Florida Catholic | Anglican Bishops In Jerusalem To Discuss Their Future

Anglican bishops in Jerusalem to discuss their future

JUDITH SUDILOVSKY | CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

Posted: 06.25.08

Episcopal Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Diocese of Quincy in Peoria, Il., center, and other Anglican prelates visit the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem June 23, as part of the the Global Anglican Future Conference. Conservative Anglican leaders, many of whom will not be attending the upcoming Lambeth Conference, were meeting for a week of discussions in Jerusalem on the future of the Anglican Church.
CNS | Ammar Awad, Reuters

JERUSALEM (CNS) | More than 300 conservative Anglican bishops and some 1,000 of their faithful gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the future unity of the Anglican Church.

Bishops attending the Global Anglican Future Conference, known by its acronym GAFCON, June 22–29 said they were frustrated by the ineffectual response from Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, to their long–term disagreements over the ordination of openly gay bishops and the blessing of same–sex unions.

Many of the bishops in attendance said they would not be participating in the July 16–Aug. 4 Lambeth Conference, in England, which brings together the world’s Anglican leadership every 10 years.

The consecration of an openly gay bishop is in “direct violation of the Bible and historic Christian teaching,” Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi of Kampala, Uganda, a GAFCON organizer, said in a statement posted on the conference Web site.

Still, in a press briefing during the conference, Archbishop Orombi said the disagreement is a crisis of authority and not about homosexuality and the clergy.

“Homosexuality is only the presenting issue,” he said, noting that the Episcopal Church, the American member of the Anglican Communion, openly defied resolutions reached at the 1998 Lambeth Conference with no disciplinary action taken against it.

“The apparent lack of resolve to take action manifests a deeper crisis, namely a crisis of confidence in the authority of the word of God as the ultimate standard of faith and moral living,” he said.

The Vatican will send representatives to the Lambeth gathering to follow the developments which have threatened to split the Anglican Communion and which raise questions about the future of the 40–year–old dialogue between the two churches.

Though there has been much speculation that the Jerusalem conference will end with an official announcement of a split with the Anglican Communion, conference leaders insist they are “praying that the Anglican Communion remains united.” They speak of the conference as being a “renewal and restoration” of traditional Anglican faith.

“GAFCON is a rescue mission. Our beloved Anglican Communion must be rescued from the manipulation of those who have denied the Gospel and its power to transform and save; those who have departed from the Scripture and the faith ... from those who are proclaiming a new Gospel, which really is no Gospel at all,” said Archbishop Peter Akinola of Abuja, Nigeria, in his opening address June 22. “In the wisdom and strength God supplies we must rescue what is left of the church from (the) error of the apostates.”

Conference participants are largely from churches in the global South –– Africa, Latin America and Australia.

At the center of the crisis between the conservative faction and the liberal, mainly North American and British faction of the Anglican Church is a long–term disagreement over the ordination of openly gay bishops and the approval of same–sex unions in the Episcopal Church. The ordination of women priests and bishops is another point of contention.

Conference leaders likened the current situation with that of 16th–century England when the Anglican Church broke away from the Roman Catholic Church.

As an American, Anglican Bishop Jack Iker of Forth Worth, Texas, said he was “overwhelmingly aware” of what a small minority Americans are at GAFCON even though at times they tend to dominate the worldwide Anglican Communion because of their wealth.

“But the Episcopal Church is a very small minority within the worldwide Anglican church,” he said. “The heat and vitality of the communion is in the global South.”

GAFCON has given the members of American churches in attendance “affirmation and validation” that they can remain faithful Anglicans without “submitting to (the) new teachings taking over recently,” he said.

American bishops consecrated into African churches have not been invited to Lambeth by Archbishop Rowan, adding another element to the division.

However, most conservative Episcopal churches are seeking ways to remain within the Anglican Communion, Bishop Iker said.

Some bishops noted that they now felt they had more in common with the Catholic Church than with the liberal faction of their own communion on issues such as a male priesthood and homosexuality.

Bishop Iker said he hopes the Anglican Communion can build a similar structure to that of the Catholic Church which encompasses Eastern–rite and western churches under the same papal authority.

He noted that the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church has become strained because of the internal divisions.

END

06/25/2008 4:03 PM ET

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Anglican bishops in Jerusalem to discuss their future

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