Global Anglican Future Conference - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) was a seven day conference of conservative Anglican bishops and leaders held in Jerusalem in June 2008 to address the rise of secularism

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

in the Church, HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

/AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

and poverty. As a result of the Conference, the Jerusalem Declaration was issued, and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a global network of traditionalist Anglican Churches which formed in 2008 in response to an ongoing theological crisis in the worldwide Anglican Communion...

was created. The Conference participants also called for the creation of the Anglican Church in North America as an alternative to the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada

Anglican Church of Canada

The Anglican Church of Canada is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada. The ACC is the third largest church in Canada after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, consisting of 800,000 registered members...

and declared that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

is not necessary to Anglican identity.

GAFCON occurred one month prior to the Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly gathering of Anglican Communion

Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is an international association of national and regional Anglican churches in full communion with the Church of England and specifically with its principal primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury...

bishops. GAFCON stated the movement rose because a "false gospel" is being promoted within the Anglican Communion, which denies the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and "promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right". This is commonly considered a result of the consecration in 2003 of openly homosexual bishop Gene Robinson

Gene Robinson

Vicki Gene Robinson is the ninth bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop in 2003 and entered office in March 2004...

by the Episcopal Church and more generally from the perception that some parts of the Anglican Communion might be departing from what conservatives consider to be biblical teaching.

Participants

The leading participants of GAFCON included Archbishops Peter Akinola

Peter Akinola

Peter Jasper Akinola is the former Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria. He is also the former Bishop of Abuja and Archbishop of Province III, which covers the northern and central parts of the country....

of Nigeria

Church of Nigeria

The Church of Nigeria is the Anglican church in Nigeria. It is the second-largest province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptized membership, after the Church of England. It gives its current membership as "over 18 million", out of a total Nigerian population of 140 million.Since 2002...

, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, Donald Mtetemela of Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

, Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia and Presiding Bishop Greg Venables

Gregory James Venables

Gregory James Venables is a British-born Anglican bishop and served as the Primate of the Southern Cone in South America from 2001 until 2010...

of the Southern Cone; Bishops Don Harvey of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Robert Duncan

Robert Duncan (bishop)

Robert William Duncan, Jr. is an American bishop. He has been Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America since June 2009. In 1997, he was elected Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh...

of USA and Martyn Minns

Martyn Minns

The Right Reverend Martyn Minns is the Missionary Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America . Prior to becoming bishop, he served as rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia, in the United States.-Background:...

of the United States; Canon Vinay Samuel of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

and Canon Chris Sugden of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was attended by 1148 lay and clergy delegates, including 291 Anglican Bishops; but the identities of those attending have not been published and may have included bishops and clergy not recognised by the Anglican Communion

Anglican Communion

, including some from the continuing Anglican movement

Continuing Anglican Movement

The term Continuing Anglican movement refers to a number of churches in various countries that have been formed outside of the Anglican Communion. These churches generally believe that "traditional" forms of Anglican faith and worship have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some...

.

The leaders present claimed to represent 30 million of the 55 million "active" Anglicans in the worldwide communion. However, this figure assumes the support of all Anglicans in the provinces from which the individual participants have come (although in the Province of Kenya, for example, there has been outspoken criticism of the Church leadership ) and adopts a low estimate of the numbers of Anglicans in the rest of the world. The official estimate for Anglicans worldwide is 80 million.

Session topics

Sessions were held on the topics of secularism, the Anglican Communion

Anglican Communion

, HIV

HIV

/AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

and poverty.

Conference

At the beginning of the conference a booklet was released by Archbishop Peter Akinola

Peter Akinola

of Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

entitled The Way, the Truth and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future.http://www.gafcon.org/images/way-truth-life.pdf Delegates also visited sacred sites in and around Jerusalem.

Originally GAFCON was intended to take place in two parts: a week in Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

for the conference, and a week in Jerusalem for pilgrimage. This was also intended to allow participation by bishops from Pakistan and Sudan, who would not be able to visit Israel. To make accommodations and meet issues raised by the local Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem the Jordan part of the programme was subsequently downgraded to a "pre-GAFCON preparatory consultation", with the Jerusalem segment upgraded from a pilgrimage to a period of substantive deliberation.

After one day, on June 18, Jordanian authorities closed GAFCON, and forcing approximately 140 people to relocate to Jerusalem. Archbishop Akinola's diplomatic passport was denied entry.

The rest of the conference took place on June 22–29, 2008 at the modern Renaissance Hotel near the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Outcome

A GAFCON statement was released on the final day of the conference. It was produced based on input from all 1148 delegates.
The statement claims that the GAFCON movement has arisen because a "false gospel" is being promoted within the Anglican Communion, which denies the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and "promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right".

The GAFCON statement announced that GAFCON would be a continuing "movement in the Spirit" rather than a once-off event. Although GAFCON did not decide to create a formal schism

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

in the Anglican Communion, it expressed plans to set up new ecclesiastical structures, particularly within the liberal provinces of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, to cater for conservative Anglicans

Common Cause Partnership

The Anglican Church in North America is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition with 21 dioceses in the United States and Canada. The church reports that it has 987 congregations serving more than 100,000 Christians in North America. In 2009, the Most Reverend Robert Duncan was elected...

. Of particular note, the GAFCON statement claims that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

is not necessary to Anglican identity. It calls for the formation of a new council of unelected GAFCON Primates

Primate (religion)

Primate is a title or rank bestowed on some bishops in certain Christian churches. Depending on the particular tradition, it can denote either jurisdictional authority or ceremonial precedence ....

.

The GAFCON statement was criticized by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

Rowan Williams

Rowan Douglas Williams FRSL, FBA, FLSW is an Anglican bishop, poet and theologian. He is the 104th and current Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England, offices he has held since early 2003.Williams was previously Bishop of Monmouth and...

who said "A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical"

Jerusalem Declaration

The GAFCON statement contains the "Jerusalem Declaration", a doctrinal confession which is intended to form the basis of a new "Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a global network of traditionalist Anglican Churches which formed in 2008 in response to an ongoing theological crisis in the worldwide Anglican Communion...

" (FCA). The declaration upholds the Holy Scriptures as containing "all things necessary for salvation", the first four Ecumenical council

Ecumenical council

An ecumenical council is a conference of ecclesiastical dignitaries and theological experts convened to discuss and settle matters of Church doctrine and practice....

s and three Creeds as expressing the church's rule of faith, and the Thirty-Nine Articles

Thirty-Nine Articles

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

as authoritative for Anglicans today. In addition, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

is called "a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer" and the Anglican Ordinal

Holy Orders

The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....

is recognised as an authoritative standard.

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

, Dr Rowan Williams

Rowan Williams

, said on 19 December 2007 that plans to hold a pre-Lambeth meeting for conservatives did not signal disloyalty, as such a meeting "would not have any official status as far as the Communion is concerned".

Bishop of Jerusalem

The Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Right Reverend Mouneer Anis, who is conservative on matters of human sexuality, publicly announced that he would not attend GAFCON, observing that "the Global South

Global South (Anglican)

The Anglican Global South is a grouping of twenty of the thirty-eight provinces of the Anglican Communion. The provinces identified with the Global South grouping represent most, but not all, of the Third World countries within the Communion and are mostly conservative on matters of sexual ethics,...

must not be driven by an exclusively Northern agenda or Northern personalities". The leadership team listed by GAFCON on its website consisted of 16 men, of whom 9 were from England, North America and Australia, and one other was UK based.

The Bishop of Jerusalem, in whose territory it was to be held, did initially issue a press release saying:
He indicated that the regional primate "is also concerned about this event. His advice to the organisers that this was not the right time or place for such a meeting was ignored."

On 12 and 15 January 2008, the Bishop of Jerusalem had meetings with the GAFCON organisers, including Archbishops Jensen and Akinola, in which he explained his reasons for objecting to the conference, and the damage it would do to his local ministry of welcome and reconciliation in the Holy Land. He insisted that the Lambeth Conference was the correct venue for internal discussions. However, he proposed as an alternative, "for the sake of making progress in this discussion" that the GAFCON conference should take place in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, to be followed by a "pure pilgrimage" to the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

. The minutes of the meetings were published.

Conservative negative reaction

The announcement of the conference received criticism from some conservatives, due to it, potentially giving liberals a more powerful voice at the Lambeth Conference. Former Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

, George Carey

George Carey

George Leonard Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton PC, FKC is a former Archbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1991 to 2002. He was the first modern holder of the office not to have attended Oxford or Cambridge University...

, said: "If the Jerusalem conference is an alternative to the Lambeth Conference, which I perceive it is, then I think it is regrettable. The irony is that all they are going to do is weaken the Lambeth Conference. They are going to give the liberals a more powerful voice because they are absent and they are going to act as if they are schismatics." Carey has also called for the American House of Bishops to commit itself to the Windsor Covenant, which imposes a moratorium on the consecration of homosexual bishops and blessing of same-sex unions.

Liberal and Anglo-Catholic negative reactions

The Bishop of Newcastle

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, the Right Reverend Brian Farran, was critical of GAFCON along with the overwhelming majority of the Australian bishops.

Positive reactions

The conference was, however, particularly welcomed by bishops in conflict with the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, such as Bishop David Anderson who said: "The gathering will be in the form of a pilgrimage back to the roots of the Church’s faith: thus this journey begins with a pilgrimage."

External links

GAFCON website
GAFCON booklet
Final GAFCON statement
http://anglican.tv/category/tags/events/gafcon-2008 All Video from speakers and presentations at Conference -- GAFCON Jerusalem
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WWN-509Y43M-1&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2010&_rdoc=8&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%237135%232010%23999599996%232229848%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=7135&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=18&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3fbaf4bad12173bb27eafe087d4692b8&searchtype=aConstructing the boundaries of Anglican orthodoxy: An analysis of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)] An article based on interviews and fieldwork conducted at GAFCON by the authors

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Participants

Session topics

Conference

Outcome

Jerusalem Declaration

Archbishop of Canterbury

Bishop of Jerusalem

Conservative negative reaction

Liberal and Anglo-Catholic negative reactions

Positive reactions

See also

External links