Anglican traditionalists set to form a 'church within a church'

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=2214

[Religious Intelligence] 28.06.08--Traditionalists are set to form a “church within a church”, keeping in formal relation with the Archbishop of Canterbury but severing ties with the progressive wings of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.

A communiqué being prepared by pilgrims to the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) will call for new structures to support conservatives and likely formalize a break with the Episcopal Church.

The changes Gafcon sees are new structural relations between Anglican churches including a break with the progressive wing of The Episcopal Church, a common approach to reading the Bible, a new catechism and a new Book of Common Prayer shared by conservatives across the Communion, Nigerian Bishop John Akao said.

The “centre of Anglicanism has shifted from Europe to Africa,” Sydney lay leader and member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference, Robert Tong said. Past pan-Anglican gatherings had been jamborees where we “were all scouts together,” Mr Tong said, but the rise in influence of African Anglicanism meant a change was in the works for what it meant to be Anglican.

“It’s a question of doctrine or structure. Which of these makes one Anglican?,” AMiA Bishop John Rodgers, former Dean of the Trinity Episcopal School Ministry, said. Both views were contending for control of the meeting, which will set the future course of the conservative movement within Anglicanism, he noted.