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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