Post-GAFCON at All Souls, 5: Panel Discussion

Summary notes by John Richardson

Q: Is it too late to mend the situation?

Greg Venables: It may be possible to mend it, but we must look to the future?

Q: Do you stand with Forward in Faith and Anglo-Catholicism? Can Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics be in one communion?

Peter Jensen: Yes, we have been in one communion. In 2003, one group in the Communion made a terrific blunder breaking through the boundaries. This freed up the rest of us. The Communion will never be the same again. We are one Communion but far looser, and this enables great spiritual movements like GAFCON to arise. The blunder is being turned to good. The Communion is going forward and those who can sign off on something like the Jerusalem statement can work together.

Jim Packer: It is important to know who our friends are. Anglo-Catholics generally believe in Trinity, Scripture, atonement, resurrection, judgement, prayer, etc. A ‘higher’ view of sacraments and priesthood seems secondary in the light of those primary correspondences. I can be friends with Anglo-Catholics. Modern Anglo-Catholicism has a different agenda from in the past. I can, with qualifications, be friends with Anglo-Catholics. I have good will towards Forward in Faith. Liberals are different, denying many of the aforementioned. We have let Liberals get away with too much with regard to leadership in the past.

Q: Would the panel unequivocally condemn violence against lesbian and gay people, and how do you handle issues of polygamy in African culture.

Henry Orombi: Violence against homosexuals is wrong. Jesus did not condemn tax collectors etc. On polygamy my grandfather had six wives and my father two. When dying, none of my grandfather’s wives offered him sanctuary. My father’s two wives, including my mother, were at constant war. I resolved only to have one wife before I became a Christian. As Church the bottom line is I would not ordain a polygamist or give one a prominent place in leadership. We would like to live our lives seeing transformation because of the gospel. We do encourage converted polygamists to formalise marriage with the first wife, whilst the other will live with her children without marital relations.

Q: Would all the GAFCON leaders support those who ordain women?

Peter Jensen: We do not ordain women — that is well known. The ordination of women is a different order of things from the presenting issue. Scripture never suggests an ordained woman is in danger of losing her salvation. The continual practice of greed or immorality is clearly a matter of being inside or outside the kingdom of God.

People at GAFCON had different views. The Jerusalem Statement in paragraph 12 speaks of secondary matters and seeking the mind of Christ on issues that divide us. It is time to rethink this matter under the word of God, yet again. We may be wrong, but we need to bring this prayerfully with each other and to reconsider it. Similarly, we may rethink on divorce and remarriage.

Q: Would you rather not be at the Lambeth Conference? How will GAFCON be brought to bear on the Communion?

Greg Venables: We decided to take no one stance on this. I decided I would go. I have no problems saying I have very little hope for Lambeth. It is not going to be a place where we can sit people down and see what we are going to do.

Henry Orombi: At Dromantine we made our recommendations. In Dar es Salaam we made recommendations seeking a response which would determine who would be invited to Lambeth. By July the Archbishop had already sent out his invitations. How can we agree together? We have already discontinued fellowship with bishops of TEC, how can we come to Lambeth and sit together? Trying to sit together has been attempted repeatedly without real success.

Q: What is the relationship between what has come out of GAFCON and the proposed Covenant?

Peter Jensen: Most at GAFCON probably felt the Covenant was not going anywhere. If it would bind people round the gospel it probably wouldn’t be accepted, if it didn’t it wouldn’t work. I am praying for Lambeth. It may be the Covenant that emerges will be suitable, but I doubt it. The Windsor Process was misconceived from the start. It was balanced, but would not say sin was sin. The Covenant may work, but probably not.

Greg Venables: The Covenant was presented to try to find unity because we were ignoring the problem. The Covenant does not address the real problem. People sitting round the same table would say they accepted one thing, then she [sic] would go back and say she hadn’t accepted it. So you get people who are devious. It is ignoring the real problem.

Q: How was the GAFCON Statement produced?

Peter Jensen: Not in the way I wanted it. I would have written the Statement first, and I drafted one. ABp Akinola got word of it and told me to stop doing, which I didn’t. But he made it quite clear we were to hear the word of God through the people. A communique group had been appointed. We also drew in what people wanted to say to the group — which went on for several days. The group kept hearing what people were saying. By Thursday most was written. By Friday we had a draft. People then broke into groups. Each province signed off on the draft and it was acclaimed on Sunday morning. There were many providences and miracles throughout GAFCON and this was one.

Q: Are we right to understand that at the heart of the Jerusalem Statement is a redefinition of Anglicanism as confessional? How does this affect relationships with ABp of Canterbury?

Greg Venables: It is not a redefinition, it is going back to our roots. Regarding the ABp over to Jim Packer ...

Jim Packer: We must accept the authority of Archbishops because we are Anglicans. The question about the Archbishop of Canterbury was raised in Nigeria, which had redefined itself as an Anglican province without specifying communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury as part of the essence. The present ABp of Canterbury who is by confession a Liberal is making it hard for the rest of us to feel anything other than that we could get on better without him. This may not be true, but I hope the next ABp of Canterbury is of a different persuasion. There is something dispensable about the ABp of Canterbury and it is not of the essence of Anglicanism to be in communion with him when he becomes part of the doctrinal problem. Pray for the next ABp of Canterbury and that he may be with us sooner than we might have thought.

Peter Jensen: As far as I know, being in communion with the ABp of Canterbury as such is not part of our constitution.

Q: Rowan Williams said that GAFCON lacks legitimacy, authority and integrity. Is he right?

Henry Orombi: GAFCON drew in 1,000+ people, bishops and archbishops. The Primates Council is coming together to challenge the unorthodox. I am at pains to understand what the Archbishop is saying. Nothing we did happened in the dark.

Q: Could the panel comment about how people in the CofE may most helpfully respond to GAFCON and the Jerusalem Declaration?

Peter Jensen: This affects everyone in the UK. Os Guinness compared it to a nuclear explosion where the fallout will happen around the world. Your presence here suggests you are deeply concerned about that fallout. GAFCON is a spiritual movement. Many of you will want to be part of it and to apply it to your local situation. There will be no vote here, but if you are convinced of this you signal so by writing in to the GAFCON website, indicating you support for the GAFCON movement.

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Post-GAFCON at All Souls, 4: Interview with Revd Dr Jim Packer

Summary notes by John Richardson

[Missed the first few minutes, but a very frail looking, but strong sounding, Jim Packer has been speaking about how Michael Ingham pushed through the agenda on gay blessings in New Westminster, leading to a walk-out of a number of clergy from his diocese.]

JP: After 6 years, news came through that the Archbishop of the Southern Cone was prepared to offer provision for them. Revd David Short called the whole of JP’s church together, and 97% was for leaving New Westminster and accepting jurisdictional hospitality from Greg Venables.

Michael Ingham declared that ministries of leaving clergy had been terminated and their property — built by public subscription and maintained by the congregation — belonged to the Diocese (who had never til then put a penny into it).

Interviewer: Why couldn’t this be a ‘live and let live’ situation?

JP: The gospel calls us to turn away from certain sins. In 1 Corinthians 6 there is a specific description of male homosexual practice in a ‘vice list’. New Westminster is negating the truth about repentance.

The diocese have not allowed any discussion of from any standpoint but the one they approved. ‘Discussion’ was not really open and the hope of calling the diocese to repentance was frustrated.

Interviewer: People who moved out of the diocese were described as schismatic — what about that?

JP: Schism means division, but there are proper and improper divisions. If the gospel is at stake there must be division. Separation took place at the Reformation — was that ‘schism’? I would deny this. Unnecessary separation may properly be called ‘schism’, but in the case of a division like New Westminster this is a necessary split and only the person who caused the split can be described as schismatic, ie the bishop who brought in the blessing of gay unions. I don’t like saying this, but I have to.

Interviewer: What about other churches and clergy who call themselves orthodox and yet remain in the ACC?

JP: I respect my brothers, when they seek honestly before the Lord to find what the Holy Spirit would have them do. We were put in a situation comparable to the Puritan clergy in 1662, being required to renounce the principle of ever rebelling against the king, therefore retrospectively condemning Parliament in the Civil War and also requiring episcopal ordination for those who hadn’t been so ordained in the previous 17 years. Those who came after were not put on the spot in the same way.

The issue has not come to a head for other dioceses in Canada in the same way as it did in New Westminster, so people can make different choices. It is important we respect people who don’t immediately see eye to eye with us.

Interviewer: How can we now understand the Anglican Communion?

JP: The AC has grown out of the Church of England and its missionary endeavours, and in the constitution of most Anglican churches there is some reference to the Church of England and its standards. You define the Anglican communion in terms of agreement with the constitution and with deferment to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This has been called into question because the Archbishop has been ambiguous in relation to the presenting issue: whether gay behaviour is a mode of holiness or, as the Bible regards it, as sin.

There is an upheaval when you have a diocese or province with an heretical leader. The Bishop of New Westminster is an heretical leader. When you have that the case is entirely altered from what the Anglican constitution and history envisages. At the time of the Reformation it was taken for granted that Anglican bishops would be efficient administrators and also spiritual leaders in the full and basic sense — pioneers in evangelism and pastoral ministry, in maintaining Christian standards, and in enabling congregations to stand on their own two feet.

An heretical bishop presents a different situation. Where there is heretical leadership you cannot, as a matter of principle, rule out para-dioceses with parallel jurisdictions.

But how can it be stopped? In the churches of the old west, the method of appointing bishops means you’re going to have Liberal bishops elected. There will be heresy, so what are you to do? Parallel jurisdiction is the only alternative. Otherwise the diocese is powerless under a Liberal bishop. You cannot really reform from within in such a situation.

Interviewer: Isn’t Greg Venables fragmenting the Communion?

JP: No. Those who say he is treat something in Anglicanism — geographical territorial jurisdiction — as inviolable. GV has breached that position. There is practical heresy going on. This is spreading in the West, and the question will be brought back and back and back to Synods. This is a strategy. So we are not disrupting the Anglican Communion, we are keeping it together, by ensuring that people in it are kept in fellowship with a biblically based version of biblical Christianity. You make it possible for the faithful to stay together.

Without it, those in heretical dioceses would be cut off from full communion with the orthodox part of the Anglican Communion. Parallel jurisdiction and realignment is the only way to keep the Anglican Communion together.

Interviewer: You were criticised when here for staying in a pluralist denomination. What is different now?

JP: The difference is that in those days the discussions by heretics were purely notional. You could disclaim the errors of the errorists and seek to persuade people to turn their back on them. The 39 Articles remained as the standard of Anglican orthodoxy and one could appeal to the constitution of the Church with a clear conscience. Guilt by association didn’t apply. But this is different from what prevailed in New Westminster and what has happened in TEC. Both have passed motions saying there is holiness in gay partnerships — this was not happening in England.

Interviewer: The you were asked what you would say if you had 10 minutes with the ABC. What would you say in 2 minutes to us?

JP: Keep the faith, resist Liberalism, do not act the ostrich, hiding your head in the sand.

Interviewer: What would be your wisdom about carrying on the GAFCON process in England?

JP: At the heart of the Statement is the Jerusalem Declaration. I would like to see PCCs and, where possible, Diocesan Synod, or even central bodies, committing themselves to this as their own guiding star. I would like to see the Primates who were leaders at GAFCON meeting in a public way in January 2009, casting the Jerusalem Statement into the form of a covenantal commitment, publicly subscribing to it on the part of their provinces, and also seeing diocesans subscribe to it. I would like to see it presented to new bishops appointed in the Church of England to subscribe to it, and I would like to see it established as a basis for orthodoxy and missionary action.

The goal of the Covenant Process begun in the Windsor Report would thus be achieved in essence. Anglican provinces who didn’t come along with this would be in the outer circle of limited communion for not identifying with Anglican orthodoxy.

This would be a first step in getting Anglicanism back into proper shape.

Interviewer: Thank you for letting us look into your ‘crystal ball’.

(A standing ovation was given to Dr Packer, who also stood to acknowledge it.)

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