Gafcon Chairman proposes fresh approach of ‘Distinctive Coexistence’

Sep 11, 2018 by Jill

September Letter from Archbishop Nicholas Okoh.

My dear people of God,

[…] We are not just a fellowship or a pressure group, but a global movement of orthodox Anglicans being led by the Spirit to restore and to gather a Communion which has been broken and scattered by false teaching and compromised leadership.

In 2008, we authorised the Anglican Church of North America as a new province to gather up the many who had been outcast from the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) simply because they refused to compromise with a false gospel. Research conducted in 2015 showed that TEC and its dioceses had spent in excess of US$60million on aggressive litigation since 2000 and that pattern of behaviour continues to this day.

We thank Almighty God that despite this opposition, the Anglican Church of North America is now recognised as a province by the majority of the Anglican Communion and we saw this pattern being repeated as persecuted Anglicans in Brazil formed the Anglican Church of Brazil in May this year with the endorsement of the Gafcon Primates Council.

This realignment of the Anglican Communion will undoubtedly continue. Compromise leads to more compromise, but can there be a better way forward than the aggressive legalism practised in the Americas?

New Zealand will be a test. Following the decision in May by the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (ACANZP) to allow for the blessing of same sex relationships, contrary to Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, a number of parishes in New Zealand have announced that they can no longer in conscience remain part of the Province, but Gafcon is proposing a fresh approach in order to minimise conflict.

Read here

The unfolding Anglican earthquake: a way through? By David Baker, Christian Today