Primates who did not attend the Dublin Primates meeting have issued a statement through Gafcon complaining about decisions made in their absence that underscored that the primates meeting is a meeting to build to collegiality, and is in not a tribunal that metes out penalties. It comes as no surprise that Gafcon does not agree.
The statement made one bit of news: “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.”
If the statement held any consequences they were not evident although George Conger’s report was headlined Gafcon throws down gauntlet to Dr. Williams. Perhaps having Minns in backyard of Lambeth Palace is the gauntlet.
The tone of the Nairobi statement from the Gafcon archbishops: Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, West Africa, the Southern Cone, Rwanda, Sydney and Archbishop Robert Duncan of the ACNA, speaks to the mounting frustration the reform movement’s leaders feel with the course of events taken by the London-based instruments of the communion, one insider told The Church of England Newspaper.
Given the African church’s historic deference to the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and their cultural predisposition not to air their differences in public, the Nairobi letter was a remarkably frank document, CEN was told.
Really? No, it was another rehash statement analogous to moving coins from one pocket to another and saying they’d gotten richer.