Bishop Justin will bring to the Anglican Communion a special combination of gifts and experience. I know him as a deeply committed servant of Jesus Christ who honours the Scriptures as the Word of God and as a courageous peacemaker. I am confident that these qualities, together with his sustained involvement in business and finance, will enable him to articulate the Lordship of Christ to a watching world as well as to a Communion in continuing disorder….
As the Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, I eagerly look forward to working with the new Archbishop of Canterbury as a partner in the gospel to restore much needed conviction, confidence and unity to the deeply fractured Anglican family.
A fair and encouraging message to the new ABC, but also carrying a clear warning as to what is expected of him.
It will be interesting to see how +Welby deals with the call for the chair of the Primates’ meeting to be elected on a rotating basis:
[blockquote] “in the future development of the Anglican Communion the chair of the Primates Meeting should be elected by the Primates themselves’.” [/blockquote]
The liberals in CofE and TEC won’t like that. Yet it has been clear since the Dublin meeting that, without a concession like this, there won’t be any more fully-attended Primates meetings (and more to the point, there won’t be attendance by leaders of most of the world’s Anglicans). This ball is now firmly in the new ABC’s court.