7/03/2008

ANGLICAN SPIRIT OF GAFCON. By Uncle Monty.

ANGLICAN SPIRIT OF GAFCON
Story and Photos By Uncle Monty
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No matter how I want to describe what I call the
“Crusaders of GAFCON” in their official briefing at their
post-Jerusalem Global Anglican Future Conference at
London’s Langham Place, what stood out the most for
me was the Anglican spirit -that prevailed above all
else from those who spoke to the invited gathering
of perhaps close to a 1,000 fellow Anglicans.
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With three archbishops speaking and a big armful of
attending Anglican bishops and clergy, the GAFCON London
briefing confirmed earlier reports that GAFCON would stay
within the Anglican Commmunion and not formally split
from it. But the spirit seemed to me to speak quite
differently than the public words being expressed
by the GAFCON leadership.
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I cannot see the survival, or even the usefulness or spirit,
of GAFCON if it stays with the secular militants, pro-gay
activists, left-wing supporters, and anti-biblical adherents
now seemingly running amok, or hiding craftily, within the
worldwide Anglican Communion. An half-assed rebellion
by conservative and orthodox Anglicans against such
in-house forces won't amount to an hill of beans.
The best rebellion is a complete one.
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But whatever happens to the future of the
Anglican Communion will stem not so much from
the elders of today, but from the Anglican young
of tomorrow. They will determine the course of
the Church for generations to come. That's if there
is still a "church" left to fight over. In the meantime,
as a religious movement, GAFCON claims to its birth
and cause over 290 bishops representing millions
of Confessing Anglicans from around the world.
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The Rev'd Andy Bawtree of
the Diocese of Canterbury
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And its young ordained Anglican clergy, like
Rev'd Andy Bawtree, who will help determine
much of the future of the Church of England.
At the Langham Place briefing, I was also quite
surprised to see the presence of so many young
Anglicans. To assume all young people are raving
liberals is to miss the point that many are actually
quite conservative in their taste and faith. Perhaps,
too, such young clergy like Andy Bawtree will help
save the worldwide Anglican Communion from its
destructive self. That's again if there is still any
Anglican Communion left alive and intact for them
to save after their Church elders have demolished
such by their own explosive Anglican dynamite.
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The Lord Bishop of Fulham
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In listening to some of the GAFCON leadership
upon their arrival at London from Jerusalem, I
still couldn't help but think of them as ironically de-
noucing their very own Church to which they were
presumely reared, ordained, and earn a living and
now openly condemn it from all hell. I was struck, too,
by the overwhelming presence of white Anglicans
at the briefing that saw only a small smattering of
black, Asian, and immigrant Anglicans there.
Is GAFCON then also unintentionally "The
Last Great White Hope" for many upper
and middle-class Anglicans?
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Inside post-GACON's London Briefing
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To briefly summerise the spirit and message
of the global GAFCON movement, I present
herein a few pointers about its opposition and
belief against the current direction and aims of
the present Anglican Communion that GAFCON
sees as a continuing threat and danger to the
Holy Body of Christ and The Church itself. The
following is taken, word for word, from GAFCON
Final Statement:
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1: The first fact is the acceptance and promotion
within the provinces of the Anglican Communion
of a different 'gospel' (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is
contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel
undermines the authority of God's Word written and
the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of
salvation from sin, death, and judgement. Many of
its proponents claim that all religions offer equal
access to God and that Jesus is only a way, and not
the way, to truth and the life. It promotes a variety
of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a
universal human right. It claims God's blessing for
same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on
holy matrimony. In 2003, this false gospel led to the
consecration of a bishop (V. Gene Robinson of New
Hampshire) living in a homosexual relationship.
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2: The second fact is the declaration by provincial
bodies in the Global South that they are out of
communion with bishops and churches that promote
this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in
a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians
have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and
provinces in certain Western chruches and become
members of other dioceses and provinces, all within
the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led
to the appiontment of new Anglican bishops set over
geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican
bishops. A major realignment has occurred and
will continue to unflod.
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3: The third fact is the manifest failure of the
Communion Instruments to exercise discipline
in the face of overt hererodoxy. The Episcopal
Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada,
in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently
defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical
moral principle (Resoluation 1.10). Despite num-
erous meetings and reports to and from the
'Instruments of Unity,' no effective action has been
taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches
are welcome to Lambeth 2008. To make matters
worse, there has been a failure to honour promises
of discipline, the authority of the Primates' Meeting
has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference
has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions.
We can only come to the devastating conclusion that
'we are a global Communion with colonial structure.'
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In this week’s editions of both Church Times -and The
Church of England Newspaper
– columns upon columns
are devoted to the major events surrounding the GAFCON
Conference at Jerusalem and its London briefing.
Overall, one is left with the impression that for many
in the Anglican Communion they’re not quite sure what
to make of it all. But I think former Archbishop of
Canterbury George Carey’s son Andrew Carey hit the
nail on the head in his Lambeth Notes -with his
headline: "Anglicanism has changed” due to the rise
GAFCON. Indeed it has, despite the present Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, declaring GAFCON to be
"problematic." Problematic or not, His Grace will be forced to
come to terms with it. As for America’s Katharine Jefferts
Schori, she seems to have gotten he knickers in a twist, yet
again, over GAFCON by her words of ridicule against it. She’s
the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, USA, which is
so radical it seems at times to be almost tantamount to
a leftist political party instead of protestant church.
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What many folkz don’t seem to realise in the Anglican
Communion at large is that much of what is taking place inside
the Mother Church of England is a clear reflection and imitation
of it bowing to the modern mindset of political correctness and
British New Labour ‘s governmental drumbeat of anti-discrimination
against homosexuals and lesbians, the upholding of their mindless
multiculturalism, their non-stop agenda of flooding the country with
Third World immigrants and European Union foreigners of every
stripe and their palpable contempt for Christianity in any form or
the faith of their fathers. They are modern zombies are New Labour.
And thus the C of E cows to them, their political master for now.
GAFCON is not beholden to such unlike their English counterparts,
who want to be all things to all people instead of first upholding
Historic Anglicanism above and beyond the fads of political
idealism and social regiment.
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I must run now since I am running late as
usual in doing this and that each day. Praise
the Good Lord for giving me another New Day ...
"New Every Day Is My Love," He says. Indeed.
Faithfully, Uncle Monty.
+America's Independence Day, 2oo8.
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Lord Bishop of Birmingham

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Bishop Martyn Mimms of the Auto-

cephalous Anglican Church of Nigeria.

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Conservative Anglicans Avoid Split,
Launch Fight against Liberalism
By Maria Mackay, Christian Post Correspondent
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080630/conservative-
anglicans-avoid-split-launch-fight-against-liberalism.htm

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