GAFCON, before or after Lambeth Conference, July 2008

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7998

[Virtue Online] 1 April 2008--Since 2007 I have written various pieces arguing that (a) if GAFCON [Global Anglican Future Conference] is to occur then it ought to be after not before Lambeth; (b) that the East and West African Bishops, who are boycotting Lambeth are needed there; and (c) that an extraordinary effort needs to be made before, at, and after Lambeth to make room for the healing grace of God our Savior to flow into the life and affairs of the Anglican Communion of Churches. In stating this, I am fully aware that the in any reform and renewal of the Anglican Family, now so dysfunctional, the present dominance of the (in general, secularized) North will need to give much way to the (in general, dynamic and orthodox) South.

As I have continued to study carefully the statements and mindset of those who are behind GAFCON (e.g., the Primates of Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, along with allies in America, Britain and Australia) what has come reasonably clear to me is this: that according to the developing mindset of the organizers, to have the conference and pilgrimage before Lambeth was essential to their deep sense of ministerial vocation and witness-a matter of conscience. This mindset has been profoundly influenced by the observation of the failure of the Anglican Communion of Churches, through its various Instruments of Unity and Lambeth Commissions and Reports, to do anything to halt the advance of the homosexual agenda in both The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada, or to discipline these Churches for their heresies and immorality. Also there is the sense that Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is at heart in sympathy with the innovations and has not done and will not do what was/is necessary to oppose them or to discipline the offenders.