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The final GAFCON Conference Statement has been released, and is reproduced in full below.

To understand what this statement means, let me take you back to GAFCON on Friday, shortly after 12 noon. The main ballroom was packed, and Professor Stephen Noll was reading out the Draft of the GAFCON Conference Statement. The press had been excluded, and we had all been strictly warned not to divulge anything to anyone. Slowly and deliberately, Professor Noll began to read, as PowerPoint slides of the text flashed up on the screens. The tension was palpable.

Four different kinds of people at GAFCON were holding their collective breath for different reasons.

The Americans, most of whom are at the more ‘churchy’ (in places Anglo-Catholic) end of the Anglican spectrum, were desperately hoping that something would be announced about a new province. What this means for the uninitiated is that most of the Americans at GAFCON have either left The Episcopal Church or are in the process of doing so, and have joined various networks of biblically orthodox Anglicans (such as the Anglican Mission in America). These various networks are working together under the banner of the ‘Common Cause Partnership’ to create a new structure for faithful Anglicans in North America. Their dream is a new province within the Anglican Communion, which has its own Archbishop and dioceses. As Stephen Noll read the Draft Statement, the Americans around me looked like bidders for the Olympic games waiting for the winning city to be announced.

Biblical Anglicans having a hard time in other places—such as the minority of evangelical Anglicans in places like New Zealand and Ireland—were waiting anxiously for other reasons. They were hoping for a strong statement of doctrinally-based Anglican unity that offered them legitimate ‘safe havens’. In other words, if their local bishop took up an untenable position (such as blessing same-sex unions), they wanted some simple and valid way of stepping out from under his oversight and authority into some other sort of orthodox fellowship within the Anglican Communion.

The Africans were bubbling with expectation for different reasons again. They wanted to see a vindication of the bold action that their archbishops had taken over the past five years—the strong and public rebuking of The Episcopal Church, the declaring of themselves out of communion with it, the ordination of their own missionary bishops to America to offer assistance, and their refusal en masse to go to the Lambeth Conference this year. Would the Statement be a strong affirmation of this action, or yet another damp squib? Was this the time when the post-colonial shackles would finally be shaken off, and the strong stand of the Africans be recognized as leadership?

And then there were the rest (including Sydney Anglicans like me), who were hoping for a strong statement around which biblical Anglicans could unite, and offer one another encouragement and practical help—one which made the classic Scriptural doctrine of Anglicanism the point of unity, and not secondary or historical matters (such as whether we wear robes, or use a particular form of service, and so on). We were also just a teeny bit nervous about how much new ‘structure’ would be proposed. Would there be a new centralized power structure that might in the future unhelpfully interfere in the ministry of particular dioceses or churches?

As the Statement was read, one group after another started to react with excitement, whoops of support, ovations, and at many places across the ballroom tears of relief and joy. Remarkably, amazingly, the Statement seemed like it was meeting the key hopes and expectations of each of the groups, while somehow managing to avoid the dangers as well. For we Sydneysiders, who have watched the battles in Anglicanism somewhat from a distance, the level of emotion was important to witness. For those brothers who have been struggling and fighting against an aggressive liberal agenda, often at deep personal cost and for years, the GAFCON Statement was both a vindication and a hope for a better future.

But what of the detail? We all then moved to provincial groups to comb through the draft, and to give feedback. Apart from fine-tuning a few phrases here and there, the Australia and New Zealand group I was part of was almost universally positive about the draft. The proposal was for a fellowship of Anglicans who actually believed the apostolic gospel, wanted to stand on the Bible as the basis of our authority and identity (see my Day 4 post on ‘identity’), and were prepared to offer real help and support to those who needed it.

That was Friday. Yesterday (Saturday) was an all-day trip to Galilee, including a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Now it is Sunday, and we have just emerged from the formal announcement and adoption of the final Statement. This time, the crowd listened in a sombre silence as the Statement was read. At its conclusion, a prolonged standing ovation swept through the hall.

As the final text reveals (see below), the Conference Statement essentially does three things:

1. launches the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
2. publishes the 14-point Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
3. recognizes the GAFCON Primates as a Council to organize and expand the fellowship.

What does this mean? Is it the announcement of a split or of schism or of a new denomination (which is what some of the secular media are already saying)? It is not. The Statement makes that very clear:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission ... We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

It couldn’t be clearer. The GAFCON fellowship is a reform movement within the Anglican Communion, but rather than simply calling for change, or asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to bring about change (a request that has been made repeatedly, and refused), the GAFCON movement is prepared take concrete action to make a difference. As the Statement proceeds, what this means in practice is spelled out—such as recognizing the need for the formation of a new province for North America, and urging the GAFCON Primates’ Council to act accordingly.

It is a remarkable statement—a rescue plan for the Anglican Communion, and a vision for a positive, growing, gospel future. Given the different streams of orthodox, Bible-believing Anglicanism represented at GAFCON, and the horse trading that is always involved in crafting these sorts of statements, it is stronger in its Scriptural and doctrinal affirmations, and bolder and wiser in its practical measures, than many of us had dared to hope.

Without further ado, here it is:

STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE

Praise the LORD! It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2)

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!

INTRODUCTION

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).

GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:

• launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
• publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
• recognise GAFCON Primates’ Council.

THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN CONTEXT

The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.

The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism.

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, not the way, the 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 living in a homosexual relationship.

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 churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold.

The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. 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 (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed 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 a colonial structure’.

Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.

A FELLOWSHIP OF CONFESSING ANGLICANS

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION

In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.

1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

THE ROAD AHEAD

We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation. Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.

Primates’ Council

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans.
We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.

We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons.

We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.

We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.

CONCLUSION: MESSAGE FROM JERUSALEM

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.

The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.

It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.

Jerusalem

Feast of St Peter and St Paul

29 June 2008

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I'm at the ‘conferenced-out’ stage of being not quite sure what day it is. If not for the fact that Shabbat is very visibly coming into force around me, I otherwise would be hard pressed to tell that it is in fact Friday evening, and that GAFCON is accelerating towards a close.

This afternoon, the draft Conference Statement was presented to the whole conference, and then discussed in detail by all the participants meeting in their different provincial groups. There is a strict media embargo on the text of the Statement, and those of us who are blogging have been sworn to secrecy. I will therefore say no more about it, except to promise that when the final text is released (on Sunday), you will want to read it. (I will post it here as soon as it is available.)

In the whirl of conversations, talks and experiences over the past few days, a few highlights are still clear in my addled brain.

One was the Focus Topic on Wednesday evening, ‘The Gospel and Religion’, featuring a lecture by Professor Lamin Sanneh, Professor of Mission and World Christianity at Yale. It was an erudite, but slightly meandering address, and only gained momentum as it turned for home, when the main point became powerfully clear: Christianity is inherently translatable. Unlike Islam, it has no revealed or exclusive language, and no one name for God. Christianity does not invent a language, but takes a language already in use for everyday purposes, and adopts it as its own.

Thus, Professor Sanneh argued, Christianity rejects the idea of an exclusive or superior language or culture, or for that matter a taboo or unclean culture. No culture or language can claim exclusive access; and none is so marginal or remote that it can be excluded. None is indispensable; none is unworthy. Here is an implicit Christian anthropology of culture. The claims of the gospel deny normative exclusiveness to any culture, and can be communicated in any linguistic or cultural context.

This, he explained, is what happened in the extraordinary growth of Christianity in Africa over the past 50 years. As the colonial era drew to an end, it was thought that Christianity would die in Africa along with it. The opposite happened. Colonialism in fact turned out to have been an obstacle, and its removal sparked the extraordinary explosion of Christianity in the Global South.

This has always been the missionary way, he argued. In India, in Korea, in China, in place after place, when the message reached the vernacular, it burst forth in growth. The genius of Christianity and its missionaries, is that they did for Africa and other parts of the world what Tyndale and others had once done for England: they dared to translate and communicate the gospel in the common tongue, often at great personal cost, and under the charge of political subversion.

“GAFCON”, Professor Sanneh concluded, “belongs to the tremendous sweep of this historic movement, translated to all corners in any and every language. The Gentile revolution is alive and well at GAFCON.”

Powerful and stirring stuff, particularly for Anglicans to hear. Historically, we have not always done so well in the cultural translatability stakes!

The other great highlight of the past few days has been getting to know these Bible-believing Anglicans that the translated gospel has reached in so many different places, languages and cultures. Lunch with Bishop Paul Yugusuk from southern Sudan was particularly memorable.

In Paul's diocesan region, consisting of 12 churches, there is barely anyone over 35. A generation has been wiped out, and war orphans abound—Paul is caring for 28 of them in his own household. Because of the war, literacy among adults is almost non-existent. The children are now learning to read, but for the adults it is virtually too late. The struggle to survive leaves them no time or resources for learning.

As we talked, I was exploring how we could help with Matthias Media resources. Could he use a Bible study or two? What books would be helpful? How about a training DVD? It became quickly obvious, even to a simpleton like me, that Paul didn't want books. He wanted me. He wanted people to come and work with him, to teach and train and disciple the people.

Strangely enough, this is what Matthias Media believes anyway. We believe that people minister to people, and that books and resources are just convenient tools to facilitate the process. And as useful as the books and studies and DVDs are, they are not indispensable.

Pray for Paul and also for Bishop Bernard in the Diocese of Torit. Pray for me, as well, that I can work out how to respond to their call for help.

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What is a true blue Anglican? And what is the positive basis for Anglican unity and identity?

The workshop I've been attending on ‘Anglican Identity’ has been very stimulating on this crucial question, especially the addresses by Ashley Null and Andrew Shead on the common authority that Anglicanism rests upon.

According to the norms and rules of the conference, I'm not allowed to report in detail on what happens in the these workshops. What I can tell you is that Null and Shead brilliantly outlined and reaffirmed that Anglicanism has an overarching, identity-shaping, unifying authority in its doctrine of Scripture.

When we look at the core documents of Anglicanism (the Thirty-nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer), a very clear picture emerges: Scripture alone is the authority, and the ‘church’ (viewed as the denomination here) is but a keeper and witness to ‘Holy Writ’, and has no power to overrule Scripture, dismiss it, or bypass it. And although the church and its councils may resolve controversies and make decisions about matters of ceremony and order, this authority is ruled and circumscribed by Scripture.

Here are some choice quotes that say it all, first from the Thirty-nine Articles:

VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

XX. Of the Authority of the Church.

The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation.

XXI. Of the Authority of General Councils.

General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.

XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church.

It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word ...

Cranmer's quite marvellous ‘Homily on Scripture’ puts it more picturesquely:

Let us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the New and Old Testaments and not run to the stinking puddles of men's traditions, devised by men's imagination for our salvation and justification. For in holy scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God's hands at length.

In these quotes, we see the vital thing about Anglicanism's approach to flexibility and inflexibility. Doctrine—which includes matters of faith and of morals—is fully contained in Scripture, and must of necessity be taught and believed. On this there can be no flexibility. However, on other matters—such as ceremonies, rights and other issues of ‘discipline’ or ‘order’—there may flexibility and variation, both geographically, culturally and over time.

In other words, Anglican identity (and thus unity) is fundamentally doctrinal and contained in Scripture. We may expect and accept flexibility and variation in the details of how we organize ourselves and conduct our ministries, but there can no flexibility about those things ‘necessary to salvation’. The irony, of course, is that in recent Anglican history, it has all been the other way around—almost limitless flexibility about doctrine, and officious inflexibility about church traditions and canon law.

One of my own fervent hopes for the GAFCON movement, and whatever emerges from it, is that the positive nature of our unity will be a distinctively Anglican one—that is, based on Scriptural doctrine not on secondaries.

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What is GAFCON in reality? A new alignment, a pressure group, or the beginnings of a breakaway church? What will happen as a result? Is there going to be a split? Are we about to witness the end of the Anglican Communion?

These are the questions that the journalists keep asking at the daily press briefings, held in the somehow appropriately named ‘Delilah Lounge’ at the Renaissance Hotel. The paradigm of political conflict and power struggle seems to dominate the secular media's approach to what is happening (although I haven't been able to read any of the resulting reports or stories as yet).

A succession of spokesmen have sought to clarify and explain. Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, answered the ‘split’ question by saying that there had already been a split in one sense: the fabric of the Anglican communion has already been torn by the actions of the liberal bishops—by those who consecrated Gene Robinson in 2003, but also by Bishop Michael Ingham in New Westminster, Canada, who has led the charge for same-sex unions, and is now attacking those biblically orthodox churches who cannot in good conscience accept his leadership. (One of the Canadian ministers at GAFCON told me that when he returns to his parish after the conference, he will be a trespasser on his own church property, according to Bishop Ingham. JI Packer faces the same.)

Bishop Iker has a point. When 300 bishops, representing over half of the world's Anglicans, refuse to attend one of the Anglican ‘instruments of unity’ (the Lambeth Conference), it's hard to pretend that there is a functioning ‘communion’ between Anglican churches and dioceses. Something has already happened, and there is little prospect of the breach being healed, especially since the actions of the revisionists stem from deeply held principles.

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya put it positively, and expressed his desire for what GAFCON could achieve:

The Anglican church is in need of revival and strengthening. We want to renew its mission, to plant, to grow. GAFCON becomes a forum to share what is happening; and whatever you call it, it's a strong organ bringing revival in the Anglican church, and reclaiming Anglicanism, the faith of our fathers. The missionaries came to Kenya and through great suffering remained faithful. I cannot think of anything else but remaining in that faith. I'm a bishop, but I don't preach because I'm a bishop, but because Jesus Christ saved me and transformed me.

We are still Anglicans. And GAFCON is still evolving. We want the participants to have their say. And they will say what we want to call it, and where we want to move.

The participatory and evolving nature of GAFCON keeps being stressed by the leadership team. There have been a number of opportunities thus far for all participants to put their views about what they hope will be achieved. Four questions were put to us, and we have submitted answers from numerous discussions and workshop groupings:

1. What are your hopes and expectations for GAFCON?
2. If GAFCON is not just a conference but a movement, how should it best be developed?
3. What are some potential dangers, and/or your fears, for GAFCON as a Movement?
4. How could the work of GAFCON help the Anglican Church in your country or Province face future challenges?

The responses to these questions will contribute to the formulation of the Conference Statement, which a committee of leaders from around the world is working on.

From what I've seen so far, my hunch is that GAFCON will be not be a breakaway church or denomination, but a movement of Anglicans wishing to reaffirm true Anglicanism, to foster Anglican ministry, and to provide protection and support for biblically orthodox parishes around the world who are being persecuted and attacked by liberal bishops.

In particular, a sentiment that has been often expressed in many of the groups and discussions is that GAFCON should not be a ‘single issue party’, a group of cobelligerents only united by their opposition to something (such as blessing same-sex unions, or ordaining gay bishops). The only unity worth having is a principled one, around a common theology and identity as ‘biblically orthodox Anglicans’.

But there's the thing. What is true Anglican identity? Is there anything ‘Anglican’ that we can affirm and be united by theologically?

That's the subject of some further ‘Day 3’ reflections that I hope to post soon ...

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The buses left early for our trip (or pilgrimage, as it was styled) to the Mount of Olives. It offered a strange mix of experiences: joy at the extraordinary singing of the African choir, who led us in a brief prayer service on the mountain; fascination at seeing the places where Jesus walked and talked and prayed and was betrayed; eye-rolling distaste for how it all has been turned into a site for religious tourism and idolatry (the Franciscan church at Gethsemane being an extraordinary example of both); and above all, a strange blankness at not feeling even one little bit closer to Jesus through the whole experience.

We were encouraged to pause and reflect quietly while in the Garden of Gethsemane (a pair of twin, walled gardens, with olive trees and other arid-climate flora). A few of us pulled out our Bibles and read the relevant part of Luke's Gospel, and talked about it together. We ended up in Luke 24 with the risen Jesus' command that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (v. 47).

I realized that the reason I felt very little spiritual inspiration by being in the Garden was that my access to Jesus had nothing to do with being there. I know Jesus because of Luke 24:47—because his gospel has been preached to all nations (even Australia!), starting from the city I was looking at, just across the Kidron valley. Jesus came to me through the gospel, in the power of the Spirit, and the Father and Son fulfilled their promise to make their home with me (John 14:23).

So the pilgrimage to Gethsemane did teach me something: it reminded me that Jesus is near because of his promise and his Spirit.

Back at the Renaissance Hotel Ballroom, Henry Orombi (Archbishop of Uganda) preached a powerful sermon on ‘Jesus is Lord’, the high point of which was his emphasis on the powerful, transforming word of God. Expounding the story of the paralyzed man healed by Jesus in John 5, Archbishop Orombi pointed out that Jesus exercised his Lordship by speaking a creative, healing word of power, and that he continues to do so today.

This is the characteristic testimony of the Ugandan Christian, he told us: I once was this, but now am that. Once a drunkard, but now a preacher; once a fornicator, but now a faithful husband. Once lost in sin, but now found by Jesus.

It struck me that this is one powerful reason for the abhorrence with which the Africans regard the revisionist ‘gospel’ of the liberals in North American. The liberal gospel is not a gospel of transformation. There is no power to change. Indeed, there is no need to change, because what we ‘once were’ is simply redefined as a valid lifestyle choice: “I once was lost, but now I realize that being lost is who I am, and that God honours that and accepts that”.

Later that night in the press conference (with my Briefing hat on), I asked Henry Orombi whether he thought this emphasis on the transforming power of the Word was one of the key differences between evangelicals and liberals. He said:

The preaching of the word of God allows faith and response to germinate. When the Word is preached, things happen.

Why is the church in the Global South growing? And not in the North? When I am in Uganda, I preach for one and half hours. How long do they preach in the North? Ten minutes?

What is happening in the North? Do they have a love for the Word? An ordinary Christian in the South has a Bible that is well-used and well-thumbed.

How well-thumbed is your Bible?

This emphasis on the Word was also one of the most encouraging things about Os Guiness's extraordinary address late on Monday afternoon, about the gospel and secularism. Having provided a masterly exposition of how advanced modernity and secularism was threatening Christian discipleship, his answer (among other things) was not that we needed to find some slick new message, or some clever new method; we need now more than ever, he said, to rely on the simple, plain preaching of the Word, and the accompanying power of the Holy Spirit.

That's how people find Jesus, or are found by him.

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