Latest Anglican News                                                               Volume 2, Number 1, 14 January 2008

“The Anglican Communion (AC) has been broken, and it has been broken largely by the actions and attitudes of members of The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States. That is my personal conviction, and that is what I believe history will show.” --- John P. Richardson, a British priest and blogger under the sobriquet “The Ugly Vicar”

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The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) will be held in Jerusalem, June 15-22, 2008. (see Latest Anglican News, Volume 1, Number 19, 26 December, 2007)

As you learned yesterday, if you attended CHC’s Adult Sunday School Class, Bishop Sutton and Susan will receive an invitation to GAFCON, along with all the Common Cause Partnership College of Bishops and their wives.

Many words from many sources are bouncing about the internet with regard to GAFCON.  We will try to provide a brief overview of what is being said:

From the 12 January VirtueOnLine--- “The event is drawing enormous controversy from far and near. Prayer Book Society president, Dr. Peter Toon, (who has presided at CHC on several occasions) is against it as are a number of Church of England bishops. Liberals are uniformly opposed to a conference that opposes the official Lambeth Conference. The Anglican Bishop of Newcastle… disassociated himself from GAFCON, describing it as a one-dimensional conference designed to "cause embarrassment"… to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams…  There is also the view that GAFCON will have negative political repercussions as two Middle East bishops are opposed to the conference…  On the other side of the growing Great Divide, is the view that the AC (not just TEC) is so compromised that orthodox bishops in the U.S., Canada, Africa and some in the UK believe that the Communion is irretrievably broken with little hope of its repair…” 

“It is now apparent that the AC of some 55 million souls is at a crossroads. Its very survival is at stake,” according to David Virtue.  He says, “Even if the AC does not formally break up, that is to say, no one issues a statement announcing that it is over, events are clearly working towards a denouement with history.  The very fact of GAFCON, the very fact that a new North American Anglican province is even being talked about, that Forward in Faith UK wants a third province (in the Church of England) and that English evangelicals want to quit supporting liberal bishops, speaks volumes.  The Anglican Communion is engaged in the biggest and most devastating break up since Luther's Reformation.”

In a 4 January news report from the American Anglican Council, a discussion was held with the Primate of the Southern Cone, The Most Rev. Gregory Venables.  A few excerpts from his statements:

“The Anglican Communion has already unraveled, and things are even further away from resolving the deadlock. Under these conditions, Lambeth will not only fall far short of anything positive but actually make things worse. Perhaps, looking at it from the outside, it looks easy but inside it’s not only labyrinthine, but there is no centre to get to. It’s an ecclesiastical Alice through the Looking Glass, but there’s no humor and little real love.” 

In answer to a question about those who think attending Lambeth is the answer and that the GAFCON is a mistake, Venables said, “God bless them but they’re probably making a mistake. Some of us who have actually participated in all the meetings believe we have to get on with the really important ministry of the Church, which is to do with salvation and eternal life, and that this can only be done with those who share the historic biblical faith. It’s a question of realism and priorities.”

A press release at the end of its annual House of Bishops retreat (Jan 7-12, 2008), the Anglican Church of Nigeria included the following :

We reaffirm our endorsement of all the steps taken by our Primate (Archbishop Peter Akinola) to broker a peaceful resolution of the Lambeth Conference 2008 impasse which unfortunately has met with subtle inflexibility. Believing the time has come for us to explore other options, we stand with all like-minded Primates, Bishops and leaders of our communion who are organizing a Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in a pilgrimage setting in the Holy Land (Jerusa-lem), in June 2008 with the stated goal of informing and inspiring the invited leaders to shape this future, and to reform the church and transform persons, communities and societies through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
                                        
Our Anglican Liturgy is a dramatization of The Bible and should therefore be held sacred without casual departures at the discretion of individuals. Our liturgy promotes fellowship, teaching, mission and relevant spirituality. We should therefore rediscover the treasures of our liturgical heritage and make it lively.

And in a pastoral letter dated 11 January, 2008, Akinola said:

A further matter deliberated upon (at our annual retreat) was the fresh thought about returning to our biblical roots in Jerusalem, especially in the face of our protracted controversies with the revisionists in the Church in the Provinces in America, Canada, and even England over the authority of the Bible - the
same Bible which the foreign missionaries had taught us to treasure as the bedrock of our convictions. With other like-minded Anglicans from around the world, a conference tagged, GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) has been planned to take place in Jerusalem from June 2008. The goal is to inform and inspire the invited leaders to shape this future, to reform the church, and transform persons, communities and societies through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
If there were a truly Communion-wide Lambeth, the Reverend Dr. Paul Zahl, a leading Anglican conservative, believes, “The 'ersatz Christianity' of the leadership of the US Church would surely be exposed for what it is: a false gospel."

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In other news, Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia, part of the jurisdiction of Bishop Greg Venables’ Southern Cone, transferred ten congregations in the US from his diocese to the care and jurisdiction of US based Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).  This transfer of congregations is a harbinger of the consolidation of Anglicanism for which many US orthodox Anglicans have been longing.

Last Friday, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced a motion supporting the eleven Episcopal parishes in their law suit with TEC to maintain ownership of their property, after breaking away from TEC to become members of CANA.

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This writer believes GAFCON will take place next June, before Lambeth in July and many/most traditional bishops will boycott the latter.  Even if all the traditional bishops, invited to Lambeth, did attend, to prevent official changes in the Anglican Communion practices, it will make little difference.  The revisionists will simply carry on with their agenda at the jurisdiction or diocese level, just as they have done for the past 30 years.  Nothing will change them.  Let’s face it, we have two different religions.  Let the break or schism, now underway; continue at an ever more rapid pace.

Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners