Pictured: GAFCON met in Jerusalem for the first time in 2008, as global Anglicans uniting in response to institutional failure to uphold God’s Word.
Blog 3/6 by Bishop Glenn Davies
Dear brothers and sisters of our shared faith,
We are delighted to share with you the third in a series of blogs from one talk given by Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Cross, Glenn Davies at the recent G26 conference.
To recap, what will the series of blogs be covering?
- Introduction and first point, ‘Good order in the Church: Why constitutions matter.’
- Second point, ‘The growing independence of the colonial churches (including in Australia).’
- (This blog) Third point, ‘When institutions fail.’
- Fourth, ‘Why you can reject the Instruments of Communion and still be authentically Anglican.’
- Fifth, ‘Why separating from Canterbury matters.’
- Conclusion, ‘The Way Ahead: Guarding authentic Anglicanism.’
We encourage you to review these at your own pace.
Over to you Glenn!
“Every Anglican Province has its own constitution and canons. The constitution sets out the framework of how the province and its dioceses are governed. Its purpose is to guard the gospel, so constitutions normally have a section outlining the doctrinal foundations of the Church. Anglican provinces ideally have the Bible as the final authority of faith and conduct, theologically expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles and liturgically expressed in the Book of Common Prayer. Canons are then passed, as occasion arises, to address issues within the framework of the constitution.
However, given the legacy of the Mother Church, many constitutions declare the province to be in communion with the Church of England or with the See of Canterbury. This was understandable when the doctrine and practice of the Church of England was orthodox, as it was in 1998. However, the slow decay that had infected parts of the Anglican Communion in the late twentieth century, continued to manifest itself, not only in North America but also in the UK. This was also sadly evident in the leadership of the Archbishops of Canterbury in the early twenty-first century, whose inability to declare homosexual activity as sin, as did Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, compromised the gospel and undermined the teaching of the Bible.
When acceptance of homosexual practice was growing in some liberal provinces, the 1998 Lambeth Conference overwhelmingly passed Resolution I.10, which among other things, declared that homosexual practice was incompatible with Scripture. In so doing, the Conference merely restated what Christian teaching about human sexuality had always been since apostolic times and indeed had been Israel’s teaching since the time of Moses.
It is important to recognise that Resolution I.10 was not promulgating a new doctrine but restating Anglican doctrine as it is has been received. However, when the crisis of 2003 arrived, with the consecration of Gene Robinson in the USA, a man who had left his wife and children and entered a same-sex relationship with another man, the Episcopal Church in the US effectively abandoned the doctrine of the Anglican Church let alone the teaching of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Years of obfuscation and delay, under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, resulted in the first Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008, which was launched as a movement within the Anglican Communion, but with a vision to re-order the Anglican Communion. That vision has now been fulfilled in our celebration of the Global Anglican Communion this week.
In the words of the Martyrs’ Day Statement (§4)Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.”
Please continue reading at your own pace the remainder of this talk.