The need for GAFCON

Presentation at the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Southern Africa, Port Elizabeth, September 3 2009

Chris Sugden

Why was it necessary for the Primates of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and the Southern Cone to invite Anglicans from around the world to meet with them and their bishops in Jerusalem in June 2008 for the Global Anglican Future Conference? You have with you today three people who were in the room when that decision was taken: Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Canon Vinay Samuel and myself.

My privilege this morning is to set out why GAFCON Jerusalem 2008 was necessary.

The immediate cause for GAFCON was the invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams to those who had consecrated Gene Robinson as a Bishop to attend the Lambeth Conference. This invitation was sent in July 2007, and the timing was significant as I will show later.

Following this invitation, Archbishop Peter Akinola made a visit in October 2007 at his own expense to London to meet with Archbishop Rowan Williams to ask him most seriously to delay the Lambeth Conference until the issue of the consecration of Gene Robinson by the Episcopal Church could be resolved. When Archbishop Williams proved immovable on this certain things became crystal clear to Archbishop Akinola and his colleagues.

First, all that they had done since 1998 to state and clarify both the scriptural teaching of the Anglican Communion, and its pastoral response from a biblical perspective to those in same-sex relationships, had achieved nothing. The result of this process was that there was no clear message of Anglican identity. The account of this ten year process is given by Archbishop Akinola in his article: “A most agonizing journey towards Lambeth 2008” which is the opening chapter of The Way, the Truth and the Life (Latimer Trust 2008). The question was therefore would more of the same achieve anything further.

Second, those who had defied this teaching would be fully part of the spiritual, table, Eucharistic and conciliar fellowship of the bishops of the Anglican Communion for three weeks. By refusing to join them, these African archbishops were not refusing to come to a table to discuss an issue about which there was disagreement. For them it was a matter of the witness of the Church – did its senior leaders in the highest councils of a hierarchical church endorse the actions of people who had made a bishop of a divorced man, living now in an active same-sex relationship outside the Christian teaching on marriage and engage with them as equally faithful shepherds of the flock of Christ?

230 serving bishops – over a quarter of those eligible to attend Lambeth, said they would not do this. For them it was a conflict about the nature of truth. Was truth to be found in endless discussion, at an open table, in an indaba process where no revelation was given or to be apprehended, or in unbounded diversity? The so-called open table is already biased in favour of a non-biblical agenda as it assumes that all opinions are of equal worth, even those that reject the bible’s teaching. The indaba process is designed for communities where the moral boundaries and the system of governance is settled and not up for discussion: it is not designed to investigate or invent or design those boundaries. True diversity for these bishops was to be found in the expression of different gifts of the Holy Spirit, discovered and exercised in adherence to scriptural and Christological distinctives. In sharp contrast the prevailing passion for diversity pushes these distinctives to the margins.

These bishops were not against dialogue and discussion. They were against being part of a dialogue of senior Christian leaders that had no accountability to any revealed truth.

Third, these archbishops had come to the conclusion that more of the same discussions that had preceded Lambeth would not achieve anything further. The resolutions of the Lambeth Conference of 1998 had been ignored. Why should they believe any further resolutions would resolve matters or be followed? Then the decisions of the Primates Meeting had been overridden. The Primates’ Meeting in Dromantine in Ireland in 2005 had decided that the American and Canadian churches would be asked to withdraw their participation in the councils of the Church until they had responded to the requests made of them through the Windsor Report. But they attended the ACC meeting in Nottingham in 2006 and now were being invited to the 2008 Lambeth. Further, the Primates Meeting in Dar-es-Salaam in 2007 had specifically asked for responses from those churches to requests by the Primates Meeting by September 30 2007. Three months before those responses were given, the bishops of those churches were invited to Lambeth 2008. So those responses were rendered irrelevant and the Primates’ request vain. Further the strong request of the Primates’ meeting in 2007 that all litigation against orthodox churches in North America be dropped was and continues to be ignored.

As these Primates reflected on these developments, or rather lack of developments between 2003 and 2007, they came to the conclusion that a new approach was needed. They needed to take council with their bishops, and clergy and lay people.

From what transpired at Jerusalem in 2008 we can see a number of contours of this new approach taking shape.

First, they would call for a coalition of the willing – of those who would stand publicly with Anglican faith and practice as set out in the Anglican formularies. Over 1200 people from 27 provinces of the Communion responded to their invitation to meet. They represented at least over 40 million of the 55 million churchgoing Anglicans around the world.

Secondly, they called for Anglicans to return to their roots to discover who we are. Primarily this was to their roots in scripture as the supreme authority for faith and conduct. But to engage with scripture they felt strongly called to return to the places where scripture if one can put it this way, took place: where God spoke and acted in history to and for his people. It was not an easy decision to meet in Jerusalem and was beset with many difficulties. But meeting in Jerusalem was very powerful. We met in a city whose life had been shaped by the word of God, We met in the place, on the steps of the temple, where Peter had preached the risen Jesus and opened that life to the whole world. For me, as a member of the Church of England, it was very powerful indeed to realize that my spiritual roots belonged here, where Abraham had been called to sacrifice Isaac on the Mount of Moriah; where the Old Testament worship had taken place; where Jesus had taught and been tried, been crucified and raised; and where the Holy Spirit had been given to empower the disciples for mission. And here were 1200 of us, from the nations of the world, the fruit of that mission 2000 years later gathered to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. Rome, Canterbury, Geneva, New York are just not in the same league. Our Anglican roots are not in the sixteenth century, nor in the sixth century, but in the Holy Land all the way back to Abraham. People are Anglicans because of their biblical faith, not because they are approved by one or another structure.

Thirdly, the Primates trusted the Holy Spirit moving among his people to guide us. There was no prepared text or even papers for us to discuss at Jerusalem. There were bible studies and study groups, but no texts. Yet, as the week progressed, in bible study groups, workshop groups, and regional groups, the participants found they came to a common mind about the nature of Anglican identity and mission. This they expressed in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. There were scenes of great joy when the statement was read and adopted. We were so thrilled that God had led us from all our backgrounds, and cultures and traditions to be rooted in the same understanding of his Word and our faith.

Fourthly, this leads to the point that this movement does not depend on a centralized bureaucracy. It was the development of such a centralized bureaucracy over the last 40 years that had undermined the orthodoxy of the Anglican Communion. For a large bureaucracy requires large funds to support it and this hands control to funders and fund raisers.

In sharp contrast to this centralized approach, the approach of GAFCON and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has been to enable each parish, congregation and committed person to contribute. That is why it is so good to be having this meeting here in St John’s Walmer. At our launch in London, one church provided all the staffing for the stewarding; another group of churches provided the staffing for the worship service. This enables local churches and people to know they have a significance in having a larger role themselves. The development of FCA South Africa will not be a matter of setting up a central office to do the work: it will be a matter of many small battalions all over the place moving things forward as part of a larger movement.

The heart and root of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans certainly in the UK and Ireland is in the life and work of local churches where mission is done and their leadership. We have determined to build on the space we have and relate internationally to the other Fellowships and the Primates’ Council.

And fifthly the controlling paradigm is mission. It was the argument of those who called GAFCON that the mission of the Anglican church was being severely hindered by the unwillingness of the church to be consistently biblically faithful in its discipline and practice of marriage. They argued that issues of sexuality had crowded out other vital issues for the church to engage with: therefore they engaged with those issues at Jerusalem. The focus of the Jerusalem Conference was on the Lordship of Jesus, the authority of the scriptures, the kingdom of God, the centrality of a strong doctrine of the cross, church planting, enterprise solutions to poverty and the gospel’s engagement with secularism and other religions. Following Jerusalem the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK at the request of the Primates Council has established Anglican International Development to enable local churches to partner churches, Dioceses and provinces in gospel shaped development with resources, skills, contacts and support.

Sixthly, the controlling driver for mission is theology, not ideology. The GAFCON Primates Council as it became, commissioned a Theological Resource Group to provide a preparatory study for the Jerusalem Conference which is available as The Way, the Truth and the Life. It has also commissioned this Theological Resource Group to produce a commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration.

So the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans was formed to address two tasks: first to take forward the mission of the church, and preach the transforming biblical gospel so that people can come to know Christ and second to provide support and protection and fellowship for those faithful Anglicans who were being persecuted for their orthodox faith and who need recognition and authentication. In particular the Primates Council has provided encouragement to those in the United States to form their own new entity, the Anglican Church in North America.

Finally, why Confessing Anglicans? Public confession of the apostolic faith is needed to identify where orthodox Anglicans stand in relation to the current challenges. It is not saying that we are the only faithful Anglicans. It is reaffirming Anglican identity and rooting it in the apostolic faith, belonging to a Christian church which is centered on the gospel and bounded by Scripture. The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans invites others who share this confession to stand clearly and firmly with us and to be willing to pay the price.