“What I and others on the conserving side of the Episcopal church represent is this clear vision that the church can never be anything other than under God’s Word and can never be anything other than submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ,” [Bishop Robert Duncan] says.
The last straw for many came with the ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. Since then, the splinter churches have sought refuge in the worldwide Anglican church. They’re now under the authority of churches in Africa and South America. These Third World congregations are also theologically orthodox. And they’re growing. Today more than 43 million Anglicans attend church in Africa alone — that’s more than half of all Anglicans worldwide.
“Isn’t it staggering” says Duncan, “that God would lift up the church in Southeast Asia instead of the church in Britain — or the church in Uganda instead of the church in America?”
The phenomenal growth and the split are rocking the Anglican church worldwide. This summer, the church’s “Lambeth” conference, held only once every 10 years, will be boycotted by many Third World Anglicans. They’ll attend a rival event, The Global Anglican Futures Conference or GAFCON in Jerusalem. Duncan says this represents the shift between two eras.
“Some thing is about a world that once was and one thing is about a world that is emerging,” he said.
[Theologian Edith] Humphrey predicts, “I think the real business of the church is going to go on at GAFCON because there we have an opportunity to move on without impediments.”
The Anglican Communion as we have known it is now dead. What replaces it is, hopefully, up to the Holy Spirit. And I think many of the bishops upon leaving the Lambeth Conference as now structured to avoid anything meaningful, will realize ++Rowan Williams had a large part to play in its death.
There is one thing that troubles some people about GAFCON. They don’t want it to turn out to be just another Dar es Salaam. They want change, and I don’t think they’re willing to wait for it.
[url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=695]The video for this in podcast form can be downloaded here[/url].
I saw this last night on NRB’s broadcast of CBN news. Very refreshing report. Accurate for a change. +Duncan’s interview snippets were good . . .
[blockquote]”that God would lift up the church in Southeast Asia instead of the church in Britain — or the church in Uganda instead of the church in America?”[/blockquote]
Yes! This is most staggering and very interesting to which I ask…What can I be doing with God that He is already doing? SOmetimes recognizing that He is bringing about a change in whatwe have preceived to be the center for centuries and has now left the center of His Word can be frightening and disconcerning but change is just apart of Christian growth as longa s it is with God and not against God. Submitting to his authority not to deny His authority.