Updated Saturday
Ruth Gledhill reports in Christian Today Anglican ‘Church’ For Conservative Christians Launches Mission In England
An Anglican mission to rival the Church of England has set out plans to evangelise the UK.
The mission is already reaching out to evangelical Christians in dioceses that are “closed to conservative evangelicals”.
The plan is to plant hundreds of new evangelical Anglican churches.
The influential Archbishop and Primate of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, is backing the plan…
It involves new Anglican churches being independent from the country’s “official” established church.
The Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) sets out its goal of to planting 25 new churches by 2025 and 250 by 2050 in a new video.
The Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh is backing a plan to plant hundreds of new evangelical Anglican churches.
Archbishop Okoh, who leads the conservative Anglican fellowship Gafcon, says: “We are so thrilled that the Anglican Mission in England exists and we are delighted that it is keen to start many new churches in the years to come. AMiE has the full support of the GAFCON movement.”
The video which announces this plan is available here.
The website of Anglican Mission in England explains here:
The Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) is a mission society that seeks to promote gospel growth in areas covered by the Church of England (principally in England, but also in other parts of Europe) by supporting Anglican churches and individuals both within and outside present Church of England structures.
AMiE came into being as a result of GAFCON and is one of a number of agencies that relates to GAFCON through the FCA (Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) UK and Ireland. You can read more about the history of AMiE by clicking here.
A variety of Anglican churches are part of AMiE. Some churches are outside the structures of the Church of England. Others remain within the denomination but are experiencing tensions, whilst others have joined to support them…
There is a list of participating churches on this page.
Updates
The Church Times has a report: The world is our parish, Hull curate says as AMiE agenda is set out
The Church of England should not have a monopoly on Anglicanism in England, the priest set to plant a new church in Scarborough, outside diocesan structures (News, 9 September; Letters, 16 September), says.
“In the business world, monopolies are not encouraged; so I do not see why there should be one Anglican service provider in England,” the Revd Lee McMunn said on Wednesday. “Surely we can allow people the option to choose, whether that is future ministers or future members of congregations…”
There is a further copy of this report on the GAFCON website: AMiE, the UK mission society established by GAFCON, begins ambitious church planting program.
And the website of this new church in Scarborough is here: A New Church in Scarborough.
And the latest GAFCON Chairman’s letter is here. (The chairman of the GAFCON primates is the Archbishop of Nigeria.)
To keep things in perspective, the Church of England has 16000 churches in over 12000 parishes. 33 churches have signed up to support AMiE.
OK: con-evos get their border-crossing antics, lay officiation, and I’ll even throw in some funky Geneva gowns; and in return for allowing the remnant wall themselves off in ghettos of pure pureness, provinces get to ordain and marry whoever they bally well please.
Deal?
When this happened in the US, at least TEC could say it was because “we fought the good fight.” In CoE, it’s coming because CoE is considering fighting the good fight, maybe.
Interesting to see AMIE’s use the word, “evangelize” as a stand-in for the phrase, “spread hate in.”
The Church of England cannot say they were not warned that this could happen.
TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada were bedevilled by similar conservative incursions into their territorial area with the result that ACNA became the intruder on their doorstep.
The Church of England must not compromise its integrity by bowing to GAFCON pressure, to take the Church back into the middle ages by rejecting the Gospel move towards inclusivity.
Some of those churches are new (eg King’s Church Guildford) but others are supposed to still be part of the Church of England. That’s going to be a problem. What’s worse is that some of them have associated schools. Even if the Church of England was willing to give up churches – and I hope they wouldn’t – nobody can seriously believe they would surrender schools too. And those who advocate parishes and ministers being able to choose whether they follow any new teaching on same sex marriage might wish to ponder how that might affect LGBTI children brought up… Read more »
I took a deep breath and watched the video. Beneath the predictable language and images, and the weird language about how long God’s arm is, there was a blur. Just why is this ‘Anglican’? How do AMiE churches relate to Church of England churches, if the latter are being exhorted to make a link with one of the former? How does starting an AMiE church differ from, say, an HTB church starting a plant?
Losing 33 church communities (out of 16000) is regrettable (if indeed they actually did leave, when faced with losing their church property etc). However, it is survivable, and if they left may God bless them on their continuing journey. As the Church Times leader points out, the crux is how many more might leave, and that will hinge on whether ‘unity in diversity’ is pursued and people’s consciences respected. The loss of 33 church communities is a far lesser loss than: the exclusion of LGBT+ people from full acceptance and affirmation; the abysmal signal that sends out to the (largely… Read more »
Susannah Women form more than 50% of the membership of the Church of England. It was an unstoppable tide and even then we have needed a quota to equalise things in the House of Lords. There’s no parish where women are unwelcome, where they can’t marry. In contrast according to the Office of National Statistics under 2% of the population is LGBTI. Even Stonewall put it at 6-7%. Of those most are gay men. The number of lesbians, intersex people and those who battle gender dysphoria are minorities within a minority. Leaving everything else aside, a minority needs stronger protections… Read more »
The camel’s nose is now under the flap of the tent. And so it begins.
One would have thought that the Church of England would have learned something from the experience we’ve had with these folks in the USA, but, apparently, no.
Don’t clergy serve under a vow of obedience to their bishop? Where are the bishops of these 33?
Ugh; here we go again. All the Church of England needs is more Calvinist Evangelicals. One would have thought that the CofE might have learned a thing or two after chucking the original Puritan bitter enders out after 1662…But I guess not. At least being a state Church they can’t rip off your properties.
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn, NY
I wonder if newly ordained curates should be licensed to serve a title in these parishes. When I was a DDO in the London diocese some young ( male) ordinands went from St Helens Bishopsgate to Oak Hill College and back again.
I strongly suspect that the allowance by the Church of England for sympathetic clergy to re-marry divorcees (with the permission of the local Ordinary) might have been the cause of more departures by the Evangelical conservatives than even the ordination of women clergy.
Allowing sympathetic clergy to conduct Same-Sex Blessings – I estimate – will cause less defections amongst open-minded Anglicans. This is surely a sign of the Church becoming more in touch with the realities of its membershp and of society at large.
A lot of schools live in constant fear of “being sued” and “the compensation culture”, even though in absolute terms the number of such actions, never mind the number of such actions being successful, is tiny, and the costs are usually borne by insurance anyway. To an extent it’s understandable: fighting and wining a court case is a massive logistic and emotional drain, so avoiding getting involved, even if you’re going to win, is wise. But taken to its logical conclusion you see schools living in mortal dread of getting a letter from someone whose cousin once met someone who… Read more »
Father Ron, you said “Allowing sympathetic clergy to conduct Same-Sex Blessings – I estimate – will cause less defections amongst open-minded Anglicans. This is surely a sign of the Church becoming more in touch with the realities of its membership and of society at large.”
Sympathetic clergy have been conducting same-sex blessings for decades, often with the informal approval of those higher up.
If the C of E wishes to be “in touch with the realities of the majority of its membership and
society at large” it needs to start conducting same sex weddings.
Simon
“Sympathetic clergy have been conducting same-sex blessings for decades, often with the informal approval of those higher up.” That was all that was asked for at the last General Synod of the Anglican church of Aotearoa/New Zealand. I believe it may be happening in one or two places but very much hush hush. I have been reliably informed that it was likely that the motion would have passed if put to the vote but the conservatives declared that up to 4000 would leave the church if it was passed. So all has been put on hold for another 2 years… Read more »