Amy Hybels and Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service
AMMAN, Jordan (RNS) Conservative Anglicans on Thursday (June 19) said there is “no longer any hope for a unified” Anglican Communion just weeks before a crucial summit of Anglican bishops in England.
Traditionalist Anglicans were meeting here ahead of the June 22-29 Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) summit in Jerusalem, in order to map a strategy for their future within the Anglican Communion.
On Thursday (June 19), GAFCON leaders released a 94-page handbook titled, “The Way, The Truth and the Life,” which organizers say explains the theological underpinnings of the weeklong summit in Jerusalem.
The 94-page document says the Communion faces a “moment of truth” and conservatives seek reconciliation but “not at the cost of re-writing the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend.”
More than 300 bishops from 19 countries are expected at the GAFCON meeting; most of them plan not to attend the upcoming Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in late July, and some weren’t officially invited.
Bishop Martyn Minns, a Virginia-based leader of breakaway former Episcopalians loyal to Akinola, said the statement does not mean GAFCON leaders are declaring independence from the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.
Minns is one of several bishops who were not invited to the Lambeth Conference because his ordination by Akinola violated traditional geographic boundaries of authority.
“We’re not leaving,” said Minns. “We’re moving into a different relationship. Canterbury is part of our history; we’ll always be grateful for that. We’re no longer the dependent children. We’re still part of the same family.”
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