Updated yet again Saturday morning
From GAFCON:
The first meeting of the GAFCON Primates Council took place in London from Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd August 2008. A Communiqué is now online, together with a letter sent by US bishops for council’s consideration.
GAFCON Communiqué on establishment of Primates Council and Fellowship
Letter from US bishops to GAFCON
An invitation from the Primates Council
Friday evening updates
Mark Harris offers an analysis of these documents, at Preludium, see The GAFCON / FCA Primates Council Plots, Plans and Fusses.
So also does Pluralist at Full Steam Ahead.
The Telegraph has a news report by Martin Beckford headlined Archbishop of Canterbury’s rescue plan for Anglican Communion rejected
The Living Church has an interesting interview with Bishop Gregory Venables in GAFCON Primates: Priority Will be Given to the Possible Formation of a Province in North America by Steve Waring.
Saturday morning update
The Guardian has Anglicans still divided over homosexuality by Riazat Butt
Graham Kings has some analysis at Covenant: on first reading the communique from the GAFCON Primates’ Council.
Have these drama queens no work to do ?
So the split is going full steam ahead despite all that has been said by Williams desperately trying not to let it happen, to the point of betraying and compromising his view.
I sincerely hope that it goes well for them and that those who are really going to be placed under pressure and CofE conservatives….how many will jump with them?
Still waiting for the GAFCON list of signatories!
Note where the Secretariate of GAFCON is located; Sydney, Australia!!!!
Does anyone note a particular non-primatial hand at work here, or am I being unduly critical of the Sydney Archbishop’s influence with the Global South’s agenda to split the Church?
It may just be time for the real Archbishop of Australia, and the majority of the Australian Anglican Bishops, to disassociate themselves from the machinations of this Sydney prelate.
Oh, what madness. What loveless, graceless nonsense. Here is an imagined purity, compassed round with walls of hate.
In my ordinary and human brokeness I look to you, Lord Jesus. In my hope, faith and trust I pray that you will transform us all with the knowledge of the overwhelming generosity of your love.
Loving Father, help us then to laugh at those who love power even at the cost of wicked malice and oppression. Build us up, sure in the knowledge that your Holy Spirit is love, and that perfect love casts out fear.
“Confessing Anglicans”? Confessing to what exactly? In my version of Anglicanism, the only thing one confesses to is sin.
Anglicanism has always been a creedal religion, not a confessional one. We believe (as the creeds say) in certain things, we do not confess to them.
Hmmm…. so according to ++Venables, the GAFCON group have given up on an Anglican Covenant and are not interested in the further work of the Windsor Continuation Group. Looks like they have just defined themselves into second-tier membership.
Merseymike, you asked an interesting question. Church of England Evangelicals must be feeling their very difficult position. I assume +Tom Wright has now realized he will never be Archbishop of Canterbury. +Michael Nazir-Ali, on the other hand, may be about to become Archbishop of something that has an English place-name but isn’t Canterbury, so it’s really just as good.
“Well, well, th’event…”
I also recommend James’ analysis at The Three-Legged Stool: http://threelegedstool.blogspot.com/2008/08/donatist-six-finally-speak.html
Your certainly not being too critical at all, Fr. Ron – not only is the secretariat’s address in Sydney, it’s even the same as that of the Sydney Diocesan Offices – a fact noted with some amusement by no less a figure than the wicked Rev. Dr. Troll Given Sydney’s role in the South African split of the late 1930s there’s no shortage of precedent for their providing this support: the hypocrisy lies in the fact that +Jensen has no intention of leaving the Communion himself, since under the Australin church’s constitution he has no chance of taking his diocese’s… Read more »
the ABC will give in to GAFCON because they represent the majority of Anglicans in the world and his stated priority is unity amongst the majority in the AC….that is why the ABC has gone against his own views and keeps on reminding everyone that Lambeth 1.10 represents what he calls the “mind of the Communion” – even at the end of Lambeth in which TEC had a quarter of the bishops present, he said he was not persuaded by “rights based” arguments and he stands for the “mind of the Communion”…..liberals have to be realistic about the way the… Read more »
I wish you were right realist; then we could get on with the job of converting the world, rather than having to waste time defending Christian truth and morality from liberals who are trying to dress up 1960’s “do what you want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” ethics and “God is dead” theology as central Anglican doctrine.
Division has been caused because the established hierarchy failed to purge this sort of heresy. If they keep clinging onto the people who espouse it, they are at risk of loosing everything!
There is an excellent critique of GAFCON from the Evangelical Iain Murray in the September Evangelicals Now…condemning the complicity with Anglo-catholcism.
Furthermore the Dean of Sydney has made a forthright condemnation of Anglo-catholicism..posted on the Autralian Anglican Church league web site…under the heading what is an Evangelical.
davidwh: “Division has been caused because the established hierarchy failed to purge this sort of heresy.” That’s a very strange way to talk: you don’t seem to be aware of the history of Anglicanism as a moderate via media church. We are the church that employed Bishop John Robinson, Bishop David Jenkins and Don Cupitt; large numbers of butterfly-collecting 19th c canons; absentee and pluralist 18th c bishops. A narrow concern with doctrinal purity is NOT the tradition of the Church of England, and I resent these traditionalists so ignorant of tradition thinking they are more Anglican than the rest… Read more »
Sorry but my NP radar started bleeping.
Realist: do call yourself Nersen Pillay here as well.
Your words are your style and content, I noticed, and then I noticed they repeat pretty much at Fulcrum.
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=8333
DavidWh: I wish you were right realist; then we could get on with the job of converting the world, rather than having to waste time defending Christian truth and morality from liberals who are trying to dress up 1960’s “do what you want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” ethics and “God is dead” theology as central Anglican doctrine. You do yourself no favour by suggesting that ideas that were never accepted by any official body in the church, or by any significant body of believers are “central Anglican doctrine”. Moreover, you make a grievous error in assuming that… Read more »
I wouldnt worry too much about ‘converting the world’ — the Churches seem in far greater need of conversion !
but then the world is god’s anyway –whereas the Churches resist !
David WH has had his own sort of coming out, publicly admitting that he wants any dissent from his narrow views stamped out.
I commend to him the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg&eurl=http://simplemassingpriest.blogspot.com/
The Sydney address is of course the give away..and In many way the GAFCON African leadership remind me of the leaders of the Black home lands in Apartheid South Africa…
I noted the letter to Gafcon from the “American Bishops”, which included Don Harvey of the “Southern Cone” (formerly of Newfoundland). They say unequivocally that the Anglican Church of Canada has espoused the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of gay clergy in relationships. This is absolutely false. No formal decision has been made to do this, outside of New Westminster. Certainly not at General Synod thus far. But saying these things, which are outright lies, gives Don Harvey a way of having a second career. This tactic of telling utter lies about the ACC in order to create… Read more »
‘Hmmm…. so according to ++Venables, the GAFCON group have given up on an Anglican Covenant and are not interested in the further work of the Windsor Continuation Group. Looks like they have just defined themselves into second-tier membership.’
I look forward to being in the second tier with Gafcon !
“An invitation from the Primates Council”
The GAFCON primate’s surely?
“This tactic of telling utter lies about the ACC in order to create confusion and to set up an opposition is cheap and deceitful. Why do these “conservative” leaders feel comfortable with this?” And why do conservative “followers” seem to think that breaking the commandment about bearing false witness is no big deal, but suggesting that perhaps we need to revisit our positions WRT sexuality and try to discern the guidance of the Spirit is evidence of apostacy and reason to break communion? As many of them fond of selfrighteously saying, they’re the Ten Commandments, after all, not the Ten… Read more »
All 2 of them.
;=)