FCA South Africa Conference Ends with Statement of purpose and commitment to the Orthodox faith clearly stated at GAFCON

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in South Africa has been concluded its second annual conference in Port Elizabeth from October 27-29.  This was a time of felowship for members of FCA – SA from six of the costal dioceses in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA), as well the Church of England in South Africa (CESA) and international visitors from four continents.

The Diocesan Bishop of Port Elizabeth, Bethlehem Nopece welcomed participants from the Dioceses of Cape Town, False Bay, Durban, Natal, and George, along with Bishop P.J.Lawrence, Bishop of Nandyal in the Church of South India, Bishop Glenn Davies, Bishop of North Sydney, Australia, Bishop Desmond Inglesby, Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa, and bishops of the Anglican Church in North America, officiating for the first time in Southern Africa – Bishop John Guernsey of the Diocese of the Holy Spirit and Bishop Bill Murdoch of the Anglican Diocese of New England.

We were truly blessed by the teaching and preaching of Bishops John Guernsey and Bill Murdoch from ACNA.  They had a timely word for the Church in this region which is widely believed to be the beachhead for the risionism of TEC and the Canadian provinces on the African Continet.

A panel discussion in including Bishop Nopece, Bishops Guernsey and Murdoch (ACNA), Bishop Glen Davis (Sydney) and canons Samuel and Sugden clearly charted the Crisis in the Communion and helped the meeting form a clear

Dr Chris Sugden and Dr Vinay Samuel during one of the discussion times.

understanding of what Orthodox Anglicanism is called to do in the coming years to defend and SPREAD the faith “once handed down”

Perhaps the one message that needs to be heard by all who hold our faith dear in this region are these words that stick in my mind from one of our discussions:

“Fear not little flock; it is the father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom. We are faithful. But be open, network, create these products. Anglicans speak beyond themselves. Say yes we will make a difference. Often the emporer has no clothes. We have a lot of the clothes that the righteous Lord gives us.”

The final sessions of the conference included the commitment to following resolution crafted by the entire gathering to declare our position in these changing times and our commitment to make an effective contribution to the Church in this region.

They produced the following resolution:

Friday, 29 October 2010

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Southern Africa, meeting for the second annual conference in Port Elizabeth resolved:

1. To constitute a Steering Committee representing parishes and regions.

2. To request Bishop Bethlehem Nopece to be Episcopal Adviser to FCA (SA).

3. To request members of the Committee to meet with the leadership of ACSA and CESA and to update them about the FCA (SA).

4. To affirm our commitment to our Churches and the renewal of the Anglican Communion.

5. To charge parish representatives to share with those around them:

• The Jerusalem Declaration - as the central shared truths of Anglicanism we can use as the minimum expression of the truth.
• Being Faithful – as a good instrument for beginning the education of ordinary Anglicans to know what they believe.
• To encourage individuals and parish councils to sign up to the Statement and join FCA (SA).

6. Respectfully request the GAFCON Primates to commission further contemporary teaching materials based on the Jerusalem Statement for teaching the essentials of the orthodox faith to the faithful – accessible especially for young people.

7. To express gratitude and appreciation to the CAPA conference in Entebbe for the clear and definite leadership in the midst of the global Anglican crisis given in the following areas:

• The welcome and affirmation of the Anglican Church of North America.
• The courageous stand against the liberalizing influence of TEC in the Global South.

8. To express our gratitude to Bishops Guernsey and Murdoch of ACNA for their supportive presence at our conference.
-ends-

Chris Sugden reports:

October 27th, 2010

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Southern Africa) opened its second annual conference at St Saviour’s Church in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday October 27th. The Diocesan Bishop, Bethlehem Nopece welcomed participants from the Dioceses of Cape Town, False Bay, Durban, Natal, and George, along with Bishop P.J.Lawrence, Bishop of Nandyal in the Church of South India, Bishop Glenn Davies, Bishop of North Sydney, Australia, Bishop Desmond Inglesby, the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa, and Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America, officiating for the first time in Southern Africa – Bishop John Guernsey of the Diocese of the Holy Spirit and Bishop Bill Murdoch of the Anglican Diocese of New England. Greetings were received from Archbishop Valentine Mokiwa from Tanzania who was prevented from attending by ill-health.

Standing with Diocesan Bishop Bethlehem Nopece (Centre) are (left to right) Bishops Glenn Davies (North Sydney), P.J.Lawrence (Nandyal, Church of South India), Bill Murdoch (ACNA) and John Guernsey (ACNA)

Bishop John Guernsey preached and began by noting that at the urging of the GAFCON movement the new province of the Anglican Church in North America was formed in North America. “We have seen a great deal of persecution. Churches have lost their property, clergy have lost their positions, given up medical insurance and pension benefits and been sued by their own bishops,” he said.

He noted that it took persecution to get the apostles out as the Lord had commanded them. “There is no evidence they went beyond Jerusalem until they were forced to do so by the persecution that broke out at Jesus’ death.”, he said. He then traced 6 passages in the book of Acts where Luke offers statements about the growth of the church, the crises that preceded the particular instance of growth, and the practice of prayer that went along with it.

These passages were

1, Acts 5 12ff . The dishonesty and corruption of Ananias and Sapphira threatened to undermine order in the church. They dropped dead and people were afraid. There was growth in numbers and greater release of supernatural power for healing and deliverance.

2. Acts 6.7 The word of God spread. The disciples in Jerusalem increased and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. This follows the crisis of the distribution of food to the Greek and Hebrew speaking widows.

3. Acts 9.31 Then the church throughout Jerusalem, Galilee and Judea grew in numbers. This follows the crisis over Saul who had been trying to kill the church.

4. Acts 11. 19 Those who had been scattered – some of them went to Antioch and went to speak to Greeks also. The Lord’s hand was with them and a great number of people believed. This followed the crisis following preaching to Cornelius and other Gentiles in Caesarea. The proclamation was directly linked to the experience of suffering that the church knew through the martyrdom of Stephen

5. Acts 12.24. The Word of God continued to increase and spread following Herod’s persecution.

6. Acts 16: 4-5. Delivered the decision reached in Jerusalem for the people to obey. Follows the crisis over the status of Gentiles believers

Bishop John urged that the Lord desires to use hardship to bring forth the fruit of character in us – to forge in us true holiness, a godly humility, a merciful and forgiving spirit and unquenchable joy. We cannot develop endurance without suffering. We cannot develop a virtue without circumstances to provide. We cannot become patient without having to wait.

Faith is purified and shown to be genuine so we bring forth praise and glory and honour when Jesus is revealed.

“The crisis in the Anglican Communion is not the last challenge we are going to face. In the USA we are facing an increasingly hostile culture. The current situation is a training camp to prepare us for greater battles.” he noted.

Prayer is central to the work of the kingdom and the accomplishment of God’s purposes in suffering. Prayer figures in these passages in a significant way.

The Lord uses crisis in someone else’s life to be uplifting. But my crises are not nearly as inspiring. Allow the Lord to use this adversity to drive me to renewed passion for prayer and obedient faith. Use the pressure we are under to propel us out with a new zeal for mission. To build confident faith as we face more challenges.

Bishop Guernsey closed by quoting from 1 Peter 4.12 Do not be surprised at the pajnful trial you are suffering. Rejoice that you participate in the suffering of Christ. The Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Written by Martin

Two senior Zimbabwe Anglican bishops have been told they could be assassinated, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has revealed, as the fight for control of the church in the southern African country gets dirtier. (Pictured: Nolbert Kunonga – Excommunicated in 2008)

The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has been in turmoil ever since the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) – the church’s supreme authority in the region — first suspended and later excommunicated a former bishop who is a close ally of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party.

Nolbert Kunonga, who as bishop of Harare attempted to use the pulpit to defend the Zimbabwean leader’s controversial rule, was excommunicated in 2008 after trying to withdraw the Harare diocese from the Anglican Church. He claims he revolted against the mother church because it supported the ordination of gay priests.

Kunonga with the backing of government police and security agents has been able to grab control of church halls and other property in Harare and has regularly blocked Bishop Chad Gandiya — who was appointed head of the Harare diocese by the CPCA — and his followers from using the churches to worship.

Williams’ office said Kunonga, his supporters in Zanu (PF) and the security establishment have stepped up their campaign of intimidation with some priests not aligned to the renegade bishop arrested, while Gandiya and Bishop Julius Makoni of the Manicaland diocese were informed they were targets for assassination.

“The situation for Anglicans in Zimbabwe is getting worse,” said the office of Williams, who is the symbolic spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Read More..

October 22nd, 2010 Posted in Recife -Southern Cone, TEC |

By David W. Virtue in Cape Town
www.virtueonline.org

It is still the age of the miraculous and supernatural.

With a few hours before this world-class gathering of some 4,200 evangelicals from 198 nations began, I took a cab ride to the nearby hills of Cape Town to catch a glimpse of the stupendous views of this beautiful city surrounded by water and mountains. Table Top Mountain with its panoramic views of Cape Town has few equals anywhere in the world.

My cab driver was a young man, Joseph, who had moved into the city from a small village outside of Cape Town. Like a lot of young men, he admitted that he had come to make money and have a good time. Translation: Money, night clubs, girls and sex. The money he made was quickly spent living the high life. Then his life crashed. He began to feel very, very tired, and a blood test revealed he had HIV/AIDS. An eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die lifestyle didn’t suit him. He remembered something about the faith he had grown up with in his small hometown village.

He went looking for a church. He found an independent evangelical church that practiced the laying on of hands and divine healing. He turned his life over to God. He prayed, he sought salvation in Jesus Christ and asked God to heal him.

“I did not believe it was possible. I had not heard of anyone being healed of HIV/AIDS. I knew that drugs would protract life, but not ultimately save me. Then God did a miracle. One day as I was out on the mountains I prayed and earnestly sought God’s face. Something happened. I cannot fully explain it, but my girlfriend, a Christian lady, said I should get tested again. After several tests, the doctors said I was free of the virus. I cried and thanked God for several days.”

Joseph, who had started studying law, is now completing his studies. “I want to help those who cannot afford expensive legal aid. I want to help many who cannot help themselves. Perhaps when you see me again I will be an attorney, married and with a family. Truly God is good…all the time.”

*****

If you think young people are all caught up in the culture of post-modern rebellion, obsessed with sex, drugs and the so-called good life, you are wrong.

Fully a third of all the participants here at the Lausanne Congress on Evangelism are young people in their late 20s and early 30s. I met two young German ladies while having breakfast in my hotel yesterday.

Their stories were of a reverse rebellion. Neither was raised in a Christian home though one had a godly grandmother. They came to faith through encounters at Christian camps they attended and meeting people who seemed more real than those around them experimenting with sex and drugs. They were drawn to Christ like magnets hungry for something more than their friends had. One young lady, Christine, was sent off to a summer camp without knowing it was Christian. She almost ran away. “Initially the camp experience drove me crazy and my Catholic Church background of force fed faith and rote learning, hours of catechism and a quick baptism had done little for me.

“I wanted something more or nothing at all,” Christine said. “But I had questions that I needed answering. I began to read the Bible for myself. I began to see Jesus in a new light, away from all the church structures and dry stuff I had been raised in and had to listen too. As I got my questions answered ranging from issues of science and faith, sexuality and to why I needed Jesus, I began to sense a change coming over me. After a month I finally surrendered my life to Jesus. My parents were not happy. My mother wanted me to start taking the pill ‘just in case’ I was sexually active. My father didn’t understand why I didn’t party like all my other friends. But my life had changed. I was not interested in any of this. My parents finally separated and divorced because my father wanted someone different and younger. He is not any happier, I can tell you.”

Christine later studied theology in England and is now working with Scripture Union in Cologne, Germany, telling young people about the Good News of Jesus. “I think my mother is coming around,” she says with a laugh.

While the three of us sat in a church on Sunday morning, an active CESA (Church of England in South Africa) parish, Holy Brompton in Cape Town, I watched as they poured over their Bibles, examining the Scriptures for themselves, raising holy hands to heaven, singing the praises of Him who died for them.

If this is the future of Christianity in Europe, then perhaps there is hope after all. These two young ladies won’t save Germany, but they represent a small but growing, significant number of young people who are finding Christ amidst the sexual morass, abortion holocaust, secularization, drugs and Islamification of Europe.

Some might see the Christian lights being slowly extinguished in Europe, yet here in Cape Town at a Congress that has drawn over 5,000 men and women from nearly 200 nations, there are stories like these two young women…and there are hundreds more. They are all lights in this dark world and we should thank God for them.

US Episcopal Bishops more evil than Borgia Popes, says Evangelical sociologist

By David W. Virtue
October 19, 2010

When the church universal is dealing with things that threaten its future it is time to talk, say leaders of a global consultation on world evangelization.

Some 5,500 evangelicals from 197 nations, (4,200) participants meeting here, see the world at a turning point facing global issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, a loss of nerve by many Christians, and a resurgent Islam. At the same time, they must acknowledge that the world is more religiously explosive and torn, despite the belief by secular academics that religion will wither and die in the face of modernity and technological advances.

The greatest growth of the Christian faith in the world today is in the Global South that includes Asia and Latin America.

October 18th, 2010 Posted in News | Comments Off

An Exclusive Interview with Ugandan Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi

By David W. Virtue in Cape Town  http://www.virtueonline.org   October 18, 2010

VOL: What are your expectations for this Global Evangelical Congress?

OROMBI: This congress is going to be the impetus now in the life of the church globally. Many will have new visions of outreach and evangelism and many are going to be encouraged by the interaction and fellowship. I also believe that a number of people are going to be built up in small groups by people who are older and share their experience or people who are being successful in ministry and how their success came about in their ministry. Finally, I believe that many many people here will replicate the global aspect of the church all over the world.

VOL: As an Anglican leader, how does this impact us as Anglicans?

OROMBI: For us Anglicans we are very encouraged first of all that the global church has recognized our position by choosing to make me the honorary chairman for this event and as the head of the pan-African committee. That is really a stamp of approval for the Anglican presence on the continent of Africa.

Judging from key leaders like John Chew (Southeast Asia) Mouneer Anis (Middle East) and Bill Murdoch (ACNA-USA) it looks to me like our (Anglican) Communion has that treasure that is the Word of God and is a further demonstration of their presence among other Christians in the world in this context.

VOL: And our uniqueness is?

OROMBI: We Anglicans have got a treasure in the way we do our things and govern ourselves. We have clarity in our message which includes liturgy, history and tradition which we will share with the rest of Christendom at this congress.

VOL: What of the situation in your own Anglican province?

OROMBI: We have more than 10 million practicing Anglicans. We have a vibrancy in our churches and that is reflected in our presence in the country. Both our president and the head of the military are practicing Anglicans. We are growing so fast we are creating three more dioceses in the next three years.

VOL: I gather there was a meeting of the GAFCON Primates in Oxford recently. What took place?

OROMBI: I was not able to be there, but I will be debriefed by the Bishop of Shyira (Rwanda), The Rt. Rev. Laurent Mbanda while I am here.

VOL: Was the Archbishop of Canterbury notified that you were meeting there?

OROMBI: He was not invited.

VOL: It seems to me that orthodox and liberal Anglicans are now so far apart that it is nearly impossible to imagine how you can meet or stay together with any sort of integrity? Dare I say we now have two religions in the Anglican Communion?

OROMBI: Our [Anglican] house was divided right back when the vision became clearer where it was all going. From 2005 in Dromantine we knew our house was divided. In 2007 it became even clearer and by 2009 it was completely clear, the elephant had come out of the bush and out into the open. By August in Entebbe (Uganda) the CAPA bishops and Archbishop John Chew (Southeast Asia) from the Global South were very categorical about our position and we stated it in no uncertain terms to Rowan Williams. Sadly he plays the diplomacy game but we won’t buy into it anymore. He talks to one group and agrees with them and then he talks to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and Archbishop Fred Hiltz (Canada) and agrees with them. We will no longer play that game. It is over. We want to know definitively if he shares the theology of Mrs. Jefferts Schori.

VOL: It sounds like a game in which the orthodox cannot possibly win?

OROMBI: Those who understood knew he was hiding something. He double dealt. We never knew where he stood with the other group. He constantly played hide and seek. No more. We won’t play that game anymore with him. He avoided any finality in discussions with him. He avoids a final scenario all the time.

VOL: Do you see any orthodox archbishops turning up in January 2011 in Ireland to the next meeting of the Primates?

OROMBI: No orthodox primate will go to Ireland. Unless Rowan Williams uninvites the US and Canadian Primates, you can count us out.

VOL: Recently The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, wrote to Bishop Tito Zavala of Chile informing him that his membership on the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) has been withdrawn because the primate of the Argentina-based Province of the Southern Cone, under whose jurisdiction Zavala’s diocese falls, failed to respond to Kearon’s request for clarification about his involvement in cross-border interventions. Would you comment on that?

OROMBI: The Anglican Consultative Council is irrelevant to us. We have no passion for those things. We are not even interested in meetings that produce nothing and with nothing being implemented. So what is the point in spending time and money going to these meetings which could be spent elsewhere? We are not interested in tourism and holidays, we want to do business.

VOL: What would you like to see coming out of this unique Cape Town gathering of evangelicals?

OROMBI: We want to see the church really heated up by the Holy Spirit and we want to go out into the world on the offensive against sin and worldliness. The church must be sharp enough to stand clear of addressing the issues in dubious ways and the Lordship of Jesus Christ being put where it is supposed to be.

We also want to have a concerted and united front where believers are holding together as the family of Christ built up across the board. That means all the nations here and finally we want to bless South Africa.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13410