How God has used GAFCON over the last 10 years
By Archbishop Kanishka Raffel, Sydney Anglicans.
I’m travelling in Tanzania at the moment and am aware that many in Australia will have heard of the happenings at GAFCON in Kigali, but may not be fully aware of what led to this point and just how significant this is for our fellowship with Anglicans around the world. So let me share some of the testimony I gave to the conference about why GAFCON matters.
It was not a complete history and so I apologise for any incorrect or missing elements. But I spoke as a person who had the great privilege of attending GAFCON 2008 in Jerusalem when I was a rector in a Western Australian parish in the Diocese of Perth – a diocese self-described at that time as a liberal and progressive diocese.
A community for the marginalised
That first GAFCON produced the Jerusalem Declaration, which has proved to be a foundational document of contemporary Anglicanism. It was this first GAFCON that, uniquely and for the first time ever, drew together Anglicans from numerous jurisdictions not recognised by Canterbury and not invited to the Lambeth Conference that took place that year. It was the first time that faithful Anglicans from around the world, who had been marginalised, excluded and deposed by their own bishops and synods, were welcomed and embraced by seven Anglican primates of the day and all those who gathered – who made a stand against the failure of the Anglican Communion Instruments to withdraw fellowship from provinces and bishops who had rejected the teaching of Scripture and the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference, the Global South and the Primates Conference.
At GAFCON I, when the statement was read, the whole assembly rose to its feet in applause. There were tears and embracing as those present, Anglican Christians who were faithful to the Scriptures, faithful to the Lord, faithful to Anglican distinctives, expressed unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ independent of exclusive administrative structures that operated from England.
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