Gafcon Chairman urges “particular concern” for South Sudan’s Anglicans

Oct 10, 2018 by Andrew Symes

Chairman’s October Letter, from Gafcon website.

[…] Last week, the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) issued a communiqué in which it affirmed the unanimous decision of the House of Bishops not to attend Lambeth 2020 unless the Archbishop of Canterbury reverses his policy of inviting those who have rejected biblical teaching and not inviting those who remain faithful but have been forced to leave their traditional spiritual homes.

The communiqué also dealt with a wide range of current concerns in Nigeria, such as the welfare of Nigerian workers, security, the state of our roads and our public health system because proclaiming Christ faithfully is motivated by love. It is not loving to obscure or twist what the Bible teaches about sex and marriage and it is not loving to pass over suffering and injustice. We demonstrate the love of God by caring for one another, especially the distressed and the vulnerable.

We should therefore have a particular concern for the Episcopal Church of South Sudan. These brothers and sisters are no strangers to suffering, but last month they suffered a double tragedy…

…These tragedies underline the fact that the Episcopal Church of South Sudan is called to proclaim Christ in one of the most challenging contexts in the world. Since achieving independence in 2011, South Sudan has been blighted by fighting between armed factions, a series of failed ceasefires, inflation, famine and infrastructure breakdown.

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