African and Asian church leaders threaten to ‘plant’ a bishop in Britain to defy Welby on gay Christians

Apr 23, 2017 by Jill

ED: Anglican Mainstream understands from Gafcon UK that this article is only partially correct, and that Gafcon UK will be issuing a comment later.

by Jonathan Petre, Mailonline:

Conservative Anglican archbishops from Africa and Asia are plotting to create a new ‘missionary’ bishop to lead traditionalists in the UK – after warning that the Church of England is becoming too liberal on homosexuality.

The rebel archbishops are set to give the green light to the controversial plan at a crucial meeting in Africa this week in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Insiders said the move was the ‘nuclear option’ as it would represent a highly provocative intervention into the Church of England by foreign archbishops and a direct challenge to the authority of Archbishop Welby, who is nominal head of Anglicans worldwide.

Archbishop Welby alarmed conservatives in February by issuing a letter softening his stance on homosexuality. In the letter, written with his counterpart in York, John Sentamu, he called for a ‘radical new inclusion’ for gays and a ‘21st Century understanding’ of sexuality – apparently paving the way for the first formal services to celebrate gay couples.

The Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, who chairs the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) group of conservative archbishops, said the ‘distressing’ letter had ‘downgraded the historic and biblical mind of the Church’.

Even more alarming for GAFCON leaders, however, is that the liberal Scottish Episcopal Church is expected to become the first Anglican body in the UK to approve full-scale gay marriage at its annual synod in June.

At least seven GAFCON archbishops, who represent a vast swathe of the world’s Anglicans, will be at the five-day meeting starting tomorrow in Lagos, together with UK clergy.

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