No one here, whether communion conservative or federal, wants the week to end with an innocuous communiqué and, I think, there is a very good chance that that danger has been averted…Creating a new global structure based on this paradigm, is, at this point, the consensus hope, the common ground. Some sort of articulation of this New Paradigm is where I think the communiqué will eventually settle. I am a fed-con but not a separatist. I am federal because do not think that any historic see is essential to Anglicanism and would be willing to break ties to Canterbury if necessary. At the same time I think there is still hope for the Communion as a whole. That hope, however, does not rest within the present structures of Communion. It rests here in Jerusalem. If a disciplined, ordered, faithful, global body is birthed here (or at least conceived), bounded by a firm corporate confessional commitment and governed by conciliar adjudication, then, though Canterbury dithers and fails, global Anglicanism does indeed have hope and a future.

Read it all.

Orthodox Anglicans who are creating a new movement at a breakaway summit in Jerusalem have said they feel “betrayal and abandonment” at the current church structure.

The 1,000 conservatives at the Gafcon conference say they feel “profound sadness” that the worldwide Anglican Communion has been driven to the brink of schism by liberals in America and Canada departing from traditional church teaching, particularly over sexuality.

They are working on a statement which shows how they think the church must proceed, which involves faithfulness to the Scripture and an end to “innovations” such as the ordination of homosexual clergy.

They are also developing a “church within a church” which will cater for Anglicans who do not want to be under the leadership of liberal bishops.

Read it all.

THE most liberal-sounding speaker at GAFCON by the end of Tuesday was the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.

Dr Nazir-Ali surprised participants on Tuesday by speaking up for inculturation, change, and diversity. But each of these had its limits, he said. The gospel had to be adapted to different cultures, but “capitulation to culture” must be avoided; change and development must be principled; diversity had to be legitimate.

He made few explicit references to existing Anglican polity, beyond saying that the things that bound it together ”” the Lambeth Quadrilateral, the Instruments of Communion, and “English good manners” ”” had not proved strong enough to hold it together.

His desire was for a conciliar Church. “We have to have councils that are authoritative, that can make decisions that stick. In the last few years, I’ve been frustrated by decision after decision after decision that have not stuck, and we cannot have this in the future for a healthy Church.”

He also wanted the Church to be clear “that we are a confessing Church. Some people have the mistaken idea that Anglicans can believe anything.”

Read it all.

GAFCON is the first pan-Anglican congress that is African-led and internationally funded, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told participants earlier this week.

Archbishop Akinola said that $5 million to cover the costs of the June 22-29 conference had been raised in five months, with $2.4 million coming from the Church of Nigeria. Two individuals contributed the bulk of the Nigerian funding, he said, providing enough to pay the costs of the American bishops of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, to attend the gathering.

Bishop-elect AkinTunde Popoola, the Church of Nigeria’s press spokesman, told The Living Church the Nigerian donations were given anonymously, but he confirmed that the donors are Nigerian nationals resident in the country, and were not American supporters of CANA.

“Nigeria has been self-supporting” in its obligations within the Anglican Communion, Bishop-elect Popoola said. He noted that CANA had been granted a dispensation from Nigerian canon law requiring dioceses to contribute to the support of the national church. “CANA does not pay a dime to Nigeria,” he said.

The final costs of the conference will be released on Friday, conference treasurer Hugh Pratt said. He said that GAFCON appeared on track to be a financial success. Given the short time to prepare for the conference, Mr. Pratt said, the financial stability of the gathering was evidence of God’s hand at work.

Read it all.

GAFCON consists of Anglicans from very different churchmanship and theological and liturgical styles.

And yet already some common themes are emerging.

There is a common horror of the extent that some churches in the Communion have wandered from not simply Anglican, but Christian truth and discipline.

There is the conviction that GAFCON must not be a conference, but the beginning of something that will continue on. And that whatever ”˜this’ is that continues, it will aim to renew and restore Anglican churches throughout the world to Biblical and apostolic goals.

There is a common enthusiasm for the central authority of Scripture in our churches, and the classic Anglican formularies like the Articles of Religion and the Creeds.

And, most wonderfully, there is a refusal to countenance bitterness of spirit or self-righteousness in relation to the rest of the Communion. I think that we are aware of the great danger that faces every reform and renewal movement in the church, of becoming factious and self-serving, judgmental. I pray that the tone of this conference will be the tone of the movement is emerging, whatever form it takes.

Tomorrow (Friday) the first draft of the crucial conference will be released for discussion.

Read it all.

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, of the Anglican Church of Kenya, spoke to the press on Thursday, June 28 about the progress and content of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Statement.

While not in final form, there is already general agreement among pilgrims about a number of points. At GAFCON, there is a determination to maintain the authority of scripture in the life of the Church, a profound sadness about the current state of the Anglican Communion. Pilgrims also want to see GAFCON develop into a long term movement instead of a one-time conference, agree that more permanent structures need to be established for faithful Anglicans who live in serve in provinces that have left the traditional teachings of scripture, and desire to continue to reach out to other Anglicans.

Every pilgrim has had multiple opportunities to provide concerns, hopes, and suggestions to the statement committee throughout the week. The first draft of the statement will be read to all pilgrims on Friday, June 27. The statement will be finalized before GAFCON ends on June 29.

Read it all.

But the media are not the only ones who are misunderstanding GAFCON. Among conservatives, no surprise, I am coming across three different kinds of Anglicans here who often don’t understand each other very well. Let me describe them this way:

* The separationists. These individuals wish to create a new Anglican Communion that is global, not centered in Canterbury.

* The reformers. These folks are not yet ready to give up on the existing Anglican Communion and have a movement strategy for redeeming and restoring the Communion.

* The new paradigm. This is the trickiest one to understand. Under a new paradigm, Anglicanism becomes a global network, locally distinctive, church or community-based, and centered on the biblical mission of evangelism and discipleship.

One new reality of GAFCON is that the discussions here across the Anglican food chain from the Primates to the small groups of lay and parish clergy have moved beyond “The American Problem,” which is The Episcopal Church, its bitterly hostile actions against conservatives, and the advent of homosexual clergy and same-sex unions. Bishop Bob Duncan, the American conservative leader from Pittsburgh, isn’t even here.

Read it all.

But mid-way through the conference, conservative leaders spoke only of making GAFCON a “movement”, without indicating how such a process would be handled and if there was enough support among the bishops to initiate a split.

“There is a sense of betrayal and abandonment by the existing leadership and Communion structures,” Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya said at a press conference.

But he added that “there is a genuine desire to continue to reach out to other Anglicans around the Communion who share our common faith.”

Read it all.

He said: “The reason I don’t feel I can go [to Lambeth] is because I don’t think I can pretend to have fellowship with those with whom there is a broken fellowship.

“How am I meant to set down at a table with people who are persecuting my friends?

“I don’t believe I can pretend that the facts on the ground of the tearing of the fabric of the Communion doesn’t exist.

“It is of great regret to me that the invite list includes almost all those who have torn the fabric of the Communion.”

Read it all.

Anglican TV has a video of the whole thing here.

If anyone feels led to transcribe this as a service to us all please email me off blog–KSH.

Many of those who are not attending Lambeth are in Jerusalem this week for an alternative meeting, to discuss how they see the way forward. The parallel meetings are a clear manifestation that the bonds of communion have broken down. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not in Jerusalem, and is not welcome there. The breach appears irreparable and therefore the Anglican Communion’s days as a global community centred in Canterbury are numbered.

That is a sadness for those, like myself, who have affection for the Anglican sensibility. But sensibilities are not doctrines, and it cannot be the case that members of the same communion can hold directly contradictory views on matters of grave importance. The Canadian and American proponents of same-sex marriages are arguing that homosexual acts can be morally good, and even sacramental. The traditional Christian view is that such acts are sinful. That is a gap that cannot be bridged: Either one holds to the ancient and constant teaching of the Christian Church, or one rejects it in favour of a different position. It cannot be that both views exist side-by-side as equally acceptable options.

It is not a disagreement only about sexual morality. It goes deeper than that, to what status the ancient and apostolic tradition has in the Church today. There can be no doubt that the blessing of homosexual relationships is entirely novel and in contradiction to the Christian tradition. So if that tradition no longer holds, it raises questions about the apostolicity of those communities which have abandoned it.

An additional sadness for Catholic and Orthodox Christians is that if the Anglican Communion embraces the path of doctrinal innovation, they will be closing the door on closer ecumenical relations. By unilaterally choosing to do what Catholics and Orthodox have always taught is outside our common tradition, they would be choosing the path of division.

Read it all.

There is no advance text of a final statement of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), nor prepared plans for future organization and action. And there won’t be one until the 1,200 bishops, priests and laity meeting in Jerusalem June 22 ”“ 29 has had a chance to seek God’s guidance and contribute their thoughts to the Statement Committee.

“The final statement is going to emerge as the work of all the participants of GAFCON,” said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of the Anglican Church of Kenya and chair of the Statement Committee.

Read it all.

The would-be Anglican rebels gathered with storm clouds brewing around them. But now, even though the conservative Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFcon) has not concluded its meeting in Jerusalem, the secession it threatened to bring to the 78 million-member Anglican Communion looks like a confused bust.

Read it all.

GAFCON pilgrims spent time on Tuesday, June 24, exploring how two Anglican provinces, Uganda and Nigeria, are working to limit new HIV/AIDS infections and care for those affected by the disease.

Keeping the Gospel message of transformation central is key to Uganda’s approach, said the Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, provincial secretary for the Anglican Church of the Province of Uganda. Almost every diocese is directly engaged in fighting HIV/AIDS and its affects, he added.

Their efforts, with the efforts of many others, have been very successful. During the mid 1980’s as much as 30 percent of Uganda’s total population was infected with HIV/AIDS. By 2005 that figure had fallen dramatically to 6.7 percent.

Read it all.

Some Episcopalians have accused American conservatives of manipulating African bishops. Barbara Harris, an Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, has even claimed that African bishops’ loyalty has been “bought with chicken dinners.” But it is clear that, at GAFCON, Africans are calling the shots. The event grew out of a Nairobi meeting of African bishops, and Africans are paying their own way. Peter Akinola, the primate of the Nigerian church and the chairman of the gathering, raised $1.2 million in three weeks for the conference. Indeed, his church even subsidized the attendance of a number of Americans, and Akinola has employed a young American priest as his private chaplain for the event.

At GAFCON, the African church ”” the largest church ”” is signalling that, by rights of dogma and demography, it should be calling the shots. Robert Duncan, the conservative bishop of Pittsburgh, says that the conference’s task is nothing less than to prepare for a “post-colonial” Anglicanism that has “come of age.” Certainly the choice to hold GAFCON in the Holy Land, and not in England, is a powerful statement about where conservatives see their origins and, too, their legitimacy.

There is, of course, a certain irony to all of this. The West once redeemed Africa for Christianity; now it is the Africans who seek to do the redeeming. African prelates see themselves as repaying a favor. Benjamin Nzimbi, archbishop of Nairobi, tells me that he sees GAFCON as a way of “reclaiming Anglicanism the way we received it.” Certainly Africans to have the advantage, as their churches grow and the Episcopal Church shrinks.

Read it all.

Bishop Bill Atwood of Kenya emphasised in a press briefing Tuesday that there are many chore issues that have been a point of contention. Responding to a query from the international media about whether it is conscionable that “one narrow point should tear the church,” Atwood said:

The starkness of disagreement is not narrow. The identity of Jesus, the place of salvation, scripture application, and how to apply changes, are some of the issues which we have to look at to maintain the Christian way.”

Bishop Bill Atwood is one of the leaders of the workshop on Gospel and Culture at GAFCON.

He said that in examining the essentials of the Gospel against the expression of the Gospel, GAFCON is looking to discern the principles of how to go forward, mindful to see that culture does not overwhelm the message of the Gospel.

“There could be new voluntary associations emerging, with shared purpose and vision, which will look for new mechanisms of expression. Previous associations do not have to be terminated, but the new ones would have purpose and vision,” he said in response to whether there would be a break-away from the Anglican church. “It is not possible to tell how things will turn out at the end of the week. We have a number of workshops in which different people are making an input. We’ll put it all together to help show us the future.”

Read it all.

In recent decades the Anglican Communion has been sharply divided over a number of issues, particularly whether homosexuality should be accepted and tolerated in the Church. But things are really coming to a head. Next month bishops from around the world are due to gather in Canterbury for the once every-10-years Lambeth Conference, but more than 200 from conservative dioceses ”“ predominantly but not exclusively from Africa ”“ have boycotted the event and are this week attending a rival conference in Jerusalem instead.

Although organisers of the so-called Global Anglican Future Conference say they have no intention of splitting the Anglican Church or setting up a rival one, it represents one of the most serious threats to the authority of the global leader of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Read it all.

There are two segments here, the first an introductory one with Robert Piggott and the second with two Church of Ireland leaders, one of whom is participating in GAFCON, the other of whom is a member of the Church of Ireland General Synod. Listen to them both (about 19 minutes total).

No church, said Bishop Nazir-Ali, can have any other basis of authority than scripture. “The Bible is the norm by which we appreciate what is authentically apostolic. That is the reason for the Bible being the ultimate and final authority for us in our faith and our lives and this is the reason why Anglicans have taken our study of the Bible so seriously.”

Authentic Anglicanism is also a confessing church, said bishop Nazir-Ali. From the very beginning, being Anglican has meant confessing the faith that Christians have held always, everywhere and by all. “We have to be clear that we are a confessing church. Some people have the mistaken idea that Anglicans can believe anything, or that Anglicans can believe nothing. I don’t know which one is more serious,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

In a news conference that followed his lecture, Bishop Nazir-Ali, who has been a student of Islam for 30 years, clarified his comment related to the Christian’s right to witness to all, including to Muslims. “Just as Muslims have a right to invite others to join Islam [referred to as Da’wa], Christians have a right to invite others to Jesus,” he said. He added that he supported Christians serving Muslims in such practical ways as in schools and hospitals.

Church councils with the authority to teach and to make decisions are necessary for authentic Anglicanism. “We need to be a conciliar church. In the last few years I have been frustrated by decision after decision after decision that has not stuck. We cannot have this for a healthy church,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

Read it all.

The emerging figure that is crucial in the softening of the line on schism is the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, who has become the key player on the Anglican conservative wing, shifting the emphasis from the US and African conservatives to Australia. Significantly, the Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan, who heads the US conservative grouping Common Cause, is not in Israel although he is named as one of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) leadership team in the programme.

In a recent interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, Dr Jensen said that it would be legally impossible to engineer schism. The Episcopal Church of the US has already launched a number of legal actions against breakaway parishes and bishops. Dr Jensen said: “I can’t. I’m part of a constitution, which is virtually unchangeable, of the Australian Church. I wouldn’t want to. I love the Church. It would be bad for Christianity, bad for the Gospel.” He continued: “I think there is going to be an evolution in the Anglican Communion. It has occurred. And what the Future Conference is going to work out is how to live best within that evolution. That’s its business.”

Archbishop Nzimbi backed this interpretation. Speaking at Gafcon he said: “Gafcon is going to help the Anglican Church. We are still Anglicans.”

Archbishop Henry Orombi, of Uganda, also at the press conference last night, said: “What we are meeting for here is not to plan to walk away. We are meeting to renew our commitment, to renew our faith, to get a sense of direction of what we can be as Anglicans. We do not want to start a new Church.”

Read it all.

The meeting has witnessed a shift in the leadership of the conservative movement within the Anglican Communion, with the Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen assuming a new prominence among what had been an African-dominated leadership team. Challenged in a press conference by a gay activist to respond to the persecution of a lesbian in Uganda, who was forced to flee to the United Kingdom for her safety, Archbishop Henry Orombi responded that he did not think that homosexuals were persecuted in his country. It was Archbishop Jensen who then intervened, noting that all Anglicans abhorred homophobia, and that speaking for himself and the African church leaders, they were united in their condemnation of violence. When the issue was presented to the African leaders in those terms, they were quick to join their Australian colleague in condemning homophobic violence.

Condemned by critics as schismatic, the leaders of GAFCON have confounded expectations by focusing on spiritual solutions, with organizers hoping it will spark a renewal movement within the wider church. The long-term implications of GAFCON will likely rest upon its closing communiqué. Pilgrims will be asked to review seven questions over the course of the conference, including what can be done to restore sacramental Communion among the divided Anglican churches and whether it can be reformed from within.

The questions they will be asked to answer include whether cross border Episcopal jurisdictions are an appropriate way forward to resolve differences; is GAFCON merely a Global South initiative or does it have a role to play in the wider church; will the initiatives that arise from GAFCON be neutralized by the strategic use of money by its opponents in the Episcopal Church; can GAFCON provide a path towards the Anglican future; and should GAFCON become an institutional entity in order to achieve the tasks it has set for itself.

Archbishop Orombi said there were no predetermined answers to these questions from the archbishops, as it was important that clergy and lay voices be heard in formulating a way forward for Anglicanism.

Read it all.

With my departure for GAFCON less than a week away and Lambeth a mere three weeks from now, my ruminations, which are constantly upon the ebb and flow of things here in the Diocese of South Carolina, also swing into the sway of Global Anglicanism””which frankly are also seldom far from my waking thoughts. Let me share just little of my mental scrawl.

These are tenuous times to say the least. I could even say a time of crisis””if the word wasn’t over used and misleading. In the past I’ve quoted the Stanford economist Dr. Roemer’s provocative statement, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” and I’ve suggested that we in The Episcopal Church are steadily wasting it. The reason why I shy away from the word crisis to describe our situation is that it suggests in many minds the idea that there will be a watershed moment in which things will tilt in one direction or another much as the mountains in North Carolina send some streams flowing towards the Savannah River to the Atlantic and others toward the Mississippi drainage and the Gulf of Mexico. I no longer think this is the best way to understand the times we are in. A metaphor I’ve taken up recalls a drive I took across Nevada some years ago on U.S. Highway 50, known in the west as “the loneliest road in America.” It is one mountain range crossing after another. You cross more separate ranges on that drive through the state than through the rest of the U.S. together whether I-40, I-10, I-80, you name it. If there is to be or has been a crossing of the Rubicon in things Anglican I think it will only be the retrospective vision that will reveal it or through some yet unrecognized prophet.
What is far more important to my mind is not in joisting at windmills with The Episcopal Church but working toward an Anglicanism sufficient for a Global Age. Some will be engaged in this work through some non-TEC realignment, and others will be striving under God’s providence to foster this emerging reality while remaining within TEC””I consider this diocese among this shrinking group. Yet I believe we in South Carolina are strategically aligned to work broadly with various constituencies””Communion Partners, Anglican Communion Network, Common Cause, TEC, and a variety of Provincial relationships. But we need to work beyond ad hoc configurations and happenstance missional relationships, (if there actually is such a thing). There will be much to say on this in the future.

These two gatherings of global Anglicanism will be yet another opportunity for my immersion into the larger Anglican world. Coming as it does in the first year of my episcopacy I am inclined to see it as a providential and formative experience that will shape this next decade for us. Thus I covet your prayers. To what end? 1) That God’s vision for the role that this diocese is to take in this emerging world of the Anglican Communion will begin to clarify in my mind and in the minds of others in this diocese who will be following these gatherings here at home. 2) That the provincial relationships which will be fundamental to our diocesan life and mission will not only be made or strengthened, but the role we are to play in helping shape the Anglicanism of this 21st Century will begin to emerge. 3) That I will be a faithful witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel, wisely and forthrightly representing this diocese in the councils of the Church.

Faithfully yours,

(The Rt. Rev.) Mark Lawrence, Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina

Which to many makes it all the more baffling to understand why Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester has decided to boycott the Lambeth conference. He has become a champion of traditional Christianity in Britain, yet his action – along with that of the other 250 bishops – will be seen as a direct challenge to the authority of Dr Williams; as fermenting division rather than bringing healing. Rather than promoting a Church that has a message of hope and love, they seem to be reinforcing views that it has now come to stand for intolerance and bitter recrimination.

Yet this would be to misunderstand Bishop Nazir-Ali. Well-respected and valued in the Church, he is a man of deep conviction, but his decision is borne out of desperate frustration that the liberals have been able to advance their agenda – from electing a gay bishop to carrying out homosexual blessings – without any real attempt made to keep them in check. The fact is that the conservatives feel powerless to stop the liberal tide, and their statements betray this desperation.

There is in effect little that they can do, and also little that Dr Williams can do because of the autonomous nature of the various churches in the worldwide Communion. But their boycott of this summer’s conference and their attacks on the pro-gay moves in the Church have pushed them to the fringes of the communion and damaged their image in the eyes of wider society.

Read it all.

Check it out.

Refuting claims that GAFCON is about schism, Iker told ENS that the conference is “all about a renewal of confidence in Anglicanism.”

Ackerman told ENS that some of the bishops at GAFCON will also be attending the Lambeth Conference. “If this is a rival to Lambeth, nobody told us,” he said.

During his address, [Bishop Suheil] Dawani underscored his commitment to the Lambeth Conference, emphasizing that the once-a-decade gathering of bishops, set for July 16-August 3 in Canterbury, England, “is so important to our ongoing life together and for the mission of the church.”

Read it all and note the link to Bishop Dawani’s whole address.

Again, from the BBC blurb:

Is the Anglican Communion facing its biggest ever challenge? Traditionalists are angry, and their meeting in Jerusalem is seen as a challenge to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth conference next month. Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, said homosexuality was only one of the dilemmas facing the church.

For this segment go to this page where individual segments are listed and find the audio link at the segment at 0844.

From the BBC blurb:

Traditionalist Anglicans are meeting for a conference in Jerusalem and exhibiting some frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Our religious affairs correspondent, Robert Pigott reports.

In order to listen to this segment you need to go here and click on the “latest programme in full” link at the top, and then go 1 hour and thirteen minutes in (my computer showed 20:13:30ish when the segment started, and the segment lasts about 4 minutes).

Is this finally the end for the Anglican Communion worldwide? We hear from the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, one of the leaders of a breakaway conference for conservative Anglicans starting in Jerusalem this weekend. We also hear from Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, who thinks this conference comes at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Listen to it all (about 14 minutes).

Some 300 bishops – a third of the Anglican bishops in the world – arrived in Jerusalem this week to attend the Global Anglican Future Conference, organized by the traditionalist wing of the church, which is opposed to ordaining homosexual bishops. GAFCON is being staged as a rival to next month’s Lambeth Conference in London, the Anglican Communion’s main event held every 10 years.

GAFCON has drawn some 1,000 participants: bishops, clergymen, and activists from Anglican congregations in 28 countries, led by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria.

The rift in the Anglican Communion occured in 2003, when its American wing, the Episcopal Church, ordained the openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

Read it all.

The new fellowship could have a leadership of six or seven senior conservative bishops and archbishops, such as the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Bob Duncan ”” who chairs the US Common Cause partnership that acts as an umbrella for American conservatives ”” Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, and the Church of England’s Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.

The aim is not to split the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has 80 million members in 38 provinces, but to reform it from within. Formal ties would be maintained with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, but fellowship members will consider themselves out of communion with the US and Canada.

Fellowship members could attempt to opt out of the pastoral care of their diocesan bishop and seek oversight from a more conservative archbishop from their own country or abroad.

Read it all.