GAFCON and England: Judgement and Mercy

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8666

[VirtueOnline] 21 Jul 2008--Just three weeks after the announcement of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, it is already clear that GAFCON has irrevocably changed the Anglican Communion. The majority of the world's Anglicans now no longer look to Canterbury.

Structures that stifle spiritual life will eventually find themselves bypassed and this is exactly what was expressed in the courteous but firm response of the GAFCON Primates Council to Rowan Williams' criticisms, declaring in the final paragraph that 'We assure the Archbishop of Canterbury of our respect as the occupier of an historic see which has been used by God to the benefit of his church and continue to pray for him to be given wisdom and discernment.'

It is of course disorientating for the leadership of the Church of England to find itself described as belonging to 'an historic see' of the Anglican Communion when it naturally thinks of itself as 'the historic see'.

The reality which GAFCON, as a confessional movement, forces the Church of England to face is that the spiritual devastation caused by the promotion of a false gospel is not safely contained on the other side of the Atlantic, but that the same counterfeit Christianity has become deeply ingrained in its own life with the real risk that under pressure from an increasingly secularised culture it may follow the same path to apostasy as has been pioneered by ECUSA/TEC.

The seriousness of the their Church's spiritual wound has been routinely denied and downplayed for so long, not only by revisionists, but also many who would identify themselves as evangelicals, that there is now a very powerful temptation to try and carry on the pretence.

This would be a tragedy, because stern though the GAFCON diagnosis of Western Anglicanism is, it does also manifest a certain mercy towards the Church of England. We now have over forty years experience to confirm that evangelicals are incapable of reforming and renewing the Church of England from within, but with GAFCON comes the possibility of a new start if they have the courage and humility to embrace this global fellowship which embodies doctrinal and mission commitments which they should hold dear.