Many orthodox Primates did not attend the last Primates Meeting in 2011 under the chairmanship of his predecessor, Rowan Williams. They were not prepared to share in fellowship with provinces like The Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) which had rejected the clear teaching of Scripture and the collegial mind of previous Primates Meetings and the Lambeth Conference 1998 by pressing ahead with the blessing of same sex unions and ordaining those in such relationships.
This time, GAFCON and the other orthodox Primates are willing to attend, but they know that after many years of debate, action is needed to restore the spiritual and doctrinal integrity of the Communion they care for so deeply. They are clear that their continued presence will depend upon action by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a majority of the Primates to ensure that participation in the Anglican Communion is governed by robust commitments to biblical teaching and morality.
It has been suggested that the way forward is for the Anglican Communion to abandon the idea that there should be mutual recognition between the provinces and that it should instead find its unity simply in a common relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
This is not historic Anglicanism….
Thanks be to God for the Global South Anglican churches.
This is a heartening letter, especially in light of the ongoing efforts by the Canadian primate to undermine the Primates Meeting.
The Global South is clearly hoping to model the Anglican Communion on the example of the early Church. In keeping with Scripture and the writings of the early Fathers.
TEC and ACoC want to model a retail clothing operation, where they pay a certain amount to an English company to carry the brand name “Anglican” T-shirts, but they carry any number of other brands as well (“Rainbow” oven mitt hats being most popular in recent years), and once in a while they get an invitation to visit the English company’s home office for a convention or go on a junket to a tropical location.
#1 sums it up about as well as possible……..
We gather at St. Andrew’s Church, Versailles, KY, of his Diocese of the South, ACNA, this fourth Advent Sunday afternoon to worship with, and pray with and for, ++ Dr. Foley Beach as he prepares for next month’s meeting with the other Anglican primates.
We solicit your prayers as well.
You have a biting wit, tj.
Unfortunately it is all too close to reality. As Luke reminds us, prayer is critical.
A clear letter, and I am thankful for it. It seems to me that if it was indeed “suggested [presumably by Lambeth Palace] that the way forward is for the Anglican Communion to abandon the idea that there should be mutual recognition between the provinces and that it should instead find its unity simply in a common relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury”, then that will likely fail, as Rowan as AoC largely destroyed that relationship with duplicity and disrespect towards the global south. Recognizing that the Anglican Communion of old has ceased to be counciliar – largely as a result of deliberate actions of the AoC – is an admission of fact, and not a conclusion that will lead to reconciliation. It seems to me that if this is all that is on offer, there stands to be further formalization of two communions – one small one organized around the AoC, but largely funded and controlled by TEC, and consisting primarily of the CoE and TEC, and another organized around GAFCON, which stands to be the sole remaining institution at which the majority of Anglican provinces and the vast majority of Anglicans that are actually in communion with each other come together. For this latter and larger communion, Canterbury’s Archbishop seems likely to cease to be the primus inter pares, and Canterbury will be just viewed as the mother church as a matter of historical interest. But we shall see.
Sounds like Abp Fred Hiltz and Abp Eliud Wabukala are going to two very different meetings.
Wonder which one will be surprised at the agenda.
Yes, it is a heartening letter, and there is indeed a great need for persistent, earnest prayer for everyone involved in this historic, mom3entous meeting. But I couldn’t help but reflect on the ironic parallels between the troubled state of global Anglicanism today and the troubled state of ancient Judaism when Jesus Christ was born.
Back then, the highpriesthood had been corrupted, and the Temple was in the hands of unworthy men. God’s answer to the problem involved an end run around the central hierarchy, with the Messiah being born in one obscure small town, Bethlehem, and raised in another even more obscure small town, Nazareth, far from Jerusalem. Jesus didn’t go to the top rabbinic training programs (like Saul of Tarsus did), and operated quite independently of the religious establishment of the time.
And although the parallel is imperfect, Almighty God in his inscrutable wisdom seems to be doing something similar in our time. When the leadership of the CoE had become fatally corrupted, and many of the bishoprics and leading posts had fallen into the hands of unworthy men (and women), the Lord has again raised up help from an unlikely direction. “[i]Can anything good come out of Nazareth?[/i]” Or Abuja? Or Nairobi? Or Singapore?
Stranger things have happened before.
David Handy+