Those of us from the Network attending this historic event are grateful for their prayers. Out of a total of more than 1,000 bishops, priests, deacons and laity who have registered for GAFCON, just over 130 will be from North America. Of the more than 280 bishops registered to attend, 19 are affiliated with Common Cause.
We are a small contingent going to what is likely the most important Anglican event in decades. We are not running the show or driving the agenda. This meeting is not about North America or our problems. It is about expanding a faithful, orthodox Anglican witness worldwide. It is also about working together to sail through the storms assailing the western colonial model that has characterized the Anglican Communion for the past century.
The storms are here and, frankly, the traditional structures of the Anglican Communion don’t appear ready to deal with them. Archbishop Williams is clearly steering the Lambeth Conference away from any sort of accounting for The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada’s increasingly brazen flouting of orthodox faith and the decisions of the last Lambeth Conference. The Anglican Covenant becomes weaker with every revision. We hear reports that the earliest we could expect to see any covenant in place would be sometime around the 2018 Lambeth Conference.
Who will be going from the Diocese of SC?
I’m asking this question in all seriousness, so please don’t flame me!
I first remember GAFCON as being touted as an exploration of the future and now the things I read seem to set the expectation of division. Has there been a change or have I just missed it in earlier statements. I remember reappraisers decrying GAFCON as divisive, but I thought that was speculation. Thanks.
“…This meeting is not about North America or our problems”….
If we had not installed the Bishop of NH would this have happned? I think not.
Obviously lowering expectations. Yet again the promise of “hang in there . . . just one more meeting . . . .” Fool me seventeen times . . . wake me up if anything actually happens of note this summer.
Eugene,
GAFCON, or some other similar event, would most definitely have come about regardless of NH! We in the west tend to think of all these developments through the eyes of NH, but from a global perspective there is a much bigger dynamic underway: namely, the maturation of the global church, e.g. the former “missionary” regions have now grown into full-fledged Churches desiring to sit down at the table of leadership, but the West continues to belittle them as uninformed, uneducated, unenlightened. Remember that Kuala Lumpur took place long before NH. The leadership of the West continues its own pattern of paternalism, racism and colonialism. I have much more respect for ABC than is often represented here–but this I will say, his apparent in-effectiveness reflects the fact that his office and the communion presume a western world–and the global communion just does not fit in the old paradigm. Thus, GAFCON, like prior meetings of the Global South, arises in order to create new opportunities for the global south Church to mature in their rightful place as full brothers and sisters in Christ with the old world Church leaders. Even when the parents are healthy and encourage their teenagers to grow up responsibly, it is the teenager who must assert him/herself before the parents can affirm the teenager as an adult.
LCF+
Even when the parents are healthy and encourage their teenagers to grow up responsibly, it is the teenager who must assert him/herself before the parents can affirm the teenager as an adult.
What was that you said about paternalism?
Anyway, the difference between this and other Global South meetings is that it is decidedly not for the Global South. This is for the GS to “belittle [reappraisers] as uninformed, uneducated, [and ungiodly].
Let us hope that GAFCON is indeed about division. It is about time we broke the strangle hold that TEC and the rest of its pack has had on the throat of our identity. We need to be ready to fight for who we are and not merely whine that we are helpless to help ourselves. WE need leadership and action, not more pious chatter. Larry
I’m hoping that division can be headed off, and that GAFCON can be a vehicle for that end. I’m hoping that the GS take advantage of this convocation to plot Lambeth strategy to discipline TEO and thus save the AC. I also hope that GAFCON attendees also have a “Plan B” in their back pockets should ++Rowan’s diversionary, divide-and-conquer agenda succeed in derailing substantive action.
Vgr was merely the silver nitrate that precipitated the downpour. It would have poured anyway. VGR became the touchstone that separated the sheep from the goats. In a sense, he has done us a favor, for it has given us a strong focus. WE should not WISH tro save the old AC. The schism is already upon us and any restoration will be a thing of duct tape and baling twine. Larry
Larry Morse, I for one am tired of being asked to “listen, to feel my pain” all of the time! We have asked the reappraisers to listen to US for a change, and what do we get? We’re accused of “abandoning the communion of this Church.” Our clergy who have left…..my bishop included…..haven’t “abandoned” the communion of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church…..only that of The Episcopal Church…..and this is totally meaningless as far as the majority of the Anglican Communion is concerned.
That is only one reason why I support GAFCON and the efforts of bishops such as Duncan, Schofield, Iker and others who defend the Faith so faithfully.