Thinking Anglicans

GAFCON and Uganda

A recent press release from Uganda has now been followed by another, What is GAFCON?

An excerpt:

Are the Bishops from the Church of Uganda going to Lambeth?

No. The Church of Uganda Bishops decided together not to go to Lambeth this year. Their decision has been supported by the governing body of the Church of Uganda, the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee. The reason the Church of Uganda is not going to Lambeth is because the purpose of Lambeth is for fellowship among Bishops, and our fellowship has been broken with the American church. We broke fellowship with them for three reasons:

1. In direct violation of the Bible and historic Christian teaching, they consecrated as a Bishop a gay man living in a same-sex relationship

2. After five years of pleading with them, listening to them, and giving them many opportunities, they have not repented of that decision.

3. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not follow the advice given to him by his own appointed Commission to not invite to Lambeth those responsible for the confusion and disobedience in the Anglican Communion. The Bible says, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” We have not been in fellowship with the Americans who have violated the Bible since 2003, so we are not going to pretend by going to Lambeth that we are in fellowship. We are not. What they have done is a very serious thing, and what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done in inviting them is grievous and we want them to know that.

Is the Church of Uganda seceding from the Anglican Communion?

No. We are simply not going to the Lambeth Conference. We are still part of the Anglican Communion, and the vast majority of the Anglican Communion opposes what the American Church has done and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s tacit support for it…

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susan hedges
susan hedges
15 years ago

Ah, no, we won’t be there. Gay cooties will be there. Those Americans will be bringing them!

bls
bls
15 years ago

Ah, yes. We Anglicans play by “vast majority” rules; I remember now. We takes votes on how the lives of other people should be lived. We don’t bother our pretty heads about persuading anyone, or coming up with sound theological argument; we just bully our way through – and tyranny of the vast majority rules. At least the Catholics deign to make an actual argument about the topic – something that can be looked over and worked with and argued about. Anglicans just make pronouncements, while gasping and clutching at their pearls. Why are these prelates surprised that others don’t… Read more »

Bob In PA
Bob In PA
15 years ago

Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church? Why not the Canadians or the English?
TEC is not the only church pushing the envelope.

Personally the Ugandans sound like “if you don’t play by my rules, I’m not going to play with you anymore!” I remember that from my childhood.
That’s really living the Gospel isn’t it?

JCF
JCF
15 years ago

Uganda’s (hierarchy’s) loss is Lambeth’s gain. But what of the poor *people* of Uganda? Pray they may receive more faithful shepherds.

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

This statement from the Church in Uganda is puzzling to say the least. The spokesperson speaks of their dissocation from the American Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury; how, then, can they still remain part of the Anglican Communion?

Perhaps this logic follows that of the Primate of Uganda, who, in an earlier communique, mentioned a figure of ‘1000 bishops’ who have declined the invitation to Lambeth. There are simply not that number in the Church. Where is the logic?

Robert Ian Williams
Robert Ian Williams
15 years ago

Of course the classic point is the last one on female ordination. here the Ugandan bishops ( unlike the Anglo-Saxon leadership) admit that there is a division on the ordination of women, and that evangelical people come to different conclusions on this issue. This of course shows that the perspicuity of Scripture is a flaw. Furthermore they imply that that female ordination variance is acceptable because the ordination of women is not concerned with sin… but surely divorce and re-marriage ( another area of evangelical disunity) is. The Ugandan bishops should be praised for their honesty and exposing the central… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

JFC wrote: “Uganda’s (hierarchy’s) loss is Lambeth’s gain. But what of the poor *people* of Uganda? Pray they may receive more faithful shepherds.” “The poor people of Uganda” have had civil war ever since Idi Amin. Many years ago the present dictator, Museweni lived in my home town in exile. It was war then, it is war now. Sweden supported the camp the USA supported. They got their exile, the others not. When Museweni left for Uganda with a suitcase of un-accounted-for Mexico-dolares (one had to have a Licence those days to take even small sums abroad) the civil war… Read more »

Peter of Westminster
Peter of Westminster
15 years ago

“Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church? Why not the Canadians or the English? TEC is not the only church pushing the envelope.” Well, Canadians are nice and everyone likes them — pretty hard to get people hopping mad at Canadians. And England is the home church of the communion — if you break with the CoE, it’s at least a bit of a logical quandary as to whether you’re still “Anglican.” But after 8 years of Neo-con governance in the USA and a longer period of a disproportionate American cultural, economic and military influence that… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
15 years ago

Why do some of you WANT to be in the same church as this bunch or premodern fundies?

You should all be campaigning for a split – the myth of a united Christian religion is just that. Liberal and conservative Christians believe entirely different things – face up to it.

robroy
robroy
15 years ago

“Of course the classic point is the last one on female ordination. here the Ugandan bishops ( unlike the Anglo-Saxon leadership) admit that there is a division on the ordination of women, and that evangelical people come to different conclusions on this issue.”

Hmm, no division on the ordination of women? Just push through the single clause, and you will see the division.

But I agree 100% that all our troubles began with divorced and remarried clergy.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

“Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church?” While several synods have voted in support of SSBs, none, to my knowledge has formally given approval. Canada has not consecrated an openly gay man. Canada has been far more quiet about all of this. An American bishop just last week essentially made support for SSBs an issue for Episcopalians in the next American election. Why? The Church has to be led by local American secular political initiatives? TEC is not at all shy about being public in her actions. Well, honesty is a virtue, but very publically carried… Read more »

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

“female ordination variance is acceptable because the ordination of women is not concerned with sin” But it most certainly is concerned with the validity, and thus the grace received by the worshipper, of the sacraments. That may well not be an issue for them, but if so it reveals a theology of sacraments that is certainly not orthodox. So this shows an obsession with sin and disregard for the sacramental life that is at the core of the vast majority of definitions of Christian Orthodoxy, it shows the same kind of disregard for the scruples of others that they blame… Read more »

drdanfee
drdanfee
15 years ago

It helps that the Uganda believers lay out their objections clearly. However, the response is fairly easy by now: 1. Two believers may walk together event though they disagree on doctrines and other things, mainly because they walk together as Anglicans – aware that their views are innately tied to and derived from their hermeneutics and scholarship, with the result that either of the two may be partly or wholly wrong in something as time and best practices of modern inquiry and help from the Holy Spirit may reveal. As Anglicans in our meantime, neither believer need refuse worship, or… Read more »

Bob In PA
Bob In PA
15 years ago

Thanks Peter and Ford. I forget TEC gets associated with the US’s politics/policies. Just for the record, I wasn’t putting down any other church but just wondering why they only mentioned TEC when things are also happening in other national churches.

On the other hand Orombi seems to be telling the ABC what to do with the recent wedding so I guess we all get the wrath of GS.

susan hedges
susan hedges
15 years ago

Well, Y’all, in a nutshell, reason we Americans are the ones to avoid is that we have a female Presiding Bishop. And she doesn’t know her place! How dare she think she is equal to the men….

Fils de Simon
Fils de Simon
15 years ago

“But I agree 100% that all our troubles began with divorced and remarried clergy.”

Posted by robroy.

I have the impression that all our troubles began much longer ago, perhaps with Mary’s fiat mihi, when a young girl consented to participate in the new and quite scandalous thing God was minded to do.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

“Well, Y’all, in a nutshell, reason we Americans are the ones to avoid is that we have a female Presiding Bishop.” Nonsense. They hated Frank Griswold just as much. It’s the Church that she leads, and the society it is associated with, that they hate. Her being a woman is just another thing they can carp at. Frankly, they’d hate TEC even if Jesus Himself was wearing her mitre. In the long run, it’s change and the possibility that they might inadvertently do something their vindictive God will torture them eternally for that scares them. As long as we are… Read more »

JCF
JCF
15 years ago

“Why do some of you WANT to be in the same church as this bunch or premodern fundies?”

Speaking only for myself, MM: I don’t believe that the masses of Anglicans, around the world, ARE fundies (Fundamentalism being, as you should know, a Modern phenomenon!) It’s their *hierarchies* who are the Fundamentalists.

Pre-modern masses? Maybe.

But I actually think pre-modern and post-modern have a LOT more in common: it’s the Modernist fundies who are (ironically) BOTH novel innovators, and regurgitated ancient heretics!

Peter of Westminster
Peter of Westminster
15 years ago

“Look at the bizarre phrase “gay culture”. That is urban North American gay culture, it doesn’t even speak to rural Americans, let alone those growing up gay in other cultures.” Ford — “gay culture” considerably predates the founding of the USA. Take a look at Queer Sites: gay urban histories since 1600, edited by David Higgs, Routledge, 1999, which charts the histories of such cultures in Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, London, Lisbon, Rio and San Francisco. I realize this doesn’t fully counter your point, but I have trouble believing that American culture is as dominant as you say. I wonder if… Read more »

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

“TEC is in fact a prophetic counterbalance to the excesses arising from the American political and military hegemony of recent years. I’m surprised that the “orthodox” don’t seem to at least see this as something good and positive about TEC. Sadly, sex seems to rivet their attention.” This is because the same forces in US politics that have made sex the centerpiece of their religious consternation are in favor of the American political and military hegemony of recent years. And those outside the US are dependent on those same sources for financial support, so they dare not speak against the… Read more »

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