GAFCON II: Opening Press Conference

Oct 21, 2013
The opening of GAFCON II In Nairobi, Kenya

Lent and Beyond: Favorite Tweets, Quotes, Snippets from GAFCON so far…

The Chairman’s Address at the GAFCON 2013 Plenary 22nd October
The Most Rev Dr Eliud Wabukala: Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

Crisis in Anglican Communion is behind us, says Chair of GAFCON Christian Today

NAIROBI: Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali Attacks Secularism, Islam and Syncretism
Introducing speakers on the first full day of GAFCON II, retired Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali identified three major threats to Christian culture, he believed cannot be turned away from or denied any longer.

For Nazir-Ali, these threats are aggressive secularism, radical Islam and a syncretism that holds all religions to be essentially the same. The bishop went on to describe these in greater detail, beginning with secularism, which he felt "infects much of the West" and has increasing influence in other countries.

Citing research that shows human beings to have a spiritual dimension innately within themselves, Nazir-Ali acknowledged that Western people have a personal, instead of social understanding of spiritual life. Religion, which he equated with spirituality in its social aspect, has become a "bad word" in the West, and this has led inevitably to "excessive individualism."...

George Conger: Whither Gafcon II?
Gafcon is a movement in search of a mission, George Conger reports from Nairobi on the first day of the Second Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon).

Gafcon II began on a different key than its first assembly in 2008. The anger-tinged passion that drove the Jerusalem conference is absent from Nairobi and there is a confidence in the vigor of the global reform movement.

Yet, for its successes – playing midwife to the birth of the Anglican Church in North America, expanding the circle of supporters across the globe, garnering acknowledgement from Canterbury -- the movement is in the midst of a reimagining of its identity.

“Who are we” asked Dr. Peter Jensen, the Gafcon General Secretary in the opening address to the 1352 delegates from 40 countries representing 28 provinces. Will we be here in five years, he mused...

David Ould: GAFCON Day 1 - The Church Gathered and a Firm Word for Archbishop Welby

Surgery for US Archbishop Duncan
The Archbishop of the Anglican Church of North America underwent an emergency dental procedure in Nairobi yesterday, relieving pain and inflammation from an abscessed tooth...

Nairobi conference confirms major realignment in Anglican Communion
Opening news conference, Monday 21st October 2013

The second Global Anglican Future Conference, which opens today in Nairobi, is confirmation that the churches involved in the GAFCON movement are committed to the Anglican Communion and modelling how the communion should operate in the 21st century.

Organisers say the movement has grown since the first conference in Jerusalem in 2008.

"We have exceeded the first GAFCON both in number and reach" said the General Secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Dr Peter Jensen. "We have also surpassed all expectations here in Nairobi."

Although initially expecting 1100, the final total is 1,352 Archbishops, Bishops, clergy and lay people, men and women, from almost 40 countries.

The number of bishops attending is 331, of whom 30 are Archbishops...

Churches tempted to ‘change Christian faith’ for culture
Leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) refuted characterizations in the western press of the gathering as a breakaway movement, with recently retired Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney responding that "nothing could be further from the truth."

Instead, the FCA General Secretary portrayed the movement as seeking to model how the worldwide Anglican Communion can function "particularly when the Communion insists on strong theological standards" centering on the bible...