Anglican Conservatives Create “Confessing Movement”

George Conger
July 8, 2008

Jerusalem—Anglican conservatives have dethroned the Archbishop of Canterbury as spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, and have created a confessing movement within the 80-million member church body that centers upon common doctrinal beliefs rather than a common historical heritage.

Delegates attending the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) endorsed the “Jerusalem Declaration”—a 14-point manifesto that sets the foundations for a reform fellowship within the largest Christian denomination in the world after Roman Catholics and the Orthodox.

The 1,200 delegates, including 291 bishops, also denounced the Episcopal Church for teaching a “false gospel” and for having “defied” church teaching by denying the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and promoting a “variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior.”

Archbishop Henry Orombi claims that the Anglican Communion has a “bright future . . . because Jesus is alive.” (Photo courtesy Episcopal Life/Matthew Davies)

The conference announced the creation of a “confessing movement” that will provide a haven for traditionalists unhappy with the liberal tilt of the Episcopal Church in the United States and Anglican Church of Canada, and a “Primates’ Council” of Archbishops to oversee the new movement.

“We are a global Communion with a colonial structure,” the delegates declared, sloughing off the control of the London-centered church in the greatest crisis within the Anglican Church since the Reformation. The Jerusalem Declaration “is really calling us back to our roots,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, and states “as Anglicans were we really belong.”

While endorsing GAFCON’s underlying statement of faith, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, described its attempts to reform the structures of the Communion as “problematic.” Saying there was much that was “positive and encouraging” about the conference’s final statement, Dr. Williams urged the leaders of the GAFCON movement to “think very carefully about the risks entailed.”

No immediate changes would be seen in the United States, observed Bishop David Anderson—a former California Episcopal priest recently consecrated a bishop by the Nigerian Church. However, he expected that over the coming year the structures would be set in place for the creation of a new province of Anglicans recognized by the GAFCON primates’ council.

The impact of the statement within Britain is less clear, as conservatives have not broken Eucharist fellowship with any bishop of the Church of England. Unlike the U.S. and Canadian bishops, all of the Church of England’s bishops had conformed to the agreed statements on human sexuality, said The Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester.

On July 1, approximately 750 Evangelical Church of England rectors met with leaders of GAFCON in London and endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration. Dr. Williams’ worries about the his hold on the church were also tested by a statement released the prior week by over 1,000 Church of England clergy, including 11 bishops which said that if the Church permitted women priests to be consecrated as bishops, they would quit the church.

Support for the Jerusalem Declaration by delegates to the conference appeared universal. Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics and charismatic Anglicans all supported the Declaration of Anglican essentials.

Bishop John Guernsey, a former Episcopal priest now serving in northern Virginia as a Bishop of the Ugandan Church, called the statement historic, saying he was “very pleased” by the outcome. Anglo-Catholic leader Jack Iker, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth hailed the meeting as a success and a “positive contribution to the future direction of the Anglican Communion, as well as a very encouraging affirmation and validation of the realignment that has been taking place” over the past few years.

The Jerusalem Declaration restates traditional Anglican teaching on the Bible, ethics and church order—but also “rejects the authority” of church leaders and institutions that have “denied the orthodox faith in word.”

The failure of the Archbishop of Canterbury to discipline the U.S. Church had made the situation worse, they argued. While recognizing his historic role, the GAFCON statement said it did “not accept that Anglican identity” was “determined necessarily through recognition” by the office of Archbishop of Canterbury—the customary determination of Anglican status.

Signers of the Jerusalem Declaration said the document was not the start of a schism or formal split within the Anglican Communion. “[We are] not saying we are the only faithful Anglicans,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen explained.  Jensen also denied that the declaration established a “church within a church.”

The Sydney archbishop said the best historical analogy for GAFCON and the Jerusalem Declaration was the Nineteenth century Evangelical revival or the Anglo-Catholic movements within the Church of England. GAFCON was “not a Westminster Confession” but a “confessing movement” within the church that sought to return the church to its essentials.

The Jerusalem Declaration would provide a bulwark against “Western revisionist” theology by preparing a “fellowship” of Christians to “support each other in truth,” while “charting the way forward for a Gospel-centered future,” Dr. Jensen told IRD.

It also “creates order out of chaos,” he said. The church splits and lawsuits that had arisen since the consecration of a gay priest as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 have spiraled out of control, Dr. Jensen said. The Jerusalem Declaration and GAFCON Statement, he claimed, would provide a method for managing the crisis.

It “will also help strengthen our relationship with Muslims” in Africa and Asia, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria explained, as it makes “clear” what we believe and addresses the intellectual and theological challenges posed by militant Islam.

The Anglican Communion has “a bright future,” Archbishop Orombi said, because “Jesus is alive” and the accretions of the past generation are being trimmed away in a return to a purer form of Anglicanism, he said.

Orombi expressed skepticism toward the Archbishop of Canterbury’s intervening in the affairs of other churches. “How is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying nontheological motivations at work?” he asked.

“We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.”

On June 30, Dr. Williams released a statement questioning GAFCON’s assertion that the Episcopal Church was “proclaiming another Gospel” and the “legitimacy” of a self-selecting council of Archbishops to govern the movement.

Dr. Williams said he had two principle areas of concern over the feasibility of the GAFCON approach to the resolving the Communion’s divisions. “By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?”

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, was less ambiguous in her criticism. Jefferts Schori ridiculed the June 29 statement, saying “much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON.” She added that the participants in the conference held a parochial view of Anglicanism, which had “always been broader than some find comfortable.”

For Jefferts Schori, the fight within the Anglican Communion is one of power, not principle, and was “merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers.”

The leader of the Episcopal Church said she would continue the church’s its efforts to expand the meaning of the Gospel, concentrating on social action and the building of “missional relationships.”

The July 15-Aug 3 Lambeth Conference would assist in this goal, Bishop Jefferts Schori said, providing opportunities for “constructive conversation,” prayer, and “relational encounters” among the disparate voices within Anglicanism.

The Rev. Canon George Conger is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida and senior correspondent of The Church of England Newspaper.

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