RESPONSE TO OFFER OF AN APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION TO ANGLICANS
November 11, 2009 at 3:39 am | In Anglican Communion, GAFCON, Gafcon Primates | Leave a CommentStatement from GAFCON/FCA Primates Council
We have received the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter informing us of the Pope’s offer of an ‘Apostolic Constitution’ for those Anglicans who wish to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. We believe that this offer is a gracious one and reflects the same commitment to the historic apostolic faith, moral teaching and global mission that we proclaimed in the Jerusalem Declaration on the Global Anglican Future and for this we are profoundly grateful.
We are, however, grieved that the current crisis within our beloved Anglican Communion has made necessary such an unprecedented offer. It represents a grave indictment of the Instruments of Communion whose very purpose is to strengthen and protect our unity in obedience to our Lord’s clear command. Their failure to fully address the abandonment of biblical faith and practice by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada has now brought shame to the name of Christ and seriously impedes the cause of the Gospel.
The Primates Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON/FCA) is convinced, however, that Anglicanism has a bright future as long as we remain grounded in the Holy Scriptures and obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ’s call to reach the lost and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe the whole Gospel. We also believe that there is room within our Anglican family for all those who hold true to the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’. We would like to encourage those Anglicans who are considering this invitation from the Roman Catholic Church to recognize that Anglican churches are growing throughout the world in strength and offering a vibrant testimony to the transforming work of Christ.
We are convinced that this is not the time to abandon the Anglican Communion. Our Anglican identity of reformed catholicity, that gives supreme authority to the Holy Scriptures and acknowledgement that our sole representative and advocate before God is the Lord Jesus Christ, stands as a beacon of hope for millions of people. We remain proud inheritors of the Anglican Reformation. This is a time for all Christians to persevere confident of our Lord’s promise that nothing, not even the gates of hell, will prevail against His Church.
+Peter Abuja,
Chairman,
GAFCON/FCA Primates Council
November 10, 2009
New Anglicans taking their travails in stride
November 9, 2009 at 5:18 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
At the convention of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, which is appealing a Common Pleas Court decision that awarded its property to the smaller Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, there was laughter over the litigation and its possible consequences.
Archbishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and the new Anglican Church in North America, spoke of visiting a West Coast parish that lost its building to the Episcopal Church. Parishioners stuck a sign in the church lawn with a paraphrase of Hebrews 10:34, “We gladly accept the confiscation of our property.”
The litigation stems from a 2008 split when the majority of clergy and laity at the diocesan convention voted to secede from the Episcopal Church, which they believed had failed to uphold biblical doctrine on matters from salvation to sexuality.
The new Anglican diocese and its 58 parishes are affiliated with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America and the new Anglican Church in North America. Before the split, some of the 28 parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh sued the Anglican diocese, saying that church law requires property of departing parishes to remain with the denomination. Last month’s court decision dealt only with assets of the central diocese, such as endowment funds, not with parish buildings.
Last night the convention seemed to be taking the litigation in stride. The Rev. Mary Hays drew peals of laughter from the 335 clergy and laity when she preached on a passage from Isaiah that says, “He who has no money, come buy and eat.”
“Hey, you who have no money, do you think Isaiah knew that our funds would be frozen?” she asked.
At a dinner people were given donor cards for the Staying Faithful Fund, which was set up to cover expenses related to the litigation. For every $2 given through the end of 2010 an anonymous donor will give $1, up to a match of $200,000 for donations of $400,000. About $18,000 has been given so far.
Today, the diocese is expected to receive formally four parishes from outside its original boundaries. Saying that “we want our new parishes to be fully equipped,” Archbishop Duncan presented Terrible Towels to representatives of the parishes in Raleigh, N.C., Springfield Mo., San Jose, Calif., and Cleveland. While the others gave their towels at least a token wave, the man from Cleveland quickly set his aside.
Despite the collection for legal expenses, there were no pep talks about the likely success of the appeal. Instead, Archbishop Duncan said it was a sign of spiritual courage and that members of the Anglican Church in North America were prepared to give up their buildings if necessary.
In the great Christian revivals of St. Patrick’s Ireland or John Wesley’s England or East Africa today, “it isn’t that they have money, it’s that they have the Holy Spirit,” he said.
Archbishop Duncan predicted that the 21st century will be an “Anglican century” because Anglicanism embraces evangelical faith in the Bible, tradition that stems from a Catholic heritage and a Pentecostal reliance on the Holy Spirit.
“Let’s bless our enemies and move forward,” he said.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09311/1011614-455.stm#ixzz0WKqL9LLf
Bishop is ordained before hundreds
November 3, 2009 at 4:07 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Bishop William Thompson, center, signs a Bible
Pageantry and song accompany Long Beach rector’s three-hour welcome to the Diocese of Western Anglicans. The church’s first bishop will preside over 22 churches.
By Brianna Bailey
Anglican clergymen from as far away as Uganda and Newfoundland visited Newport Beach on Saturday to ordain a new bishop in the fledgling Anglican Church of North America.
Formed in 2008, the church is made up of congregations in the United States and Canada that have broken away from the Episcopal Church over differing views on homosexuality and the Scriptures.
The movement includes Newport’s St. James Church on Via Lido.
“This is an important, historical day for the whole church,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church of North America, who presided over the incense-drenched ceremony at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Saturday. “You can see the excitement in the people today.”
William Thompson was ordained as the first bishop of the of the Diocese of Western Anglicans of the Anglican Church in North America during a three-hour ceremony filled with pageantry and song.
The newly formed Diocese of Western Anglicans Thompson will preside over includes 22 churches scattered across California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington and Montana.
The few hundred people assembled at the ordination broke into applause as the archbishop placed a red embroidered bishop’s hat atop Thompson’s head.
“Receive the helmet of protection and salvation,” Duncan said after placing the pointed hat on Thompson’s head. “Be merciful and not remiss, so minister discipline, yet do not forget mercy, that when the chief shepherd shall appear, you man receive the never fading crown of glory.”
At one point during the ceremony, Thompson began to cry, while kneeling at the front of the church.
“I was mostly trying to hold my tears back,” Thompson said after the ordination. “There was a sense of unbelief that God had chosen me for this.”
Thompson, rector at All Saint’s Church in Long Beach, never had aspirations to be a become a bishop, he said.
But he has become one of the leaders in a growing movement of conservative congregations who have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the past five years over differing views on homosexuality and their interpretation of Holy Scripture.
The fledgling bishop hopes to see his diocese grow, building new churches across the Western United States, he said. There are also the ongoing legal battles with the Episcopal Church to attend to.
Several churches in the diocese are still embroiled in heated property disputes with the Episcopal Church, including St. James.
St. James became one of three conservative Southern California parishes that placed themselves under the jurisdiction of an Anglican Ugandan bishop after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop in 2003. Other Episcopal bishops began sanctioning gay marriages about the same time. The break led to a highly publicized property dispute over whether the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles or the St. James’ congregation owned the white stucco church, which stands across the street from Newport Harbor on the Balboa Peninsula.
Uganda: Uganda Christian University Head to Retire
November 1, 2009 at 4:46 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
THE Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University, Prof. Stephen Noll, has announced his retirement at the end of his second term on August 31 next year.
He will have served the University for 10 years. The announcement was made at a special University Council Meeting held at the Mukono campus recently.
He intends to see through the construction of the Hamu Mukasa Library, science labs and the completion of the internal administrative review. The finished Hamu Mukasa Library will cost close to sh10b.
Prof. Noll was appointed the first Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University in 2000. Since then he has seen the university grow from a few hundred students to over 7000 today.
Call to Prayer
October 28, 2009 at 2:22 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Bishop Bethlehem Nopece, Episcopal Patron of the FCA Southern Africa has been led to call the FCA and all orthodox Anglicans to a special time of prayer.
This is for Sunday 1st November 2009 the feast of All Saints. This feast that we know as All Saint’s Day originated as a feast of All Martyrs, sometime in the 4th century. The special focus of your prayers during that time is asked for the orthodox faithful across the world that:
- · They would be strong in their stand for the written word of God.
- · Continue to hold to the faith “once delivered to the saints” Jude 1:3
- · The Lord strengthens those caught in unhappy struggles and divisions over churches and property.
- · We stand strong in face of persecution from the culture and even part of our own church. Pray that it may be said of us that we even:’ joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.’ Heb 10:34, If that is what we are called to de in our stand for the truth.
- · The Lord blesses all bishops in the role of guardians of the faith.
As help and direction for your prayers at this time may we suggest this passage of Scripture:
“3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day– 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. 8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.” (Jud 1:3-8 ESV)
It seems that the church in the 21C struggles with just the same problems and needs the same encouragement.!!! Let us pray for all the faithful on this All Saints Day!
Fr Gavin Mitchell
General Secretary FCA SA frgavin@gmail.com
A Pastoral Exhortation to the Faithful in the Anglican Communion
October 27, 2009 at 4:06 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentThe Global South Bishops have released the below statement about the Pope’s offer to accept disaffected Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church.
Statement:
A Pastoral Exhortation to the Faithful in the Anglican Communion
1. We, under-shepherds of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of Jesus Christ, bring greetings to the faithful in the Anglican Communion. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. For in his great love for us, we are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit (Ephesians 2: 19-22).
2. The Vatican announcement on Apostolic Constitution (Note of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering the Catholic Church) gives us an occasion in making the following pastoral exhortation.
3. We welcome Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on the common biblical teaching on human sexuality, and the commitment to continuing ecumenical dialogue.
4. At the same time we believe that the proposed Anglican Covenant sets the necessary parameters in safeguarding the catholic and apostolic faith and order of the Communion. It gives Anglican churches worldwide a clear and principled way forward in pursuing God’s divine purposes together in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of Jesus Christ. We urge churches in the Communion to actively work together towards a speedy adoption of the Covenant.
5. In God’s gracious purposes the Anglican Communion has moved beyond the historical beginnings and expressions of English Christianity into a worldwide Communion, of which the Church of England is a constitutive part. In view of the global nature of the Communion, matters of faith and order would inevitably have serious ramifications for the continuing well-being and coherence of the Communion as a whole, and not only for Provinces of the British Isles and The Episcopal Church in the USA. We urge the Archbishop of Canterbury to work in close collegial consultation with fellow Primates in the Communion, act decisively on already agreed measures in the Primates’ Meetings, and exercise effective leadership in nourishing the flock under our charge, so that none would be left wandering and bereft of spiritual oversight.
6. As Primates of the Communion and guardians of the catholic and apostolic faith and order, we stand in communion with our fellow bishops, clergy and laity who are steadfast in the biblical teaching against the ordination of openly homosexual clergy, the consecration of such to the episcopate, and the blessing of homosexual partnerships. We also urge them, as fellow Anglicans, to continue to stand firm with us in cherishing the Anglican heritage, in pursuing a common vocation, in expressing our unity and common life, and in maintaining our covenanted life together.
7. In the closing words of the Anglican Covenant: With joy and with firm resolve, we offer ourselves for fruitful service and binding ourselves more closely in the truth and love of Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory for ever. Amen.
“Now may the God of Peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”(Hebrews 13.20, 21)
25th October 2009
Global South Primates Steering Committee:
Chairman: The Most Revd Peter J. Akinola, Nigeria
Vice-Chairman: The Most Revd Emmanuel Kolini, Rwanda
General Secretary: The Most Revd John Chew, Southeast Asia
Treasurer: The Most Revd Mouneer Anis, Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Members:
The Most Revd Stephen Than Myint Oo, Myanmar
Bishop Albert Chama, Dean of Central Africa
Filed: 26 Oct 2009
Why I praise God for the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
October 16, 2009 at 5:20 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Vaughan Roberts comments:
The launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (UK and Ireland) on 6 July was an answer to my prayers. I had feared that orthodox Anglicans, who share a common commitment to the essentials of our faith and a concern about departures from it within the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion, would spend more energy disagreeing over their different strategies for the defence and proclamation of the gospel than in supporting one another and working together for Christ in our church and nation. GAFCON gave me a glimpse of another possibility: a wide spectrum of believers including Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals of all shades, joining together in one united movement for the cause of Christ in the Anglican Communion in the light of great opportunities for mission and serious departures from the apostolic gospel. The existence of a national FCA provides us, I believe, with a God given opportunity. It is urgently needed for the following reasons:
Controversy Erupts as Catholic Bishop Asks Pro-Gay Bishop Not to Enter His Diocese
October 15, 2009 at 3:53 am | In News, North America | Leave a Comment“I was concerned about his well-known and public stature and position on these issues and my inability to keep these matters from coming up in discussion,” added Sample. “In order that no one becomes confused, everyone under my pastoral care must receive clear teaching on these important doctrines.”
By Peter J. SmithMARQUETTE, Michigan, October 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A public controversy has erupted between two bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States, with one of the youngest bishops in the country publicly taking on one of his own colleagues in an effort to defend the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and other issues.
Marquette Bishop Alexander K. Sample, 49-years-old and one of the youngest US Catholic bishops, recently banned Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, 79, a retired auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit and notorious promoter of homosexuality, contraception, and homosexual and women’s ordination, from entering and speaking in his diocese, citing his pastoral duty to defend the “faith and morals” of the Catholic Church. The controversial bishop was set to address the group Marquette Citizens for Peace and Justice.
“As the Bishop of the Diocese of Marquette, I am the chief shepherd and teacher of the Catholic faithful of the Upper Peninsula entrusted to my pastoral care,” said Bishop Sample in a public statement. “As such I am charged with the grave responsibility to keep clearly before my people the teachings of the Catholic Church on matters of faith and morals.”
“Given Bishop Gumbleton’s very public position on certain important matters of Catholic teaching, specifically with regard to homosexuality and the ordination of women to the priesthood, it was my judgment that his presence in Marquette would not be helpful to me in fulfilling my responsibility.”
The elder prelate, who once held the title of Vicar General of Detroit, counts himself as a member of radical heterodox groups such as New Ways Ministry and Call to Action, both of which have been censured by the Vatican for moral and doctrinal reasons, especially over the promotion of homosexual behavior as a valid normative lifestyle. Members of Call to Action are also excommunicated in one US diocese and the group agitates for contraception, abortion, divorce and remarriage, and change in the governmental structure of the Church.
Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans: Theological Resource Group
October 12, 2009 at 7:33 am | In FCA, Gafcon Primates | Leave a Comment
MONDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2009
Members of the FCA Theological Resource Group outside Christ Church, Virginia Water.
Orthodox Anglican Bishops, clergy and theologians from Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Australia, the USA and UK were meeting at Sunningdale Park in Berkshire over the weekend.
They also attended the morning service at Christ Church, Virginia Water. The Right Revd. Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu from Nigeria preached a moving sermon on Matthew 16:21-28 (front row fourth from right). Warm greetings were received from the Right Revd Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford. Members of Runnymede Deanery also attended.
Book Review: MORTAL FOLLIES
October 11, 2009 at 5:10 am | In News, North America, Post Modern Theology | Leave a Comment
Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline ChristianityBy William Murchison
(Encounter Books, hardcover, 208 pp, $25.95)
Reviewed By Auburn Faber Traycik
Mandate – Sept/Oct 2009 Issue
FOR ALL ITS IGNORANCE ABOUT (not to mention contempt toward) Christianity in America, even Hollywood sometimes gets it right. The 1996 movie Mighty Aphrodite includes a scene in which the somewhat ditsy character Linda Ash (Mira Sorvino) asks the lead figure, Lenny (Woody Allen), if he works out at a gym. “Not religiously,” Lenny replies. “Oh,” says Ash, “I’m not religious either…my folks were Episcopalians.”
Of course, it is “not that the dignified and rarefied old Episcopal Church (TEC) quit believing in God,” says the book jacket of the recently-published Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity, penned by William Murchison, a nationally syndicated columnist and longtime commentator on Episcopal affairs. “It’s that the God you increasingly hear spoken of in Episcopal circles is infinitely tolerant and given to sudden changes of mind – not quite the divinity you thought you were reading about in the scriptures.” In th e last 40 years, God seems to have changed His mind about several important matters in TEC, while not always doing the same in other Anglican provinces.
The question is – as distressed believers not infrequently asked me during my two decades of covering Anglican/Episcopal news – how and why did The Episcopal Church come to this pass? What happened to loose it from its historic theological moorings, and transform it within a few decades from a prominent and noble (if imperfect) branch of U.S. mainline Christianity to a shrunken distortion of its former self?
The continued timeliness of these questions was underscored in July by the Episcopal General Convention’s clear and decisive support for homosexual practice. And it is these same questions that my friend and colleague, Mr. Murchison, a longtime Episcopal layman and former editor of Foundations, attempts to ans wer in a comprehensive way in Mortal Follies.
………… The 1928 Book of Common Prayer draws positive mentions throughout the book, and Murchison devotes a full chapter to the historic liturgy and the far-reaching effects of TEC’s process of prayer book revision.
What in the world has happened to The Episcopal Church? Mortal Follies is an extremely valuable book for anyone interested in better understanding the answer to that question.
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