Updated Tuesday
Primates of the GAFCON Primates’ Council meeting in London have issued the following statement about the Province of the Anglican Church in North America:
We welcome the news of the North American Anglican Province in formation. We fully support this development with our prayer and blessing, since it demonstrates the determination of these faithful Christians to remain authentic Anglicans.
North American Anglicans have been tragically divided since 2003 when activities condemned by the clear teaching of Scripture and the vast majority of the Anglican Communion were publicly endorsed. This has left many Anglicans without a proper spiritual home. The steps taken to form the new Province are a necessary initiative. A new Province will draw together in unity many of those who wish to remain faithful to the teaching of God’s word, and also create the highest level of fellowship possible with the wider Anglican Communion.
Furthermore, it releases the energy of many Anglican Christians to be involved in mission, free from the difficulties of remaining in fellowship with those who have so clearly disregarded the word of God.
There are some reports of the meeting that was held today between several GAFCON primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury:
Ruth Gledhill has Canterbury summit: nothing happened
Baby Blue has Rowan Williams hosts Anglican primates at Canterbury Cathedral for emergency summit
Tuesday update
Although the statement appearing on the GAFCON website does not include any signatures, it now appears from this Religion News Service report, Conservative Anglican Primates Back New Province, that it may have been signed by only five of the six primates who constitute the GAFCON primates council. The name missing from the RNS report is The Most Rev Valentino Mokiwa, Primate of Tanzania.
Since Martyn Minns and other westerners do so much of the writing for this crew, it is entirely possible that the people asking for recognition are the ones who drafted the document suggesting recognition is on its way.
As I live and breathe: Ruth gets a headline CORRECT for a change. 😉
[Hey GaffeCon Primates (and those who fund them): they who smelt it, dealt it!]
The GAFCON Primates Council talk in their statement December 6th of “activities condemned by the clear teaching of Scripture”. What is this? It seems to be referring to Leviticus 18:22: kaì metà ársenos ou koimäthäsä koítän gynaikós, bdélygma gàr estín, translated in the 12th century Parisian Scholastic Versio vulgata as: cum masculo non commiscearis coitu femineo, quia abominatio est. However, abominatio is simply a wrongful translation of bdélugma, quia is added. Koítän; the Bed – a n o u n referring to the only Bed there was in a household in Antiquity – is changed into macaroni “coitus” (sometimes translated… Read more »
Hardly an “emergency summit.” The meeting has been planned for some months.
““activities condemned by the clear teaching of Scripture”. What is this?”
It’s what other people do. When they do engage in activities clearly condemned by Scripture they are either a)enjoying the benefits of the Divine Economy or b) defending the Gospel from the heathen hoards in TEC.
Let me get this right:
Didn’t most/all of the primates in this meeting refuse to attend the Lambeth Conference?
If Rowan wasn’t going to give them what they wanted then, why do they think they’re going to get any further now?
Oh, I forget. No chances at mumbled assurances that can be tailored into a media message when all views are represented in the room.
Damned bloody cheek, given that they only fawn on Rowan when they want something he can’t give to them…
I wonder if there was any talk of the moratorium at this meeting. If there was it sure sounds like no one was listening.
This whole matter, and the African/Conealone Primates who promote it, are spinning silly demands out of control while part of Africa burns to the ground…it´s getting stupider and stupider and makes them all look like badly ¨scripted¨ self-righteous grandstanders who aren´t spiritually healthy enough to deal with their own Provincial rampant cultural dysfunction at home.
Distractions, blame, thievery, false witness…this is not multiple choice.
Touché, Ford ;=)
” activities condemened by the clear teaching of Scripture ” used to include divorce, re-marriage, contraception ,masturbation and an unequivivocal denunciation of polygamy.
Our Neo-Conservative friends are in reality thoroughly liberal.
Robert, the “orthodox” position is that only things other people do are sins.
Very convenient, isn’t it?
Leonardo Ricardo, why deal with trying to resolve massive problems in Africa when they can meddle in affairs that are none of their concern?
Much easier building new empires of control and influence than having to deal with the reality back home in Nigeria, Uganda, etc.
Sorry, this was posted in the wrong thread 🙁
The latest comments greatly in my mind reduces the question to basics – changes there have been, several, but which changes are worthy of the name Christian?
Those promoting the 10 Commandments + the 2 kainä entoläs ones of the NT: Love God with all your might and you Neighbour as yourself, or those promoting something else ;=)
“Our Neo-Conservative friends are in reality thoroughly liberal.” But conservative means wanting to preserve the familiar, things from their own younger days or those of their parents. So, one can be a conservative Christian and still accept remarriage after divorce, since most of them are too young to remember a time when the Church did not allow it. Most of them would probably condemn the Fathers as “revisionists” or something, and would be shocked at some of their radical, and very socialist sounding, statements. Let’s be honest, if they had been alive 2000 years ago, they would have been at… Read more »
I posted on Ruth Gledhill’s piece:
“Well, presumably, being part of the Communion at least once meant being in Communion, which, as Mark Chapman has pointed out, is no longer the case. Is it not true that only one of these primates even attended the last Lambeth Conference?”
Ford — “Thou hast said it.” Be prepared for the response!
As one of the few liberals at T19 … I posted as follows: It’s sad that the spiritual leaders of GAFCON cannot speak without an ever present dagger and a near perpetual desire to inflict life-threatening harm upon the Churches which which they disagree. It doesn’t speak well of Christianity. Forever GAFCON leaders represent themselves only as truly Anglican … the only Anglicans who are Christian … presenting their version of faith as fact … and necessary for all who wish to remain Anglican. Objecting was Sister Sarah Hey … explaining it all for us … with, of course, an… Read more »
“Be prepared for the response!”
Unlikely to be one. It’s hardly the first time I’ve made the observation that modern day conservatives look remarkably like Pharisees, but there’s never a response. I guess that particular truth hurts a little bit too much.
They do indeed look like how the Gospels portray the Pharisees. I love their attitude of “Since Jesus of Nazareth is Lord of all, the rules and laws of Leviticus don’t apply — except when WE say they do, and only those rules and laws WE like want to apply.”
“I have not written to the Presiding Bishop making any such declaration or request. I hope the House of Bishops will hold her accountable for her continued abuse of the canons.” – The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker, former Bishop in TEC – Jack, it seems, is now ‘in the box’ and no longer a bishop in The Episcopal Church in the USA. His protestation here is risible, if not indeed rascally. Having constantly regurgitated his disdain for the Presiding Bishop and the legal structures of TEC, he is now declaring that he ‘has not written to the Presiding Bishop… Read more »
“Hi, I’ve joined this other group and taken all my friends and colleagues…oh, and all the property…with me, but I haven’t left YOU, oh no, I haven’t, really….”
Is there any court in the world that would take this seriously?