Conservative Anglican fellowship launched in South Africa

by Lillian Kwon and Daniel Blake
Friday, September 4, 2009

Just months after being launched in London, a conservative Anglican movement has made its way to South Africa where 70 clergy and laity have gathered to affirm the orthodox Christian faith.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (South Africa) was launched Thursday at St. John's Church in Port Elizabeth and participants want to send out a clear message that "the Scriptures exhort us to remain faithful to the faith 'once for all delivered to the saints,' to the Lordship of Christ and hence to Apostolic teaching and practice."

At a time when some conservative Anglicans are choosing to split from their national churches over differences on scriptural authority and homosexuality and form separate groups, organizers of the FCA insist their movement is not an act of secession but a way of keeping orthodox, biblical Anglicanism "inside the fold," as Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, explained earlier.

The movement comes out of an invitation by conservative Anglican bishops from mainly the Global South. Last summer, leaders at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) who believe some in the Anglican Communion are preaching a "false gospel" affirmed Christian orthodoxy and invited like-minded Anglicans to establish a fellowship. the rest