What an interesting article this proved to be :

GAFCON responds

Scroll down to also read an excellent comment ( no 5 ) posted by ‘damascus’ which makes some salient points for consideration including ;

A strong Archbishop of Canterbury could have nipped this whole thing in the bud before we got anywhere near the place that we are now at. The fact that the ABC may not really have the legal authority to banish TEC doesn’t mean he couldn’t make their lives miserable enough that they would choose to leave on their own. Can you imagine if the ABC had said to TEC in October of 2003 before the Robinson consecration that if you do this you are dead to me. I will have nothing more to do with you.

It isn’t as though that is unprecedented. Look how they have dealt with the Primate of Zimbabwe. Rowan didn’t have any problem whatsoever yanking his invitation to Lambeth. The fact is there are only two reasons why TEC hasn’t been dealt with in this way.

The first is that most of the “Instruments of Unity” are clandestinely (and sometimes not so clandestinely) hoping that TEC’s view will eventually be adopted by the Communion. The second is that TEC almost single-handedly bankrolls the Communion. If the Primate of Zimbabwe had those kind of deep pockets, he would likely be sitting at the University of Kent right now.

Didn’t the Central african province request the exclusion?

Here’s a good article from Charles Raven arguing that as far as Anglicanism is concerned, Lambeth is now history and can safely be ignored.

The Gafcon response to the St Andrews draft of the proposed Anglican covenant is a strong document worthy of our support.
However Fulcrum has posted an analysis of Gafcons comparison of the Nassau and St Andrew’s drafts of the covenant Gafcon’s comparison which argues that the Gafcon theological resource team team has compared the wrong documentsFulcrum’s comments.

Did Gafcon make this mistake - which is does not take away from its cogent criticism of the St Andrew’s draft, but is embarrasing?

(edit) Fulcrum is one of the “centrist” groups mentioned by Tony Payne in his Gafcon video - he is right to see that these groups will have to make a choice. It would be good to see Gafcon respond in an open way to Fulcrum’s questions (see SA video links)

The virtue online poster does not have his facts straight.

There is no ‘primate of Zimbabwe’. Zimbabwe is not a province… as Robert W infers Zim is part of the Province of Central Africa.

There has been a dispute in the Diocese of Harare over who is the ‘lawful’ bishop - with two different people claiming the title in line with the severe political division in that country. This has been complicated by the intimidation of ZANU-PF militia and the former bishop’s links to Mugabe.

Nolbert Kunonga the ZANU-PF candidate for bishop has subsequently set up his own new Anglican Church and has made some noises about looking for GAFCON endorsement.

I hope GAFCON don’t go there.

The point is - a bishop from Harare has been invited to Lambeth.. this is not a case of an entire province being disinvited… so the comparison to TEC is somewhat more complicated than presented.

Stand Firm is doing a super job blogging the Lambeth conference. Here’s an interview with Michael Nazir Ali, bishop of Rochester in England, entitled Conscience And Logic:  ‘Why I’m Not Going To Lambeth’, An Interview With Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali.

The Stand Firm guys seem to be updating every half hour or so! Worth checking their site regularly.

John Sandeman - 21 July 2008 10:57 AM

However Fulcrum has posted an analysis of Gafcons comparison of the Nassau and St Andrew’s drafts of the covenant Gafcon’s comparison which argues that the Gafcon theological resource team team has compared the wrong documentsFulcrum’s comments.

John
Both of these links appear to be faulty.  If you have a chance, can you check them please?
Bob

Some of you may be interested in a Greg Venables interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk programme just before Lambeth.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/7499395.stm

Bob Cameron - 24 July 2008 06:09 PM

Both of these links appear to be faulty.  If you have a chance, can you check them please?

Try these ...
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=31
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=330

Thanks Angus

A magnificent and moving critique of the TEC position by the Sudanese Episcopalian bishops...could the Church in Sudan be invited to the GAFCON table, although it supports and has paased legislation allowing women bishops?

A bit of number-crunching about just how representative Lambeth really is.

Suddenly the whole question of how important it is to be in fellowship with a bunch of strange and estranged liberals gets put into a bit of global perspective.

Gordon start crunching the GAFCON numbers...do you honestly believe 20 million Nigerians are in Anglican Churches on a Sunday!.  The actual figure I have been told is more like 4 -6 millions.

Furthermore where is the list of GAFCON Episcopal signatories...my estimate is that iof the 291 bishops , at least 110 were not official bishops of the Anglican Communion.

The Reformed Episcopal Church sent 5 bishops and has 10,000 souls.

Are you including the Anglicans of the Diocese of Rochester , many of whom do not like their bishops boycott?

As Winston Churchill remarked, There are lies, (expletive deleted) lies and then there are statistics!

Furthermore was it not a majority who chose Barrabas...and if success in numbers attract you, well the Catholic Church claims over a billion souls!

Surely one plus God is a majority!

Gordon start crunching the GAFCON numbers...do you honestly believe 20 million Nigerians are in Anglican Churches on a Sunday!.  The actual figure I have been told is more like 4 -6 millions.

Now don’t get too cynical RIW. There is some fuzziness here but I think the main thrust in accurate in that a fair chunk of the Anglicans counted in Australia and England are nominals who have no interest in the church whatsoever (but maybe thats just an Australian perspective?).

A Nigerian told me 17 million in church every Sunday. So who has got the better sources? I’ll see if I can hunt around for something more solid.

The whole official/unofficial distinction was one of GAFCON’s key points. Take South Africa - Why should CPSA be officially in the Communion and CESA be unofficial and out?

According to academic research paper by Diane Swanbrow, “Study of worldwide rates of religiosity, church attendance,” University of Michigan, Nigeria has the highest rate of ‘religiosity’ (church attendance) of the 60 countries surveyed. (89% attend church/mosque regularly). Australia, in contrast, was in the bottom half of the list. You can see the list at religious tolerance.

The Church of Nigeria officially claims 18million members. The CIA fact book estimates that there was 13.5 million Anglicans based on 2000 figures. Given the rapid rate of growth experienced by Anglicans in Nigeria which I documented two years ago and that a huge chunk of the 10% of Nigerians not going to church are animists, I think its safe to assume that the number of Anglicans regularly going to church every Sunday is going to be between 13 and 18 million, not the 6 million claimed by RIW.

This is not to say that there is a form of nominalism amongst seemingly devout West Africans which could be called folkChristianity.. but its not the same phenomena in my view as the ‘cultural’ Christian nominalism you find in the West.