<\/h1>\nLetter to the Churches – Gafcon Assembly 2018<\/h1>\n
22nd June 2018<\/p>\n
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Greetings from the land of the birth, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. The third Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) was held in Jerusalem in June 2018, a decade after the inaugural Gafcon in 2008. Gafcon 2018, one of the largest global Anglican gatherings, brought together 1,950 representatives from 50 countries, including 316 bishops, 669 other clergy and 965 laity. A unanimity of spirit was reflected throughout the Conference as we met with God in the presence of friends from afar. We celebrated joyful worship, engaged in small group prayer and were inspired by presentations, networks and seminars.<\/p>\n
We met together around the theme of \u201cProclaiming Christ Faithfully to the Nations\u201d. \u00a0Each day began with common prayer and Bible exposition from Luke 22-24, followed by plenary sessions on God\u2019s Gospel, God\u2019s Church and God\u2019s World.<\/p>\n
PROCLAIMING GOD\u2019S GOSPEL<\/strong><\/p>\n We renewed our commitment to proclaim the gospel of the triune God in our churches and in all the world. Our Chairman reminded us in his opening address: \u201cGod\u2019s gospel is the life-transforming message of salvation from sin and all its consequences through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is both a declaration and a summons: announcing what has been done for us in Christ and calling us to repentance, faith and submission to his Lordship.\u201d It involves the restoration and reaffirmation of God\u2019s original creative purposes. It is addressed to men, women and children and it is our only hope in the light of the final judgment and the reality of hell.<\/p>\n This is God\u2019s gospel, the gospel concerning his Son (Romans 1:1\u20133). The centre of the gospel message is this one person, Jesus Christ, and all that he has done through his perfect life, atoning death, triumphant resurrection and glorious ascension. In our daily expositions, we followed Jesus\u2019 path from the judgments by Pilate and the Jewish leaders, to his death for us on the cross, \u00a0to his breaking the bonds of death on Easter morning and to his commission to the disciples to proclaim \u201crepentance for the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations\u201d (Luke 24:47). The uniqueness of Jesus Christ lies at the heart of the gospel: \u201cthere is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved\u201d (Acts 4:12). The gospel confronts us in the midst of our confusion and sin but it does not leave us there. It includes a summons to repentance and a call to believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15), which results in a grace-filled life. \u00a0The ascended Christ gave his Spirit to empower his disciples to take this gospel to the world.<\/p>\n Yet faithful proclamation of this gospel is under attack from without and within, as it has been from apostolic times (Acts 20:28-30).<\/p>\n External attacks include superstitious practices of sacrifices and libations that deny the sufficiency of Christ\u2019s sacrifice. Some religions deny the unique person and work of Christ on the cross, and others are innately syncretistic. Secularism seeks to exclude God from all public discourse and to dismantle the Christian heritage of many nations. This has been most obvious in the redefinition of what it means to be human, especially in the areas of gender, sexuality and marriage. The devaluing of the human person through the advocacy of abortion and euthanasia is also an assault upon human life uniquely created in the image of God. Militant forms of religion and secularism are hostile to the preaching of Christ and persecute his people.<\/p>\n Internally, the \u201cprosperity gospel\u201d and theological revisionism both seek in different ways to recast God\u2019s gospel to accommodate the surrounding culture, resulting in a seductive syncretism that denies the uniqueness of Christ, the seriousness of sin, the need for repentance and the final authority of the Bible.<\/p>\n Tragically, there has been a failure of leadership in our churches to address these threats to the gospel of God. We repent of our failure to take seriously the words of the apostle Paul: \u201cKeep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them\u201d (Acts 20:28-30).<\/p>\n We dedicate ourselves afresh to proclaiming Christ faithfully to the nations, working together to guard the gospel entrusted to us by our Lord and his apostles.<\/p>\n REFORMING GOD\u2019S CHURCH<\/strong><\/p>\n The gospel of God creates the church of God. Through the invitation of the gospel, God calls all people into fellowship with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. As the word of the gospel goes forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, they respond through the work of the Holy Spirit to repent, believe and be baptised, and are thereby joined to Christ\u2019s body which is his church (Acts 2:37-44; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13). As members of Christ\u2019s body, they are sanctified in him, called to live lives of holiness and to be salt and light in the world.<\/p>\n One Conference speaker reminded us: \u201cIn the councils of the church, we should not mimic the ways of the world but gather to pray, to praise (i.e., to be eucharistic), to consult, to decide, and if necessary to discipline. These gatherings should be properly conciliar in nature, decisive in moving the church forward in its mission and common life. There should be the will to exercise loving but firm discipline to bring sinners to repentance and restoration.\u201d Likewise at the Communion level, there are times when the leadership must come together to exercise its responsibility to discipline an erring member province.<\/p>\n For some time, our Communion has been under threat from leaders who deny the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. In the late 20th century, human sexuality became the presenting issue.<\/p>\n The 1998 Lambeth Conference by a huge majority (526 to 70) approved Resolution I.10 on Human Sexuality, which affirmed the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19 that there are only two expressions of faithful sexuality: lifelong marriage between a man and a woman or abstinence. The resolution rightly called for pastoral care for same sex attracted persons. At the same time, it described homosexual practice as \u201cincompatible with Scripture\u201d and rejected both the authorisation of same sex rites by the Church and the ordination of those in same sex unions.<\/p>\n Lambeth Resolution I.10 reflected the rising influence of the Global South in the Communion. The ground for the Resolution had been prepared by the 1997 Kuala Lumpur Statement of the Global South Anglican Network. Our collaboration with the Global South Network has been ongoing, and its leaders took an active part in this Conference.<\/p>\n The subsequent rejection of Lambeth I.10 in word and deed by the Episcopal Church USA and later by some other Anglican provinces led to a \u201ctear [in] the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level\u201d, followed by ten years of futile meetings in which the four Instruments of Communion failed to exercise the necessary discipline. The Primates\u2019 Meeting repeatedly called upon these provinces to repent and return to the faith. \u00a0Yet their efforts were undermined by other Instruments of Communion, culminating in the failure of the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury to carry out the clear consensus of the Primates\u2019 Meeting in Dar es Salaam in 2007.<\/p>\n In the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference took up the challenge of restoring biblical authority (and the teaching on human sexuality in particular) by affirming the primacy of the Bible as God\u2019s Word written and going back to the other sources of Anglican identity \u2013 the Creeds and Councils of the ancient church, the 39 Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. The Conference also constituted a Primates Council and authorised it to recognise Anglican churches in areas where orthodox Anglicans had been deprived of their church property and deposed from holy orders.<\/p>\n During the past twenty years, the Instruments of Communion have not only failed to uphold godly discipline but their representatives have refused to recognise our concerns and have chosen instead to demean Gafcon as a one-issue pressure group and accuse it of promoting schism, where in fact the schismatics are those who have departed from the teaching of the Bible and the historic doctrine of the Church. Slogans such as \u201cwalking together\u201d and \u201cgood disagreement\u201d are dangerously deceptive in seeking to persuade people to accommodate false teaching in the Communion.<\/p>\n We grieve for the situation of our global Communion as it has been hindered from fulfilling its God-appointed task of reaching the world for Christ. We repent of our own failures to stand firm in the faith (1 Corinthians 16:13). But we do not lose hope for the future, and note that there is strong support for the reform of our Communion. \u00a0Prior to Gafcon 2018, delegates overwhelmingly affirmed the following propositions:<\/p>\n Over the past twenty years, we have seen the hand of God leading us toward a reordering of the Anglican Communion. Gafcon has claimed from the beginning: \u201cWe are not leaving the Anglican Communion; we are the majority of the Anglican Communion seeking to remain faithful to our Anglican heritage.\u201d As Archbishop Nicholas Okoh stated in the inaugural Synodical Council: \u201cWe are merely doing what the Communion leadership should have done to uphold its own resolution in 1998.\u201d<\/p>\n We give thanks for the godly courage of our Gafcon Primates in contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. \u00a0We applaud their decision to authenticate and recognise the provinces of the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Church in Brazil, to recognise the Anglican Mission in England and to consecrate a Missionary Bishop for Europe. This has become necessary because of the departure from the faith by The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church of Brazil and the Scottish Episcopal Church. \u00a0At Gafcon 2018, we heard many testimonies of faithful Anglicans who have been persecuted by those holding office in their respective provinces, merely because they would not surrender to, nor be compromised by, the false gospel that these leaders profess and promote. We also recognise the Gafcon Primates\u2019 willingness to assist faithful Anglicans in New Zealand where the Anglican Church has recently agreed to allow bishops to authorise the blessing of same sex unions.<\/p>\n As the Gafcon movement matures, it has also seen the need for a more conciliar structure of governance. \u00a0We endorse the formation of Gafcon Branches where necessary and of a Panel of Advisors, comprising bishops, clergy and lay representatives from each Gafcon Province and Branch, to provide counsel and advice to the Primates Council. Together with the Primates, the Panel of Advisors form a Synodical Council to bring recommendations to the Gafcon Assembly. The Synodical Council met for the first time at this Conference.<\/p>\n In light of the recommendations of the Synodical Council, we respectfully urge the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/p>\n In the event that this does not occur, we urge Gafcon members to decline the invitation to attend Lambeth 2020 and all other meetings of the Instruments of Communion.<\/p>\n REACHING OUT TO GOD\u2019S WORLD<\/strong><\/p>\n Our conference theme has been \u201cProclaiming Christ Faithfully to the Nations.\u201d We have received the gospel through the faithful witness of previous generations. Yet there are still billions of people who are without Christ and without hope. Jesus taught his disciples: \u201cthis gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations\u201d (Matthew 24:14).<\/p>\n We repent for the times and seasons when we have only preached to ourselves and not embraced the difficult task of reaching beyond our own cultural groups in obedience to God\u2019s call to be a light to the nations (cf. Acts 13:47). \u00a0In faith and obedience, we joyfully recommit ourselves to the faithful proclamation of the gospel.<\/p>\n In order to expand our ability to proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations in both word and deed, we launched nine strategic networks.<\/p>\n Theological Education<\/strong>: To promote effective theological training throughout the Anglican Communion<\/p>\n Church Planting<\/strong>: To expand church planting as a global strategy for evangelisation<\/p>\n Global Mission Partnerships<\/strong>: To promote strategic cross-cultural mission partnerships in a globalized world<\/p>\n Youth and Children\u2019s Ministry<\/strong>: To be a catalyst for mission to young people and children of all nations so that they may become faithful disciples of Jesus Christ<\/p>\n Mothers\u2019 Union<\/strong>: To expand the potential of this global ministry to promote biblical patterns of marriage and family life<\/p>\n Sustainable Development<\/strong>: To establish global partnerships which work with the local church to bring sustainable and transformative development<\/p>\n Bishops Training Institute<\/strong>: To serve the formation of faithful and effective episcopal leadership throughout the Communion<\/p>\n Lawyers Task Force<\/strong>: To address issues of religious freedom and matters of concern to Anglican lawyers and Chancellors and to further the aims of the Jerusalem Declaration<\/p>\n Intercessors Fellowship<\/strong>: To inspire and develop globally connected regional and national intercessory prayer networks<\/p>\n In the world into which we go to proclaim the gospel, we shall encounter much which will need us to walk in paths of righteousness and mercy (Hosea 2:19; Micah 6:8). We commit to encouraging each other to give strength to the persecuted, a voice to the voiceless, advocacy for the oppressed, protection of the vulnerable, especially women and children, generosity to the poor, and continuing the task of providing excellent education and health care. As appropriate, we encourage the formation of other networks to assist in addressing these issues.<\/p>\n OUR GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE<\/strong><\/p>\n To proclaim the gospel, we must first defend the gospel against threats from without and within. \u00a0We testify to the extraordinary blessings on this Conference, which leads us to call upon God even more, that the Anglican Communion may become a mighty instrument in the hand of God for the salvation of the world. We invite all faithful Anglicans to join us in this great enterprise of proclaiming Christ faithfully to the nations.<\/p>\n Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, Conciliar<\/strong> \u2013 Working as a council of the church<\/p>\n Gafcon Branches<\/strong> \u2013 A Branch may be established by application to the Gafcon Primates Council in a province whose Primate is not a member of the Gafcon Primates Council.<\/p>\n Gafcon Primates<\/strong> \u2013 Primates who have endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration and have been admitted to the Gafcon Primates Council.<\/p>\n Gafcon Provinces<\/strong> \u2013 Provinces whose House of Bishops or Provincial Synod have endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration and whose Primate is a member of the Gafcon Primates Council.<\/p>\n Instruments of Communion<\/strong> \u2013 There are four Instruments: The Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates\u2019 Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. http:\/\/www.anglicancommunion.org\/structures\/instruments-of-communion.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n Jerusalem Statement and Declaration<\/strong> \u2013 The Statement agreed by the inaugural Gafcon Assembly in 2008. \u00a0https:\/\/www.gafcon.org\/resources\/the-complete-jerusalem-statement\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Kuala Lumpur Statement<\/strong> \u2013 approved by the Global South Anglican Network in 1997. http:\/\/www.globalsouthanglican.org\/index.php\/blog\/comments\/the_kuala_lum…<\/a><\/p>\n Lambeth Resolution I.10<\/strong> \u2013 approved by the Lambeth Conference in 1998. http:\/\/www.anglicancommunion.org\/resources\/document-library\/lambeth-conf…<\/a><\/p>\n Panel of Advisors<\/strong> \u2013 consists of one bishop, one clergy and one lay representative from each Gafcon Province and Gafcon Branch, who give counsel and advice to the Gafcon Primates.<\/p>\n Primates\u2019 Meeting<\/strong> \u2013 A meeting of Primates called by the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/p>\n Synodical Council <\/strong>\u2013 Consists of the Panel of Advisors and the Gafcon Primates Council meeting together to make recommendations to the Gafcon Assembly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is the final statement from GAFCON 2018. There were 1950 people attending from 50 countries, including 316 bishops, 669 other clergy and 965 laity. The letter urges GAFCON members not to attend Lambeth 2020 unless ACNA is invited and … Continue reading \n
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\naccording to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church
\nand in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
\nEphesians 3:20-21<\/p>\nGLOSSARY<\/h3>\n