There is urgency about the gospel
To the Faithful of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and friends
from Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council
29th January 2014
‘…by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God’ 2 Corinthians 4:2
My dear brothers and sisters,
Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!
I write this first message of 2014 with great hope and confidence for the year ahead. GAFCON 2013 renewed our vision for the Anglican Communion as a global fellowship faithful to the Scriptures and confirmed what many of us had already sensed, that our movement is emerging as the only real answer to the Communion’s problems of fragmentation and confusion.
In the year ahead we must resolve to devote ourselves to the great biblical mandate to make disciples of all nations which was the focus of our gathering in Nairobi. There is urgency about the gospel and it must be proclaimed in word and deed, in season and out of season and it is the same gospel, whether in strife torn nations such as South Sudan or in the affluent but morally disorientated nations of the developed world.
We cannot therefore allow our time and energy to be sapped by debating that which God has already clearly revealed in the Scriptures. Earlier this week, the English College of Bishops met to reflect upon the ‘Pilling Report’, commissioned to reflect on how the Church of England should respond to the question of same sex relationships. Its key recommendations were that informal blessings of such unions should be allowed in parish churches and that a two year process of ‘facilitated conversation’ should be set up to address strongly held differences within the Church on this issue.
While we should be thankful that the College of Bishops did not adopt the idea of services for blessing that which God calls sin, it did unanimously approve the conversation process and this is deeply troubling. There has been intensive debate within the Anglican Communion on the subject of homosexuality since at least the 1998 Lambeth Conference and it is difficult to believe that the bishop’s indecision at this stage is due to lack of information or biblical reflection. The underlying problem is whether or not there is a willingness to accept the bible for what it really is, the Word of God.
At Lambeth 1998, the bishops of the Anglican Communion, by an overwhelming majority, affirmed in Resolution 1.10 that homosexual relationships were not compatible with Scripture, in line with the Church’s universal teaching through the ages, but the Pilling Report effectively sets this aside. The conversations it proposes are not to commend biblical teaching on marriage and family, but are based on the assumption that we cannot be sure about what the bible says.
I cannot therefore commend the proposal by the College of Bishops that these ‘facilitated conversations ‘ should be introduced across the Communion. This is to project the particular problems of the Church of England onto the Communion as a whole. As with ‘Continuing Indaba’, without a clear understanding of biblical authority and interpretation, such dialogue only spreads confusion and opens the door to a false gospel because the Scriptures no longer function in any meaningful way as a test of what is true and false.
Faced with these challenges, I am reminded of the importance of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. It places our fellowship under the written word of God, which ‘is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading’. Here we have a solid foundation for the responsible reading of the Bible which preserves its transformative power. As John the Evangelist writes ‘these things are written so that you may believe…..and that by believing you may have life’ (John 20:31).
Plans are already taking shape following GAFCON 2013 to provide our global fellowship with the organisation and communications it needs if the Anglican Communion is to recover its unity by listening to and obeying the Word of God. Using modern communications it is possible for us to experience the connectedness of being a global communion in a way that our predecessors could never have imagined. Each one of us can play a part and so may I conclude by inviting you, if you have not yet done so, to join the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans at http://fca.net. My pastoral messages and other communications can then be sent direct to you by email and together we can serve the cause of the gospel at this critical time
Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Thursday, 30 January 2014 at 8:29am GMT
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Thanks, once more, to Simon Sarmiento, of Thinking Anglicans U.K., for this link to the message sent out to the GAFCON & FCA associates who attended their recent meeting in Nairobi, under the leadership of the Archbishop of Kenya, ++Eliud Wabukala.
My highlighting of various bits and pieces of this communique may help us to understand what is actually going on within the burden of the letter.
In the first place, the ABK addresses his audience as “the Faithful of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and friends”. Such an address, by implication, separates his audience from others in the Anglican Communion on the basis that other Anglicans may be neither ‘Confessing”, nor “Faithful’. I submit that other Anglicans may not ‘confess’ to the strict guidelines of gafcon and the fca, while yet being faithful Anglicans.
Secondly, the phrase: ” our movement is emerging as the only real answer to the Communion’s problems of fragmentation and confusion.” seems to point to the assumption that gafcon and fca are the only legitimately traditional Anglicans, with all the answers to the present conflict in the communion. This may be hubris or just plain naivety.
Thirdly, there is the implication that the College of bishops in the C. of E., by unanimously approving of the ongoing ‘conversation process’ on matters of gender and sexuality, were somehow causing: “(an) underlying problem (as to) whether or not there is a willingness to accept the bible for what it really is, the Word of God. This presumes that only gafcon and fca are the interpreters of what may be in accordance with God’s will as indicated by the Scriptures.
Then, the ABK has this to say re: “Continuing Indaba’, without a clear under-standing of biblical authority and interpretation, such dialogue only spreads confusion and opens the door to a false gospel because the Scriptures no longer function in any meaningful way as a test of what is true and false. Such a statement clearly infers the lack of understanding by anyone but gafcon and fca on matters of Biblical scholarship and Hermeneutics.
“ Each one of us can play a part and so may I conclude by inviting you, if you have not yet done so, to join the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans at http://fca.net. My pastoral messages and other communications can then be sent direct to you by email and together we can serve the cause of the gospel at this critical time.
This rally cry, contained in the final paragraph of the communique, is a call to join in with an organisation in the world-wide Anglican Communion that intends to mount a campaign to take the ‘moral high-ground’ within the borders of the Communion proper. One wonders what will happen when the GAFCON leaders have reflected on the challenge now issued to them directly by the ABC and the ABY, reminding them of the Dromantine Communique, signed by all the Bishops of the Communion, which accepts Gays as part and parcel of the Anglican part of the Body of Christ. Make no mistake, this is the fundamental issue that is encouraging the GAFCON Primates to set themselves apart from the rest of us. The Biblical argument is the covering.
Father Ron Smith, Christchurch, New Zealand
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