Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Anglicans at GAFCON: What Happened in Jerusalem

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1113

[First Things] 8 Jul 2008--Even before it began, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON, as its organizers called it) was dismissed as a failed attempt at schism—and hailed as a triumphant new beginning—for the long-troubled Anglican Communion.

In fact, however, it’s too soon to tell which it will be, even now that the conference has finished. A meeting of over one thousand conservative Anglicans held this June in Jerusalem, GAFCON stopped short of enacting schism with Canterbury. Instead, the final statement declared itself to be the charter of a new global “fellowship of confessing Anglicans.” As such, GAFCON was welcomed by Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, as “positive and encouraging”—a sentiment shared by many and fully justified by the conference’s theological substance and irenic tone.

But questions and grounds for concern remain, and whether or not the movement represented by GAFCON will wind up serving the faith and unity of historic Anglicanism or lead to further fragmentation and schism still remains to be seen.

What happened in Jerusalem can be summed up under several headings. The conference was primarily attended by conservative Anglicans—from Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, West Africa, Tanzania, the Southern Cone, and the Sydney diocese of Australia, as well as by several conservative bishops from the American, Canadian, and English churches. In both numbers and influence, GAFCON was heavily but not exclusively African—leadership was assumed by primates such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria and Henry Orombi of Uganda, but the popular Australian evangelical archbishop Peter Jensen, among others, also exercised influence. The overall impression of many attendees was one of fellowship, resolve, and worship—in sharp contrast to the contentiousness and broken fellowship that has characterized many gatherings of Anglican leadership in the recent past.

The conference was also markedly evangelical. The theological documents produced by the conference (such as “The Way, The Truth, and the Life”) were all firmly set within the evangelical wing of Anglicanism. The perspicuity, divine inspiration, and self-interpreting nature of Scripture were recurrent themes; GAFCON attendees saw themselves as forthrightly standing up for the clarity of “God’s word written” and the paramount necessity of the Church’s obedience to it. Those of a more Catholic Anglican persuasion may legitimately worry if they have been left out of GAFCON’s vision of orthodoxy. While some Anglo-Catholics were indeed present, such as Bishop Jack Iker of the Fort Worth diocese, they were a decided and evident minority.

As for GAFCON’s enemies, little doubt was left that the attendees of the conference intend to drive away the errant doctrines of theological liberalism from the Anglican Communion, and are prepared to act independently of Canterbury and the formal structures of Anglicanism. The final statement cited “three undeniable facts” as the root of the crisis facing global Anglicanism: first, the promotion of a “different gospel” (read: defiance of Scripture and acceptance of theological pluralism) contrary to apostolic teaching; second, the broken communion brought upon the Anglican Communion by the preaching of this false gospel (particularly with regard to the American and Canadian churches’ acceptance of same-sex unions and the American church’s elevation of an actively gay man, Gene Robinson, to the episcopacy); and third, the “manifest failure” of the existing structures of Anglicanism to do anything about it.

More positively, the GAFCON statement spelled out fourteen “tenets of orthodoxy,” which they regard as foundational to orthodox Anglican theology. Dedication to the gospel of Christ and subscription to the Holy Scriptures as “the Word of God written,” containing “all things necessary for salvation,” come first, along with the need to interpret the Scriptures with due respect for Church tradition and the “rule of faith” expressed by the first four ecumenical councils and the three historic creeds. (Here, Anglo-Catholics have something to cheer about.)

Christ’s universal lordship, atoning death, and glorious resurrection are proclaimed as securing the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith. The three-fold order of ministry is upheld, and the unique normative status of Christian marriage (understood in its traditional sense) is maintained. The Thirty-Nine Articles are held up as authoritative for Anglican doctrine, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as authoritative for Anglican prayer and worship (as locally adapted), and the orders and jurisdiction of Anglicans who ascribe to orthodox faith and practice are recognized as universally valid in the Communion.

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