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A message from Bishop David Anderson

Beloved in Christ,

I am writing to you from the Renaissance hotel, the headquarters of GAFCON, and we are approaching the end of the Conference. It has been a moving gathering with: powerful worship, pilgrimages to holy sites, teachings and addresses by many esteemed voices, time for networking with others, meals shared together, and council taken together over the serious issues that our Anglican Communion faces. The attendees have been asked to share their hopes for the GAFCON meeting and what they hope to take home from here. These hopes for the Anglican Communion and for the future of global Anglicanism have been collected by the organizers, and a team has reviewed all that has been offered, attempting to put them into some sense of order. A draft statement will be presented to a plenary session which will provide more input, and the process of refinement will recycle. The expectation is that an expression of hopes and desires for the Anglican future, drawn from GAFCON participants, will be able to be put in final form and adopted before everyone has to go home.

Please watch the AAC and other websites for postings Saturday or Sunday as further news develops. One of the expressed hopes from most of those from North America is recognition of the work that the Common Cause Partners Federation has been doing in gathering the dispersed Anglican family and beginning to work on what is hoped will be a future Anglican Province of North America. I need to sign off now, as it is time for the next pilgrimage, a night visit to the Wailing Wall. A more normal Update will occur next week when the AAC staff is back home in our Atlanta office.

Blessings and Peace in Jesus Christ,

The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council

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In error and apostate

Source: Albert Mohler's blog
June 23, 2008

The world-wide Anglican Communion has been skating on thin ice for decades now, skirting disaster only by an infinitely creative arrangement of compromises. Now, with the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops coming in just a few weeks, a group of 300 conservative Anglican bishops is meeting in Jerusalem. Their meeting will make history, and may well define the ultimate breakup of global Anglicanism.

The Global Anglican Future Conference [GAFCON] featured an address by Dr. Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, on Sunday evening. Archbishop Akinola has emerged as one of the most courageous and theologically committed leaders of worldwide Anglicanism.

In his address, delivered as something of a keynote for the event, Archbishop Akinola declared that "a sizable part of the Communion is in error and not a few are apostate." This gets to the heart of The Anglican dilemma. The issues now separating liberals and conservatives within the global Anglican Communion are no longer matters on which compromise can be reached. To the contrary, the doctrinal and theological explosions connected to the issues of human sexuality and biblical authority have distilled the fundamental issues down to what is considered non-negotiable by both sides. Conservatives are unwilling to surrender biblical authority and the liberals are unwilling to surrender their determination to normalize homosexuality and other liberal causes. In reality, the division has already happened -- all that remains is the final form of the division.

As Archbishop Akinola lamented, doctrinal "revisionists" have attempted to create a new religion in the place of historic biblical Christianity. In his words: "Clearly the bedrock of the revisionist perspective is the humanist, rather than theological approach. This is the crux of the problem: they are going in the opposite direction from what Biblical orthodoxy demands, and with such a mindset, a meeting-point with those who are labeled conservatives who have chosen to stand where the Bible stands, becomes a very remote possibility."

As Ruth Gledhill of The Times [London] reported, Archbishop Akinola expressed frustration that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had arranged the upcoming Lambeth Conference in such a way that dealing with the fundamental issues would be virtually impossible. "Rejecting all entreaties, Lambeth Palace chose not to be bothered about that which troubles us; decided to stick to its own plans and to erect the walls of the 2008 Lambeth Conference on the shaky and unsafe foundations of our brokenness," he said. ...

Even as the meeting began in Jerusalem, observers were warning that the day of the Archbishop of Canterbury's spiritual leadership over the Anglican Communion "is over." The GAFCON meeting produced a plan for a new fellowship of more orthodox Anglican churches. As Ruth Gledhill explains:

"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."

There are orthodox and faithful Christians in the American and Canadian churches, but those in leadership in those churches have steadfastly refused to stop an onward march into theological and ecclesiastical disaster.

Jerusalem was a controversial location for the GAFCON meeting. But, after all, the famous "Jerusalem Council" of the early church was held there as recorded in Acts 15:6-21. In that council, the apostles and elders of the early church met and reached the consensus that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for both Jews and Gentiles, and that Gentile converts to Christ were not required to first become, in effect, Jews.

Perhaps we are seeing before our eyes what we should have anticipated  - that Jerusalem is a good place to remember what the Gospel is.

The rest of the article may be found at the link above.

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A commentary on GAFCON

Source: Christianity Today blog
By Timothy Morgan
June 26, 2008

Some 1100 Anglicans from around the world are meeting this week at the Renaissance hotel in West Jerusalem in hopes of steering the Anglican Communion back to the center of Christian Orthodoxy.

But this conference, now entering its fifth day, is in many respects becoming more difficult to understand and thus easier to misinterpret. If I were writing purely a critique of the mainstream media coverage, my central criticism would be that US and UK media outlets keep driving the political side of the story (Will there or won't there be a schism?). But they are by and large missing the faith side of the story. It's easy to do. The folks attending the worship events of GAFCON are telling me that these are high water marks in their own spiritual development. Most worship events are well attended and the plenary sessions are standing room only.

I am told the worship service on Wednesday evening at Ophel Gardens, along the southern steps of the Temple, was a stunning display of contemporary Christian worship in an ancient context. Most media skipped that event (myself included) due to scheduling conflicts.

But the media are not the only ones who are misunderstanding GAFCON. Among conservatives, no surprise, I am coming across three different kinds of Anglicans here who often don't understand each other very well. Let me describe them this way:

* The separationists. These individuals wish to create a new Anglican Communion that is global, not centered in Canterbury.

* The reformers. These folks are not yet ready to give up on the existing Anglican Communion and have a movement strategy for redeeming and restoring the Communion.

* The new paradigm. This is the trickiest one to understand. Under a new paradigm, Anglicanism becomes a global network, locally distinctive, church or community-based, and centered on the biblical mission of evangelism and discipleship.

One new reality of GAFCON is that the discussions here across the Anglican food chain from the Primates to the small groups of lay and parish clergy have moved beyond "The American Problem," which is The Episcopal Church, its bitterly hostile actions against conservatives, and the advent of homosexual clergy and same-sex unions. Bishop Bob Duncan, the American conservative leader from Pittsburgh, isn't even here.

Last night, scholar Lamin Sanneh, Palestinian Christian Salim Munayer, and Messianic pastor Evan Thomas pointed GAFCON Anglicans toward a future that was global, reconciling, and biblical. Years from now, we might find that the only English element left in 21st century Anglicanism is the English language itself.

In my mind, the questions of the hour before the committee drafting a GAFCON statement are these:

What will the drafting committee emphasize? Will they lay the groundwork for a new communion? Will they map out a process of Anglican Communion reform? Or, will they envision a new kind of Anglicanism that is post-colonial, not nationalistic, but conciliar, global, and networked?

Tomorrow, GAFCON small groups are due to evaluate the statement in draft form.

The online version of the article may be found at the link above.
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England: Nazir-Ali confirms nonattendance at Lambeth

Source: Birmingham Post
June 23, 2008

A senior bishop in the Church of England has confirmed he was to boycott the Lambeth Conference following the controversy over the ordination of Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, said he would change his mind about staying away from the 10-yearly meeting of Anglican leaders in Canterbury, Kent, if those who ordained the Bishop of New Hampshire, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, repented.

Bishop Robinson, a divorced father-of-two, has a gay male partner and his consecration in 2003 in the US sparked uproar and threats of a split amongst traditional Anglicans.

Bishop Nazir-Ali said the Windsor Report on the crisis over gay clergy in the Anglican Communion recommended those who have gone against Church teaching should not attend representative Anglican gatherings.

"As I said in October, my difficulty in attending the Lambeth Conference 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 of life is contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Bible and of the Church down the ages," he said in a statement. "I agree with the Windsor Report's recommendation those who have gone against Church teaching should not attend representative Anglican gatherings.

"We all need to repent of what we have done wrong and if those who have gone against the clear teaching of the Bible and the Church are willing to repent that would certainly change the situation. Again, as I have said before, I am very willing to repent of anything I may have done that is wrong or which has hurt anyone.

"My views have not changed on this matter and I continue to pray for both those attending and those unable to attend." ...

The rest of the article may be found at the link above.

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Reform statement on reports of 'gay wedding' in London

Source: Christian Today
June 16, 2008

A statement from the evangelical group within the Church of England, Reform, on reports over the weekend of a homosexual 'wedding' between two gay Anglican clergymen:

News of the service of blessing for the union of two male clergy at St Bartholomew's church in the City Of London last month has brought to a head the issue of whether or not the Church of England intends to remain faithful to the Bible's revelation.

The Church of England now faces the same sort of division as the Episcopal Church of the USA. Our only hope of preventing this is for bishops to exercise swift and clear discipline. Unless this happens, the floodgates of indiscipline will open. There is no longer any room for carefully constructed statements designed to hold everyone together in an uneasy truce. Schism in the church is being caused not by orthodox believers but by clergy pursuing a liberal agenda.

The issue is clear: will a church which is formally committed to the Bible's teaching on marriage now exert discipline in order to support its belief on what mainstream credal and apostolic Christianity holds to be a fundamental of the faith? This "service of blessing" has brought the issue to a head on the eve of the departure of many orthodox church leaders in England for the Global Anglican Future Conference and Pilgrimage (GAFCON).

Faithful Anglican leaders both at GAFCON and Lambeth will now be looking to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to take decisive action. We urge them to do this before GAFCON convenes in order to prevent a further loss of confidence in the Archbishop's willingness to tackle the issue and to demonstrate their communion with the Global South. ...

The rest of the article may be found at the link above.

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Joint statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York regarding St Bartholomew-the-Great

Source: Archbishop of Canterbury website
June 17, June 2008

"We have heard the reports of the recent service in St Bartholomew the Great with very great concern. We cannot comment on the specific circumstances because they are the subject of an investigation launched by the Bishop of London.

On the general issue, however, the various reference points for the Church of England's approach to human sexuality (1987 Synod motion, 1991 Bishops' Statement- Issues in Human Sexuality- , Lambeth motion 1:10, House of Bishops' 2005 statement on civil partnerships) are well known and remain current.

Those clergy who disagree with the Church's teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the Church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it."

The online version of the article may be found at the link above.

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J.I. Packer's opinion: ABC should resign

Source: VirtueOnline 
June 26, 2008

Speaking at Holy Trinity Eastbourne, England recently, Dr. J. I. Packer, author of numerous books and a Professor of Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, BC in Canada, was asked what he would say if he had five minutes with the Archbishop of Canterbury. ...

The following is a transcript of Dr. Packer's remarks:

If you were to have five minutes with the Archbishop of Canterbury, what would you say?

'Well if I said to him all that I think, and I might and I might not, I would have to say to him, look sir, you are not qualified just at the moment to lead the Anglican Communion, for on this issue of whether or not people should yield to homosexual temptation, you are over a barrel.

Before you became Archbishop, you went in to print cautiously approving gay relationships. It is known, and you don't deny, that you have ordained at least one person who is a practising homosexual. Now you say that you are seeking to uphold the Anglican consensus of the Lambeth conference of 1998 which says that homosexual behaviour is absolutely off limits, but when asked whether you have changed your own mind on this matter, you say no. I cannot pretend to believe what I don't believe and all of this of course is documented. He has been asked that question and that is the answer he has given.

I would say with great respect Archbishop, I believe that the way of wisdom is for you to resign. Now that of course is very bold and tough talk and if I wasn't in my 80's, I might not feel that I had the gall to answer your question in the direct way that I have done, but that is what I would like to say to the Archbishop and I believe that it would be the kindest thing to say to him. He really is over a barrel on this matter.'

The entire article may be found at the link above.