Eyes now on Lambeth 2020 delegates
by Madeleine Davies, Church Times:
ATTENTION has turned to attendance at the Lambeth Conference two years before it is due to gather in Canterbury. GAFCON has attached conditions to attendance, while the Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) has published videos of bishops from the Global south expressing their eagerness to attend.
In a letter published at the end of its third gathering last Friday, GAFCON urged the Archbishop to Canterbury to invite the bishops of both the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the new Anglican Church in Brazil to the Conference, and not to invite bishops of Provinces who had “endorsed by word or deed sexual practices which are in contradiction to the teaching of Scripture and Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, unless they have repented of their actions and reversed their decisions”.
If the Archbishop did not comply, the letter went on, “we urge GAFCON members to decline the invitation to attend Lambeth 2020 and all other meetings of the Instruments of Communion.”
In recent days, ACNS has published six videos of Primates expressing their eagerness to attend the Conference and their hope that others will join them. The Primate of West Africa, the Most Revd Daniel Sarfo, described it as a “family reunion” while the Archbishop of Congo, the Most Revd Masimango Katanda, a member of GAFCON’s Primates Council, said: “When we talk with Anglican Christians in Congo their identity is in the see of Canterbury; so breaking the see of Canterbury is like starting a new Church, which is not the Anglican Church.”
Last week, the Primates’ Council was expanded to include the Archbishop of the breakaway Anglican Church in Brazil, the Most Revd Miguel Uchoa, and the Archbishop of Myanmar, the Most Revd Stephen Than. A press release said that the Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Revd Jackson Ole Sapit, had “expressed his desire to join the Primates Council and will be welcomed at the next meeting”.
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