Recently, the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa met in Cape Town. At first glance, the Communiqué may not seem to be much more than “another ”˜nice’ communication,” but it is, in fact, very significant. First of all, here is the text of the Communiqué:….[ ]…
A miss”¦
In African diplomatic speak, paragraph 4 tries to explain away some of the tensions that were created by the TEC conference and the Communiqué on Friendship. Euphemistically, they tried to minimize conflicts by saying, “We were sad to miss a number of our brother Primates who did not join the meeting either due to visa problems or because of misunderstandings especially in regard to the different ways of governance of our provinces.”
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My suspicion is that that was an attempt for the Archbishop of Burundi to deflect criticism that came from the GAFCON Primates who wrote to him
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the problem with that reasoning is that everyone knows he is the Chairman of CAPA. The other Bishops in Burundi also know where they stand on the issues that TEC promotes. The clarity of the bishops of Burundi was sufficient for an invitation to Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori to be cancelled. She was dis-invited from a plan to visit their province to preach, and celebrate.
The issue was not misunderstanding of governance. The issue was that the GAFCON Primates were not willing to accept an initiative to bring TEC’s agenda through a conference supposedly on friendship.
What was strong”¦
Paragraph 7 is particularly significant. There are a whole series of things that nuke the liberal agenda. First, they rightly said that the divisions in the Communion emerged when “some Churches in the west allowed the worldly cultures to reshape the message of church to the society especially in the area of marriage and human sexuality.” That is a massive departure from the normal way that institutional voices in the Communion speak. They recognized that Churches in the west reshaped the message of the Church by adopting the priorities of the world. Second, they point out that these new teachings not only contradict Scripture, they also impede the Church’s witness to the Gospel. They rightly nailed the situation pointing out that the origins of Western liberalism are outside Scripture. They also point out that they are damaging. Third, they point out that unilateralism is a destructive pattern. Lastly, they warn that any new unilateral actions will result in “further division.” That is a sobering warning to the Church of England that sits on the brink of blessing same-sex unions. Their unilateral action to go that direction will result in further division. It will also result in dozens of signs with an arrow pointing to Canterbury saying, “only xyz miles to Canterbury” being torn down only to be used for firewood.
Paragraph 8’s explicit re-affirmation of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 is particularly powerful in that it is set in the midst of the greater authority of Scripture. That paragraph must have been received in New York with about the same joy that the Wicked Witch of the West received the bucket of water from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. One can almost hear cries of “I’m meeellllting!” coming out of the TEC headquarters at 815 Second avenue in New York.
Couched in an affirmation of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s efforts to gather people, there is another devastating commitment of these Primates to press for the decisions made by Primates previously (especially at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) to be implemented. If you remember, it was the failure to implement the hard fought decisions from the Primates Meeting that has caused so many Primates to stay away from meetings. It is wonderful to see such starch from the Archbishops, especially when some of the strongest GAFCON leaders were not there. It is proof positive that the attempts to take over Africa have not worked.
A great serendipity is the delightful situation that all the effort to impose the liberal agenda through the utterly corrupt vehicle of “Indaba” has failed.
+Anderson makes some good points.
The fact that several of the supposedly more liberal Primates in CAPA can meet together, and can clearly affirm Resolution 1.10 from Lambeth 1998, and can also emphasise the decisions of previous Primates Meetings’ is a wonderful thing.
Any idea that CAPA is being controlled by provinces like Nigeria or Kenya has taken a big hit from this.