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By Jim Coggins
ANGLICAN leaders in the West are insisting that the
worldwide Anglican Communion is still united; but a major proclamation from
orthodox leaders contends that it cannot “be patched back
together.”
Many bishops from the ‘global South’ did
not go to this year’s Lambeth Conference (July 16 – August
3), a gathering of bishops convened once every 10 years.
A few weeks before Lambeth, conservative
Anglicans from the global South took steps to structurally divide the
worldwide Communion. The Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON), which
met June 22 – 29 in Jerusalem, thus made official a division which
has been brewing for more than a decade.
On its closing day, GAFCON issued the ‘Jerusalem
Declaration,’ blaming the division on “the spiritual decline in
the most economically developed nations.”
Citing Galatians 1:6-8, the Declaration says some
Anglicans in the West have accepted “a different ‘gospel’
[which] undermines the authority of God’s word . . . and the
uniqueness of Jesus Christ,” and promotes “immoral
behaviour,” including same-sex unions.
Opening Lambeth, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams denied the Anglican Communion is headed for schism, rejected the
idea of an Anglican governing body proposed at GAFCON, and endorsed
the idea of an Anglican covenant which would function by “consent,
not coercion.”
At press time, some media covering the event were
complaining that most sessions were closed to the public and that
conference organizers would not provide information about which bishops are
present.
Leading up to Lambeth, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, head of
the Anglican Church of Canada, issued a statement denying GAFCON’s
“false gospel” charge.
He pointed to the “faithful proclamation of the
apostolic gospel in liturgy” and the official “mission
statement of the Anglican Church of Canada” as evidence of the
denomination’s orthodoxy.
Before he left for Lambeth, Michael Ingham, Bishop of
the Diocese of New Westminster – whose synod helped precipitate
the crisis by approving same-sex unions – told BCCN that neither the authority of
the Bible nor the uniqueness of Christ have ever been officially denied in
his diocese.
He did agree that his own book, Mansions of the Spirit, denied
“soteriological exclusivity” – i.e. that Jesus is
the only way to salvation.
Bishop Don Harvey leads the Anglican Network in Canada
(ANiC), a group aligned with GAFCON. He told BCCN the central issue is “the willingness to
unreservedly say that Jesus is the son of God, and the only means by which
salvation can be procured.”
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The Jerusalem Declaration set up a
‘Primates’ Council’ composed of the leaders of seven of
the 38 Anglican ‘provinces’: Nigeria, West Africa, Rwanda,
Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and South America.
This council will establish a formal international
Anglican body which will include only “jurisdictions, clergy and
congregations” which accept historically orthodox theology.
While 291 bishops attended the GAFCON conference,
compared to 657 at Lambeth, the churches in the global South are much
larger and growing much more quickly than churches in the West. Therefore,
GAFCON may already represent the majority of the worldwide communion.
The Jerusalem Declaration specifically calls for the
Primates’ Council to recognize the ‘Common Cause
Partnership’ as a North American ‘province.’ The
partnership is a coalition of conservative groups which have left the
Episcopal Church in the U.S., and the Anglican Church of Canada.
In effect, GAFCON is setting up an alternative Canadian
Anglican Church.
This may have legal implications. Currently, three
Anglican dioceses are demanding that parishes which have voted to join the
ANiC surrender their church buildings.
Cheryl Chang, a lawyer on the ANiC’s legal
defence team, told BCCN that GAFCON’s actions may help the courts recognize
the church is in the midst of a divorce – and in a divorce, one side
does not get all the assets.
Harvey does not expect the Jerusalem Declaration will
cause a sudden increase in people flowing into the ANiC, but suggested the
flow may grow in the next couple of years as more and more churches reach
“the flash point.”
For some, that might be court decisions saying
departing churches can keep their property. For others, it may come if
“the theological situation gets worse” after the next Anglican
Church of Canada General Synod in 2010.
August 2008
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