A group of conservative Anglican leaders, including several Primates, who met in Nairobi in December, have announced that they will invite bishops, senior clergy and laity from every province of the Anglican Communion to attend a June 15-22 Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in the Holy Land. But the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, has objected, saying that he was not consulted about the planned conference that is set to be held in his diocese.
"I am deeply troubled that this meeting, of which we had no prior knowledge, will import inter-Anglican conflict into our diocese, which seeks to be a place of welcome for all Anglicans," Dawani said in a January 2 statement urging the organizers to "reconsider this conference urgently."
The GAFCON conference is due to be held one month prior to the Lambeth Conference when more than 800 of the Anglican Communion's bishops will descend on the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, for more than two weeks of spiritual reflection, learning, sharing and discerning.
According to organizers, the GAFCON conference is not intended as a specific challenge to the Lambeth Conference, but it "will provide opportunities for fellowship and care for those who have decided not to attend Lambeth."
Dawani said that it is his understanding that the Anglican Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, is also concerned about the event. "His advice to the organizers that this was not the right time or place for such a meeting was ignored," said Dawani, who was enthroned April 14, 2007 as the 14th Anglican bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.
Dawani also expressed his concern that the Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, one of GAFCON's organizers, is encouraging clergy and lay people from the Jerusalem diocese to attend the conference.
The conference, Dawani says, could have "serious consequences for our ongoing ministry of reconciliation in this divided land. Indeed, it could further inflame tensions here. We who minister here know only too well what happens when two sides cease talking to each other. We do not want to see any further dividing walls."
The GAFCON event, which describes itself as "a pilgrimage back to the roots of the Church's faith," is exclusive to "Anglicans from both the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings of the church," a December 24 news release from the conference organizers says.
Meeting under the theme, "A Gospel of Power and Transformation," the conference vision, according to Kenya Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi is "to inform and inspire invited leaders 'to seek transformation in our own lives and help impact communities and societies through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
The GAFCON organizers claims to represent more than half of the world's Anglicans.
But the U.K.-based LGBT advocacy group, Changing Attitude, challenges GAFCON's interpretation of numbers, noting that "those who are only notional members of the Church of England are discounted to enable GAFCON's claim to represent over half of the members of the Communion to be legitimized." While there are said to be more than 77 million members of the Anglican Communion worldwide, GAFCON only acknowledges 50 million and it claims to represent 30 million of those.
Following the Archbishop of Canterbury's May 2007 announcement that he had invited all but a small number of bishops to Lambeth, the leadership of some conservative provinces indicated that their bishops might not be attending.
"The global south conservatives have had to prepare for the reality that many of their bishops will attend Lambeth against the wishes of their Primates. The GAFCON press release concedes this," the Rev. Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude, said in a December 31 news release. "It is a significant change of strategy from the original claim that they would boycott Lambeth if The Episcopal Church bishops were invited."
According to Changing Attitude, the Church of Nigeria bishops voted "by a significant majority to attend the Lambeth Conference" despite earlier claims by their Primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, that they would be boycotting the conference. "The conscience of the Nigerian House of Bishops is divided," Changing Attitude said.
Present at the Nairobi meeting, where GAFCON was finalized, were the Primates of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, the Southern Cone, and Uganda, as well as several bishops, some who have been irregularly consecrated to provide oversight to conservatives in North America. Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan, who serves as moderator of the conservative Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDAP), was also present.
"While there are many calls for shared mission, it clearly must rise from common shared faith," said Southern Cone Primate Gregory Venables, who has recently offered oversight to dioceses outside his South American jurisdiction, despite repeated calls from for such unauthorized actions -- known as "boundary crossings" -- to cease. "Our pastoral responsibility to the people that we lead is now to provide the opportunity to come together around the central and unchanging tenets of the central and unchanging historic Anglican faith.
"Rather than being subject to the continued chaos and compromise that have dramatically impeded Anglican mission, GAFCON will seek to clarify God's call at this time and build a network of cooperation for Global mission," Venables added.
Meanwhile, Changing Attitude described GAFCON as "an event for the like-minded."
"A gathering of the like-minded is very specifically not a Christian ideal nor part of the teaching of Jesus Christ," the Changing Attitude release said. "The Lambeth Conference indeed has a different agenda. It will be a more authentically Christian conference. Lambeth will bring together bishops from every Province and from radically different backgrounds. It will focus primarily on equipping bishops to fulfill their leadership role in God’s mission and will continue to engage with the conflict in the church focused on homosexuality."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce