by David Virtue, VOL
Two distinguished emeritus archbishops, John Chew (Southeast Asia) and Mouneer Anis (Egypt), have written a history outlining the journey of the Anglican churches in the Global South following the heretical theology and disastrous behavior of a number of North American Episcopal bishops.
Three archbishops—Mouneer Anis, John Chew, and Peter Akinola (Nigeria)—met informally in Cairo in 2003 with no fixed agenda except to reconnect more formally with other orthodox primates and provinces of the Global South, following the disastrous consecration of an openly homosexual American bishop in the person of V. Gene Robinson.
This action galvanized the Global South bishops as nothing had ever done before. The world of the Anglican Communion would change forever. The book traces the history of that change by the Global South from the first Global South encounter through nine encounters and conferences, also called “trumpets.” The use of the word “trumpets” is not without significance. They are biblical references symbolizing important announcements, calls to worship, warnings, divine interventions, and judgments.
For the Global South, it was a clear call to a warning of God’s judgment on Western Anglican provinces which had departed from “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
With the Church of England publicly and joyfully welcoming same-sex couples, a milestone had been reached. Archbishop Samy Fawzy of the Anglican Province of Alexandria reaffirmed Resolution 1:10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference that forbade legitimizing or blessing same-sex unions. A red line had been crossed, alienating 75% of the Anglican Communion and announcing an impaired and broken communion. The Global South issued an “Ash Wednesday statement” arguing that the Church of England could no longer take the lead of the Anglican Communion while it openly disregarded the traditional teaching of the Communion.
They went one step further, saying that the current Archbishop of Canterbury no longer had the moral qualification to lead the Anglican Communion.