The launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (UK and Ireland) on 6 July was an answer to my prayers. I had feared that orthodox Anglicans, who share a common commitment to the essentials of our faith and a concern about departures from it within the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion, would spend more energy disagreeing over their different strategies for the defence and proclamation of the gospel than in supporting one another and working together for Christ in our church and nation. GAFCON gave me a glimpse of another possibility: a wide spectrum of believers including Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals of all shades, joining together in one united movement for the cause of Christ in the Anglican Communion in the light of great opportunities for mission and serious departures from the apostolic gospel. The existence of a national FCA provides us, I believe, with a God given opportunity. It is urgently needed for the following reasons:
1. To support the beleaguered orthodox overseas
FCA is committed to supporting Anglicans around the world who are suffering because of their commitment to the orthodox faith in dioceses and provinces that have departed from it. TEC is currently spending very large sums of money on deposing clergy and dispossessing churches. Both those who have formed the ACNA and others who have remained in TEC need to know that they are not alone and can rely on our prayers and partnership, as do the orthodox in a number of other countries who face great difficulties. Their situations are urgent now and can not wait for the outcome of the proposed Anglican Covenant process, which is anyway likely only to address questions of order rather than the issue of defending orthodox belief.
2. To resist a drift from orthodoxy in the Church of England
Although the situation in TEC is especially bad, there is certainly no room for complacency closer to home, especially in Scotland and Wales.