GAFCON Chairman’s February 2017 letter

Feb 7, 2017 by

My dear people of God,

A diocese of another GAFCON aligned African province has recently decided to make a generous annual donation to GAFCON for what the bishop described as a ‘noble cause’. He is right, and we should be confident in making this claim for our movement. Not that we claim any nobility for ourselves. We are sinners saved by grace, but the grace of God at work in our lives leads us to desire that our Churches should be in line with his noble and redeeming purposes, as revealed to us in his Son and entrusted to us in the inspired Scriptures.

The Apostle Paul writes ‘Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task’ (1 Timothy 3:1). For Anglicans, bishops have a particular responsibility for godly oversight to ensure the spiritual health of those for whom, with their clergy, they share ‘the cure of souls’.  So what are we to make of the recent report by the Church of England’s House of Bishops on Marriage and Same Sex Relationships? To what extent does it reflect the ‘noble task’ of godly oversight?

The report recommends no change in the Church of England’s official teaching on marriage and sexual relationships, so we should be thankful that the bishops have resisted pressure to follow the path of The Episcopal Church of the United States, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Scottish Episcopal Church by changing the definition of marriage.

There are however serious concerns. It is urged that we must look for contradictory positions to be resolved in ways which are ‘in some way hidden from us’ (paragraph 8). No reason for this optimism is given, yet it is on this basis that the report says that it is still possible for Anglicans to ‘walk together’ (paragraph 59) and claims this was what the Anglican Primates agreed when they met in Canterbury in January 2016.

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