18 September 2015 A.D. GLOBAL ANGLICANS: No decision from Gafcon on primates gathering invitation
18 September 2015
A.D. GLOBAL
ANGLICANS: No decision from Gafcon on primates gathering invitation
Editors. “No decision from Gafcon
on primates gathering invitation.” Anglican
Ink. 17 Sept 2015. http://www.anglicanink.com/article/no-decision-gafcon-primates-gathering-invitation. Accessed 17 Sept 2015.
The
Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for a meeting of Primates in January 2016 shows
that he has recognised the deep concerns of faithful church leaders around the
world, including those belonging to the GAFCON movement who represent the
majority of the global Communion’s membership. GAFCON began with the first
Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008 as an initiative to restore the
integrity of Anglican faith and order as the Communion descended into deepening
crisis. We are now a global family standing together to restore the Bible to
the heart of the Anglican Communion with a strength and unity that comes from
our common confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely from historic
institutional structures. It is on this basis that the GAFCON Primates will
prayerfully consider their response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter.
They recognize that the crisis in the Communion is not primarily a problem of
relationships and cultural context, but of false teaching which continues
without repentance or discipline. Consistent with this position, they have
previously advised the Archbishop of Canterbury that they would not attend any
meeting at which The Episcopal Church of the United States or the Anglican
Church of Canada were represented, nor would they attend any meeting from which
the Anglican Church in North America was excluded. It is therefore of some
encouragement that the Archbishop of Canterbury has opened the door of this
meeting to the Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, Archbishop
Foley Beach. He has already been recognized as a fellow primate of the Anglican
Communion by Primates representing GAFCON and the Anglican Global South at his
installation in Atlanta last October and he is a full member of the GAFCON
Primates Council. In the end, our confidence is not in any structural
reorganisation, useful though it may be, but in the saving grace of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ and in the abiding truth of the Bible. That is what
empowers us and this is the assurance we bring to our broken world.
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