ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY HAS EFFECTIVELY SPLIT THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 28, 2024
If one had any doubts that the Anglican Communion is now de facto split one has only to look at the outcome in the pushing of same-sex blessings in a now thoroughly divided Church of England, and the impact this is having on the communion, courtesy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Nothing good has come out of anything he has said or done except to feel the pain of aggrieved homosexuals, who now believe he has not gone far or fast enough to embrace their sexualities.
If you were passing by and saw a pall of depression hanging over Lambeth Palace, you might see Jesus standing in the garden weeping.
From ALPHA (the movement) to Omega, he has compromised scripture; the church's historic stand and teaching on human sexuality; alienated the evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings of his church, chased down Global South archbishops who he believes have uttered homophobic statements and much more.
Why he feels the pain of sodomites more than the martyrs of Nigeria will only be answered at the Last Judgment.
Any talk of unity in the ship of church has been dashed on the shoals of heresy. The ship has then washed aground on the beach where the winds of revisionist biblical interpretation have uprooted any theology of salvation. A de jure split it would seem is inevitable.
Two massive theological movements in the Anglican Communion have declared themselves out of sync with Canterbury. The GSFA and GAFCON primates have made it clear that they will do no business with Archbishop Justin Welby and the Church of England. They will not cut him any slack. The little man holed up in Lambeth Palace is on his own.
Meanwhile the homosexually-partnered dean of Canterbury Cathedral has announced that he will bless same-sex unions in the most sacred of Anglican temples. I can assure you that never again will an orthodox African, Asian, or South American bishop darken the doors of that iconic cathedral again. It is over.
Outside Cairo recently, orthodox primates of the global Anglican Communion once again called for a reset of the Communion. They were blunt and to the point.
GSFA Chairman Archbishop Justin Badi had these stirring words: "Though Canterbury says "let us walk together, listen to each other and have a good disagreement", the GSFA Primates & I say to you that "we cannot walk together in sin, ... (and that) unless there is repentance by those who have gone astray, we cannot have unity at the expense of God's life-giving truth."
The primates reiterated their commitment in the GSFA's Ash Wednesday Statement (2023) that they would not walk away from the Communion and its rich inheritance of biblical faith.
"The Church of England's departure from that standard has only served to strengthen our resolve to work together to reset the Communion." Reform and Renewal would mark a new day.
Archbishop Badi said the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury had forfeited their leadership role of the global Communion, with the result that the Primates would collaborate with Primates and bishops in the GAFCON movement and other orthodox Anglican groupings to work out the shape and nature of their common life.
Could one be blunter than that. If you are walking in sin, you are not walking in the light of Christ. It's that simple.
GAFCON primates in Kenya in April 21, 2023 representing a large majority of the Anglican Communion formally repudiated the historic leadership of the See of Canterbury.
The acceptance by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of a General Synod resolution to permit blessings for same-sex relationships "renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible," according to the statement released at the end of the fourth GAFCON conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
"If he calls a meeting," said Foley Beach, Archbishop emeritus of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), "we don't recognize his authority to call the meeting." Beach, the outgoing chairman of the Global Primates Council for GAFCON, made the statement at a news conference, and said he was speaking for the primates.
It's difficult to overstate the enormity of the challenge posed by the Kigali Commitment, which declares: "Anglican identity is defined by [doctrine] and not by recognition from the See of Canterbury." That stands in stark contrast to the Anglican Communion website, which defines the Anglican Communion as "provinces in communion with the See of Canterbury."
Archbishop James Wong, primate of the Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean, declared at an earlier business session, "We are the real members of the Anglican Communion."
So why did Archbishop Welby roll over, what made him slip into the false notion that you could change binary sexual relationships, when not a scrap of Scripture or 2,000 years of church teaching, history or tradition allowed it?
One could put it down to a false compassion. Sex was never a right (or rite) in Scripture, it is always a gift for men and women together. As C.S. Lewis observed; there is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is, "Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence. [Chastity] is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong."
Lewis would argue that the LGBTQ crowd have got it all wrong and are busy destroying western civilization in their calls for no boundaries to sexual liberation that restricts their "right" for sexual fulfillment.
Well, how has that turned out? Major world denominations have split; not only the Anglican Communion, but the United Methodist Church, with nearly every mainline denomination falling on its sword to accommodate a behavior that has within it the seeds of death.
The destruction has been enormous in torn friendships, broken churches, disillusioned pastors and priests, pastoral resignations, massive financial upheaval, pension losses, divorce and much more.
The tragedy has compounded in a massive divorce between Global South and Global North Christians at a time when colonial bonds are breaking and spiritual bonds could have filled the void. Now they have been torn apart forever over, of all things; sex.
Future historians and archaeologists will marvel at the destruction; heads will shake, eyes will roll, but the colossal destruction will have been done and there is no undoing it.
God has always had a faithful remnant He has kept for himself...the 7,000 who would not bow the knee to Baal.
Archbishop Welby has done enormous damage to the communion for which he will be answerable "in that day." Meanwhile we press on believing that God has not abandoned His faithful and He will honor their faith in the face of growing adversity.
END