In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We meet in the week after Easter, rejoicing again in the power of the risen Lord Jesus to transform lives and situations. We continue to experience his active work in our lives and the lives of our churches and we rejoice in the Gospel of hope.
From its inception, the GAFCON movement has centered on the power of Christ to make all things new. We have heard this week of the great progress made in North America towards the creation of a new Province basing itself on this same biblical gospel of transformation and hope. We have also envisioned the future of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans as a movement for defending and promoting the biblical gospel of the risen Christ.
Yet we are saddened that the present crisis in the Anglican Communion of which we are a part remains unresolved. The recent meeting of Primates in Alexandria served only to demonstrate how deep and intractable the divisions are and to encourage us to sustain the important work of GAFCON.
The GAFCON Primates’ Council has the responsibility of recognizing and authenticating orthodox Anglicans especially those who are alienated by their original Provinces. We are also called to promote the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) in its stand against false teaching and as a rallying point for orthodoxy. It is our aim to ensure that the unity of the Anglican Communion is centered on Biblical teaching rather than mere institutional loyalty. It is essential to provide a way in which faithful Anglicans, many of whom are suffering much loss, can remain as Anglicans within the Communion while distancing themselves from false teaching.
At this meeting highly significant progress was made on the following fronts.
An interesting response to the latest Covenant draft:
[blockquote]”As the Jerusalem Declaration insists we believe that the existing theological formularies of Anglicanism provide an adequate basis for the restoration of the relationships within the Anglican Communion. While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant, we understand that its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has “torn the fabric†of the Communion. We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the Provinces.”[/blockquote]
The key clauses, to my eye, are “its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has “torn the fabric†of the Communion” — which clearly the Covenant does not do nor claims to do — and “we . . . call for principled response from the Provinces.”
From a corporate perspective, and with my experience in organizational development [as so many people have], I cannot imagine a principled conservative Primate leading his Province to sign on to the Covenant, committing his Province to the Communion as it now stands, given its current state.
It would be a sort of organizational malpractice to sign on to a Covenant of a Communion that is in such a current state. Before I could ever sign on to such a document in good conscience, the current issues and divisions would have to be addressed and resolved. Otherwise, I couldn’t even know what organization it was to which I was signing its Covenant.
But . . . I ain’t no Primate, and so I will observe with deep interest.
Thank God for these Godly bishops. The Lord will protect his church.
Let us be in prayer for our part.
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THIS, from Sarah, bears repeating:
“It would be a sort of organizational malpractice to sign on to a Covenant of a Communion that is in such a current state. Before I could ever sign on to such a document in good conscience, the current issues and divisions would have to be addressed and resolved. Otherwise, I couldn’t even know what organization it was to which I was signing its Covenant.”
A covenant is serious. The present mess must be addressed and remediated first. There is a pile elephant mess a mile high and deep, with all the accompanying stench and damage of elephants trampling over the Faith for decades and there is still ugly elephant or two or more resident in the Anglican parlor.
[blockquote]The FCA Primates’ Council recognizes the Anglican Church in North America as genuinely Anglican and recommends that Anglican Provinces affirm full communion with the ACNA.[/blockquote]
This is the money quote for me! With this statement by the GAFCON Primates, more than half of Anglican Christians they represent are officially behind ACNA. Additionally, if the GAFCON Primates can’t share communion with the leadership of TEC and the ACoC, then how can they sign on to a covenant with them?
[blockquote]We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the Provinces.â€[/blockquote]
If the GAFCON primates were in favor of the Covenant at this point, wouldn’t they have called for an “affirmative” rather than a “principled” response to the Covenant?
Surely no Christian would call for an “unprincipled” response to the latest covenant draft. To call for an “affirmative” response at this point is premature. The draft requires serious analysis and reflection. That is what the FCA communique calls for.
A valid point one could make is that no covenant, however embedded with high principles, can be effective without proper implementation. If there is no willingness to exercise godly discipline on the basis of Scripture and tradition, refining covenant drafts and approving the final version will have been a waste of time. Obviously the track record of the Anglican Communion in exercising such discipline has been less than stellar. Otherwise we would not be facing a prolonged Anglican crisis.
#6. dickwire,
[blockquote]The draft requires serious analysis and reflection. That is what the FCA communique calls for.[/blockquote]
The FCA is calling for a principled response not what you call a serious and reflective response. The phrase “Principled response” was intentional. Principled: In accordance with principles of right or good conduct: ethical, moral, proper, right, righteous, rightful, right-minded, virtuous. See RIGHT. They did not use this word by accident.