Anglicans move to form anti-homosexual alliance
Pastor Dale Morgan
Anglicans move to form anti-homosexual alliance*
Many blast 'false gospel' that allows malleable, liberal interpretation
of Scripture
By Laurie Goodstein and Dina Kraft
International Herald Tribune
Anglican conservatives, frustrated by the ongoing stalemate over
homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, declared Sunday that they would
defy the church's historic lines of authority and establish a new power
bloc within the church that will be led by a council of predominantly
African archbishops.
The announcement came at the close of an unprecedented meeting in
Jerusalem by conservatives, who contend that they represent a majority
of the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion.
They depicted their efforts as the culmination of an anti-colonial
struggle against the church's seat of power in Britain, whose
missionaries first brought Anglican Christianity to the developing
world. The conservatives say that many of the descendants of those
Anglican missionaries in Britain and North America are now following
what they call a "false gospel" that allows a malleable, liberal
interpretation of Scripture.
After more than 1,000 delegates to the meeting at a Jerusalem hotel
affirmed their platform statement, African women, Australians, South
Americans and Indians danced and swayed to a Swahili hymn and shouted
full-throated hallelujahs.
Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who leads the largest province in
the Communion, said at a news conference afterward: "It's quite clear we
have been in turmoil. With this decision we have a fresh beginning."
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He was accompanied by the archbishops of Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda,
Sydney, Australia, and a former American priest, David Anderson Sr.,
whom Akinola made a bishop of the Church of Nigeria.
They insisted that they were not breaking away from the Anglican
Communion or creating a schism. But it is clear that, if carried out,
their plans would create severe upheaval in the Communion, the world's
third-largest grouping of churches after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
churches.
A statement the delegates issued in Jerusalem said that it was time to
establish a branch in the United States and Canada that would absorb the
churches that have been outraged by the American church's consecration
of an openly gay bishop in 1993 and the Canadian church's blessing of
same-sex unions.
They also challenged the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. The
current archbishop, Rowan Williams, has been a disappointment to
conservatives because he did not discipline or engineer an eviction of
the liberal North Americans. The archbishop of Canterbury historically
has not had the power to decree policy in the Communion, but in the past
he determined which churches belonged to it.
The conservatives said that while they acknowledge Canterbury's historic
position, they did not accept the idea "that Anglican identity is
determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury."
They said that what would determine membership in their conservative
alliance within the Communion is a manifesto they issued Sunday, called
the "Jerusalem Declaration," which contains 14 principles of theological
orthodoxy.
A majority of the conservatives at the meeting said they would boycott
the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the
world that takes place every 10 years in Britain. That conference begins
in mid- July.
There was no immediate response Sunday from the archbishop of
Canterbury, the Episcopal Church in the United States or the Anglican
Church of Canada. Some liberal American bloggers sought to play down the
conservatives' actions, dismissing them as an attempt to hijack the
Communion when, in their view, there are much more important issues for
the church to confront, like poverty, AIDS and global warming.
Laurie Goodstein reported from New York and Dina Kraft from Jerusalem.