Global South Anglican

A Statement from the Standing Committee of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA).

Ed - An encouraging read. This version is reformatted for easier reading.

The former Archbishop of the Southern Cone, Maurice Sinclair, shares his thoughts. 

There is little doubt that, after this summer and GAFCON and then the Lambeth Conference, we are entering a new phase in the life of the Anglican Communion where serious fresh thought needs to be given as to where we are and where we wish to go. Another marker, perhaps, of being at something of a watershed is that it is five years ago this month that Archbishop Rowan Williams re-convened the Primates of the Communion for an Emergency Primates’ Meeting at Lambeth Palace....

Read the rest here.

From ACNS:

- The Reflections on the St Andrew’s Draft for an Anglican Covenant by the bishops gathered at the 2008 Lambeth Conference together with responses from the Covenant Design Group. Click here to read the PDF document

- Survey of responses. Read it here

“Persistent attempts to portray GAFCON as a breakaway movement or an attempt to split the Anglican Communion are perverse, almost malign. The ‘tear in the fabric of the Communion’ occurred in the events of 2003 with the appointment of a divorced and actively homosexual bishop in the United States, and the blessing of same-sex unions in the US and Canada. GAFCON represents a refusal on theological and pastoral grounds to act as though this major division had never taken place. The Anglican Communion is, I believe, the third largest body of Christians in the world. It is vastly more important than we here often realise. It represents one of the chief ways in which Christians all around the world receive fellowship, missional help, and attention when they are persecuted or in other trouble. It is a highly significant entity, to be cherished and maintained, not torn apart. The aim of GAFCON is to renew and invigorate the Communion and to help bring order and peace out of the mayhem created by the American division.”

Abp Peter Jensen shares his thoughts on Gafcon and the Communion at the opening night of the Diocese of Sydney’s 2008 synod.

It is in keeping with this that I am committed to us following through with the development of the Anglican Covenant, and at the point of decision and the action of The Episcopal Church, this diocese is going to have to decide the direction forward. Yes, I will be here and provide leadership, but unlike some of the leadership of the larger Church, I know what the parameters of my canonical limits are, and making unilateral decisions that affect the life and ministry of this diocese is not within the scope of my authority. This is a decision that can and will be made only by a called convention of the diocese.

Worth a careful read

Rhythm is the longest English word without a vowel — though it has to be admitted that “y” acts as a sort of vowel. It is also basic to our enjoyment in life. We breathe, walk and swim rhythmically, usually without noticing it. We appreciate music, poetry and drama. We become more balanced in our quality of life when rhythms develop naturally.

A man of wisdom once wrote: “Hurry is actually a form of violence exercised upon God’s time in order to make it ‘my time’.” (Donald Nicholl, Holiness.) In reordering our lives in moments of turmoil, it may be worth considering the rhythm of a year, rather than just of a day or a month. Imagine the year ahead of you. What comes to mind? When does that year begin? Whose year is it? An intriguing question is how do you make God smile? One answer may be that you tell Him your plans.

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The fact, timing and manner of the action taken by the American House of Bishops toward Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh has filled us with dismay.  He is a Bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion, and is guilty only of guarding his people from false teaching and corrupt behaviour as he promised to do. Once more the upholders of the orthodox faith are made to suffer at the hands of those who have introduced new teachings. 

However, the action has also had the effect of clarifying matters even further. It is now impossible to believe that the exhortations of the Lambeth Conference and the Windsor Continuation Group will be heeded. No Pastoral Forum has been established. We remain convinced that the faithful Anglicans of North America need to have their own Province recognised by the Communion as a whole. We are determined to stand with Bishop Duncan and those who, like him, have protested in the name of God against the unscriptural innovations which have caused such divisions amongst us.

In the absence of other substantive provision from the historic structures of the Communion, the Primates’ Council gives its full support to Archbishop Greg Venables in receiving Bishop Duncan as a Bishop in good standing in the Province of the Southern Cone. 

In his Sept 3 presidential address read to the joint meeting of primates and standing committee of CAPA in Nairobi, Archbishop Ernest, Primate of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean and Bishop of Mauritius, said CAPA must resist becoming one interest group among many within the Anglican Communion. 

FROM THE 9TH GENERAL SYNOD, 16TH – 20TH SEPTEMBER, 2008

Also, Archbishop Peter Akinola’s address can be read here

I was upcountry tending to pastoral business when the TEC House of Bishops took their vote to supposedly depose you, so I am very sorry that I could not add my name at the time to the very good statement issued by my esteemed colleagues, Archbishops Venables, Gomez, and Nzimbi. I hope you know of the unqualified support you have from me and our entire House of Bishops. 

Senior bishops express “shock” at the Episcopal Church’s decision to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh.

The Province of Southeast Asia will continue to support, remain in full communion and prayerfully explore steps to strengthen our shared life with Anglican leaders like Bishop Bob Duncan and the Diocese of Pittsburgh as well as other TEC bishops who respect the mind of the Communion and remain faithful to the teaching of Scripture as expressed in the tradition and life of the Church. We urge those who have not chosen to ‘walk apart’ to work actively and sincerely with the Windsor-Covenant Process and other measures agreed at the Communion level…

Support from Archbishops and other Anglican leaders…

Updated: Statements from Archbishops: ++Mouneer Anis, ++Greg Venables, ++Nzimbi, ++Peter Jensen, Drexel Gomez

“I offer my deepest thanks to the company of saints all around the globe who have sustained me, my wife and all who are dear to me in these days.”

It is a very sad day for The Episcopal Church. It is also a sad day for me, a faithful son of that church.

Nevertheless it is also a hopeful day, hopeful because of the unstoppable Reformation that is overtaking the Christian Church in the West. It is also a hopeful day for me personally as I am unanimously welcomed into the House of Bishops of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, an act applauded by Anglican archbishops, bishops, clergy and people all around the world.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will move forward under its new Ecclesiastical Authority, its Standing Committee. That body will carry the diocese through to our realignment vote on October 4. With the success of that vote, it will be possible that we be joined together again as bishop and people.

I offer my deepest thanks to the company of saints all around the globe who have sustained me, my wife and all who are dear to me in these days.

Robert Duncan

The House of Bishops brushed aside procedural challenges and deposed Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church Sept. 18.

“We support Bishop Duncan, a godly man who has chosen to follow the historic teaching of the worldwide Anglican Communion and to remain steadfast in his faith.  CANA continues to recognize Bishop Duncan as a bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion, as Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and as the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership.  This hostile and uncanonical action by The Episcopal Church House of Bishops will not be accepted by the worldwide Anglican Communion,” said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns.

What is at stake is not only just the Church’s traditional plain reading of Scriptures, but what the Church has always taught, bear witness to and advocate on the issue of family, it’s wholeness and bearing on the health of societies. It is not a ‘new’ set of binding beliefs. It is as old as the Church herself.

The Standing Committee and Bishop of Albany call upon the House of Bishops, the House of Deputies and all involved in the current theological war to call a truce, enabling The Episcopal Church to refocus our time, energy and resources on the difficult but necessary process of figuring out how Christians who passionately hold what appear to be irreconcilable differences in the understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture and its authority on our lives as well as issues of human sexuality, can move forward in building up the Kingdom of God by sharing the love and Good News of Jesus Christ with all who will receive it. For far too long we have been consumed by politically-charged agendas to the detriment of the Church and the building up of the Kingdom of God. May God give us the grace, the wisdom, the compassion, the humility we need to discern His will, moving forward in His Name to His honor and glory and to the benefit of His Church and people.

Read it all here

At the Council meeting, CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns will welcome the attendees who will hear reports about the Common Cause partnership, church planting efforts, and the church property litigation involving 11 ADV congregations.  The theme of “Making Disciples” was chosen to highlight the efforts of ADV churches to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “Whether they’re encouraging farmers through Planting Faith Ministries in Kenya or helping the homeless in their own backyards though The Lamb Center in Fairfax, ADV members have been ‘making disciples’ in a variety of ways,” said CANA Suffragan Bishop and ADV Contact Bishop David Bena.

The process of finalizing an Anglican covenant needs to move forward more quickly if the Anglican Communion is to be preserved. 

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has announced that she intends to seek Bishop Duncan’s deposition on Sept. 18.

Other related articles:
Legal doubt over Presiding Bishop’s move to depose Duncan - George Conger

Episcopal Bishop Duncan facing ouster - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It is in the Bible where you will discover the truth that every human life is of inestimable worth. You will find that God created marriage - one man and one woman for life. This is not some social arrangement that we can redesign at will; it is part of God’s design for humanity. However, for about the past forty years I belonged to a church that no longer advocates these values. In fact, it is attempting to deliberately replace our core values with some of the latest cultural whims.

ENGLAND has let Christ go, says the Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Revd Peter Akinola. Consequently, the “huge religious vacuum” created in the name of multiculturalism is being filled by Islam. 

Categories like “moratoria” and “reception” and “listening”, for instance, are now prominent elements in our strategic ecclesial discussions. Unfortunately, they no longer appear to be useful categories, in large part because they do not accurately reflect the actual relationship of expectation and possibility that the disputing parties hold, one to another and with respect to their own commitments. When one party says, while responding to the request for a “moratorium” on specific actions, “yes we will consider it; but there is no going back on our underlying commitments”; and another party says at the same time, “yes we will consider it; but only on the condition that you others give up your practical commitments”, then the very category of “moratorium” functions in very different ways in each case. Similarly, when “reception” is a “process” that seeks to discern the Christian authenticity of an innovative practice, but also does so by the very means of rooting that practice within the life of the church in different areas, the notion that discernment has a possibly restraining role to play seems practically undercut. Or when “listening” presumes an ecclesial practice even as it refuses to evaluate that practice, one is not so much listening as receiving justification ex post facto.

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We come as Anglican theologians serving churches in the Anglican Communion outside Western cultural frameworks.  Our face-to-face discussions at the Lambeth Conference 2008 have deepened our trust and understanding of one another.  We celebrate our bonds of affection in Christ and commit ourselves to take fresh initiatives together for the sake of God’s mission.  The Global South Anglican Theological Network is a personal initiative borne of friendship and vocation. We are neither commissioned nor aligned with any organisation or official body in the Communion. 

ESPRIT: So where from here?

+JMS: It depends much on the will of the Communion. Bishops acting unilaterally do not help this. The future of the Communion depends on those who are willing to forgo what they perceive to be their rights and their prerogatives and agree to live with and for others. We’ve been deaf to that call. It just depends on the will of those who are in leadership and who say, you know, the time has come to work together in unity. As far as I’m concerned as diocesan bishop, we have strong ties and relationships with the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Global South. The Global South bishops invited both Bishop Paul and me to a meeting with them. We cherish those relationships, and we will continue to witness and carry out our part in the Anglican Communion.

+PEL: I don’t know how I can expand upon that. We need to be faithful to the Scriptures and our Lord’s command to go forth into the world, but one of the things I’m trying to live into is what it means to be faithful to the vows I took when I was consecrated. There are some significant vows there. I think the House of Bishops and all bishops would do well to read those every day.

The first meeting of the GAFCON Primates’ Council has taken place in London on Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd August. The twofold task of the Council is ‘to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.’ The Primates have therefore laid the basis for the future work of both the Council and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA). The GAFCON movement continues its advance…

Read the rest here

Recently, a pastoral response was released from the Diocese of Singapore in the light of an article in the Strait Times (Singapore) on the past and expressed views of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the issue of homosexuality as reported in UK Times on 7th August 2008. 

Their depressing and urgent situation in The Episcopal Church becomes ever clearer over time, despite all of the efforts of their liberal church leaders to try and persuade the rest of the Anglican Communion that really we’re just like you. Close watchers of the US, and readers of this newspaper, will be more aware than most of the state of that Church. Heterodoxy is never punished, whereas orthodox impatience is the subject of lawsuits all over the country. And the amount of heterodoxy uttered in The Episcopal Church is truly astonishing…

This open letter, a response to Bishop’s Duncan ’leaked letter‘ is worth reading, including the discussions by commenters over at the Covenant site. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has today sent a letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion, setting out his personal reflections on the Lambeth Conference. 

Graham Kings, Fulcrum: Patience and urgency came together in the substance and context of the Lambeth Conference. The Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant, the GAFCON shadow conference in Jerusalem, and the three Presidential Addresses by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the announcement of the Pastoral Forum, were all closely related. Read the rest here

David Anderson, American Anglican Council: May I submit, from my own position far down the ecclesial food chain, that there is no longer theological space to be an orthodox bishop of the church and privately believe that which is contrary to what the Church teaches on core doctrine and moral discipline. To do so becomes, in the most benign situation, a form of mental illness where the individual experiences a bifurcation of mind, and in more extreme form, a spiritual illness representing a foot in each Kingdom. This time in the life of the Christian and Anglican Church calls for a clear mind aligned with and fully embracing the core teachings of the Christian faith, reformed and catholic. Full Stop. Read the rest here

Paul Richardson, Religious Intelligence: Even if the Communion overcomes the immediate causes of division it will be important to address the underlying factors. Part of the problem is that, while bright young Catholic students, whether they be Thomists, liberation theologians, or Augustinians, all flock to Rome to study, Anglicans study in different parts of the Communion and, for the most part, read different texts. Read the rest here.

THE ANGLICAN Communion must prepare for “an orderly” separation if differences cannot be healed, claims the Bishop of Winchester. In a report addressed to his diocese relaying his reflections on the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt said that the Archbishop of Canterbury had three realistic options ahead of him after the next Primates meeting in 2009.