Thinking Anglicans

GAFCON expands its organization

GAFCON has a press release: Plans announced for GAFCON 2 and London and Africa offices.

GAFCON primates meeting in Africa have announced plans for another international conference as well as opening offices in London and Nairobi.

The council of Anglican leaders was established by the Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008, representing more than 35 million Anglicans.

Now, the Primates are planning for a second GAFCON in 2013 preceded by a leadership conference in New York in 2012…

…In a 13 point statement issued after their Nairobi meeting, the Council said “if we are offer adequate support to our member provinces, sustain our various initiatives, and strengthen our communications capabilities we must add capacity to our current secretariat.”

A Chairman’s office would be established in Nairobi, Kenya and a GAFCON Global Coordination office would be established in London under the direction of the Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of the Church of Nigeria, serving as Deputy Secretary and Executive Director.

The meeting discussed the challenges confronting the Anglican Communion and the Primates said they were “disappointed that those who organized the Primates meeting in Dublin not only failed to address these core concerns but decided instead to unilaterally reduce the status of the Primates’ Meeting. This action was taken with complete disregard for the resolutions of both Lambeth 1978 and 1998 that called for an enhanced role in ‘doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters’. We believe that they were seriously misled and their actions unacceptable.”

“We continue to be troubled by the promotion of a shadow gospel that appears to replace a traditional reading of Holy Scriptures and a robust theology of the church with an uncertain faith and a never ending listening process. This faith masquerades as a religion of tolerance and generosity and yet it is decidedly intolerant to those who hold to the “faith once and for all delivered to the saints”.

The thirteen-point statement is available in full via the above link, and also as a PDF. It includes:

9. Confident of the power of God’s Word to renew His church we are creating a network for theologians and theological educators who embrace the Jerusalem Declaration to give further support for our seminaries and Bible Colleges. We have also reviewed and approved plans for the leadership conference now scheduled for April 2012 and the beginning preparations for an international gathering of Primates, Bishops, Clergy and Lay Leaders now scheduled for the first half of 2013 and provisionally designated “GAFCON 2”.

10. We are delighted in the election of the Most Rev’d Eliud Wabukala, Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya to serve as Chairman of the Primates’ Council and also the Most Rev’d Nicholas D. Okoh, Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) to serve as Vice-Chairman. We were pleased to appoint Bishop Greg Venables and Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini as trustees. We also welcomed the Most Rev’d Hector Zavala, Province of the Southern Cone and the Most Rev’d Onesphore Rwaje, Anglican Church of Rwanda as new members of the Council.

11. We also recognized that if we are offer adequate support to our member provinces, sustain our various initiatives, and strengthen our communications capabilities we must add capacity to our current secretariat. Consequently it was agreed that a GAFCON/FCA Chairman’s office would be established in Nairobi, Kenya and a Global Coordination office would be established in London under the direction of the Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of the Church of Nigeria, serving as Deputy Secretary and Executive Director.

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Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
12 years ago

As always, the question must be asked–who is paying for all this? Is money from the provincial coffers of the constituent provinces being used? Has such usage been approved by the lay contributors to those treasuries…or is lay approval of how money is spent something not done in the GAFCON provinces?

Or is the money coming from some undisclosed third party? If so, what is the agenda of that third party?

Lister Tonge
Lister Tonge
12 years ago

Since this Statement castigates ‘an uncertain faith and a never ending listening process’, may we deduce that what it would support is a faith with no room for doubt and an end to listening to one another?

John Bunyan
John Bunyan
12 years ago

What is meant by saying GAFCON represents 35 million Anglicans ? How many of this alleged 35 million have ever heard of Gafcon ? – whether or not they agree or disagree with aspects of Gafcon’s views about which I myself am not commenting. Does this figure include church-going members of the Diocese of Sydney – a fairly small minority of all those who identify themselves as Anglicans or Church of England in the Diocese but who rarely if ever attend church ? (Many of the latter of course are fine Christians as I know from having met with a… Read more »

JPM
JPM
12 years ago

“…a GAFCON Global Coordination office would be established in London under the direction of the Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns….”

Does this mean that Minns is going back to England?

(If so, is there any way we can get him to take Andrew Sullivan with him?)

Michael Russell
Michael Russell
12 years ago

Refusing to accede to threats and ultimatums is not intolerance. It is wise that they put “the faith once and for all delivered to the saints” in quotation marks since it is a fiction and never for a moment actually existed.

The listening process may be never ending only because they never genuinely participate. It is hard to listen when one is constantly on the attack.

Good to know they have all this new money for prices and secretariats. I wonder where it comes from.

Jeremy
Jeremy
12 years ago

GAFCON says, “We continue to be troubled by the promotion of a shadow gospel.”

An old hymn says:

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Pluralist
12 years ago

So far GAFCON has been an uneventful flop, so this is obviously going to be a relaunch with intent at entryism via Martyn Minns in England. Unless they actually do some international oversight and shadow institutions, it will continue to be a flop.

Fr Levi
12 years ago

The press release that goes along with this says that GAFCON represents 35 million Anglicans. Whatever about how accurate a claim that might be, it’s hard not to think, reading between the lines of the statement, that they are gearing up for some kind of split.

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
12 years ago

The consequences of nurturing a viper at one’s breast are becoming clearer.

Leonardo Ricardo
Leonardo Ricardo
12 years ago

We were pleased to appoint Bishop Greg Venables and Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini as trustees¨ GAFCON

Yes, these men have a history of trustworthiness through ongoing ¨fundraising¨ acts that are worthy of much expensive/extensive legal scrutiny in North and South America (ACNA)…one might say they are as ¨experienced¨ and ¨charismatic¨ as Charles Ponzi and the Rev. Amy Semple McPherson were–combined.

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
12 years ago

The ruling in the Virginia lawsuits should come some time in the next month or so. If Minns’ side loses, this will give him something to do besides finding new spaces for the CANA churches to worship. Somehow the clergy and their followers involved in this don’t strike me as being happy to rent a high school auditorium. We’ll see.

JCF
JCF
12 years ago

“GAFCON primates meeting in Africa have announced plans for another international conference as well as opening offices in London…” Well, don’t say we apostate TEC Yanks didn’t warn you, CofE! “Now, the Primates are planning for a second GAFCON in 2013 preceded by a leadership conference in New York in 2012…” I trust we Yanks (in TEC, and perhaps others, esp. from the greater LGBT community in NYC) will give the GAFCONians an appropriate “welcome” in the streets. (I just wish we could provide the gay-bashing enablers the sort of ARRESTING event they deserve! >:-0) “We continue to be troubled… Read more »

Mark Bennet
Mark Bennet
12 years ago

It might be more accurate to talk of a listening process which has never begun. If it never begins it can’t ever end, so the two are compatible.

Jonathan Kirkpatrick
Jonathan Kirkpatrick
12 years ago

This faith masquerades as a religion of tolerance and generosity and yet it is decidedly intolerant to those who hold to the “faith once and for all delivered to the saints”.

I wonder if the people who wrote this have any knoweldge of church history at all; well obviously only a sanitised version if any. Those who want a world in which there are only black and white contrasts (nothing pejorative intended in using such a metaphor) have always struggled to make the gospel and the carpenter of Nazareth fit their paradigm.

Robert ian Williams
Robert ian Williams
12 years ago

With Lambeth ignorantly and deliberately ignoring the needs of the conservative Evangelical community in its appointment of flying bishops, maybe Bishop Minns will be able to minister to them.

Martin Reynolds
12 years ago

Surely, this is the punch line ….
“7. We believe, however, that we are fully the church in our various settings, ……(etc)”

Reminiscent of a famous front page headline from some years back with its catchy internal rhyme and photo of a hand giving a V sign, it ran:

“UP YOURS, DELORS!”

Martin Reynolds
12 years ago

The stuff on the Primates unilateralism is shameful tosh, stoked up by that tiny rabble in the ACI/Fulcrum axis. Shame on them!

Davis Mac-Iyalla
Davis Mac-Iyalla
12 years ago

Now I understand the real reason for Archbishop Oko’s recent visit to Nigeria Priests in the UK and his request that Nigerians should have a church in a church. Sorry GAFCON you will not succeed in the UK.

Lord in your mercy: Hear our prayers !!!

Perry Butler
Perry Butler
12 years ago

The reference to “Shadow Gospel” is presumably based on Charles Raven’s analysis of Rowan Williams theology( see website SPREAD) in a book recently published by the Latimer Press, and thus a deliberate attack on the Archbishop.GAFCON appears to be notching things up but presumably hold back from an explicit split knowing that would cause internal problems within provinces. I know, for example ,the Abp of West Africa does not have the support of many bishops in Ghana or Sierra Leone . I trust Martyn Minns will not be granted a Permission to Officiate in the Diocese of London.You would assume… Read more »

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
12 years ago

“I trust Martyn Minns will not be granted a Permission to Officiate in the Diocese of London.”

From your lips to God’s ear.

Who ultimately issues Permission to Officiate? If it’s the ABC, I hope he has the common sense not to issue such a document.

If he does, he will not be happy with what may happen, but will have nobody to blame but his own fuzzy self.

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
12 years ago

“The consequences of nurturing a viper at one’s breast are becoming clearer.” Posted by: Lapinbizarre Crazy Rabbit would seem to be speaking good sense here. What now for all those prelates in the U.K. who have sided with GAFCON’s hubris in their issuing an alternative Anglican Constitution with the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’? Will the Church of England see the danger on its own doorstep? Or will it take a wholesale invasion of CANA-style clerical and episcopal ordinations from Nigeria and Uganda – for the purpose of the infiltration of the U.K. Church – to put a stop to this faux-Orthodox-Anglicanism from… Read more »

MarkBrunson
MarkBrunson
12 years ago

“If it’s the ABC, I hope he has the common sense not to issue such a document.”

Oh . . . . oh my! Cynthia, *that* is the best laugh I’ve had since the first time I saw Lewis Black.

Mr. Williams and common sense. Hilarious!

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
12 years ago

Permission to officiate, if granted, would come from the Bishop of London, wouldn’t it? The Church of England in South Africa people were refused permission by Bishop Butler of Southwark, in whose diocese they were planted, but were approved on appeal by the Bishop of Winchester. Will his ruling be precedent-setting in the case of Minns?

Bill Dilworth
Bill Dilworth
12 years ago

Lapinbizarre, I don’t understand: why would the Bishop of Winchester hear an appeal from a decision of the Bishop of Southwark?

Perry Butler
Perry Butler
12 years ago

I think you will find Presbyters of the Church of England have been licensed in the C of E since the time of Abp Coggan who, it seems, decided the Overseas Clergy Act could be stretched to cover them. Im suprised the Church of the Province of South Africa didnt make more of a fuss….but perhaps they didnt know.

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
12 years ago

Thinking Anglicans links on the 2006 Coekin appeal, Bill – http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/001702.html

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
12 years ago
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