Bishop Keith Sinclair’s address to GAFCON IV
by Chris Sugden, EFAC:
[…] What I find extraordinary is that since that time, nearly 20 years ago now, and with another Lambeth Conference in view (even delayed by the Pandemic) there has not been another attempt made to repair the tear, no intra Provincial commissions to find a way forward even if it means finding a way to walk apart.
Rather after the Primates Meeting in 2016 the Archbishop of Canterbury appealed to “good disagreement” which seemed to mean that both these convictions about the “teaching of scripture” could be permitted within the Anglican Communion without any decision being made between them. This view became explicit during the Lambeth Conference 2022. A call to reaffirm Resolution 1:10 seems to have been introduced into the Call on Human Dignity (at the last minute) only to be hastily withdrawn after protest.
But here is the grievous incoherence at the heart of this appeal. Lambeth 1:10 was framed and passed overwhelmingly because of the conviction about the teaching of scripture which binds the church and holds the church in the truth and grace of God. As the Lambeth Conference of 1920 had said the churches are not free to deny the truth or to ignore the fellowship. The idea that we simply choose between a menu of options according to our cultural heritage or experience is NOT what the scripture teaches. It is NOT what the Church has anywhere recognised right up to the modern period.
But rather than face this fundamental disagreement and the implications for fellowship, mission , discipline and so on, the differences are simply described as if both are possible in some hope that we can keep together in an institution that has got some shared history but no common mind.
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