. A communiqué being prepared by pilgrims to the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) will call for new structures to support conservatives and likely formalize a break with the Episcopal Church.

The changes Gafcon sees are new structural relations between Anglican churches including a break with the progressive wing of The Episcopal Church, a common approach to reading the Bible, a new catechism and a new Book of Common Prayer shared by conservatives across the Communion, Nigerian Bishop John Akao said.

The “centre of Anglicanism has shifted from Europe to Africa,” Sydney lay leader and member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference, Robert Tong said. Past pan-Anglican gatherings had been jamborees where we “were all scouts together,” Mr Tong said, but the rise in influence of African Anglicanism meant a change was in the works for what it meant to be Anglican.

“It’s a question of doctrine or structure. Which of these makes one Anglican?,” AMiA Bishop John Rodgers, former Dean of the Trinity Episcopal School Ministry, said. Both views were contending for control of the meeting, which will set the future course of the conservative movement within Anglicanism, he noted.

On the opening night of the conference, Archbishop Akinola stated Gafcon had “no intention” of starting a new church and that he would remain an Anglican, leading many observers to believe the powerful Nigerian Church had pulled back from threats to break up the Anglican Communion. However, the archbishop’s colleagues explained that being an Anglican did not mean loyalty to a church system centring round the Archbishop of Canterbury, but to a set of theological principles. In 2005 the Church of Nigeria altered is constitution to reflect this view, removing references to the Archbishop of Canterbury as the focus of fellowship and replacing it with a confessional statement.

The new constitution stated Nigeria would be in fellowship with those who shared a common faith, drawn from the Bible and the historic creeds and formed by the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion, church spokesman Archdeacon AkinTunde Popoola confirmed. This was the context in which Archbishop Akinola was speaking, a Nigerian bishop explained, speaking off the record as the final conference communiqué has not been completed. However, the Archbishop of Rwanda, Emmanuel Kolini, summarized this view, noting that “Lambeth is irrelevant to us,” referring to the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The “Gafcon Church” will require “appropriate” and “more permanent structures” to support “those faithful Anglicans who live and serve in provinces that have abandoned the traditional teaching of the Bible,” Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said on June 26. These changes were necessary, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester said, as the Anglican ways of ordering the church no longer worked “because in the end they were based on English good manners. In our world we have found that English good manners are not enough.” The conference concludes Sunday.

“No split” says Gafcon

Another report from George Conger, to the Church of England Newspaper:

Pre-conference criticisms that Gafcon would be a political rally for conservatives and a stalking horse for schism appear to have been unfounded. Nor have claims of tensions and jealousies between rival archbishops, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, Africans and Europeans, been proven out. Conference spokesman Arne Fjelstad said that while there were some cultural and language barriers present, the “pilgrims,” or delegates to Gafcon were united on key theological issues.

All rejected the innovations of doctrine and discipline instituted by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada while many were disappointed with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams for ignoring the pleas of traditionalists. Dr. Williams was “not interested in what matters to us, in what we think or in what we say,” Archbishop Akinola claimed.

Over the coming week, delegates will be asked to review seven questions to help formulate a common response to the Anglican crisis.

The issue of broken communion between churches and cross-border Episcopal jurisdictions will be addressed as will the issue of whether reform must arise from within or can it be assisted from abroad.

Gafcon will also examine itself, asking whether it is to be another ingredient in the alphabet soup of Anglican pressure groups, or a reform movement, or an Africa-based NGO, or a potential instrument of unity within the Communion? The pilgrims will also address the issue of how Gafcon relates to those with a shared faith, but through reasons of financial pressures or political expediency cannot yet move out from under the shadow of the Episcopal Church.

Archbishop Orombi told CEN there were no predetermined answers to these questions. The archbishops believe Gafcon believed it important that clergy and lay voices be heard in formulating a way forward for Anglicanism.

You can find the entire article here.

Threat of Anglican Schism Fizzles

Here is what Time magazine had to say about GAFCon yesterday:

The would-be Anglican rebels gathered with storm clouds brewing around them. But now, even though the conservative Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFcon) has not concluded its meeting in Jerusalem, the secession it threatened to bring to the 78 million-member Anglican Communion looks like a confused bust.

This all comes as a bit of surprise to the press, which—with ample encouragement from the Church’s right—had been framing GAFcon as a decisive step toward schism in the Anglican Communion, the third biggest global religious fellowship. GAFcon seems to be falling apart on several fronts. First came the venue problems: the conference ping-ponged embarrassingly at the last minute from Jerusalem to Jordan and back to Jerusalem.

Then there was attendance. The clerics at GAFcon were really supposed to sit out the Communion’s once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in July. But it turns out several key conservatives did not even show up at GAFcon (or simply made brief appearances) and will go on to the church-wide meeting in Canterbury in July. Meanwhile, conservative Southeast Asian bishops have fallen out with some GAFcon leaders. The conservative conference now seems reduced mostly to Africans and some first-world ideologues, not all of whom are as gung-ho as Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, the meeting’s prime mover. Cheered on by several influential U.S. churchmen, Akinola has ridden high for several years as the point man for the ambitions of Anglicanism’s populous, conservative “Global South” movement and for widespread outrage at the consecration of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson by the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A.

GAFcon’s message was scrambled from the get-go. An opening statement by Akinola castigated “apostates” within the Communion and included the firebreathing line, “There is no more any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion.” But he subsequently admitted in a speech, “We have no other place to go, nor is it our intention to start another church.” Sydney Australia Archbishop Peter Jensen, a rising conservative, told reporters in Jerusalem yesterday that GAFcon “is a coalition of people who would not necessarily work together. Will it work? We don’t know.” Other speakers have been similarly vague.

Jim Naughton, an outspoken canon with the liberal Episcopalian Diocese of Washington, D.C., had been predicting a GAFcon meltdown for months. He feels that Akinola began losing influence at last year’s meeting of Anglican archbishops in Dar es Salaam in February… Naughton believes that the combination of Akinola’s problems and a tension between conservatives more concerned about gays and those who increasingly regard that issue as a sideshow have combined to stall their movement, at least for now. “They overplayed their hand, and the tide has turned against these guys,” he says.

Kendall Harmon, a canon with the diocese of South Carolina and in many ways Naughton’s conservative counterpart, continues to hope that GAFcon may be the start of “a new thing”. But Harmon agrees that GAFcon will not have the impact some had hoped for, and that barring a surprise conservative rebellion at the Lambeth conference, the big blow-up around homosexuality many had expected this summer will be deferred. Anglicans, says Harmon ruefully, are incrementalists, and “that has continued through this season”.

This is good news for the survival of the Communion and bad news for the resolution of its tensions. It may slow down the defection of conservative Episcopal parishes, but probably won’t stop it. It is also an object lesson for anyone who believes predictions of rapid change in a Communion whose strength former Archbishop Desmond Tutu reportedly described thusly: “We meet.”

I don’t think anyone was looking for a schism (except possibly the media). And to tell the truth, that has already been foisted upon the church by the liberals and their refusal to step back from their revisionist agenda. But we would dearly like to see more than a fizzle! You can find the whole article here.

Update on GAFCON Statement Progress

From the GAFCon website:

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, of the Anglican Church of Kenya, spoke to the press on Thursday, June 26 about the progress and content of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Statement.

While not in final form, there is already general agreement among pilgrims about a number of points. At GAFCON, there is a determination to maintain the authority of scripture in the life of the Church, a profound sadness about the current state of the Anglican Communion. Pilgrims also want to see GAFCON develop into a long term movement instead of a one-time conference, agree that more permanent structures need to be established for faithful Anglicans who live in serve in provinces that have left the traditional teachings of scripture, and desire to continue to reach out to other Anglicans.

Every pilgrim has had multiple opportunities to provide concerns, hopes, and suggestions to the statement committee throughout the week. The first draft of the statement will be read to all pilgrims on Friday, June 27. The statement will be finalized before GAFCON ends on June 29.

Archbishop Nzimbi’s complete remarks follow:

“We continue the process of discernment whereby every voice has been given the opportunity to be heard. This means we are still in the process of developing our final statement. Some themes, however, are emerging:

1. There is a passion for the Gospel, a determination to stay true to the Bible, to continue the work of mission and to do so as Anglicans.
2. There is a profound sadness about the current state of the Anglican Communion and a sense of betrayal and abandonment by the existing leadership and communion structures.
3. There is a determination to build on the experience of GAFCON and see it become a movement and not simply a moment.
4. There is recognition that for this movement to continue to develop it will require an agreed theological framework and appropriate structures to sustain its growth.
5. There is also agreement that more permanent structures need to be established for those faithful Anglicans who live and serve in provinces that have abandoned the traditional teaching of the Bible.
6. There is a genuine desire to continue to reach out to other Anglicans around the Communion who share our common faith so that we can grow in our witness to the world of God’s transforming power.

A lot of us are banking on more flesh being put onto #5.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali on authentic Anglicanism

Here is a recent release from GAFCon:

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, of the diocese of Rochester in the United Kingdom, told Global Anglican Future Conference pilgrims Tuesday that “the future of the Anglican Communion is to be found in its authentic nature, not in recent innovations or explanations.” That nature, he said, is submitted to the authority of scripture, confessing, and governed by councils with the ability and authority to lead the church and teach the Christian faith.

No church, said Bishop Nazir-Ali, can have any other basis of authority than scripture. “The Bible is the norm by which we appreciate what is authentically apostolic. That is the reason for the Bible being the ultimate and final authority for us in our faith and our lives and this is the reason why Anglicans have taken our study of the Bible so seriously.”

Authentic Anglicanism is also a confessing church, said bishop Nazir-Ali. From the very beginning, being Anglican has meant confessing the faith that Christians have held always, everywhere and by all. “We have to be clear that we are a confessing church. Some people have the mistaken idea that Anglicans can believe anything, or that Anglicans can believe nothing. I don’t know which one is more serious,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali…

Church councils with the authority to teach and to make decisions are necessary for authentic Anglicanism. “We need to be a conciliar church. In the last few years I have been frustrated by decision after decision after decision that has not stuck. We cannot have this for a healthy church,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

In the past, the Anglican Communion’s instruments of unity have been enough to maintain the communion’s identity. However, those days are over. “In the crisis that is facing us at this time we have found them not to be enough. Because in the end they were based on English good manners. In our world we have found that English good manners are not enough.”

Bishop Nazir-Ali also spoke of Anglicanism’s “translatability” and the need for a increased emphasis on mission to those who have not yet heard the Gospel. Sadly, just as the need for Christian witness is greatest, there is a reluctance to speak about faith in Jesus, even among Christians. “Let us pray we are able to recover the Christian nerve in the west and to make sure the gospel is not lost,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

Bishop Nazir-Ali completed his address with words of encouragement for GAFCON pilgrims. “If you are anything gathered here together, you are the beginnings, the miraculous beginnings, we may say, of an ecclesial movement for the sake of the Gospel and for the sake of Christ’s church.”

When asked about his attendance at Lambeth in the news conference, Bishop Nazir-Ali said that his not going to Lambeth later this year is a matter of conscience for him. “My difficulty in attending has to do with being in Eucharistic fellowship with and teaching the common faith alongside those who have ordained a person to be bishop whose style is contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Bible and of the Church down the ages.” Though he added that if the impediment were removed, he would gladly attend.

The whole report is here.

Archdiocese halts church’s annual gay pride prayers

Here is some recent news from my neck of the woods (from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press):

A Roman Catholic Church decision to prohibit a Minneapolis gay pride prayer service has many in the gay community up in arms, leading activists to call the action a troubling and telling sign from the Twin Cities’ new archbishop. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recently told staff members at St. Joan of Arc Church they could not hold their annual gay pride prayer service planned for Wednesday—an event held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Pride Celebration, parishioners said.

Instead, the archdiocese suggested a “peace” service with no mention of rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “That descriptor (LGBT) was not possible on church property. We suggested they shift it, change the nature of it a little bit, and they did,” said archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath. “The reason is quite simply because it was a LGBT pride prayer service, and that is really inimical to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

Officials with the Minneapolis-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, a grass-roots coalition promoting acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church, see the action as an attack by Archbishop John Nienstedt, who took the helm of the archdiocese in May. In an e-mail to supporters, committee co-founder David McCaffrey called the move “yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at LGBT persons and their families under Archbishop Nienstedt’s reign of homophobic hatred.”

McGrath said such assertions were untrue. He said the services had not been canceled in previous years because the archdiocese was not aware of them…

McGrath said Nienstedt is simply following Catholic doctrine, like previous archbishops. He said “the church welcomes people with same-sex attractions among its worshippers… The distinction is people who fully adapt to the GLBT lifestyle are not permitted to receive the sacraments or be the subject of a prayer service that endorses that lifestyle,” McGrath said.

Some in the St. Joan of Arc congregation are troubled. “I’m sort of split down the middle between being really sad and really angry,” said Gerry Sell, who has been a parishioner at the South Minneapolis church since 1965. Sell, married and the mother of six, chaired the 1989 Minnesota task force on lesbian and gay Minnesotans. “I think that the move is going to resonate with some people, who will say, ‘If this is the church, then I’m out.’ Not another parish—a different church,” said Sell. “Not me. Not at 75 years.”

Nienstedt has said homosexuality is a disorder, and he is a leader in the campaign to persuade the Legislature to prohibit same-sex unions. “Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin,” he wrote in a November article in the archdiocese’s paper, the Catholic Spirit.

This is a far cry from the stance of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, whose bishop, if past practice is anything to go by, will march in the gay pride parade. The whole story is here.

The possible shape of ‘reform from within’

Ruth Gledhill of The Times has already written numerous reports on GAFCon. Here is one interesting tidbit, which may or may not prove correct:

Several of the bishops in the audience in Jerusalem last night are drawing up secret plans to form a “Church within a Church” in an attempt to counter Western liberalism and reform the Church from within. Senior sources said that the most likely outcome of the divisions over homosexuality and Biblical authority was an international “Anglican Fellowship” that would provide a home and structure for orthodox Anglicans…

The new fellowship for orthodox Anglicans would have a leadership of six or seven senior conservative bishops and archbishops, such as the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Bob Duncan, who chairs the US Common Cause partnership that acts as an umbrella for American conservatives, Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, and the Church of England’s Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.

The aim is not to split with the worldwide Anglican Communion, which counts 80 million members in 38 provinces, but to reform it from within. Formal ties will be maintained with the Archbishop of Canterbury but fellowship members will consider themselves out of communion with provinces such as the US and Canada.

Members of the fellowship could attempt to opt out of the pastoral care of their diocesan bishop and seek oversight from a more conservative archbishop, either from their own country or abroad. The success of the fellowship in averting schism will depend on the response of the local leadership. It is understood that hundreds of parishes in England could be interested in joining such a fellowship, if it did not mean schism from the Church of England…

The emerging figure that is crucial in the softening of the line on schism is the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, who has become the key player on the Anglican conservative wing, shifting the emphasis from the US and African conservatives to Australia.

In a recent interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, Dr Jensen said it would be legally impossible to engineer schism. The Episcopal Church of the US has already launched a number of legal actions against breakaway parishes and bishops. Dr Jensen said: “I’m part of a constitution, which is virtually unchangeable, of the Australian church. I wouldn’t want to. I love the church. It would be bad for Christianity, bad for the gospel.” He continued: “I think there is going to be an evolution in the Anglican Communion. It has occurred. And what the Future Conference is going to work out is how to live best within that evolution. That's its business.”

The whole articles are here and here.

Gafcon ‘is not the start of an Anglican schism’ says Archbishop

News of GAFCon from George Conger of Religious Intelligence:

There will be no schism from the Anglican Communion by conservatives, Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola told the opening session of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem. The week-long gathering of 300 bishops and 700 clergy and lay leaders hopes to offer a way forward through the crisis over homosexuality.

But secession was not the answer. The introduction of gay bishops and blessings justified by novel methods of Scriptural interpretation would not drive out traditionalists, the Nigerian church leader said. We are Anglicans by “conviction” who had no “intention to start another church.” “Anglicans we are, Anglicans we’ll remain until the Lord shall return in glory to judge each one according to his deeds,” Archbishop Akinola said on June 22.

While remaining steadfast in his opposition to the “apostasy” of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Akinola offered an olive branch to Archbishop Rowan Williams, pledging to work within the constitution and canons of the Anglican churches to resolve the crisis.

In a hard-hitting speech that outlined the history of the Communion over the past decade, the Nigerian leader denounced the grip of Western liberalism on the church. “GAFCON will liberate and set participants, particularly Africans, free from spiritual bondage which [the Episcopal Church] and its allies champion. Having survived the inhuman physical slavery of the 19th century, the political slavery called colonialism of the 20th century, the developing world economic enslavement, we cannot, we dare not allow ourselves and the millions we represent be kept in religious and spiritual dungeon,” he said.

Archbishop Akinola also expressed his disappointment with Dr Williams for ignoring the pleas of traditionalists that he discipline the errant North American churches, noting he was “not interested in what matters to us, in what we think or in what we say.” However he refrained from criticising Dr Williams by name, reserving his opprobrium for decisions taken by “Lambeth Palace”…

Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda also rejected accusations Gafcon was a political gathering designed to destabilize the Communion. Its purposes were eschatological, he said on June 23. “Some of us think that it will be by our genius, debate or our communiqué” that the Anglican Communion will be reformed, Archbishop Orombi said. However this is Christ’s church and “has nothing to do with us.”

“Jesus will never let down the Anglican Communion” but will “send hope where hope is very small. We will walk out of Gafcon full of the power of the Holy Spirit” and bring this power to the reform of the church.

Over the coming week, delegates will be asked to review seven questions. What can be done to restore sacramental Communion amongst the divided Anglican Churches; can the Communion be reformed from within; are cross-border Episcopal jurisdictions an appropriate way forward to resolve differences; is Gafcon merely a Global South initiative or does it have a role to play in the wider church; will the initiatives that arise from Gafcon be neutralized by the strategic use of money by its opponents in the Episcopal Church; can Gafcon provide a path towards the Anglican future; and should Gafcon become an institutional entity in order to achieve the tasks it has set for itself.

Archbishop Orombi told ReligiousIntelligence.com there were no predetermined answers to these questions. The archbishops behind Gafcon believed it important that clergy and lay voices be heard in formulating a way forward for Anglicanism.

The full report is here.

Reclaiming Orthodoxy

Here is some pre-GAFCon coverage from Christianity Today:

As the archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen leads one of the most evangelical branches of global Anglicanism. After becoming archbishop in 2001, true to evangelical form, he announced an ambitious goal to grow the church. But this call was to all “Bible-based” churches to reach 10 percent of Sydney’s 4.2 million people by 2012. Among other things, these efforts triggered the planting of 60 new congregations and a 30 percent increase in candidates for Anglican ministry—all at a time when Christian growth in Australia has leveled off significantly.

Starting on Sunday, June 22, Jensen will be among the 1,000 top conservatives from around the world to assemble in Jerusalem for GAFCON, the Global Anglican Futures conference. This event was organized quickly after leading conservatives decided not to attend Lambeth, the once-a-decade gathering of the 900-plus Anglican bishops. Many conservatives pulled out of Lambeth in the ongoing dispute over homosexual ordination and same-sex blessings. Jensen is serving as GAFCON’s chief organizer. Christianity Today spoke with Archbishop Jensen by phone from Amman, Jordan, where a pre-conference event took place.

What is the purpose of GAFCON?

… GAFCON is not just a conference. Its a movement. From the very beginning, the emphasis has been on truth and transformation. There’s a very strong evangelical strain in this movement. It’s not only evangelical by any means, but there is a strong evangelical strain. Evangelicals are particularly interested in truth. We believe the truth, that we have access to truth in Scripture, and we believe in transformation.

We believe that people’s lives could be changed. Our interest is not so much in human sexuality as such, but our interest is in that gospel of Jesus Christ, the truth that transforms, and the impact of that gospel in the whole world. We believe that the current developments actually get in the way of serving that gospel. So that’s what GAFCON’s about. GAFCON is trying to bring together as many people as possible who will serve the gospel of truth and transformation.

What is GAFCON going to look like as a movement?

One of the strong emphases of the leadership team of GAFCON is listening to God, getting together, listening to what God is saying to us, discerning the mind of God, naturally, through the Scriptures, but as they apply to today. It’s premature to answer the question at one level, because we need to hear what we’ve all got to say to each other and listen to God. On the other hand, I would have to say that speaking personally, I would be very surprised if GAFCON didn’t turn itself into a movement with sufficient institutional reality to make it a new force within the Anglican Communion. I don’t hear much interest in breaking up the Communion or splitting it or dividing it further than it is divided. What I hear is the idea of a new force embracing orthodoxy and empowering people to serve the gospel of truth and transformation.

What is your perspective on the crisis within the U.S. Episcopal Church?

All of us would regard this as immensely tragic. Legal proceedings are being taken between Christians. Bishops are being threatened. The irony of this situation is that those who are wanting to leave [the Episcopal Church] are the very people who up to now have been true Anglicans and who have not changed. They are not the innovators. They are simply Anglicans who are adhering to the Anglican faith as they’ve always understood it and have not moved an inch.

You can read the rest here.

Are the Anglicans About to Split?

Here is Time’s take on GAFCon:

That potential boycott and Akinola’s strong language this week will make it much harder for Williams to ignore the fact that a sizable chunk of his Communion, particularly from Africa and conservative dioceses of North America, is no longer interested in discussing questions of how the Communion will deal with homosexual bishops and the blessing of homosexual unions, and appears ready to act unilaterally to get its way. Failure to deal with the conflict could result in a shift in the Communion’s center of power away from its English roots and toward its growing, disgruntled churches in the southern hemisphere.

Some observers, however, caution against too much doomsaying. The GAFcon statement, they point out, does not necessarily mean that Communion will break in half in the near future. For one thing, the document expresses the GAFcon bishops’ intention to break specifically with churches like the Episcopal church in the U.S. and the Anglican Church of Canada, which make gay bishops or support such decisions—and does not call for secession from the worldwide group. Indeed, the conservatives say they would prefer that the Communion either become a looser confederation than it currently is or be “realigned” along more conservative principles, possibly with a lessening of the influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. At a news conference, Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, head of the GAFcon program committee, put the blame for any schism on the American and Canadian churches, which he said have “ripped” the Communion. He added, “I don’t hear GAFcon saying or GAFcon being a further cause for schism.”

What’s more, the GAFcon conference itself has been a bit of a Keystone Kops affair. Several key conservative bishops who were slated to appear chose not to travel to the Mideast, leaving open the possibility that they will attend Lambeth instead. The group even had trouble finding a location for its conference. At first it was scheduled for Jerusalem, but then the Anglican bishop there said he had enough problems without a divisive conference on his turf. The site was switched to Jordan, but on Wednesday the Jordanian border authorities delayed Akinola and another bishop from entering the country. The reasons were not stated, but opponents suggest that the Jordanians finally caught up with some of the remarks Akinola made in Nigeria a few years ago that may have contributed to violence between Christians and Muslims.

Jim Naughton, a Canon with the Episcopal diocese of Washington and one of his church’s more outspoken liberals, says, “I don’t think these guys have the juice to pull off a genuine schism. I dont think Archbishop Akinola speaks for Africa. The coalition he once touted as the ‘global south’ has shrunk to three hard-line provinces [Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda] and [some] Western culture warriors.”

Observers will be counting very carefully the number of bishops who actually shown up in Jerusalem for the conservative conference on Monday. But even if the group does not manage to force Williams’ hand in Lambeth, its statement marks a seemingly irrevocable step toward either a split or a redefined Communion that could have a huge impact on the already turbulent state of Anglican religion in the U.S.

You can read it all here.

Christians: No One Path to Salvation

This article appeared today on the Time website:

Americans of every religious stripe are considerably more tolerant of the beliefs of others than most of us might have assumed, according to a new poll released Monday. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year surveyed 35,000 American, and found that 70% of respondents agreed with the statement, “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that “no one comes to the Father except through me”. Even as mainline churches had become more tolerant, the exclusivity of Christianity’s path to heaven has long been one of the Evangelicals’ fundamental tenets. The new poll suggests a major shift, at least in the pews…

Quizzed on the breadth of the poll’s definition of “Evangelical”, Pew pollster John Green said the 296-page survey made use of self-identification by the respondents’ churches, denominations or fellowships, whose variety is the report's overriding theme. However, he said, if one isolates the most “traditionalist” members of the white Evangelical group, 50% still agreed that other faiths might offer a path to eternal life. In fact, of the dozens of denominations covered by the Pew survey, it was only Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses who answered in the majority that their own faith was the only way to eternal life.

Analysts expressed some surprise at how far the tolerance needle has swung, but said the trend itself was forseeable because of American Christians’ increasing proximity to other faiths since immigration quotas were loosened in the 1960s. Says Rice [University sociologist D. Michael] Lindsay, the author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite: “If you have a colleague who is Buddhist or your kid plays with a little boy who is Hindu, it changes your appreciation of the religious ‘other’.”

While the combination of Americans’ religiosity—more than half those polled said was “very important in their lives”—and their tolerance for the beliefs of others may suggest creedal confusion, this appears not to trouble good-hearted U.S. pew-sitter. Says Lindsay, “The problem is not that Americans don’t believe in anything, but that they believe in everything, and the two things don’t always fit together.” But he adds, the views are consistent with tolerant views expressed by evangelicals he met in various cities as he toured while promoting his book. Mohler agrees: “We’ve seen this coming,” adding that the query about whether others can make it to heaven “has been the question I get asked by more college students and on my radio program”. More so than Christ’s divinity or Resurrection, he says, “the exclusivity of the Gospel is the most vulnerable doctrine in the face of the modern world.” …

The survey’s biggest challenge is to the theologians and pastors who will have to reconcile their flocks' acceptance of a new, polyglot heaven with the strict admission criteria to the gated community that preceded it.

I would like to see a deeper exploration of this issue than this brief article provides, as i think it is considerably more nuanced than a single question allows. You can read the whole article here.

“A Rescue Mission”

Here are the concluding remarks from Archbishop Peter Akinola’s opening address to the Global Anglican Future Conference:

Our beloved Anglican Communion must be rescued from the manipulation of those who have denied the gospel and its power to transform and to save; those who have departed from the scripture and the faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’ from those who are proclaiming a new gospel, which really is no gospel at all (Gal 1). In the wisdom and strength God supplies we must rescue what is left of the Church from error of the apostates.

Brethren, we are here

• Because we are bound together in a godly fellowship by the Gospel-the gospel that shaped the theological and ecclesiological foundations of our Church-the same gospel with its transforming power that made the difference in the lives of our heroes like Thomas Cranmer, William Wilberforce, the Clapham brothers and Ajayi Crowther.
• Because we are convinced that GAFCON is a veritable tool within the Communion which God is using to bring together all who are concerned not only about the need to preserve the faith, but also to persevere and bequeath a legacy of wholesome, undiluted faith to future generations of Anglicans. It is God’s gift to the Anglican Communion and to the world.
• To draw fresh inspiration to enable us ‘contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints’ both for our sake and for the sake of future generations of Anglicans.
• Because we want to renew our commitment to our sacred duty to preserve and proclaim uncompromisingly, the undistorted word of God written to a sinful and fragmented world. GAFCON is a meeting of ordained and lay leaders concerned about the mission of the Church and how best to carry it out and be poised to address the ever-present challenges of self-reliance, good governance, overcoming corruption and to prepare a strong and stable platform for upcoming generations.
• Yes, GAFCON offers fresh hope for a meaningful spiritual haven for orthodox Anglicans who can no longer hold out and be truly Anglican under revisionist leadership.
• We are here because we know that in God’s providence GAFCON will liberate and set participants [particularly Africans] free from spiritual bondage which TEC and its Allies champion. Having survived the inhuman physical slavery of the 19th century, the political slavery called colonialism of the 20th century, the developing world economic enslavement, we cannot, we dare not allow ourselves and the millions we represent be kept in religious and spiritual dungeon.
• Because we know that together as lay leaders, clergy and bishops of our Church we can banish the errors plaguing our beloved Communion-for we will not abdicate our God-given responsibility and simply acquiesce to destructive modern cultural and political dictates.
• We are here because we know that in spite of the fractures in our Communion, as orthodox Anglicans, we have a future and so we are here in the holy land to inaugurate and determine the roadmap to that future.

And from what better place in the world could we take the fullest advantage of the most powerful reminders of the life and ministry of our Lord and only Saviour Jesus the Christ than here in the holy land where he was born, grew up, served; was killed, rose again for our justification, ascended to heaven and now seated at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for us.

It was here in the holy land that our Lord Jesus the Christ of God gave the command to go and proclaim the sacred message of salvation and to disciple those who believe. From here, brethren, the recipient Church in the power of the Holy Spirit went out to the world and began the gradual process of its transformation.

So far, I have tried to address the whole question of ‘why and how’ we got to where we are in the life of our beloved Anglican Communion. The challenge we must now address is, where do we go from here and what is the roadmap for that journey? As we participate in the various workshops and plenary sessions, I ask that we give some prayerful consideration to the following questions:

1. In the light of the fact that the Communion is in a state of brokenness in fellowship and sacrament, are we reconcilable; is there anything that can be done which has not been articulated for the restoration of sacramental Communion?
2. A sizeable part of the Communion is in error and not a few are apostate; is the Communion correctable from within or must it be from without?
3. A growing number of our people are already talking about what they call ‘unavoidable realignment’ for the rescue operation within the Communion; is that the best way forward and if not, what are the alternatives?
4. To some, GAFCON is the metamorphosis of CAPA and the Global south. Is it? Put in another way, what is the place of CAPA and the Global south which historically antedate GAFCON in an all-embracing and truly global GAFCON?
5. We know that the expert ‘divide and rule’ agents of TEC and Lambeth have been at work using money and other attractions to buy ‘silence and compromise’ from some gullible African and Global South Church leaders; hence we have begun to see signs of disunity in our ranks. How do we forestall this danger in GAFCON?
6. Can we here begin to discern the content and nature of that future we long to see and work for as Anglicans?
7. What sort of recognisable structure and funding must GAFCON as a ‘movement’ in the Communion have to be able achieve the tasks set for it?

As I conclude let the world be informed that be it by birth or by conversion the men and women in GAFCON are people who have grown to be Anglican Christians by conviction, upholding the tenets of Anglican biblical orthodoxy. We have no other place to go nor is it our intention to start another church. Anglicans we are, Anglicans we’ll remain until the LORD shall return in glory to judge each one according to his deeds.

And finally fellow pilgrims it goes without saying that we have committed so much prayer and material resources to this conference and pilgrimage. We have not come here to fantasise or day dream. This is the land in which the LORD our God manifested his glory and power in concrete actions in empirical history.

The programme, painstakingly designed with you in mind, is therefore fairly elaborate with variety of activities such as pilgrimage to holy sites, liturgical worship, devotional prayer sessions, workshops, Bible study and several plenary sessions. I urge you; please make GAFCON a worthwhile event. Be involved. Be punctual in attending all sessions. Participate fully and actively. Only by so doing can we together this week here in the holy land, come up with practical, realistic and actionable decisions that will honour God and bring blessing to our Communion. Let us walk, work and pray together here in Jerusalem to inaugurate that glorious future of the Anglican Communion.

You can find the text of his entire message here (or at several dozen other web sites!).

London Times Cryptic Crossword for June 22

Here is this week’s cryptic from the London Times. Just click on it to get the full-sized version.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 15 June

Here is the official solution to last Sunday’s puzzle:

GAFCon ‘will set the future for the Church’

Another perspective on the Global Anglican Future Conference, from George Conger:

GAFCon will prove to be “one of the most important events in the next two or three decades” of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Sydney has predicted, and will set the future course of the Church. In an interview with Anglican Media Sydney before his departure for the June 22-29 gathering in Jerusalem, Dr Peter Jensen said the 1,000 delegates—including 280 bishops—will be “working out where [Anglicans] go from here.” He dismissed suggestions that Gafcon was a stalking horse for a conservative schism, saying evangelicals “are Anglicans and intend to remain so.” …

Jockeying amongst conservatives for control of the GAFCon message has been intense with some Americans calling for a Canterbury-less Anglican Communion, Ugandans and Australians pushing for a reformed Communion, as well as supporters of federal central executive ranged against those seeking a looser confederated polity. However, a three-day pre-conference meeting at a Jordanian Dead Sea resort beginning June 19 will seek to smooth over the cracks in the conservative façade, allowing the main conference to focus its work.

From the Church of England, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazi-Ali and the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn will attend the gathering, as will bishops, clergy and lay leaders from 25 other countries.

Read his whole article here.

The Anglican Church is divided, but not fatally

A team-written op-ed piece in the Telegraph, offering a somewhat jaundiced view of GAFCon:

The grandly named Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), which is meeting in the Holy Land this week, is supposed to be a sort of conservative rival to the Lambeth Conference next month. Gafcon consists of around 200 Anglican bishops and laity, principally from the theologically conservative reaches of Africa and the United States. On Wednesday, it effectively declared the end of the worldwide Anglican Communion, explaining that it could no longer be associated with liberals who tolerate actively homosexual clergy.

On paper, therefore, the moment of schism in worldwide Anglicanism has arrived. Many of Gafcon’s members will boycott Lambeth, and the Archbishop of Canterbury will therefore preside over a ruptured communion. But, before Dr Rowan Williams runs up the white flag, he should take a closer look at the reality of Gafcon, as opposed to its self-important pronouncements. The truth is that the conference has so far been a shambles. Its leader, the belligerent Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, has been denied entry to Jordan. Other conservative church leaders are missing because they have chosen not to attend. Significant absentees at Gafcon include the Rt Rev John Chew, Primate of South-East Asia, and Dr Mouneer Anis, Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East and treasurer of the “Global South” group of conservative provinces. And even those leaders who are attending the conference make up a volatile compound. Gafcon, in other words, is far from the united force it claims to be, and it does not fully represent Anglicanism in the developing world…

Gafcon is dominated by the single issue of homosexuality; its relative failure should remind us that ordinary Anglicans – and especially members of the Church of England – are not obsessed with sexual mores or gay marriage. The challenge of Lambeth is to revive Christianity in a secular age. Dr Williams is well aware of that fact, and we wish him well.

I would dispute the gratuitous summation of this last paragraph. The obsession with homosexuality is not something that GAFCon and its organizers have foisted upon the church. It is the direct result of liberals ramming their revisionist agenda at the church for decades. The whole article is here.

Surprised by Wright

I was surprised to learn that Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, was to appear on The Colbert Report yesterday. I think he held up rather well:

Authentic Anglicanism

I have begun reading the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCon) printed theological resources booklet, which became available today on line. It describes “authentic Anglicanism” as:

a particular expression of Christian corporate life which seeks to honour the Lord Jesus Christ by nurturing faith, and also encouraging obedience to the teaching of God’s written word, meaning the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It embraces the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (published in the year 1571) and the Book of Common Prayer (the two versions of 1552 and 1662), both texts being read according to their plain and historical sense, and being accepted as faithful expressions of the teaching of Scripture, which provides the standard for Anglican theology and practice.

And here is what it declares as its non-negotiable core of commitments:

• the goodness, love and mercy of the living God who eternally exists in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit;

• the creation of men and women by God in his image, with all that this means for the dignity and value of every human life;

• the distortion of creation, at all levels, by the decision of the first man and woman to turn aside from trust in God’s goodness, expressed in the word he had given them;

• the lostness of the human race, as the result of the fall into sin, which manifests itself in our natural guilt, corruption and enslavement to sinful desire;

• the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God, and as the only Saviour for sinful men and women;

• the central saving reality of judgement being borne in our place by Jesus Christ on the cross, which is his great victory over all that stands against us, and that also stands opposed to the rightful rule of God;

• the historical actuality and theological indispensability of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, on the third day after his crucifixion, leaving empty the tomb in which he had been laid;

• the necessity of the Spirit’s work in bringing about repentance and faith in the human heart, so as to unite us to Christ and enable us to share in the salvation he has won;

• the right standing with God which is given freely, and which now belongs to all who, by faith, are united to Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection;

• the expectation of the bodily return of Jesus Christ, to bring God’s purposes of salvation and judgement to their consummation;

• the significance of the Church as the gathering of the redeemed people of God around the word of God and in the Spirit of God;

• the supreme authority of the Scriptures as the word of God written, and as the source of true teaching about God, his purposes, and the appropriate response to God’s mercy in Jesus Christ;

• the purpose of Christian ministry within the churches to nourish faith and obedience through careful teaching of the Bible in the context of genuine personal relationships;

• the generous provision of the Lord’s Supper and baptism which, as sacraments, visibly represent the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ to his people;

• the legitimate exercise of authority within the churches which is characterized by unreserved obedience to the teaching of Scripture and Jesus Christ’s own pattern of service;

• the importance of fellowship between Christian congregations in the common cause of living as disciples of Jesus Christ and as his ambassadors in the world;

• the priority of evangelism for all Christians in response to the great commission of Jesus Christ.

Notice the lack of reference to Canterbury. The entire 100-page document may be downloaded at the GAFCon site here.

Thoroughly Modern Ecclesiastical Discipline

From The Living Church (15 June):

A “fundamental shift” in the proposed revision to The Episcopal Church’s misconduct canons would require accused persons to testify, said Sallie Johnson, chancellor to the President of the House of Deputies, during a question-and-answer session with Executive Council on June 14.

Discussion and a presentation of the proposed canonical revision, which for the first time will propose making lay leadership subject to the Canons and Constitution of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, consumed about an hour of the afternoon plenary session.

Council members asked a number of questions about the rationale and potential for abuse of making lay leadership subject to the misconduct code. That decision has proven controversial, and helped lead to defeat of a previous revision of the code at the 75th General Convention in 2006. Under the latest proposed revision to the misconduct code, complaints against laity have been removed from Title IV and incorporated into Title I. A procedure for dealing with impaired clergy will be included in Title III…

Under the proposed revisions, refusal to testify under oath can be used by the ecclesiastical court to infer guilt, Ms. Johnson said. The emphasis on “truth-telling” may well lead to earlier and better settlements of complaints and possibly reduced costs, she said.

The current misconduct canons make it arguably impossible for anyone other than the diocesan bishop to remove a member of the laity from a position of parish leadership and only in a very limited number of instances possible for someone outside the diocese in which the priest is canonically resident to bring a complaint.

The rest is here.

And from Dan Martins on Covenant-Communion (14 June):

There is much in the proposed Title IV (and Title I) revisions that is commendable– particularly the expressed intent that outcomes of disciplinary processes not be automatically punitive, but that those in authority have enough tools at their disposal to respond with some degree of discretion–even creativity–in a way that bears witness to our theological commitment to grace, repentance, amendment of life, forgiveness, and restoration. This is good, and I hope we can adopt something that moves us in that direction.

Unfortunately, there are several poison pills is the draft, any one of which is worth scuttling the whole thing over; they are that toxic. A relatively cursory read yields these:

From I.17.8: “…or with cause for material disregard of the preceding sentence, or for a stated intention to disregard it [the ‘perform well and faithfully’ requirement] in the future …” Shades of the moves Minority Report. This is chilling in is potential scope and subject to a wide range of abuse by those who hold power and are interested in consolidating their hold. There are any number of things that can be twisted to be construed as a “stated intention” to do something in the future.

From IV.2: “Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Clergy shall mean any disorder or neglect that prejudices the reputation, good order and discipline of the Church, or any conduct of a nature to bring material discredit upon the Church or the Holy Orders conferred by the Church.” It is difficult to imagine a more sweeping damper on the free exchange of ideas and debate in the Church. Only an institution in doubt of its own integrity and living in fear for its own collapse from within would find it necessary to enact such a canon. And if the canon *were* to be adopted as proposed, would I even be free to voice such an opinion?

From the same canon: “Sexual Misconduct shall mean (a) Sexual Abuse, or (b) Sexual Behavior at the request of, acquiesced to, or by a Member of the Clergy and a person, other than his or her spouse or same-sex partner, with whom the Member of the Clergy has a Pastoral Relationship…” Where to begin? Is Christian morality now being defined by whether or not the Church can be sued? Under this canon, I could be held accountable for having any version of a sexual relationship with a parishioner or staff member–as well I should be–but if I were to have an affair with my next-door neighbor who is not a parishioner, there’s nothing to prosecute? How ludicrous. If the canon had stopped with “his or her spouse,” it would have my enthusiastic support. The part about “pastoral relationship” spoils it. Of course, that addition of “or same-sex partner” is also a deal-breaker. To enact that language would raise C051 to canonical status, and would be a back-door mechanism for settling an issue that remains under debate.

And then there’s everybody’s favorite–the Abandonment Canon (III.16). In addition to the specific definitions of abandonment that we’re all so familiar with from the present canon, we get the additional “or {iv) in any other way.” It looks like a bishop who is late to a visitation because of speeding ticket is liable to deposition for abandonment. (To say nothing of being tried for Conduct Unbecoming by jeopardizing the reputation of TEC for getting a ticket.
These are just a few tidbits. I’m sure there are more.

His whole discussion is here.

Citing Deposition Threat, Pittsburgh Moves Up Diocesan Convention

From The Living Church (13 June):

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh announced in a letter to all clergy and lay deputies that the diocese’s annual convention has been moved to Oct. 4, about one month earlier than in previous years.

“The date and place of the annual convention having been previously set, I am announcing this change under the provisions of Article II, Section 2, of the constitution of the diocese,” Bishop Duncan wrote. “The expressed threat of deposition of the diocesan bishop at a September meeting of the House of Bishops is the ‘sufficient cause’.”

Last week the diocese reported receiving three resolutions for consideration during this year’s annual convention. Resolution one states the Diocese of Pittsburgh shall be a member of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina. Resolution two spells out how the disaffiliation period will occur. Resolution three explicitly states “that the adoption of the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church as advisory policies by the diocese should in no way be interpreted to suggest that The Episcopal Church has any authority over the diocese, any parish of the diocese, or any clergy of the diocese.” …

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has repeatedly warned Bishop Duncan and several other bishops whose conventions have taken initial steps to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church. She has called a special meeting of the House of Bishops Sept. 17-19 in Salt Lake City.

After the spring House of Bishops’ meeting she polled members of the house to see if there was sufficient interest to hold the special meeting before next month’s Lambeth Conference. In April, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that David Booth Beers, chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, had sent an e-mail message to about two dozen Pittsburgh Episcopalians saying that Bishop Jefferts Schori was not “seeking approval to proceed; rather, she seeks the mind of the House as to when to proceed” with a vote to remove Bishop Duncan” from the ordained ministry.

The full story is here.

Background on the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCon)

Here are some questions and answers about GAFCon that appeared this week on the Global South Anglican web site:

Are the Bishops from the Church of Uganda going to Lambeth?
No. The Church of Uganda Bishops decided together not to go to Lambeth this year. Their decision has been supported by the governing body of the Church of Uganda, the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee. The reason the Church of Uganda is not going to Lambeth is because the purpose of Lambeth is for fellowship among Bishops, and our fellowship has been broken with the American church. We broke fellowship with them for three reasons:

1. In direct violation of the Bible and historic Christian teaching, they consecrated as a Bishop a gay man living in a same-sex relationship
2. After five years of pleading with them, listening to them, and giving them many opportunities, they have not repented of that decision.

The Archbishop of Canterbury did not follow the advice given to him by his own appointed Commission to not invite to Lambeth those responsible for the confusion and disobedience in the Anglican Communion. The Bible says, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” We have not been in fellowship with the Americans who have violated the Bible since 2003, so we are not going to pretend by going to Lambeth that we are in fellowship. We are not. What they have done is a very serious thing, and what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done in inviting them is grievous and we want them to know that.

Is the Church of Uganda seceding from the Anglican Communion?
No. We are simply not going to the Lambeth Conference. We are still part of the Anglican Communion, and the vast majority of the Anglican Communion opposes what the American Church has done and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s tacit support for it…

Is the Anglican Communion going to split?
The Anglican Communion has been deeply wounded. The 2003 decision of the Episcopal Church in America to consecrate as a bishop a gay man living in a same-sex relationship caused a deep tear in the fabric of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Not only has the American Church not repented of this decision and action, but they have continued to advance non-Biblical teaching and practice. Their Bishops and many clergy have presided at the blessing of same-sex unions. Their Archbishop does not believe the Bible when Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” Another American Bishop has said, “The Church wrote the Bible, so the church can re-write the Bible.” It is wrong for them to continue to be Bishops and leaders in the Church. Yet, if their church will not discipline them, we will continue in broken fellowship with them. We cannot tolerate such theological corruption.

Is the crisis in the Anglican Communion about homosexuality?
No. The crisis is about authority. Homosexuality is only the presenting issue. All four Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion – The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Lambeth Conference of Bishops, The Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council – advised against the American Church approving homosexual relationships. Yet, the American Church openly defied these resolutions and there was no disciplinary action taken against them. That is a crisis of authority in the Communion. Furthermore, the apparent lack of resolve to take action manifests a deeper crisis, namely a crisis of confidence in the authority of the Word of God as the ultimate standard of faith and moral living.

Can anything good come out of this crisis?
Yes. As Christians we are always people of hope. We believe that the Anglican Communion must base its identity on bonds of truth as well as bonds of affection. That’s why we are going to GAFCON. We hope that GAFCON will reassert as normative Anglican Christianity the reality we know in Uganda – that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can bring substantive change for good in a person’s life, in his family, and in our country. We saw it when Christianity came to Uganda. We saw it when the East African Revival broke out in the 1930s and 1940s. We saw families healed, cycles of revenge broken, and oppression from demonic powers lifted. The only hope from the human condition is eternal forgiveness that comes only through Jesus Christ. That’s what the Anglican Church is about, and that’s why we’re going to GAFCON and not Lambeth.

You can read all of them here.

London Times Cryptic Crossword for June 15

Yes! It’s back, after a week’s hiatus. Just click on the image to get the full-sized version.

Interview with a Persecuted Christian Pastor

Another story from Canada:

Albertan Steve Boissoin, the latest victim of Canada’s intensifying persecution against Christians who openly defend Christian moral teaching on homosexuality, was recently interviewed by the Christian journalist Pete Vere. Vere has since posted Youtube clips of the interview on his blog. In particular, Vere hoped to give Boissoin the chance to defend himself against claims that he propagated hate speech.

Late last year the Alberta Human Rights Commission ruled against Boissoin, and last week issued a remedy ruling that orders the pastor to apologize in writing to Darren Lund, the complainant in the case, to pay $7,000 in fines, and to never make “disparaging” remarks about homosexuality again.

The problem, says Boissoin, is that he has never felt any hate towards homosexuals. While Boissoin admits that he used impassioned and strong language in his letter to the editor on homosexuality, published in the Red Deer Advocate, language that some may have been offended by, he says his intention in doing so was simply to shake people of good will into recognizing that the radical homosexualist agenda has made significant inroads into Canadian law, and schools in particular.

“I certainly don’t feel any anger or bitterness towards anyone who’s homosexual,” says Boissoin. He believes that Darrell Lund took the letter to the editor, seriously misinterpreted it by pulling quotations out of context, and used his misinterpretation as the basis for a hate crimes case. Boissoin also says that during the tribunal hearing that led to his conviction he was never given the opportunity to explain what he had intended by the letter…

Another problematic and common misinterpretation of the letter, says Boissoin, is that its contents were directed at all homosexuals. But he says this is not the case. Indeed, the letter opens with the assurance that it is not meant for homosexuals on the whole, but rather only for those radical homosexual activists who are pushing for the indoctrination of young children in schools, leading them to accept homosexuality as but another legitimate and good "lifestyle."

Boissoin’s letter begins: “The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.”…

Boission also observes that it is ironic that he has been accused of "hate speech" for having done nothing more than having written an impassioned appeal for people to oppose the radical homosexualist agenda, particularly in schools, while he has been the victim of blatant, up-front hate speech.

“If anyone has seen the persecution that I’ve suffered and the verbal beatings I’ve taken, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “Every day people are bashing my faith and making derogatory comments and hateful comments, I mean, blatant hateful comments. They’re telling me they hate me. In Calgary and in Red Deer I have been told I would be injected with an HIV positive syringe, I’ve been told that I would be lynched and sodomized.”

The Christian pastor told Vere that for now he is continuing to perform his Christian ministry to anyone who comes to him seeking help. “If it’s a homosexual I try to share a loving and graceful … love and truth cannot be separated. God's truth has to be presented with that message of love. And then I leave it with them and I pray for them. And that’s all I can do. I’m not responsible to save anybody. I feel no animosity in my heart.”

The case has provoked a firestorm of criticism against the Alberta Human Right Commission. You can read the whole article here.

Arctic synod says recent same-sex blessing votes hurt church unity

From the Anglican Journal (Canada):

The synod of the diocese of the Arctic, meeting in Iqaluit, Nunavut from May 27 to June 3, passed a motion criticizing decisions by four dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada that support blessing same-sex unions. “Synod expressed great disappointment as some diocesan synods have decided to move forward with approving the blessing of same-sex civil marriages, after General Synod 2007 (made) it clear that this would not be allowed until the Lambeth Conference had time to discuss the issues this summer,” said a press release issued by the diocese of the Arctic synod. “This then indicates that Canadians are not serious about unity elements that hold the church together.”

It also passed a motion expressing “strong support … for those in the Southern cone dioceses, recognizing them as members of the Anglican Communion.” The diocesan bishop of the Arctic, Andrew Atagotaaluk, said the synod wanted to express that while some Canadian Anglicans have left their parishes and joined the province of the Southern Cone “that doesn’t say that they’re separated from the Anglican church as a whole; they’re still part of the Communion.” (Since November 15 parishes have broken away to join the church of the province of the Southern Cone (which consists of the southern part of South America), citing the Canadian church’s liberal stance regarding the issue of human sexuality.)

In an interview, Bishop Atagotaaluk said the decision by the synods of the dioceses of Ottawa, Montreal, Niagara and Huron to ask their bishops to give clergy permission to bless homosexual marriages “kind of let us down from trusting that we had a process that everybody can work with.” He added that since the 2007 General Synod defeated the motion affirming the authority of dioceses to offer same-sex blessings, “there was no message saying that we could all go our own way.” …

The diocese of the Arctic spans the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Nunavik (Arctic Quebec), and has several language groups, including three dialects of the Inuit people, Gwichin, Dogrib, North and South Slavey, Cree, English and French.

Praise God for dioceses like the Arctic and Athabasca, that are not afraid to swim against the liberal tide of the Anglican Church of Canada! The whole report is here.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 1 June

Here is my proposed solution for this past Sunday’s London Times cryptic crossword puzzle:

Reflections on the Communion Partners Plan

The Rev. Russell Levenson, rector of St Martin’s Church, Houston, passionately pleads the case for Communion Partners—

The devil has a field day when we are divided, and any thinking person has to believe that darkness will (and in my mind already has) creep quickly into the break-away movements as well. So, why choose to stay? The Communion Partner Rectors and Bishops (and Archbishops) are clear about who they are and that for which they stand…

As we do remain, we remember Daniel in Babylon; Jeremiah’s wasteland of an audience; the dry bones that Ezekiel was called to preach to—despite ongoing opposition. None were given the option to “leave”; and all had to stay. We of course, remember our Lord who “wept” at the Jerusalem who not only rejected the prophets, but rejected Jesus. He did not leave— He was not given “another” Jerusalem—when His message was ignored, reviled, rejected… He did not move onto Egypt or Ethiopia or Rome; He stayed, in the midst of a land that almost completely ignored His message, and by the end, His prayer in Gethsemane was that someday all who followed Him would be “one”, and “brought to complete unity”, (John 17). Can we honestly say that is where we are today? Are we anywhere close to “complete unity”—not just within the Anglican family (with our many divisions); but within the greater Body of Christendom?

The Partners Plan is (again in my mind) one pathway toward following the lead of the great prophets and our Lord. We may never live to see the fruits of faithfully staying and faithfully preaching (recognizing—FULLY—that those who do leave, are also faithfully living into their vocational call as well). But, what if—what if those who have left in the last decade had stayed...continued to fight the tide of revisionism? What would Virginia look like? Florida? What would happen if Pittsburgh chose to stay put? Certainly it is not easy, and likely continued opposition will prevail, but were we—any of us—promised an “easy” road? Did any of us plan on preaching without tremendous opposition—in some cases, even persecution? …

I urge those considering departure, to consider the CPP, (whether Diocese, Bishop, Rector or Parish). It is not a perfect solution; far from it. But as one of my colleagues who has been in this battle for a very long time recently said to me, “This is my only viable option… I just don’t have a ‘plan B’.”

Those who do join us, must gently, and respectfully, live into the parameters of the Windsor Process. We are transparent—to our parishes, our Bishops, and whatever wider audience may develop. Some Bishops will oppose participation, some will give no objection, some will encourage—some may very well be hostile to it. We intend to respond faithfully to one another, and to respect the boundaries and authority of our Bishops.

This is not yet another “group” with one foot out the door; or even an eye toward the door handle. This is a fellowship—a place to belong with a common mind, common heart and common purpose—to strengthen our ties to the greater Communion, to other like-hearted Archbishops, Bishops and Rectors, and to, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, grow—however slowly—breathe the biblical and creedal faith and orthodox theology with a loving, yet consistent, evangelical fervor on those dry bones, where ever we encounter them.

If you are a rector and interested in joining us, be transparent—discuss it with your bishop and your vestry—then send your full name, contact information, Diocese, Bishop, parish and number of baptized members to CPRectors@stmartinsepiscopal.org. As of 4 June, the constitutent membership of the rectors who have signed onto the plan is over 25,000 people. Please pray for us and for the plan.

His whole submission to the Anglican Communion Institute may be found here.

Alphabet Soup, Anglican Edition

One of the curses unleashed upon us by our unhappy divisions is a plethora of acronyms. Here are a few of them, compiled by Edgar P. Sneed, a member of Church of the Holy Spirit Anglican in Tulsa:

AAC American Anglican Council
AANF Anglican Alliance of North Florida
ABC Archbishop of Canterbury
ACA Anglican Church of Australia
ACA Anglican Church in America
ACC Anglican Consultative Council
ACC Anglican Church of Canada
ACI Anglican Communion Institute
ACiC Anglican Coalition in Canada
ACiNW Anglican Communion in New Westminster
ACK Anglican Church of Kenya
ACO Anglican Communion Office
ACN Anglican Communion Network
ACNA Anglican Church of North America
ACNS Anglican Communion News Service
ADV Anglican District of Virginia
AEC Anglican Essentials Canada
AEO Alternative Episcopal Oversight
AI Anglican Institute
AM Anglican Mainstream
AMIA Anglican Mission in the Americas
ANiC Anglican Network in Canada
APA Anglican Province of America
APO alternative primatial oversight
ARCIC Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission
ARDF Anglican Relief and Development Fund
AU Anglicans United

And those are just a few of the A’s! The rest, for any who have the patience or may be sunk in confusion, are here.

Vancouver clergy threatened with trespassing charges

News of the latest developments in the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada, via Australia:

Former Sydney Anglican, the Rev David Short, who has been charged with abandoning Anglican doctrine, has now been threatened with charges of trespassing if he sets foot on the property of St John’s Shaughnessy, in moves which could see more Canadian churches forced from their properties.

Mr Short, who is the rector at St John’s, and all other clergy belonging to the Anglican Network in Canada in the Diocese of New Westminster received letters outlining the charges from Bishop Michael Ingham on Monday. The letters also advised that the clergy were forbidden to ‘trespass’ on the church properties, exercise any ministry and remove anything from the properties, including books.

While smaller churches have been given deadlines ranging from mid-to-late July, St John’s Shaughnessy has been given no date for the charges to ‘take effect’. “This is not surprising as they are taking the usual strategy of picking off the smaller parishes first,” says Mr Short’s wife, Bronwyn. Mrs Short has asked for prayer for the parish’s lawyers and trustees who are currently working out how to respond

Mr Short’s father, Bishop Ken Short, a retired Sydney bishop, also indicated his son’s concern for the 700-strong congregation, who Mrs Short said were likely to be “distressed” by the news. “David has asked that all will show a godly attitude to the news when they arrive for services on Sunday morning,” says Bishop Short.

The rest of the story is here.

Bishop Carol Gallagher to Assist in North Dakota

From the The Living Church:

Bishop Michael Smith of North Dakota announced late on June 4 that Bishop Carol Gallagher, resigned Bishop of Southern Virginia, has accepted his invitation to assist in providing episcopal pastoral care in the diocese. “She has agreed to reach out especially to congregations and clergy who feel alienated and hurt by me due to different understanding of human sexuality,” Bishop Smith wrote in an entry on a blog maintained by the diocese.

Bishop Gallagher was Bishop Suffragan of Southern Virginia from 2002 to 2005. Both she and Bishop David Bane of Southern Virginia resigned within a year of each other after a three-member task force of bishops appointed by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold recommended a number of actions to move the diocese away from a paralyzing level of “conflict and division.” Bishop Gallagher later served as assisting Bishop of Newark from September 2005 until May 2007.

“We find ourselves in the midst of a discernment process, seeking the mind of Christ, about whether the Holy Spirit is leading us to new understanding of human sexuality or not,” wrote Bishop Smith. “As this discernment continues through the canonical processes of The Episcopal Church and the conciliar processes of the Anglican Communion, I urge patience, kindness and respect in our dealings with one another. I also pray our energies will be focused on engaging the mission of the church as we are sent into the world to serve the poor and to share our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Earlier this year, Bishop Smith declined to license a partnered lesbian priest who had relocated to North Dakota and waged a public campaign to compel Bishop Smith to license her. Bishop Smith is one of 13 “Communion Partner Bishops” who have pledged to strengthen the traditionalist voice within The Episcopal Church while at the same time finding creative ways for others with more liberal views under their own jurisdiction to receive pastoral episcopal care under existing Episcopal Church polity.

Once again, I am impressed by Bishop Smith’s outstanding leadership. You can read the letter he wrote to his diocese here.

Episcopal bishop downplays discord at upcoming Anglican meeting

From USA Today:

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said last Tuesday that she does not expect up-or-down votes on the role of gays and lesbians in the church at a meeting of global Anglican leaders in England this summer… “I don’t expect legislation at Lambeth. That’s not why we’re going,” Jefferts Schori told reporters. “It’s a global conversation. … It’s not going to make a final decision about anything.”…

The new informal structure contrasts with the last meeting, in 1998, when conservatives succeeded in pushing through a nonbinding resolution that declared homosexuality “incompatible with Scripture” and condemned gay marriage…

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said last Tuesday that she does not expect up-or-down votes on the role of gays and lesbians in the church at a meeting of global Anglican leaders in England this summer. The Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering of bishops from the 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, will instead be an opportunity for bishops to work out differences in closed-door discussion groups, according to organizers. “I don’t expect legislation at Lambeth. That’s not why we’re going,” Jefferts Schori told reporters. “It's a global conversation. ... It’s not going to make a final decision about anything.”

The presiding bishop also said she looks forward to the newly designed Lambeth Conference. “The reality is that parliamentary procedure, including the way it’s practiced in this country, leads generally to winners and losers,” Jefferts Schori said. “When we meet face to face, we have far more opportunities to meet each other as complex human beings rather than as single-issue positions.”

This coverage gives further indication that Lambeth is a contrived non-event, giving the Episcopal Church continued free rein in its wholesale abandonment of Christian teaching and practice. You can read the whole article here.

“Death Knell for the Anglican Communion”

An article from tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald (thanks to the International Date Line!):

As the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, prepares to leave for the conference that will decide the fate of the worldwide Anglican church, fresh trouble in North America suggests the 450-year old communion has little hope of holding together. Archbishop Jensen is one of the leaders of 1000 conservative churchmen from 17 Anglican provinces who will gather at the Jerusalem Global Anglican Futures Conference this month.

Mainly from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, they are united on one principal issue: hostility to homosexuality. But Archbishop Jensen argues: “This dispute is not really about homosexuality. It’s really about authority and who runs the church. And fairly clearly, to most of the rest of us, God runs the church through the Bible.”

Plans to split the church were provoked by the 2003 decision of Episcopalians in the US to consecrate an openly gay bishop. The church has been in turmoil since. These troubles are about to escalate. Episcopalian leaders in the US have welcomed last month's landmark decision of the Californian Supreme Court that marriage is a fundamental human right. Parishes in California plan to begin performing gay marriages as early as next week.

The old church was finished, Dr Jensen said. “Exploring the possibilities of this different organisation is now before us.”

Split identities, divided loyalties?

Here are the last two paragraphs of a study on the current sexuality debate in the Anglican Communion, written by Andrew Proud, Area Bishop of the Horn of Africa:

Any further debate on this issue, if it is to be had at Lambeth 2008 and can be had, in the light of the absence of the GAFCON Bishops, will indeed require the Christian virtues of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Having made a plea for openness, kindness and respect we still need to assert that the culture of the Church is different to the culture of the world. As the Latin American, Roman Catholic symposium on evangelisation put it, “The inculturation of faith and the evangelization of culture go together as an inseparable pair, in which there is no hint of syncretism: this is the genuine meaning of inculturation.” The Church must not be afraid to reassert its core beliefs and values, for the sake of the Gospel, even if many in the North, watching news reports of the Lambeth Conference on their television screens, will understand it to be a debate about human rights and the right of individuals to pursue personal happiness. Increasingly, it looks to me, from here, that the promotion of same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly homosexual individuals, are both the desperate, last-ditch attempts by a sinking Church to stay afloat in an otherwise alien and hostile culture. That, it seems to me, quoting Christopher Clapham, is about seamanship rather than navigation; staying afloat rather than getting anywhere. For me, his whole issue is about mission and experience has taught me that, to have an effective mission, we need to be faithful to our apostolic faith in all its fullness.

Thus, I believe that much more is at risk here than personal happiness and self-fulfilment. What is at stake is nothing less than the credibility of the Christian Gospel and of the Anglican Church itself, both of which impact upon the effectiveness of her mission. It is a simple matter of fact that the Anglican Communion is no longer the preserve of the global North. Historical precedence no longer gives those of us from the North the right to direct what the rest of the Communion shall believe or practice. The Anglican Communion is now as much their Church as ours. The voices of the global South will make uncomfortable listening for many in the North, but we should all listen. For, as Kwame Bediako suggests, the global South might indeed be in a position to secure the future of Christianity in the North. Africa has changed my own discipleship and renewed within me the sense of call and commitment I felt as an ordinand. It is my prayer, for the sake of the land and people of my birth, that Bediako will be proved to have been right.

I highly recommend that you read his whole paper, which deals with matters of culture, politics, Scripture, and mission, as they relate to this debate. You can find it here.

Uganda: Family of Martyrs’ Killer Apologises

Yesterday (3 June) was Ugandan Martyrs’ Day. This story from AllAfrica.com gives more evidence that the blood of martyrs continues to be the seed of the church.

The family of Mukajjanga Kibuuka Musigula, the chief executioner of the Uganda Martyrs, has apologised to the Church of Uganda, 122 years after he killed the Christians. Namirembe Bishop the Rev. Samuel Balagadde Ssekkadde told pilgrims at the Namugongo Protestant Martyrs’ shrine yesterday that Mukajjanga’s grandchildren delivered their written apology to the provincial offices. “We forgave them and welcomed them to the body of Christ and recruited them into the ministry of the Church of Uganda,” Ssekadde said as the crowd cheered.

Mukajjanga’s grandchildren, said Ssekkadde, confessed they had been haunted by his grim reputation, prompting them to shy away from Christians. Mukajjanga’s remains are buried at Buyonga in Kakiri, about 30km from Namugongo, at the well-maintained Buyonga tombs. The Protestant shrine was built on the spot where the martyrs were burned and the stream where Mukajjanga washed his hands allegedly to cleanse himself.

The executions started in January 1885 with the killing of three young Christians, Rugarama, Kakumba and Sserwanga at Busega. By the end of January 1887, a total of 45 martyrs had been killed: 22 Catholics and 23 Protestants. The bulk of the martyrs, 25 of them, were burned where the Protestant shrine stands, on June 3, 1886. Of these, 13 were Protestants and 12 Catholics. Charles Lwanga was burned at the site where the Catholic shrine stands, about a kilometre away.

Other martyrs were beheaded, chopped to pieces, castrated and burned in Busega, Nakivubo, Munyonyo, Mityana, Mengo, Old Kampala, Namanve and Takkajjunge. The killing was ordered by Kabaka Mwanga who was incensed that the Christians had declared Jesus above him. Desperate to hold on to absolute power and the throne in the midst of overwhelming political challenges, Mwanga set out to destroy the Christian faith. According to the Church, the actual number of the killed Christians has never been established…

The rest of the coverage is here.

A Primer on the Crisis (The Short Version)

Anglican Curmudgeon has yet more to say on the subject of the canonical wranglings surrounding the Episcopal House of Bishops:

The current problem can be summed up in the names of just two people: Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her Chancellor, David Booth Beers. In recent proceedings under Canon IV.9 brought against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield and the Rt. Rev. William J. Cox (who had been, prior to his so-called “deposition”, the most elderly Bishop of the Church), they ran roughshod over the plain requirements of the Canon. When they were called on what they had done, they gave audacious responses that denied that anything had been done wrong. Not only that, but Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori has just as audaciously announced her intention of going forward with a vote, at the next House of Bishops meeting in September, to depose the Rt. Reverend Robert Duncan from his see in the Diocese of Pittsburgh—on the same illegal basis as the one on which she proclaimed the “deposition” of Bishop Cox…

Notwithstanding all these defects in the procedure, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori signed certificates of deposition with respect to both Bishops shortly thereafter. When she was challenged on the procedures that had been violated, she defended her actions by saying that she had been advised throughout by her Chancellor, David Booth Beers, and he himself issued a statement that the depositions had been conducted properly.

Shortly after she began the proceedings against Bishops Cox and Schofield, the Presiding Bishop also notified Bishop Duncan that charges of “abandonment” had been certified against him by the Review Committee. As in the case of Bishop Cox, she was not able to get the consent of the three senior active bishops to his inhibition. Nevertheless, she gave him 60 days in which to respond to the charges. This 60-day period expired after the meeting of the House of Bishops ended on March 12, so she could not bring a resolution to depose him at the meeting. At its conclusion, she announced she would poll the members of the House about holding a special meeting in May to consider his deposition. When the results of that poll were apparently negative, she announced that she would bring a resolution to depose Bishop Duncan before the House at its next regular meeting in September. Both Bishop Duncan (through his attorney) and the Standing Committee of his diocese have protested that such a step would be in violation of Canon IV.9. And there the matter stands…

Anyone who takes the trouble to read the foregoing posts will know that I feel strongly that Canon IV.9 is absolutely the wrong Canon to apply to the cases of Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan. I express no opinion here on what would be the proper outcome of a presentment brought against any of them on charges made under Canon IV.1, because a such a presentment would require a trial, and the outcome of each trial would depend on what facts could or could not be proven in each individual case. But that is not my point.

Rather, the point I want to drive home here is that Canon IV.9 is not only the wrong Canon to use in these circumstances, but it is not even being followed. The procedure which the Presiding Bishop proposes to use to depose Bishop Duncan is unlawful, just as was the procedure she followed in “deposing” Bishop Cox, because neither of them was ever inhibited, as the Canon requires. Believe me, it will be in no Bishop’s interest (other than that of the Presiding Bishop, because she alone is driving the agenda) to go on record as flouting the plain meaning of the Canon—and in September, the Bishops will not be able to hide behind a voice vote. Every single Bishop attending will have to be recorded as voting either “Yea” or “Nay” on allowing the resolution to depose to go forward. The lawlessness of those who cast their lots with the Presiding Bishop will then be out in the open for all to see. And for a Bishop knowingly to vote to break the law means not only that he or she will be committing the very act with which they are charging Bishop Duncan—that is, “openly renouncing the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of this Church”, and breaking their own ordination vows to boot. It means also that by casting such a vote, each of them becomes a living contradiction of their faith, that is, a professed disciple of Christ who nonetheless tramples at will, when it is expedient, on the law of the Church.

In sum: the watchword among the Bishops in this instance had better be Matthew 11:15.

I recommend that you read his whole argument, including the very useful Q & A section. You can find it here.

Communion Partners: A Means of Fellowship within the Anglican Communion

Chris Seitz of the Anglican Communion Institute gives some of the thinking behind the formation of Communion Partners:

The American Episcopal Church has since its inception understood itself to be an integral part of a much broader Anglican reality. Unlike the Methodist Church, for example, it chose not to declare ecclesial independence in the American context, but carefully referred and deferred to the Church of England and to Anglicanism in the wider context of the British Isles. Samuel Seabury sought consecration in the Church of England and when that was not possible for political reasons, he was consecrated in Aberdeen. Though the American Church had functioned without indigenous bishops for many years, when the revolutionary war ended it was deemed desirable and logical for American Bishops to be consecrated, and the oversight that had been exercised from England to be shifted to the New World. That said, matters related to the Book of Common Prayer and even the composition of the General Convention (now with a House of Bishops) were sufficiently weighty that deference to the concerns of the English Bishops was still deemed necessary (place of the Nicene Creed, the descent clause in the Apostles Creed, and so forth).

So when the preamble to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church declares this Church to be a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, in communion with the See of Canterbury, it is stating the character of its self-understanding. The American Church is self-governing, and in that sense it has its own character, even as this character was from the beginning formed in relationship to expectations of both its own New World context and to the Anglican Church to which it made clear and desired reference.

From the beginning there was a hesitancy to give too much authority to Bishops, and yet the office emerged on terms that were acceptable to and in continuity with what had obtained in the British Isles. There was never any ‘archbishop’, however, and the ‘presiding bishop’ was only ever just that, much as in the Scottish Episcopal Church or the Province of the Middle East, to this day; that is, the senior bishop with a diocese who presided when plenary meetings demanded this for good order. In time the Presiding Bishop became something more on the order of a Chief Executive Officer, but even then it was never considered appropriate or desirable for the Presiding Bishop to exercise metropolitan powers.

For these reasons and others, the concept of Communion Partner Bishops was worked out with careful attention to the reality of the office of Presiding Bishop within the self-governing structures of this church.The development of a Partners plan was seen as a positive contribution to the life of this church and an opportunity to remind American Episcopalians about the true character of its Anglican life. For this reason, the Presiding Bishop was consulted and it was seen to be desirable for her to offer a ‘no objection’ for the purposes of good order, and to send a wider signal to the Communion at large. But it was never thought appropriate for the Presiding Bishop to grant permission for the deployment of the plan, and the Presiding Bishop’s own communications confirmed that this was not a part of her proper role. It was on these terms that the Communion Partners Plan was conceived and is moving forward…

The Partners plan … allows Episcopalians—Bishops, Dioceses, Parishes—a means of identification, a way of foregrounding Communion membership and wider Anglican belonging, all the while remaining in this church and seeking its best furtherance, in accordance with the self-governing identity that has marked it in the past…

It is a time of great difficulty and of God’s judgment on our church. Those anxious to signal their firm commitment to catholic Communion Anglicanism, and an alliance of differentiation and identification within The Episcopal Church, can avail themselves of this Plan. Others will seek ways forward as they see best. Pray for the Church.

You can read the whole article here.

London Times Cryptic Crossword for June 1

Here is today’s London Times cryptic crossword puzzle. To get the full-sized version for printing, just click on the image.

A look at the succession of organizations on the conservative side of Anglicanism in America

Brad Drell offers a brief historical overview of some of the movements in the Episcopal Church that have preceded the development of Communion Partners:

The first real split in the Episcopal Church happened in the 1800s led by a suffragan bishop who would go on to form the Reformed Episcopal Church. I posted something on this previously. They would be followed some 80 years later by a group of Anglo-Catholics who formed the Anglican Province of America. Despite the fact that Cummins left TEC because of Anglo-Catholic ritual that promoted doctrines abhorrent to the word of God, these two groups would later move toward organic unity.

100 years later with the advent of the ordination of women, the Anglican Synod of America, later Forward in Faith, was formed. They had collectively threatened to stay at first, but many did leave, forming numerous other continuing Anglican churches. So far, they have collectively stayed, have dwindled in numbers save for a few enclave Dioceses where they have flourished. And, yet, Nashotah House, Forward in Faith’s flagship seminary, has an unprecedented number of young men with families attending seminary. On a personal note, the men in black (because they always wear black clericals) seem to be more calm in this current crisis. If you’ve been living in a crisis for 30 years, I guess you get used to it.

Then came the First Promise Movement. The name came from the first promise made in the ordination vows, and this led to the Singapore Consecrations and the formation of the AMIA.

Before the AMIA left, the American Anglican Council formed and was considered to be to the left of First Promise and therefore all the more reasonable at Diocesan Conventions and at General Convention. Then, they were the far right. The AAC formed the Network, Common Cause, CANA, and the other offshore arrangements we see in North American Anglicanism. Pretty much all of the AAC leadership has left TEC, although they may come poke around at the next General Convention; we’ll see. I certainly hope that they do.

Now we have Communion Partners, which is just beginning to form. Are they being handed the crystal ball? Will they be the next wave to leave, or will something different happen?

Each group that has left the church initially went about trying to reform the Episcopal Church. They left because they felt they had failed. These groups ruled that the Episcopal Church was unreformable, and they left.

Well, let’s look at Communion Partners. What is this group to be about? Will they avoid the same mistakes that other groups made in their efforts to reform the Episcopal Church?

· provide a partnership to work toward the Anglican Covenant and according to Windsor Principles
The Communion Partner bishops will work together according to the principles outlined in the Windsor Report and seek a comprehensive Anglican Covenant at the Lambeth Conference and beyond.

The main difference here is this group plans to work for reform within the entire Anglican Communion. In addition to following the faith once delivered to the Saints, they plan to eschew activities which are not transparent, and to work within the canonical structures of the church.

The real question is whether Anglicanism, at least Canterbury based Anglicanism, is salvageable. I am pretty sure this will be the final outcome of the schism begun so long ago, in the 1860s, which even pre-dates Cummins. This schism brought about the Lambeth Conference. What it will look like, I don’t know. But working toward an Anglican Covenant may now finally be coming to fruition after 150 years. It might worth working toward it for a few more years.

The complete article, together with some feedback, can be found here.

Communion Partner Rectors

This is really a complementary document to the previous post:

As a fellowship of Communion Partner Rectors, we welcome and support the release of the Communion Partner Bishops’ Statement. As this initiative moved forward, we felt it crucial to have the support of a growing group of rectors from Episcopal parishes throughout the United States and we will form a counterpart to Partner Bishops and Partner Primates. We believe it important that we are a broad partnership, extended across dioceses of various levels of Communion commitment.

We pledge our prayers and support to one another and to the Bishops and Primates working together to form a clear Communion identity within the Episcopal Church. We are excited and very encouraged by the mission and Gospel commitments of the wider Communion and hope to bring that reality into our parishes in whatever form is available and acceptable to the people, and the Bishops, we serve. We are clearly committed to working within the charitable guidelines of the released Communion Partner Bishops Statement.

We appreciate the serious challenges of this present season in our greater Communion and The Episcopal Church, and we understand that for some conservative constituents, another path may have been chosen. But we pledge our prayers, our concern and hope that the Partners Plan will be a movement of keen Communion allegiance both within the Episcopal Church and the greater Anglican Communion at a time when the Episcopal Church (USA) will be considering its role within the wider Communion. In brief, we are a group of rectors who share a common commitment to the authority and traditional interpretation of Holy Scripture, the creedal and historic faith, orthodox theology with an evangelical fervor to faithfully live and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are also firmly committed to remain in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, respecting and honoring the proper authority of our Bishops and working in concert with them to strengthen our voice within the Church.

We wish to be on record in our enthusiasm for the Windsor and Covenant way forward, as the best means to extend and further the Communion as God has thus far blessed it throughout the world. We will announce forthcoming visits of Partner Primates and Partner Bishops as we complete our plans for their visits, and we will soon promote a gathering of Partner Rectors, Bishops and Archbishops as these arrangements are solidified. For more information or to become a Partner Rector, please contact us via CPRectors@stmartinsepiscopal.org.

We are mindful of our Lord’s desire and prayer that all who follow Him would be “one”, (John 17:21) and His affirmation within that same prayer that His followers be “brought to complete unity to let the world know that You have sent me, and have loved them even as You have loved me,” (17:23). We believe this imperative for unity, nor our Lord's prayer, is not limited to simply the members of the parishes we serve, a Diocese or even a Province, but to the whole of our Anglican Communion, and even more so, the entire Body of Believers. We believe the Partners initiative to be a faithful piece of this unity and will be a building block toward establishing stronger relationships with one another and all those who follow Christ.

The entire statement, together with a list of its signatories, may be found here.

Communion Partners Formed

Here is an encouraging new development in the Episcopal Church, unveiled yesterday by the Anglican Communion Institute:

COMMUNION PARTNERS
In the context of discussions about the Episcopal Visitors concept announced by the Presiding Bishop at the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, we the undersigned have considered a need to maintain and strengthen
• our ties with the Anglican Communion
• our commitment to the observance of diocesan boundaries within The Episcopal Church and
• our exercise of our office as a focus of unity.

We believe such ties will provide the opportunity for mutual support, accountability and fellowship; and present an important sign of our connectedness in and vision for The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as we move through this time of stress and renewal.

PURPOSE:
Communion Partners is intended to

• provide for those concerned a visible link to the Anglican Communion
Many within our dioceses and in congregations in other dioceses seek to be assured of their connection to the Anglican Communion. Traditionally, this has been understood in terms of bishop-to-bishop relationships. Communion Partners fleshes out this connection in a significant and symbolic way.

• provide fellowship, support and a forum for mutual concerns between bishops.
The Communion Partner bishops share many concerns about the Anglican Communion and its future and look to work together with Primates and Bishops from the wider Communion. In addition, we believe we all have need of mutual encouragement, prayer, and reassurance. The Communion Partners will be a forum for these kinds of relationships.

• provide a partnership to work toward the Anglican Covenant and according to Windsor Principles
The Communion Partner bishops will work together according to the principles outlined in the Windsor Report and seek a comprehensive Anglican Covenant at the Lambeth Conference and beyond.

SCOPE:
Communion Partners
• is a relational fellowship
• are committed to honoring diocesan boundaries
• will be governed by mutual respect
• and will proceed by invitation and cooperation

PARTICIPANTS:
• Communion Partner Bishops (William H. Love, Albany; John W. Howe, Central Florida; James M. Stanton, Dallas; Russell E. Jacobus, Fond Du Lac; Michael G. Smith, North Dakota; Edward S. Little, Northern Indiana; Geralyn Wolf, Rhode Island; Mark J. Lawrence, South Carolina; John C. Bauerschmidt, Tennessee; Don A. Wimberly, Texas; Gary E. Lillibridge, West Texas; James M. Adams, Western Kansas; D. Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana)
• Communion Partner Primates (initially Tanzania, West Indies, and Burundi)
• Clergy and congregations who share Communion Partner commitments
• Other interested Bishops of The Episcopal Church

TRANSPARENCY:
Communication of activities with
• the Presiding Bishop of TEC,
• the Archbishop of Canterbury,
• the Meeting of Primates, and
• the Anglican Communion Office, and therewith the Anglican Consultative Council