Posted on 06/29/2008 8:52:28 AM PDT by Abathar
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Conservative Anglican leaders pledged on Sunday to stay in the worldwide Anglican Communion but form a council of bishops to provide an alternative to churches they say are preaching a "false gospel" of sexual immorality. ADVERTISEMENT
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) said member churches would continue sponsoring breakaway conservative parishes in liberal western member countries and called for a separate conservative province in North America.
It also said in a final declaration that Anglicanism -- the third largest group of Christians after Roman Catholics and Orthodox -- was not "determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury" Rowan Williams.
"We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it," it said after a week of talks in Jerusalem among 1,148 participants, including 291 bishops, claiming to represent 35 million Anglicans.
"We grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness," it said in a final statement.
The conservatives, a coalition mainly of African Anglican churches and orthodox United States Episcopalians, has hinted it might break from the 77-million-strong Communion since the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003.
But GAFCON, called one month ahead of the ten-yearly Lambeth Conference of bishops from the whole Communion, did not in the end develop into a full alternative and participants -- despite some strong initial rhetoric -- did not opt for a schism.
Conservative bishops from Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya have said they will boycott the Lambeth Conference.
"FALSE GOSPEL"
In its statement, GAFCON accused churches in the West of proclaiming "a false gospel
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree. From 1 Thess 4:1-8:
"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ..he who rejects this does not reject man, but God,.."
The liberal church leaders have rejected God.
Anglican ping
Well past time to pick sides.
Time for loyal members to come together and get rid of the liberal church leaders. Many of the main denominations were infiltrated by the leftists during the late 60's and 70's ...they need to go.
My daughter’s father-in-law, Sandy Greene, an AMiA bishop from Denver is there.
“That’s what happens when they cling to their ‘heritage’ - instead of God’s Word.”
I went to the GAFCON web site. No one can ever say they are clinging to anything other than God’s Word. Their declaration and statements of belief are probably the most powerful in Christendom - ALL of Christendom.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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Humor: The Anglican Blue
Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15
There is Anglican life that exists apart from communion with heretics. And that is A Good Thing.
(Yeesh, K., I'm beginning to sound like you! *\;-)
These bishops are pretty much the ONLY ones who the attendees of the Lambeth Conference should even be listening to.
Obviously you have no clue what you are talking about.
Do you eany idea what GAFCON is or who attended or what came out of it?
“As for all those who pretend to confess the sound Orthodox Faith, but are in communion with people who hold a different opinion, if they are forewarned and still remain stubborn, you must not only not be in communion with them, but you must not even call them brothers.” +Basil the Great
“Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.” +Theodore the Studite
Perhaps most telling for the GAFCON hierarchs, since they apparently do not accept the dogmas of the 7th Ecumenical Council:
“He that saith not ‘Anathema’ to those in heresy, let him be anathema.” Declaration of the 7th Ecumenical Council
Seriously, it took a *long* time to come to a realization that 1) I was not likely ever returning to the wwAC, and 2) (even longer) that that's a good thing. My archbishop hears from me on the separation between the "Affirmation" churches.
“.....It’s their walk that counts, not their talk.”
Certainly, that is true of each one of us. Yes, I was impressed by their words which reflect the direction and goals to be pursued. I pray for their success.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=29
everything I read in the above statement tells me their desire is to be faithful to God’s will and the purpose of that which they do.
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