For Such a Time as This

It is now some six months after the Anglican Primates met together in Canterbury and agreed on a way forward in healing the “torn fabric” of the Communion.  April’s ACC meeting in Lusaka revealed that the plan was already unraveling and in the two months since then, it has become clear that the plan embraced by the Primates has fallen apart.  Whatever credibility ++Welby had gained by calling the January gathering of the Primates, persuading them all to come and getting them all to agree on what it would take for them to “walk together” is now gone.

On June 1 the new GAFCON Chair, ++Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria, issued a pastoral letter stating most frankly that

[Editor’s note: See also TEC Going to Lambeth 2020, a report from Anglican Ink which came out subsequent to Barbara Gauthier’s piece and confirms her thesis.]

This cannot be read as anything other than an acknowledgement that  ++Welby’s plan has failed and GAFCON (and most likely a number of other Global South provinces) no longer trust either the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Anglican Consultative Council (i.e., “those traditionally entrusted with leadership in the Communion”).  One could say it’s just back to square one with the fabric of the Communion remaining as torn now as it was before the Primates gathered in January.   But there is this critical difference: there will now be no second chance for ++Welby to redeem and amend what happened at Lusaka.

So if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Instruments of Unity are no longer capable of leading the Anglican Communion, then other and more effective means of leadership will be raised up to take their place.  Speaking on behalf of the GAFCON movement, ++Okoh focuses on how they are now developing new Communion structures to replace those which no longer work.  Plans for the GAFCON 2018 gathering are well under way.  Plans for Lambeth 2018 never materialized and even the possibility of holding a Lambeth 2020 gathering has yet to get beyond speculation.  GAFCON will be increasing its efforts towards “developing networks, training key leaders, encouraging sound biblical theology and resourcing our supporters throughout the world.”  Their Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will be actively moving into liberal provinces and setting up alternative jurisdictions and perhaps even alternative provinces as was done in TEC and Canada in 2009 with the creation of the ACNA.  At least that’s how I read ++Okoh’s statement that “we shall also not shrink back from standing with faithful Anglicans who find themselves in jeopardy.”  And ++Okoh makes it very clear that “faithful Anglicans who find themselves in jeopardy” includes those now in the Mother Church of Anglicanism:

A line has been crossed in the Church of England itself with the appointment of Bishop Susan Goff, of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, as an Assisting Bishop of Liverpool. The false teaching of the American Episcopal Church has been normalised in England and this divisive act has meant that the Church of Nigeria’s Akure Diocese has had no alternative but to end its partnership link with Liverpool Diocese.

The GAFCON chair concludes by citing the prophetic word given by former Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola in 2008 that “GAFCON was a rescue mission for the Anglican Communion” and it will continue to be an agent “for the reform and renewal of our beloved Communion.”

A second blow to ++Welby’s hopes for “walking together” came less than a week later when the Anglican Church of Kenya declined to invite Archbishop of Canterbury to give the sermon at the installation of the new Archbishop of Kenya.  They chose instead the newest GAFCON primate, Archbishop Jacob Chimeledya of Tanzania.  Moreover, leaders of the GAFCON Churches of Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria were not consulted about the proposed members for Archbishop Welby’s Task Group, which was to oversee the implementation of the Primates agreement.    George Conger reports that the Church of Kenya was particularly miffed at “the appointment of a Kenyan to the task force, without speaking with the leaders of the Kenyan church,” which “telegraphed to the GAFCON leaders they should not expect anything from this latest Lambeth commission.”  Not to mention the fact that TEC’s PB Michael Curry was appointed as a member of that very group whose purpose now appears to have morphed from enforcing the “consequences” on TEC to devising a way for all provinces to “walk together” with TEC.

To bring you up to date all that  has transpired since January in the unraveling of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plan, Canon Phil Ashey summarizes the plot line thus far.   The bottom line as he sees it, is that Anglicans are “just plain weary of hearing and judging” the ongoing travail of the Anglican Communion. Why should we care any more about the Anglican Communion?  A pattern has long been established and nothing in the status quo is likely to change it.   TEC enacts one of its many communion-breaking behaviors, discipline is agreed upon by the Primates; TEC defies Communion authority and fails to comply with the agreed discipline/sanctions/consequences; the Archbishop of Canterbury makes no reply and takes no action (first ++Rowan Williams, now ++Justin Welby); TEC moves on to the next communion-breaking behavior.  So it has been since October 2003. Canon Ashey’s analysis is clear, concise, factual and pretty much dead-on accurate. This is absolutely must reading.

Ashey concludes that “the old Communion structures have failed” and it has become “painfully obvious that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby cannot or will not do those things” that will “serve the Church in fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.”  The time has come for “orthodox Anglican leaders need to create new structures that are genuinely conciliar and recognizable to other Biblically faithful Christians across the world.”

GAFCON General Secretary, Archbishop Peter Jensen came to the same conclusion a few weeks earlier in an interview during his visit to the US for the ACNA Diocese of CANA’s synod back in April.  While it is true that the Archbishop of Canterbury has no real ecclesiastical power, he does wield considerable moral power.  He cannot force an errant province to change its ways, but he does have the moral authority and primatial power to “teach the Word of God clearly, unambiguously, and that power requires him to call sin, sin.”  He cannot excommunicate, but he has the power to “extend the right hand of fellowship to those who stand in the orthodox position and withdraw his fellowship with those who bless sinful activity” by not inviting notorious offenders to Communion-wide gatherings that he alone has the authority to call, such as the Lambeth Conference and the Primates Meeting.

Since the Primates gathered in January, the Archbishop of Canterbury has shown by his actions that his words are irrelevant, the “so called consequences” have made no difference, and his best efforts are ineffective in resolving the brokenness of the Anglican Communion. The current structures, ++Jensen says, are “old-fashioned and out-of-date” and need to be replaced.  It will not be Lambeth Palace nor the Anglican Communion Office which will effectively revitalize the Anglican Communion but the forward vision of GAFCON, which will be instrumental in reforming the Communion from within:

GAFCON is a dynamic spiritual movement. We have the Jerusalem Declaration. We are not leaving the Anglican Communion. We are the Anglican Communion.

Realignment from within has begun and will not include an ineffective and irrelevant Archbishop of Canterbury.

In this 15-minute video (beginning at the 7:30 mark) Kevin Kallsen and George Conger of Anglican TV bring up some important points on the difference between the Western and African approach to meetings.  The Western perspective is business-based: during the meeting ideas are presented, differences hashed out in sometime frank discussions, compromises are made and a consensus of sorts agreed upon.  The African perspective works quite differently.  All that activity occurs privately before the meeting, so that by the meeting takes place everyone is on board and they can make a public declaration of what has already been decided, already been communicated directly to the Archbishop of Canterbury and already been cc’d to all the primates.  What Kalsen and Conger see happening is GAFCON’s ongoing creation of “a communion within the Communion” with its own structures, networks, programs and training.

Andrew Symes discusses what these recent developments might mean for orthodox Anglicans in England. The rift between Canterbury and GAFCON is widening.  Symes agrees with GAFCON Secretary ++Peter Jensen that “the emerging model for [a renewed Anglican Communion] is GAFCON and its increasingly strong ties with the ‘Global South’ movement” – what Abp. Jensen described as “the new Anglicanism boiling up…based on the Word of God.”   GAFCON Chair ++Nicholas Okoh stated in his June pastoral letter that GAFCON will most certainly support them and will also consider the creation of “a new wineskin” for the British Isles, just as they did in North America with the formation and establishment of the ACNA as an alternative jurisdiction for orthodox Anglicans in the US and Canada. So what are orthodox Anglicans in the Church of England to do?  Syme has three suggestions:

Firstly, though the time to leave the C of E may not be now, the time to join and support GAFCON is now. Secondly, the church can get better at understanding, naming and facing the issues causing spiritual darkness in our nation, especially sexual immorality and gender confusion, as well as caring for the casualties of this revolution.  Thirdly, we must continue to support the church in the majority world as it is engaged in whole-person mission, and disassociate ourselves from new forms of colonialism which seek to impose Western secularism on the poor of the global South.

Symes’ clear analysis of how recent events have unfolded and his observations on what is yet to come are well worth reading in their entirety.

Since then, more connections have developed.  ++Mouneer Anis and other primates of the Global South Anglicans extended their primatial Anglican oversight to the Diocese of South Carolina, which had withdrawn from TEC.   The Diocese of Sydney entered into full communion with the ACNA, recognizing it as an Anglican province.  The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans established a new chapter in New Zealand.  A number of new African primates have either joined or expressed an active interest in becoming part of the GAFCON movement and have recognized the ACNA as a province of the Anglican Communion, even if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC don’t and won’t.

The old graphic of the Anglican Communion has clearly broken down.  The Communion no longer resembles a wooden wagon wheel with Canterbury as the hub and the other provinces spaced equidistantly around the outer rim, each connected by its own individual spoke to the Archbishop of Canterbury at the center.  What will replace this colonial-era structure is still to be determined.  Archbishop Justin Welby would like it to be more of a federation, loosely held together and provinces being more or less (or even not at all) in communion with other provinces.  Some observers have speculated on the possibility of a schism with two parallel Communions emerging:  a Western-led Canterbury/TEC communion and an African-led GAFCON/Global South communion.  Others see the creation of “a communion within a Communion” with some provinces in closer communion with each other than with the provinces outside their network.

Still others envision a radically restructured Anglican Communion centered around the GAFCON and Global South provinces.  Abp. Peter Jensen of GAFCON reiterated, “We are not leaving the Anglican Communion.  We are the Anglican Communion.”   What Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby thinks and does is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day.  As +Bill Atwood put it so well back in 2014, the Anglican Communion has begun to realign itself without the permission of Canterbury.   We are now seeing the provinces of GAFCON and the Global South actively reconfiguring the landscape of the Anglican Communion without ++Welby’s input or consent by effectively bypassing his leadership in the same way that a strongly flowing river cuts off a sluggish bend, creating an oxbow lake no longer connected to the river.

A geologist has posted the following “textbook example” of the creation of an oxbow lake.  About 30 miles east of Lake Conroe, while traversing more Piney Woods, he crossed the valley of the Trinity River, which exhibits some of the best examples of ox bow lakes in the making. This image ‘reads’ just like a textbook – deposition on the inside of the meander and erosion on the outside, causing the meander to become more sinuous over time until one day the river takes a short cut just as it has done below….. bypassing the bend altogether and leaving the old meander separated and cut off from the free-flowing water of the river.

…that ultimately dries up altogether as the waters of the river continue to flow on by beside it.

More and more of the living water of the Anglican Communion found in the vibrant churches of Africa and Asia now flows freely through the new river channel, leaving the old meander of Canterbury “to silt up and separate from the river’s course, forming an ox-bow lake.”  Without fresh water coming in, an ox-bow lake continues to silt up, its waters becoming increasingly shallow and stagnant, and it ultimately ends its life as a serpentine depression of boggy mud — not all that different from Bp. Atwood’s assessment of TEC and Canada’s future as “an institutional quagmire.”  That is perhaps a term that might now be applied to the Church of England as well.

Throughout history, the Lord has raised up those who are lowly and insignificant in the eyes of the world to confound the wisdom of the world and bring salvation by the power of his Holy Spirit working through the least likely of his servants: Moses, Gideon, David, Esther.  It is the story of the Magnificat and the heart of the Gospel for such a time as this.