Monday, June 23, 2008

Anglicans gather in Jerusalem to protest secularization

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214132655979&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[The Jerusalem Post] 23 Jun 2008--Ordination of homosexuals, same-sex marriages and a perceived deviation from Jesus's gospel have prompted some 300 hundred clergymen and hundreds more delegates from the conservative wing of the Anglican Communion to gather this week in Jerusalem.

The meeting, known as the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), is perhaps the most tangible demonstration yet of the division within the 77-million-strong Anglican church.

More liberal dioceses located primarily in North American and Britain are now pitted against more conservative congregants and clergy who come from the West, but also in disproportionately high numbers from Africa, Asia and South America.

These conservative Anglicans might represent just a third of the Anglican bishops, but they make up about 75 percent of Anglican churchgoers, said GAFCON organizers who spoke with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

An identical trend of an increasingly liberal "West" alienated from a more conservative "East" or "South" has threatened unity also within the Catholic Church and various Protestant sects.

Organizers who spoke to the Post Sunday said that GAFCON was not advocating a schism in the Anglican church, rather the conference was an expression of an "impaired communion."

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