Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

The GAFCON Primates Council is inviting individuals, churches, dioceses, provinces and parachurch organisations who assent to the Jerusalem Declaration to signify their desire to become members of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. To express your initial interest, just send full details via email to membership@gafcon.org.

The Bible and Tomorrow's World

N.T. Wright's sermon on the authority of scripture that he gave at the Lambeth Conference.

Lord, Have Mercy

All is not well in the TEC:

6/08 Episcopal Life letter to the editor by Rev. John Beverley Butcher, author of The Tao of Jesus, recommends omitting the Nicene Creed

6/08 “I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service, and then being blessed in the Episcopal Church,” Bishop Marc Handley Andrus wrote his clergy

June 9.6/08 Find webpage of All Saints, Corpus Christi. The purpose statement is “Celebrating the Divine in prayer and action.” Core values include “We are committed to finding innovative ways of experiencing God’s presence in all Sacred Traditions.”

1/08 Hindu-Christian interfaith service

1/08 Buddhist mandala constructed at Philadelphia cathedral

1/08 Native American smudgers at bishop consecration

3/08 Rev Clayton Morris, liturgical officer for TEC explains the Eucharist

12/07 “Trans-Spirituality, Trans-Gender, Trans-Spirit, and Transforming” workshop offered by Oasis, Newark

12/07 Sacramento cathedral hosts Tibetan Buddhiststo construct mandala and hold Medicine Buddha Healing Ceremony

12/07 Seattle parish offers astrology workshop

10/07 Sufi dance taught in Seattle cathedral

9/07 >Navajo teachers and medicine men help with a Navajo blessing ceremony during consecration of bishop

6/07 Interfaith baptism in Newark (Muslim and Jewish prayers added to Christian liturgy)6/07 Episcopal priest in Seattle announces she is a Muslim.

5/07 A liberal Episcopal layman/ordained Sufi leads Sufi healing circle meetings at St. Philip’s Cathedral, Atlanta, GA

4/07 A copyrighted Liturgy of Invitation was celebrated by the Episcopal Committee on Science, Techology, and Faith. Readings included antitheistic philosophy. (Not on SF.)

9/06 A Tibetan Buddhist lama leads a guided meditation for EDS seminarians & faculty.

5/06 Episcopal Bookstore offers pagan book Love Potions for sale online.

4/06 Wiccan priest/Episcopal layman surfaces, having had essays published on the Oasis blog and Father Jake’s blog and Louie Crew’s blog.

4/05 Two Druid/Episcopal priests exposed in Pennsylvania.

5/04 A transgender shaman/pagan priest and a witch are featured speakers at a conference partly sponsored by the Episcopal diocese of Michigan GLBT outreach group

1/95 Gaia mass in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

Source: The Ugley Vicar

Archbishop of Canterbury on Homosexuality

The Archbishop of Canterbury has continued his quest for Anglican unity with a strong statement against living in sin and gay sex. Dr Williams said: "I do not believe that sex outside marriage is as God purposes it." And he said he remained "committed" to the Church’s official stance against gay sex, which aims to preserve Biblical norms.

Lambeth Briefing 1

Important happenings since Lambeth began:

1. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA has once again (in an interview) denied that the Bible is authoratative, but claims that the Word of God is a moving target to be interpreted on an ad hoc basis. Read the whole interview here.

2. Ruth Gledhill has reported that plans are afoot for some fifth "instrument of unity" in the Anglican Communion that would be some sort of international canon law blueprint, and would include some sort of moderate-conservative plan for oversight of conservative parishes in America in conjunction with the Episcopal Chruch.

3. NT Wright said that there was mistrust between the different factions over who was going to make the next significant move. “It’s like a very odd game of cards,” he said. “We’re all being very civil and talking politely, but people are wondering who is going to play which card next and hence what responses may be possible.” Bishop Wright added that the summit was lacking direction and questioned how effective it would be. “There’s a sense that we’re all not quite sure where this is going. That’s the mood of the conference. It is gloriously confusing at the moment and slightly worrying in that one has no idea what’s actually going on.”

4. The openly homosexual Bishop Robinson was not allowed to participate in Lambeth's Episcopal House of Bishops meeting.

Patriarchs, Archbishops, Primates, etc. Comment on Lambeth

"It seems to me that members of the conference have a very serious task: they have to choose between the traditional, biblical norms of morality and tendencies which consider sin and general permissiveness as manifestations of love and tolerance. That is why there is laid on members of the conference such a great, historic responsibility."

Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia

"With all our heart we as Orthodox pray that the present Lambeth Conference will prove to be a council of reconciliation and unity, an occasion for speaking the truth in sincerity and without compromise, yet an occasion for speaking the truth in love."

Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

"The ecclesiological questions which form the framework of your deliberations are a reminder that ministry conferred by ordination is bound by the apostolic faith handed down from the beginning and by the 'regula fidei' faithfully transmitted, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through the ages ... New issues that have arisen in our relationship pose a further and grave challenge to the hope for full and visible unity that has been the long-standing goal of our joint ecumenical endeavour."

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone Vatican Secretary of State

"May I suggest that the Conference not lose sight of the fact that the current year is the year of St Paul. This provides the Conference with a stimulus and an opportunity to reflect upon the message and the theology of the apostle to the Nations, and to examine to what degree the Church has remained faithful or has deviated from the Pauline teaching and principles, given that most of Europe was originally evangelised by the apostle St Paul and has immediate need of re-evangelisation."

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens

"We are living in a fast-changing world. The implications of unprecedented developments, in many areas of human life, to the church's ecclesiological, moral and missiological self-understanding are significant, indeed."

His Holiness Aram I of Cilicia


Source: Ruth Gledhill

The Eve of Lambeth

Tomorrow, the three week long Lambeth Conference will begin. It seems that many across the world are holding their breath (though often, not their words) to see what, exactly, the Bishops will do. God be with them.