| THE GAFCON movement in the Anglican Communion is legitimate, not a breakaway or “seizing of power”, the Archbishop of Uganda, the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, and the Archbishop of Sydney said on Tuesday.
At a press conference in All Souls’, Langham Place, in London, during an event for church leaders, “Global Anglicanism and English Orthodoxy”, they said that the new network, described as a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”, was spiritual rather than political, and had a huge sense of unity. They reiterated that this was a movement “for Christ . . . to reassert the authority of the Bible over the Church and the importance of the gospel for the Church”.
The Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Revd Henry Orombi, said that he had come to London to encourage his “mother Church” to hold on to the faith that had been taken to Uganda by missionaries.
The Archbishop of the Southern Cone, the Most Revd Greg Venables, denied that the movement was splintering away from the rest of the Church. It was “a bringing together within the Anglican Communion. . . It’s the exercise of legitimate authority for the sake of the Anglican Communion.”
Responding to the statement in which the Archbishop of Canterbury had questioned the authority of the proposed “Primates’ Council”, the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, said that it had authority because most of the Primates had been elected by their own people, and their very coming together gave them authority.
“They have what I call gospel authority. There are moments in the Church where . . . authority must be taken; and this is one of those moments when the most senior people available . . . have decided to come together and take an authority to do certain things which is in their capacity to do.
“I was a little surprised at the Archbishop’s remarks. I was hoping he might be very joyfully receptive of what he sees here as a development of quite legitimate authority to help bring order to the chaos of the Anglican Communion in the last five years. It’s a development to be applauded, not rejected.”
They remained in communion with the majority of the worldwide Communion, he said. Dr Williams in his statement had misunderstood if he thought that they believed that those outside the GAFCON network were “proclaiming another gospel”.
Bishop Venables said that they were presenting a rallying point inspired by the Reformers, which represented the essence of Anglican Christianity. “If anybody’s moved away, it’s been those who decided to move away from the historic faith and do things unilaterally without consulting us and taking any notice of us when we said this will tear the fabric of the Communion.”
Dr Jensen said that the Archbishop of Canterbury had no particular role in the autonomous Churches of the Communion, and that Dr Williams’s moral authority had reduced in the past five years. “I’m not saying I blame the present Archbishop for that: I suspect it would have happened, whoever would have been Archbishop. What is happening because of the American initiatives is that the Communion has woken up . . . A sleeping giant has been roused by what has occurred.”
About 800 delegates also heard the theologian the Revd Professor Jim Packer, while an evening meeting also took place at All Souls’ for the laity. |
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