COMMENTARY ON THE GAFCON LETTER TO THE CHURCHES Part Six: Reordering the Communion

Jul 30, 2018 by

by Stephen Noll:

This is the sixth of seven posts explaining the “Letter to the Churches.” The first five posts can be found here and here and here and here and here. In this sixth entry, I shall explain the second part of the section of the Letter titled “Reforming God’s Church.” I have adopted the heading “Reordering the Communion” from the text of the Letter itself.

… And so, the Global Anglican Future Conference met in Jerusalem in June 2008. A reformation had begun.

In the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference took up the challenge of restoring biblical authority (and the teaching on human sexuality in particular) by affirming the primacy of the Bible as God’s Word written and going back to the other sources of Anglican identity – the Creeds and Councils of the ancient church, the 39 Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. The Conference also constituted a Primates Council and authorised it to recognise Anglican churches in areas where orthodox Anglicans had been deprived of their church property and deposed from holy orders.

Global Anglicans, as I have argued, are Great Commission Christians, catholic Christians, and Reformation Christians. None of the climactic events or the classic creeds and confessions of church history have occurred without contention and conflict. The first Council of Jerusalem addressed the challenge of Jewish Christians who questioned St. Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. The Great Councils of the 4th and 5th centuries involved challenges to catholic teaching on the nature of God and Christ. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century involved disputation with Rome over the nature of biblical authority and the Gospel proclamation of salvation by grace through faith alone.

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