Archbishop of Canterbury Responds to GAFCON

With the Lambeth Conference only two weeks away, the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued some strong cautionary words for the signers of the Jerusalem Declaration at the Global Anglican Future Conference which ended June 29.

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - The ink was hardly even dry on the declaration from Anglican Representatives to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem when the Archbishop of Canterbury offered a public response.

The Anglican News Service issued the statement on June 30 in which Dr. Rowan Williams cautioned the signers that there were severe problems with the direction they were heading. While affirming many of their statements of Orthodoxy as being fully welcomed within the Communion, he took issue with the authority they had assumed for themselves.

"Two questions arise at once about what has been proposed," Williams said. "By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?"

In his address of these two concerns, Archbishop Williams commented that the council they had established has no real authority within Anglicanism and cautioned against dismissing the existing structures of church government.

He also indicated great concern about the way that some jurisdictions had taken over pastoral responsibility of parishes in other countries. He was referring, of course, to the actions of some bishops toward parishes in the United States who left The Episcopal Church and came under their authority.

"But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work?"

The GAFCON statement is entitled the "Jerusalem Declaration," declares that a new council of Anglican primates will be created while not breaking connection within the Anglican Communion. More than 70 percent of the Anglican Communion are presented in the statement which affirms "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." 1200 representatives, including 303 bishops signed the declaration that particularly focuses upon the growing liberalism that is taking root, particularly in the American and Canadian jurisdictions.

The Archbishop takes exception with their conclusion. "I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ."

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One new development of this new Anglican expression will be the establishing of a new North American province that will focus on drawing the various Anglican expressions in the United States and Canada to become involved. This action, alone, is enough to fuel the fire at Lambeth and set the groundwork for an inevitable confrontation as it ignores the organized boundaries already established by the Anglican Communion.

Bishops from the global Anglican Communion meet every ten years for the Lambeth Conference, hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The next conference begin on July 16, 2008 and lasts for 20 days. Much more will be known about the future of Anglicanism in the world by August 3rd.

For the complete statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury, you can go to: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2008/6/30/ACNS4417.

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