Updated:
More news is emerging about the backers of the Global Anglican Future meeting planned to be held prior to Lambeth 2008.
As reported by The Lead December 29, Dr. Michael Poon, a respected voice of the Global Anglican South leadership, publicly questioned the organization, communication and purposes of the meeting. Now he has responded to a letter from a “leading primate” which rebuked Dr. Poon. The trail of editing seems to indicate that the rebuke came from Archbishop Akinola in Nigeria, but was written in large part by an American-based bishop connected with CANA (as reported on Thinking Anglicans) Suggestions as to the American bishop’s identity include Bishops Minns or Bishop Anderson.
There are also questions beginning to emerge about whether or not the conference site (the Holy Land) was chosen with the full knowledge and support of either the local Anglican bishop or the primate responsible for that region. Additionally, Archbishop Anis (who is the primate of the Anglican province which contains the Holy Land) has apparently written to Archbishop Akinola asking that the date of the conference be changed to one following the Lambeth meeting this summer.
Finally, according to the WHOIS database of domain registration, the GAFCON website was registered by Canon Chris Sugden’s organization, Anglican Mainstream an evangelical group based in England which has close ties to Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali (of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester) and Archbishop Akinola.
Read the account of the published rebuke to Dr. Poon here.
The Pluralist comments on the metadata and the letters here.
Added January 1: An article on GAFCON at The Guardian.