The archbishop of Canterbury is proposing to effectively dissolve the fractious and bitterly divided worldwide Anglican communion and replace it with a much looser grouping.
Justin Welby has summoned all the 38 leaders of the national churches of the Anglican communion to a meeting in Canterbury next January, where he will propose that the communion be reorganised as a group of churches that are all linked to Canterbury but no longer necessarily to each other.
He believes that the communion ”“ notionally the third largest Christian body in the world with 80 million members, after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches – has become impossible to hold together due to arguments over power and sexuality and has, for the past 20 years, been completely dysfunctional.
A Lambeth Palace source said the archbishop felt he could not leave his eventual successor in the same position of “spending vast amounts of time trying to keep people in the boat and never actually rowing it anywhere”.
Rubbish. That is not the game plan at all.
A Statement from ACNA’s Archbishop Foley Beach on the Proposed Primates Gathering
Many of you have heard the news that I have been invited to attend a gathering of the Primates of the Anglican Communion this coming January.
I did indeed receive a personal call from Archbishop Justin Welby inviting me to attend and participate.
If my fellow GAFCON Primates accept the invitation, and I am expecting that they will, then I have also pledged to attend. The challenges facing the Anglican Communion over the last couple of decades are no secret, and it is time to face them. Previous meetings of the Communion, from the 1998 Lambeth Conference to the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, gave clear direction for maintaining and restoring order within the Communion. Unfortunately, these resolutions were not followed which further divided the Communion. The resulting situation is one in which the fabric of the Communion continues to be torn.
I am thankful for the way in which GAFCON has proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ, and has been seeking the renewal and restoration of the Communion.
I ask your prayers for myself, as well as the other GAFCON and Global South Primates, as we continue to seek to evangelize, proclaim the Gospel, and work for the restoration of the Anglican Communion’s life and witness.
In Christ,
The Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach
++Beach will be in Kentucky October 17. Our rector has advised us we shall be able to attend a teaching session by ++ Beach.
To me, this will be a wonderful experience.