Can GAFCON and the GSFA save the Anglican Communion?
By David W. Virtue, VOL:
Is this the end of the road for the Church of England’s hegemony
Whites dominate GAFCON IV.
The massive disarray and dysfunction in the Church of England, raises multiple questions as to both the future of the Church; its internal dysfunction; its relationship to the state; its relationship to the Monarchy, above all its relationship to the growing orthodox Global South that is rapidly distancing itself from the Mother Church.
About 10 percent of the 1300 delegates here are from the Anglican Network in Europe with its two dioceses, along with Church of England delegates and observers. It is said that Archbishop Justin Welby has people here who will report back to him. Welby’s charge that GAFCON is a “ginger” group is clearly not true; it never was. An even smaller contingent is from Australia whose presence and control of GAFCON is overwhelming. I have heard three Australian archbishops from Sydney speak but no one from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, or West Africa has given a plenary address.
Why is the Australian presence so dominant? Why is there an excessive white presence when GAFCON and GSFA is predominantly African and Black. One wag observed, perhaps we should call it; Global Australian Fellowship of Churches. The choices were considered “strategic.”
What are those strategic reasons? Did the General Secretary consult with anyone else on the impact of the imbalance this line up presents? How strategic is it to claim to represent 85% of the Anglican Communion which is almost surely mostly non-white with keynote speakers who are mostly from Sydney and other Anglo’s. Doesn’t this decision expose GAFCON leadership to being accused of a new “colonialism” by western Anglicans? Was that possibility ever weighed in the decision-making process by the Primates before the speakers were chosen?
I am told that Nigerian Archbishop Henry Ndukuba will read the Statement coming out of GAFCON and Ugandan Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba will preach at the final eucharist.
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) had its spokesman here in the person of Bishop Keith Sinclair who, in decidedly unBritish form, declared that if the Church of England follows the Episcopal Church on same-sex marriage it will tear the Communion apart.
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