GAFCON, the future and the Jerusalem Statement

Anglican Mainstream
August 3rd, 2008
by the Rev David Holloway,
vicar of Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle, England.

GAFCON and its history

The Global Anglican Future CONference held in Jerusalem at the end of June 2008 occurred not to stop a split in the Anglican Communion but because there already exists such a split. That is a sad but hard fact. The presenting problem is homosexual relationships, with things coming to a head in 2003 in the United States with the consecration as bishop of New Hampshire of a partnered homosexual, Gene Robinson. Since the 1970s and the “Gay Liberation” movement the Western Churches have tried to pretend the “gay agenda” is not a problem. The leadership has wanted this to be considered a secondary issue over which there is liberty to disagree. The majority of Christians, however, think otherwise. Votes in the Church of England’s General Synod in 1987 and the Lambeth Conference in 1998 made this crystal clear. A significant number of bishops, however, ignored these resolutions.

In 2002 Rowan Williams was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams had publicly admitted to ordaining a man he knew had a homosexual partner and acknowledged “that ‘conforming your life … to Christ’ doesn’t necessarily mean giving up a homosexual lifestyle.” Before his appointment was official, therefore, some of us, incumbents of larger Anglican churches, felt obliged to write to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, registering our opposition. We said:

“such actions and views [as those above] fly in the face of the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference 1998. Rowan Williams would not have the confidence of the vast majority of Anglicans in the world, who are now in the third world and who, as loyal Anglicans, take the Holy Scriptures as their supreme authority. His appointment would lead to a major split in the Anglican Communion (including the Church of England).” the rest