GAFCON final day: Making a Statement!

The final GAFCON Conference Statement has been released, and is reproduced in full below.

To understand what this statement means, let me take you back to GAFCON on Friday, shortly after 12 noon. The main ballroom was packed, and Professor Stephen Noll was reading out the Draft of the GAFCON Conference Statement. The press had been excluded, and we had all been strictly warned not to divulge anything to anyone. Slowly and deliberately, Professor Noll began to read, as PowerPoint slides of the text flashed up on the screens. The tension was palpable.

Four different kinds of people at GAFCON were holding their collective breath for different reasons.

The Americans, most of whom are at the more ‘churchy’ (in places Anglo-Catholic) end of the Anglican spectrum, were desperately hoping that something would be announced about a new province. What this means for the uninitiated is that most of the Americans at GAFCON have either left The Episcopal Church or are in the process of doing so, and have joined various networks of biblically orthodox Anglicans (such as the Anglican Mission in America). These various networks are working together under the banner of the ‘Common Cause Partnership’ to create a new structure for faithful Anglicans in North America. Their dream is a new province within the Anglican Communion, which has its own Archbishop and dioceses. As Stephen Noll read the Draft Statement, the Americans around me looked like bidders for the Olympic games waiting for the winning city to be announced.

Biblical Anglicans having a hard time in other places—such as the minority of evangelical Anglicans in places like New Zealand and Ireland—were waiting anxiously for other reasons. They were hoping for a strong statement of doctrinally-based Anglican unity that offered them legitimate ‘safe havens’. In other words, if their local bishop took up an untenable position (such as blessing same-sex unions), they wanted some simple and valid way of stepping out from under his oversight and authority into some other sort of orthodox fellowship within the Anglican Communion.

The Africans were bubbling with expectation for different reasons again. They wanted to see a vindication of the bold action that their archbishops had taken over the past five years—the strong and public rebuking of The Episcopal Church, the declaring of themselves out of communion with it, the ordination of their own missionary bishops to America to offer assistance, and their refusal en masse to go to the Lambeth Conference this year. Would the Statement be a strong affirmation of this action, or yet another damp squib? Was this the time when the post-colonial shackles would finally be shaken off, and the strong stand of the Africans be recognized as leadership?

And then there were the rest (including Sydney Anglicans like me), who were hoping for a strong statement around which biblical Anglicans could unite, and offer one another encouragement and practical help—one which made the classic Scriptural doctrine of Anglicanism the point of unity, and not secondary or historical matters (such as whether we wear robes, or use a particular form of service, and so on). We were also just a teeny bit nervous about how much new ‘structure’ would be proposed. Would there be a new centralized power structure that might in the future unhelpfully interfere in the ministry of particular dioceses or churches?

As the Statement was read, one group after another started to react with excitement, whoops of support, ovations, and at many places across the ballroom tears of relief and joy. Remarkably, amazingly, the Statement seemed like it was meeting the key hopes and expectations of each of the groups, while somehow managing to avoid the dangers as well. For we Sydneysiders, who have watched the battles in Anglicanism somewhat from a distance, the level of emotion was important to witness. For those brothers who have been struggling and fighting against an aggressive liberal agenda, often at deep personal cost and for years, the GAFCON Statement was both a vindication and a hope for a better future.

But what of the detail? We all then moved to provincial groups to comb through the draft, and to give feedback. Apart from fine-tuning a few phrases here and there, the Australia and New Zealand group I was part of was almost universally positive about the draft. The proposal was for a fellowship of Anglicans who actually believed the apostolic gospel, wanted to stand on the Bible as the basis of our authority and identity (see my Day 4 post on ‘identity’), and were prepared to offer real help and support to those who needed it.

That was Friday. Yesterday (Saturday) was an all-day trip to Galilee, including a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Now it is Sunday, and we have just emerged from the formal announcement and adoption of the final Statement. This time, the crowd listened in a sombre silence as the Statement was read. At its conclusion, a prolonged standing ovation swept through the hall.

As the final text reveals (see below), the Conference Statement essentially does three things:

1. launches the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
2. publishes the 14-point Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
3. recognizes the GAFCON Primates as a Council to organize and expand the fellowship.

What does this mean? Is it the announcement of a split or of schism or of a new denomination (which is what some of the secular media are already saying)? It is not. The Statement makes that very clear:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission … We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

It couldn’t be clearer. The GAFCON fellowship is a reform movement within the Anglican Communion, but rather than simply calling for change, or asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to bring about change (a request that has been made repeatedly, and refused), the GAFCON movement is prepared take concrete action to make a difference. As the Statement proceeds, what this means in practice is spelled out—such as recognizing the need for the formation of a new province for North America, and urging the GAFCON Primates’ Council to act accordingly.

It is a remarkable statement—a rescue plan for the Anglican Communion, and a vision for a positive, growing, gospel future. Given the different streams of orthodox, Bible-believing Anglicanism represented at GAFCON, and the horse trading that is always involved in crafting these sorts of statements,  it is stronger in its Scriptural and doctrinal affirmations, and bolder and wiser in its practical measures, than many of us had dared to hope.

Without further ado, here it is:

STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE

Praise the LORD! It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2)

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!

INTRODUCTION

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).

GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:

• launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
• publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
• recognise GAFCON Primates’ Council.

THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN CONTEXT

The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.

The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism.

The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.

The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold.

The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honour promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure’.

Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.

A FELLOWSHIP OF CONFESSING ANGLICANS

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION

In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.

1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

THE ROAD AHEAD

We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation. Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.

Primates’ Council

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans.
We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.

We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons.

We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.

We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.

CONCLUSION: MESSAGE FROM JERUSALEM

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.

The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.

It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.

Jerusalem
Feast of St Peter and St Paul

29 June 2008