Two main documents have been issued:
GAFCON responds to the Archbishop of Canterbury
The Global Anglican Future Conference gathered leaders from around the Anglican Communion for pilgrimage, prayer and serious theological reflection. We are grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for engaging with the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. We wish to respond to some of his concerns…
Response of GAFCON to the St Andrew’s Draft Text of an Anglican Communion Covenant
…Sadly this new draft of An Anglican Covenant is both seriously limited and severely flawed. Whether or not the tool of covenant is the right way to approach the crisis within the Communion, this document is defective and its defects cannot be corrected by piecemeal amendment because they are fundamental. The St. Andrews Draft is theologically incoherent and its proposals unworkable. It has no prospect of success since it fails to address the problems which have created the crisis and the new realities which have ensued…
A third document is Changes between the Nassau and St Andrew’s Drafts of an Anglican Covenant
BRIEFING PAPER from the Theological Resource Group of GAFCON
Changes between the Nassau and St Andrews Drafts of An Anglican Covenant
Executive Summary
The St Andrews Draft is not a conservative revision of the Nassau Draft. Its changes are so significant theologically and practically that they completely recast both the grounds of common life together and the process by which the assault upon that common life by TEC and ACoC is to be addressed. The Nassau Draft is a much better document than its successor. The new document is severely flawed and should be repudiated…
Sorry, GAFCON, you’ve blown your credibility and this won’t get it back.
And as for the snide and snooty sign off – “We… continue to pray for [the Archbishop of Canterbury] to be given wisdom and discernment.”
Pathetic.
I’m guessing we’ll be lobbing draft versions of the covenant back and forth until the second coming, when Our Lord will ask us all something along the lines of, “You spent you time doing WHAT!?”
“It has no prospect of success since it fails to address the problems which have created the crisis”
For many (more and more) of us, it is the “addressing” which IS “the problem which have created the crisis”! :-/
Lord have mercy…
What is it that unites extremists on the Anglican left with extremists on the Anglican right? Both are scared out of their minds of being a part of anything that might require them to be held mutually accountable to each other.
GAFCON replies in timid bureaucratese. Looks like Lambeth has got the charismatic ascendancy after all!
J-Tron is on to something: the anti-gospel of demanding that others submit to their authority, versus the willingness to bear one another’s burdens. The Covenant persists in casting its language along the former lines: those who do not submit shall be dealt with. The Gospel invites us to a different kind of submission — not to the authority of each other, but to the willingness to live with and forgive the faults of the other. This is why a Covenant based on discipline and expulsion is unacceptable; it is a prenuptial agreement. What is looked for is a Gospel-based Covenant… Read more »
The GAFCON position is good news for those of us who oppose the Covenant idea. It’s now dead, even though some may pretend to “discuss” it during the remainder of Williams’ term as archbishop. Hopefully, the person who follows him will let the idea fade away.
GAFCON IS THE RESTORATION OF BIBLICAL TRUTH>, according to Chris Sugden in Evangelicals Now, August 2008. 291 bishops declared that they would not leave the Anglican communion..funny when over a 100 of them have never been bishops of the Anglican communion any way! The 39 articles were re-affirmed as truthful…yet many episcopal signatories went home to continue breaking them. The tragedy of this is that the other Protestant side, knew that would be the case , but still let them bear false witness. Sexual immorality was condemend…yes homosexuality…but no reference to whether Divorce and remrriage are biblical. The issue of… Read more »
Tobias: I think you should re-read your post and consider the consequences. Perhaps a bit of a re-draft is in order. After all, is everyone supposed to stay together with the group that decides that human sacrifice is the order of the day? Will it make any difference when the crosses at the front of the church are replaced with gold plated Buddhas and/or we replace “Christ” with “Krishna”? I think you also have some lines beyond which you would admit that unity cannot be sustained. It is ingenuous to pretend that “for better or worse” is without limits. This… Read more »
“extremists on the Anglican left”
What—who—do you have in mind, J-Tron? (I don’t believe I’ve ever met such a creature)
“It is ingenuous to pretend that “for better or worse” is without limits. This is not true even in, and perhaps especially in, marriage”
Remind me not to marry you, Steven. ;-/
JCF:
Humorous, but still missing the point. I do know quite a bit about what “for better or worse, in sickness and in health” means having been married for almost 29 years (only once, thank you) with 5 children ranging from 9-26. It does mean there are limits. I would not, e.g., expect my wife to accept me bringing home a floosie every Saturday night while she sleeps on the sofa. You can think of your own limits, but the point remains: for better or worse does not mean there are no limits.
Steven
Steven, JCF said it well. I realize your argument is a strange sort of dilatio ad absurdum — but I assure you I would oppose introducing human sacrifice into the liturgy (I don’t even really like the Missa Versus Populum), or gold-plated Buddhas on the lawn (I’m even against having a fortune teller at the Church Fête) or Krishna in the liturgical texts (I even wince at Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier — and that’s in our version of the Great Litany since 1928!). The fact is, Jesus put up with us while we were yet sinners, and we crucified him. He… Read more »
Tobias: You continue to dodge the issue. And, while most of your comments can be categorized as pleasant generalizations and truisms, the reference to marriage vows including finger crossing is too oblique for me to fathom in this context. Overall, it would seem to be a simple matter for you to acknowledge that relationships are sustained by the fact that those involved in them abide by certain rules, and are damaged when those involved violate those rules. This is particularly true as your comments state or imply that the “other” side has violated whatever you consider those “rules” to be.… Read more »
Turns out that at least one of the names appended to the GAFCON covenant response had never even seen it.
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/blog_post.asp?id=60572
“I even wince at Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier”
As do I, Tobias. Yet, I sincerely doubt that there are many conservatives who would be able to give a reason why this is questionable language other than “it’s innovative so it must be wrong.” Given the Jerusalem Declaration, I wouldn’t expect anything else from GAFCON.