The "Sunday" section of Gafcon's Public Gallery takes an interestingly Stalinist approach to the selection of images. Although approximately fifty of the scans are of the main Sunday eucharist at St George's Cathedral, and although Bishop Dawani, was preacher at this service in his own cathedral, there is not a single photograph of the bishop taken during the course of the service. The only photograph of him, a closeup as he greets Archbishop Akinola, identifies Akinola but not Dawani. Maybe didn't much care for his sermon? We know they don't like his choice of house guests.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Gafcon/Sunday/photo#5214797010175795218

'...and although Bishop Dawani, was preacher at this service in his own cathedral, there is not a single photograph of the bishop taken during the course of the service...'

They can air-brush who they choose. But want they'd really like is really to make some of us vanish --not without success in Nigeria.

They can't drive us off the streets and communities of UK, but they sure do want to keep us out of Church--or if present, to be hidden like this bishop in his own cathedral !

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali interview.

I just watched +Nazir-Ali, and his "conscience" suggest he "may go to Lambeth" depending upon if his requirements are met (or someth'n like that) because he has trouble "sharing Communion" with some of the others (that he apparently doesn't think ought accept the Gifts of God for The People of God).

I've never seen such pompus fidgeting anywhere/anytime.

Under intense pressure from ace reporter Riazat Butt, +Jensen, the emerging leader of GAFCON, finally cracks and reveals the painstakingly planned future for the movement. Which is, are you ready...?

"This is a coalition of people who would not necessarily work together. Will it work? We don't know."

Oh.

Time for some levity, me'thinks. An oldie but a goodie. (And remember - always have Leviticus to protect you...!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ziECzNKhM

The Socialist Episcopal Church!!

I wonder if Hugo Chaves will join?!?

There's something very weird about seeing Archbishop Peter Jensen in his grey striped open necked shirt consorting with all those African primates in zuchetti or purple birettas - one cannot feel they will have a long and happy future together. It looks, from the photos, as if they split churchmanship-wise for their Sunday worship - the early Mass looks very Catholic, and the later one very Protestant. If you went to the early service, you would have got Bishop Ackerman in a lacy alb genuflecting before Our Lord Truly Present under the forms of Bread and Wine, and if you went to the later one, it looks like you would have got a man in a pullover serving Ribena and Mother's Pride. Don't they see the historic theological differences here are far greater than anything to do with whether the celebrant is gay or straight?

"Don't they see the historic theological differences here are far greater than anything to do with whether the celebrant is gay or straight"

But what a perfect example of true Christian side by side! If only they could see the irony of it.

Hard getting Mothers' Pride* into a monstrance too !

* Ah yes may be Mothers' Pride would be a good name for Gafcon as a continuing (post Jerusalem) movement.

Riaza Butt continues her wishful thinking rather than reporting news. What I find interesting is that Ms Butt and the readers here are quick to predict that because there are Anglo-catholics and evangelicals at GAFCon, they must surely fail. But if that is the case, let us just give up on Anglicanism.

No, the orthodox Anglo-catholics and evangelicals can live together as they have for the past 400 years. It is the liberal innovationists that are killing the church. In other words, tension between Anglo-catholics and evangelicals - good, the true via media; Tension between orthodox and liberals - deadly, there is no via media between orthodoxy and apostasy.

"They need to be rhetorical. In part, it's cultural."

So, Christians aren't called to be counter to a culture that thinks it acceptable to deride and condemn others, to hypocritically claim to love those one wants to jail. I see. Refusing to condemn acts of violence against people, even denying such acts occur, that's Christian adaptation to local culture? Got it.

"Dr Peter Jensen, who has become the key player on the Anglican conservative wing, shifting the emphasis from the US and African conservatives to Australia."

A militant fundamentalist who denies not only the historical catholic faith, but even many aspects of the Anglican practice of that faith, who reinterprets history to call his radical innovations "orthodox", this is their apparent leader? Glad I don't have to deal with the contradictions that raises. Thing is, many GAFCONITES will have to deal with those issues, which is why it's going to be such fun once they have cast the gaylovers into the outer darkness.

"Don't they see the historic theological differences here are far greater than anything to do with whether the celebrant is gay or straight?"

No, they don't. What would once have been a deep rift between them fades away to nothing, so great is the issue of homosexuality for them. Essentials even elevates marriage to the doctrinal level of the Trinity! One has to ask why homosexuality has such power for them.

Robroy: No, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals have never been able to work together in the C of E in the past. They have, in effect, inhabited two quite different churches by ignoring each other's existence in the C of E. Their previous coexistence is more of a historic model for toleration of the presence of other Anglicans who disagree with you than it is a model for a "pure" group excluding the doctrinally "impure."

"Tension between orthodox and liberals - deadly, there is no via media between orthodoxy and apostasy."

Ah, but you see, there CAN be such a Via Media if the conservatives stopped applying false labels. Conservatives in this debate are not "orthodox" by any reasonable definition of the word. I asked before if anyone could explain how Jensenite "Sydney Evangelicalsim" could be called orthodoxy. You have notably NOT taken up the challenge of providing such an explanation. I therefor assume you do not want to face the fact of the heterodoxy of those who presume to call themselves "orthodox". Second, liberals are not apostate, neither are they faithless, nor ignorant of Scripture, nor disrespectful of Scripture, nor selling out to the world. You have falsely defined conservatives as orthodox and liberals as apostate, then declared there cannot be a via media between them. How can there be peaceful coexistence with people who falsely accuse us of being something we are not?

If Jensen emerges as the chief Gaffer than that gives tye lie to the earlier bluster about GAFCON being non-western etc and putting power in the hands of the growing African church blah blah blah...

Surely this can't just be a powwer grab by the white conservatives in Australia and the US? After all, they keep telling us thay are the morally upright ones.

Actually, to my mind, only the liberals have kept the evos and the A.C.s from falling out; only the presence of a common enemy could keep Anglo-Papists and Anglican Lay Presidentials together in the same organization. The modern ones, anyway, who do, I agree, seem to be far more extreme (and of lesser stature, it certainly seems, given that neither can seem to co-exist with people who disagree with them about - of all things - the love and commitment of two human beings) than those who went before.

Anyway, robroy: in another 20 years, the (Anglican) generation that hates homosexuality (and partnered homosexuals) more than anything else on earth will all be gone. Sorry 'bout that.

“Despite the huffing, they maintain they don't want to leave Anglicanism: in the old evangelical phrase, it's a convenient boat to fish from. But many other Anglicans would like to see them go”--Stephen Bates [the author of “God's Own Country: Power and the Religious Right in the USA”]

I’m one of those who frankly would like to see them go, already! I make no apologies about that.

"many other Anglicans would like to see them go"

Well, in my more unChristian moments, I'd agree, but in a more sober mind, I think a schism would be a powerful witness to our inability to actually live the Gospel

bls posted: "Anyway, robroy: in another 20 years, the (Anglican) generation that hates homosexuality (and partnered homosexuals) more than anything else on earth will all be gone. Sorry 'bout that."

For anyone who has lived in the United States, through the period of roughly about 1960 to the present, they can relate to how very old prejudices do indeed fade as earlier generations fade away.

bls has wisely warned robroy that he/she will indeed be as disappointed as those who hated blacks, or hispanics, or non-Europeans, became disappointed, as generation after generation that followed gradually destroyed those pillars of hate.

You can always twist your concept of law, or Scripture, to suit your personal or familial prejudices; but those prejudices -- whether of race, or origin, or gender, or sexual orientation --will fade away, just as surely.

Robroy wrote: “No, the orthodox Anglo-catholics and evangelicals can live together as they have for the past 400…”

You mean “live apart”, surely.

Isn’t that the trouble behind today’s troubles?

"Anyway, robroy: in another 20 years, the (Anglican) generation that hates homosexuality (and partnered homosexuals) more than anything else on earth will all be gone. Sorry 'bout that."

A strange statement that flies in the face of reality. The Episcopal denomination was the fastest declining one last year. That Presbyterians just announced that last year was the worst ever for them, signals how bad it was for TEC. This year promises to be much worse. And the news in Canada and England? Pretty much all bad.

Now, the "homosexual haters"? By which Mr BLS means those that adhere to sciptural authority? The African church is exploding. The GS aligned churches in North America are growing nicely.

As to Peter Jensen's or the Diocese of Sydney's view on the eucharist - he said himself in one of the news conferences that 1) the Bible doesn't spell out who can administer the eucharist, but also 2) that despite talking about it for 30 years, they haven't reached consensus with the greater communion and so haven't moved forward with the proposal (that is being responsible).

But Ford Elms and Gene Robinson are free to call themselves orthodox.

“As to Peter Jensen's or the Diocese of Sydney's view on the eucharist - he said himself in one of the news conferences that 1) the Bible doesn't spell out who can administer the eucharist, but also 2) that despite talking about it for 30 years, they haven't reached consensus with the greater communion and so haven't moved forward with the proposal (that is being responsible).”Posted by: robroy

Rubbish! Anyone who knows anyone in Sydney can tell you that lay presidency is widespread in practice there. The Jensenites are just hypocritical about it, that’s all. It’s not “official” but it’s “actual practice.”

According to robroy's reasoning, communism must be the way to go, since China is the most populous nation on earth and getting bigger every day.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S.A., the Southern Baptists, who are as "orthodox" as you can get (when "orthodox" is used as a synonym for "fundamentalist," as it generally is these days), not to mention the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., are also experiencing their worst membership decline in decades.

The truth is, established churches across the spectrum are declining in numbers. The real picture is far more complex than robroy would have you believe.

"The African church is exploding. The GS aligned churches in North America are growing nicely."

Data please? Specifics? And, especially as concerns the "GS aligned churches in NA"--where are those new members coming from? If they're just picking up disgruntled folks from other Episcopal parishes or other Christian denominations, then they're not growing the church at all, just "switching pews" as it were.

Overall church attendance in the population as a whole has been in decline in the US for four decades, even within the RC church, where Sunday worship is supposed to be mandatory (and even in places where Saturday evening worship is now considered equal to Sunday morning).

The mainline Protestant churches are no worse off than the population as a whole...the growth of the so-called orthodox (whether Anglican or non-denominational) is largely a result of cherry-picking the most right-wing out of the other churches.

JPM writes,
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Meanwhile, here in the U.S.A., the Southern Baptists, who are as "orthodox" as you can get (when "orthodox" is used as a synonym for "fundamentalist," as it generally is these days), not to mention the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., are also experiencing their worst membership decline in decades.
----------
While the SBC membership did decline last year, it was less than 1% and the number of Southern Baptist churches grew by 1.1 percent to 44,696 and worship attendance increased slightly to 6.15 million.

And the (slight) decline is partially attributable to smaller families as well. Of course, the Episcopalians are much smarter than the Southern Baptists, and so they have a even smaller reproduction rate according to Ms Schori. (This ignores the fact that the average age of an Episcopalian is ~60, so they can't reproduce.)

To date, the membership / attendance data for the schismatical congregations in the US has been a tightly guarded secret - a tribute to the "conservative's" commitment to transparency.

Doubtless these will be released along with the info on who the mysterious $9M GAFPRONE donor was, or who all actually attended the GAFFEPRONE pretendy pilgrimage.

Robroy:

And what's the average age of one of your so-called "orthodox" Christians in the US? I can't believe it's under 40...because every poll indicates that the younger a person is in this country the more likely they are to have a tolerant attitude toward same-sex relationships.

Unless you're suggesting that every bigot under 40 has gravitated to your preferred kind of religion.