The GAFCON leadership has a list of eight people who are not welcome to observe the proceedings under any circumstances. The ban makes sense considering the refusal of the Primates at the conference to acknowledge and condemn violence against LGBT persons.
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe hates the British, is violently homophobic and will do anything, including political assassination to stay in power. The Anglican Church is paying the price for standing with the people of Zimbabwe.
Today today was a big day for pronouncements in the Anglican Communion, including publication of a statement about the Archbishop of Caterbury’s hope for Lambeth, an adress aby the Bishop of Jerusalem asking GAFCON participants to show humility and seek unity, and an adress by Archbishop Peter Akinola that was included pointed attacks on the Archbishop of Caterbury.
Relying on statements from his “friends”, the Sunday Telegraph reports that Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester will decline an invitation to attend Lambeth next month, and that others will join him.
There have a been a number of stories about the Global Anglican Future Conference appearing in the press and on NPR today. Here’s a list of a few we haven’t already mentioned.
Bishop Bob Duncan’s address to the gathered at GAFCON has been posted to the Anglican Communion Network webpage. In his address Bishop Duncan claims that the Elizabethan settlement, out of which has grown modern Anglicanism, has now failed and a new model must be found.
“Hard-line bishops make a mess of it in the Holy Land” is how the Telegraph headlines today’s report on the startup of the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem today. The article details a number of the initial organizational hurdles the meeting has had to overcome so far.
Laurie Goodstein reports today that Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, head of the team drafting the proposed Anglican covenant, was denied a visa to attend the pre-GAFCON strategy session in Jordan. Two questions, why was he denied a visa? and why was a man in his diplomatically sensitive position attending a meeting of schismatic wannabes?
The truth is that the conference has so far been a shambles. Its leader, the belligerent Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, has been denied entry to Jordan. Significant absentees at Gafcon include the Rt Rev John Chew, Primate of South-East Asia, and Dr Mouneer Anis, Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East
Julia Duin of The Washington Times considers the secrecy surrounding the current GAFCON gathering in Jerusalem, the news-free dreams that leaders of the Anglican Communion harbor for the upcoming Lambeth Conference and wonders why everything is so…quiet.