GAFCON Split
Gracious Rebel
Shipmate
Just seen this announcement.
'Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion'
'We have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion.'
'Today, Gafcon is leading the Global Anglican Communion.'
Words fail me! And I'm not even an Anglican
(ETA fixed hyperlink, DT, random passing admin)
'Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion'
'We have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion.'
'Today, Gafcon is leading the Global Anglican Communion.'
Words fail me! And I'm not even an Anglican
(ETA fixed hyperlink, DT, random passing admin)
Comments
try this.
(ETA retconned hyperlink, DT, random passing admin.)
You find similar splinter-groups over different sets of issues with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy and I daresay other Christian bodies besides.
Do they not realise how ridiculous they sound? "We're the real Anglican Communion despite requiring that all our members are out of communion with *checks notes* Ecclesia Anglicana."
There’s an argument the Anglican communion, like the commonwealth, is a relic of colonial empire building and I am just surprised they want to keep the nomenclature.
Presumably the ones that don’t will split off in the medium term, citing exactly the same reasons.
Most of the GAFCON provinces have “Anglican” in their names, so I doubt they see a reason to abandon the term.
I suspect that, as seems to be typical in these sorts of things, they want to claim that they are the true inheritors of Anglicanism, and that it’s the “other” provinces, not themselves, that have departed from the Anglican Way.
The majority of GAFCON likely regard the RCC and the Orthodox as Vile Hereticks. Afaik GAFCON is solely the Evangelical end of things - the Society isn't in GAFCON and any Anglo-Catholics who wanted to have already joined the Ordinariate.
They absolutely do largely see themselves as Reformed, and yes they very much see themselves as the true inheritors of Anglicanism.
Yeah, this is one of those cases where there are so many issues in play that one could make an argument that they'd get on better or at least be less visibly aggro with each other apart than together.
The Calvinistic emphasis tended to dominate though, until the 1630s with the rise of the 'Arminian' party under Archbishop Laud.
James VI of Scotland, 1st of England, was a High Church Calvinist to all intents and purposes.
Thereafter there were tugs between Calvinists and Arminians (the Wesleys were Arminian of course, Whitefield and others Calvinist).
There were also Latitudinarians of course.
The 'Catholicising' of Anglicanism really stems from the Oxford Movement of the 19th century.
I don’t know what's happened to Reform (not to be confused with Farage and Co), the more Calvinistic conservative evangelical groups within the Church of England but they can be a bit GAFCON-ish.
I think it is possible to talk of a distinctly 'Anglican' identity which is different to both the Reformed Churches and Lutheranism, whilst sharing much in common with both. It's hard to pigeon-hole or define though, and different Anglicans have different understandings of what it means in practice, hence the rise of a 'We're more Anglican than Thou' tendency which can crop up at both 'ends' of the spectrum and in the middle at one and the same time.
Heck, I've come across one or two 1549 style Cramnerian clergy around here who would almost certainly claim to be more authentically 'Anglican' than their fellow clergy of other flavours.
Even with those Anglicans who claim to be 'reformed catholic', we have to unpack what they mean by both 'catholic' and 'reformed'.
It can be a glorious mess but also a dog's breakfast.
I'm sure there are Reformed who claim to be more Reformed than other Reformed.
There are certainly Orthodox who claim to be more Orthodox than other Orthodox.
But no, GAFCON wouldn't countenance either Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy.
I don't really know what they are 'for' only what they are 'against.'
I became a Christian in a church which at that point had some of the big pro-GAFCON members of Synod amongst their number (although said church is one of the few Evangelical Anglican churches in the area not presently under a flying bishop afaik) and frankly I'm surprised that it's taken them this long to do this. Very much par for the course in terms of thinking of themselves as the True Heirs of Anglicanism.
@Doublethink I suspect that many in GAFCON have very little problem with colonial empire building.
And yes, @Gamma Gamaliel, there are definitely conservative Reformed churches that revel in being the “true Reformed” or “more Reformed than them.”
Was that ever not the case in Reform circles?
https://truthunites.org/2008/07/11/favorite-narnia-moments-4-the-dwarfs-are-for-the-dwarfs/
Sorry, having trouble parsing this sentence - do you mean were Reform usually doing North end celebration? I think it's been rare for a long time even amongst con-evos.
She might not think, "Don't let the door smack you in the ass as you leave," but I do.
Mind you the GAFCON mob don’t deserve a response, sanctimonious areseholes that they are.
Often these aren't the 'real' bone of contention of course but a smoke-screen, conscious or unconscious, for something else.
As an aside, @Pomona mentioned John Stott. I met him once and was impressed. I felt I was in the presence of someone who was genuine, authentic, humble and holy.
May his memory be eternal!
However, on 16 October 1555, Nicholas Ridley (Bishop of London) and Hugh Latimer (chaplain to King Edward VI) were burnt at the stake while Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) looked on, which seems darker.
In fairness to Cranmer, he did subsequently find the courage to defy Bloody Mary and was himself burned for heresy. I think his waverings, and ultimate decision to be true to his conscience, are very Anglican.
That doesn't mean she wasn't culpable.
In pure mathematical equation terms, the balance of those executed on either side of the Reformation divide in England was pretty even and balanced.
Even-stevens in terms of death toll. That doesn't make any of it alright.
The hanging of the Jesuit priest David Lewis and other RC clergy and laity during the grotesque 'Popish Plot' paranoia of the 1670s is every bit as terrible as the fires of Smithfield during Mary's reign.
Even Philip of Spain thought she was going too far.
I've shared on another thread how an Orthodox priest I know when celebrating the Liturgy in a borrowed building 'apologised' to a Greek Catholic martyr whose icon was on display and who'd died at the hands of the Orthodox.
An RC priest once told me of a commemorative ecumenical service in Oxford for the martyrs on both sides of the Reformation divide which spontaneously ground to a halt because people became so tearful.
A senior RC cleric observed that he'd never seen anything like it in the 30 years he'd attended such gatherings and that he felt that genuine sorrow and remorse has been expressed for the first time.
May the Lord melt all our hard hearts.
And with reference to how these things are seen today, on the occasion of Justin Welby's ill-conceived farewell speech in the Lords, his reflection about Simon of Sudbury reminded me that bishops and archbishops in the CofE are well aware of the fate of their predecessors.
Because
They are really tiny when looking globally. Reformed is not theirs to own; it is taken by a far bigger body than the Anglican Communion. "Protestant" would make them Lutheran.
Time to become less Anglo-centric. Anglo=English
Reformed is a much broader stream of Christianity than that which streams from Anglican-Puritanism
I mean that apart from a few Sydney Anglicans who made a virtue of north end celebrations, I've not known churches in Reform to pay any particular attention to that aspect of communion (though I've never seen or heard of them face east).
Also the sixteenth century is full of royal women named Mary, including Mary I's aunt, also named Mary Tudor, and Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots. And the multiple burnings of heretics in 'Bloody' Mary's reign really were unprecedented in England, though small potatoes compared to the Spanish Inquisition.
And this is a tangent so I'll stop talking now.
If I'd lived in Tudor England I'd have sailed against the Spanish Armada rather than welcomed it with open arms 😉.
But I'm Orthodox so it's a case of 'neither-side'-ism rather than both/sides-ism.
Elizabeth I did have plots against her. The Popish Plot was illusory and born out of paranoia.
That doesn't exonerate what the RCs were doing elsewhere in Europe and in the Americas at that time.
Heck, the Greeks and Russians can still be jumpy and see 'Jesuit plots' everywhere.
But I'll shut up too.
Well, they haven't quite gone anywhere - yet - but I'm afraid I'm inclined to agree.
What term could be used, other than 'Anglican', to identify those churches which are no longer in communion with Canterbury?
Schismatics?