The following article is from the July/August 2008 issue of Encompass. Encompass is a free, monthly publication produced by the American Anglican Council.  If you would like to receive Encompass click here  and join the AAC. There are no membership fees or dues required for AAC membership. 

GAFCON Discerns Path Forward

By Ralinda B. Gregor, Executive Editor
*All Photos by Joy Gwaltney

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) ended in rejoicing on June 29 as more than 1,000 pilgrims and 7 primates affirmed a Statement on the Global Anglican Future and the accompanying Jerusalem Declaration that chart a way forward for biblically orthodox Anglicans.

The gathering drew 291 bishops along with clergy, laypeople and spouses from 25 different countries and 19 Anglican provinces. Meeting in Jerusalem, Israel from June 22-29, the GAFCON pilgrims gathered for worship, Bible study, workshops, teaching, visits to holy sites, and fellowship.

As individuals and through provincial meetings, they gave prayerful input and feedback on their hopes for the Communion and GAFCON, which the conference statement drafting committee coalesced into a final statement that brought the pilgrims to their feet with cheers of approval and hymns of praise.

The conference statement characterizes GAFCON as a “spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ” and a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans.” It also notes that GAFCON emerged in response to the crisis in the Anglican Communion which has come about due to “the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ which is contrary to the apostolic gospel”, the declaration by Global South provinces to be out of communion with those who promote the false gospel, and the “manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy.”

The accompanying Jerusalem Declaration presents 14 tenets of Anglican orthodoxy which define and unite con¬fessing Anglicans. The GAFCON participants acknowledge Canterbury as a historic see, but do not accept that Anglican identity is determined through recognition by Canterbury but rather by Anglican Christian belief as outlined in the Jerusalem Declaration.

The statement calls on the seven GAFCON primates to form a Primates’ Council to “authenticate and recognize confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations” and to form and recognize a new North American province for members of the Common Cause Partnership.

Archbishop Peter Akinola, Nigerian primate and chair¬man of the GAFCON leadership team, reiterated that GAFCON is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. “We have no other place to go, nor is it our intention to start another church,” he told the pilgrims in his opening ad¬dress. Nor is GAFCON a church within a church.

The actions taken by GAFCON attempt to reclaim the true nature of Anglicanism rather than defining church unity through colonial structures that have proven to be ineffective. Church of England Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, explained that the Anglican church is a confessing church which articulates the gospel in each culture; it is conciliar, with councils at all levels that have the authority to “make decisions that stick”; and it is consistorial which means that those councils must teach the faith so that it can be articulated clearly.

One of the first orders of business for the Primates’ Council is to develop a protocol that will spell out the process to become a member, Akinola said. He expects the council to meet this summer to begin their work. After that, the Common Cause Partnership would begin the process to submit an application to the Primates’ Council to become a separate North American province, according to Bishop David Anderson, AAC president and CEO, who also serves on the Common Cause lead bishops’ council.

“We now have the opportunity and mandate to gather the dis¬persed orthodox Anglican family in North America into one province united by the same core Anglican beliefs and a commitment to mission, ministry and church planting, while also welcoming diversity in styles of worship and organization and making accommodation for differences on the issue of the ordination of women,” Anderson said.

While GAFCON produced a unifying statement of belief and tangible structural relief for orthodox Anglicans, many of its intangible benefits were equally profound. This was the first visit to the Holy Land for a majority of the participants, and it included pilgrimages to Mt. Zion, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa, the southern steps of the temple, Bethlehem, and the Galilee region.
 
GAFCON also provided a unique Christ-centered opportunity for the global Anglican family to get to know each other better. The Rev. David Short, rector of St. John’s Shaughnessy, Vancouver, Canada, likened GAFCON to a small taste of our heavenly feast with God, complete with reunions of people who haven’t seen each other for years, where the participants sing beautiful praises to Him, and eat and drink together in fellowship with the Lord and each other.

In seeking to reclaim the roots and basis of the apostolic and biblical faith, the GAFCON pilgrims may have caught a glimpse of the heaven to come. †