Bishop Tom Butler of Southwark: “It is maintained that there is a North/South division. This is nonsense. The African primates attending Gafcon came from a narrow tropical belt. The majority of African primates were not there and the language of the manifesto would be anathema to other influential African church figures such as Desmond Tutu.”
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (an acronym too far) “uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.” So let’s have a look at them.
The fact that its essential activity is poaching shows that GAFCON is too weak to sustain schism at the level of the Communion and that right wingers in the US and Canada are too weak to sustain schism without help from abroad. The best that can be done–after five years of turmoil–is a redoubling of efforts to create a vampire, a province in North America.
Some GAFCON pilgrims are disappointed that an explicit pro-life plank was not included in the final document despite their efforts to have their views included. It appears that the final document was relatively unchanged from the original that existed at the beginning of the conference.
The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns led a news teleconference this morning to tell reporters about the significant happenings at the recent GAFCON conference in Jerusalem.
Updated with Reuters report. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori responds to the GAFCON statement: Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission
We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process.
The anti-gay crusade being led by Archbishops Peter Jensen and Henry Orombi, among others, is not receiving uniformly good reviews back home.
The mainstream media’s initial responses to the GAFCON statement reveal a variety of interpretation. The British papers think the challenge to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s authority is extremely significant. They also seem to believe that GAFCON participants have said something new about their relationship with the Episcopal Church. That isn’t the case.
The final Communique from the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) has been released and is appearing here and at other places around the web this evening.