A repenting church was one that modeled the Lord’s call for all people to repent of their sins. It served no purpose to call out the sins of others if we ignored our own sins and shortcomings, he explained. The Holy Spirit “reveals” to a believer their sins, giving you a choice to turn away or to continue in sin.
Here the archbishop made his only comment on the situation facing the Church of England – not as a rallying cry for action, but as an example of reprobate behavior. He stated: “In recent days we have seen the Church of England led by the Archbishop of Canterbury walk away from the plain teaching of Scripture. We call on them to repent, to return to the teaching of the word of God. We call on them to stop blessing sin and return to the sanctity and holiness of marriage.”
He then called out the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, the Episcopal Church of Brazil, the Anglican Church of New Zealand, the Church of Australia, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Episcopal Church of the USA to “repent and turn to the teachings of Holy Scripture.”
“Sadly,” he observed, “and with broken hearts, we say that until the Archbishop of Canterbury repents we can no longer recognize him as the first among equals and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.”
“It is time for the whole Anglican establishment to be reformed,” he declared, and then asked “Why does the secular government of only one of the nations represented in the Anglican Communion still get to pick the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion? This makes no sense in today’s post-colonial world.”
Time to move on past Canterbury and seek the renewal, revival and reform of the Anglican way — Archbishop Beach tells GAFCON IVhttps://t.co/Rf59mch7B4 pic.twitter.com/d6XnBApWuF
— Anglican Ink (@anglicanink) April 17, 2023