Archbishop of Canterbury responds to GAFCON statement

Again, from Episcopal Life Online:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has responded to the final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement.

The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The 'tenets of orthodoxy' spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON's deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion

However, GAFCON's proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.

A 'Primates' Council' which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical – theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides.
T
wo questions arise at once about what has been proposed. By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?

No-one should for a moment impute selfish or malicious motives to those who have offered pastoral oversight to congregations in other provinces; these actions, however we judge them, arise from pastoral and spiritual concern. But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.

It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.
The language of 'colonialism' has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.

I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.
I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: 'wait for one another.' I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord's field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.

Our Presiding Bishop Responds

From Episcopal Life Online:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has responded to the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement.

Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON. Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable. This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers. Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships with others across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the gospel. We look forward to the opportunities of the Lambeth Conference for constructive conversation, inspired prayer, and relational encounters.
-- The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church

Who's leading whom?

Reading the caption to the photo in the NY Times article on GAFCON (see below), I was struck by how strange it is to have Americans being ordained in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Americans looking to the Third World for leadership? That just seems strangely ironic to me.

I don't mean to sound xenophobic or racist about Africa. I just find it strange that Americans are looking for leadership to a part of the world where equality for all is less of a possibility than it is here, where a comprehensive educational system for all doesn't exist, where food for all is a problem more so than elsewhere in the world. Essentially, aside from our shared humanity and belief in Jesus Christ, the only thing it seems that an Episcopal parish in the United States and an Anglican parish in Nigeria might really have in common is a dislike of homosexuals. Please correct me if I'm wrong. For a church in Africa to remove itself from the resources (both monetary and charitable) of its fellow First World parishes in order to make a point about homosexuals seems absurd. To me, it translates to "Sorry, poor Nigerians, but we won't be getting aid from churches in the Anglican Communion because they accept homosexuals as equal members of the body of Christ." And while America is not a perfect place of freedom and equality, we certainly have figured out how to get closer to it than many other countries, I believe.

So for American parishes to look to African churches for leadership seems fascistic to me, since they're essentially aligning themselves with churches in an unjust part of the world that instead of fighting that injustice instead concern themselves with denying respect towards and fellowship with one particular group of people. And this from a group that did not enjoy being marginalized, . . .

New York Times Article on GAFCON

Tricia pointed me to this latest article, in the New York Times, about the GAFCON conference being held in Jerusalem.

One of the funniest parts of the article (as funny as this controversy can be, I guess), is where the group explains why they decided to leave the Anglican Communion: the group says they have been "ignored" and "marginalized," according to the Times article.

Essentially, members of GAFCON have been marginalized and ignored in their attempts to marginalize and ignore homosexuals. So they took their ball and went home. The article doesn't say whether they tried to feel better with milk and cookies from their mothers.

English Bishop Protests Lambeth Conference

This article at "Episcopal Life Online" talks about how Bishop Nazir-Ali of England is not protesting the Lambeth Conference nor is he agreeing to it. In the article (that doesn't really say all that much), it mentions how he spoke at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, the conference that opposes the rest of the Anglican Communion because of the Anglican Communion's acceptance of openly-homosexual bishops.

Let me get this straight: he went to GAFCON, won't go to the Lambeth Conference, and then prays "[the Anglican Communion] remains united"? How exactly is that going to happen if people like him aren't at the official meeting of the Anglican Communion and instead go to the conference of the splinter group? I don't know much about Bishop Nazir-Ali; he might be a wonderful priest and bishop in most respects, but this is not one of them. Such posturing seems more at home in a political campaign than in a church.

Wait. . . I forgot that that is exactly what these conferences have become.