The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Primates Council has bracketed the UK with Kenya and Uganda as nations “where Christian views are marginalised and ignored”.
England is also defined as an “Associate ParÂticipant”, along with Australia, New Zealand, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Communion Partners of the Episcopal Church in the United States, in the “Fourth Global South to South Encounter” to be held in Singapore later this month.
The Council, which constitutes the Primates of Nigeria, West Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Southern Cone, toÂgether with the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, and the leader of the Anglican Church in North America, Archbishop Robert Duncan, was meeting in Bermuda as guests of the American businessman Emmanuel KamÂpouris.
you dont say!
I’m a little surprised to hear that Uganda and Kenya were “bracketed with” the UK, implying equivalent levels of disregard. Is that really what the Primates Council said? Admittedly, disregard could take different forms.
Gee, I wonder how and why Anglicanism “lost its integrity”? Could it be that Integrity had something to do with it?
Cennydd (#3),
The FCA Primates’ Council was actually quite specific, they said that the AC’s “current structures” (presumably the Instruments of Unity/Communion) were what had “lost integrity and relevance.” And who can dispute that?
There is, of course, a deeper problem, which is that Anglicanism itself has ceased to be a coherent kind of Christianity, with theological, liturgical, and moral chaos reigning in the global north. Way back in 1978, Dr. Stephen Sykes, one of England’s most respected theologians (e.g., he was Regius Prof of Divinity at Cambridge from 1985-1990, before becoming Bp. of Ely from 1990-1999) wrote a significant book called [b]The Integrity of Anglicanism,[/b], in which he already questioned whether Anglicanism still had any theological integrity or coherence. And as we all know, things have gotten a whole lot worse since then.
For the Church Times, this is an unusually non-defensive article, considering that the sources cited, ++Orombi, ++Ernest, and the FCA Primates’ Council, are so critical of the leadership (or lack thereof) on the part of ++RW.
David Handy+
It did not appear to me that the Primates were questioning the integrity of “Anglicanism,” but the integrity of the Instruments of Communion.