Dr. Chris Sugden offers a rationale in the Church Times for GAFCON - the Global Anglican Future Conference - the product of some Global South Primates and a select group of associates from the nasty ol' West. Thanks to Thinking Anglicans for bring it to our attention.
Here is what Dr. Sugden had to say at the close of his article:
"This is one of God’s ways of ensuring that Churches in the West are not overwhelmed by the power of their surrounding culture, because they are in fellowship with and accountable to Christians in other cultures and contexts."
So...its all about us in the West. GAFCON is a form of inoculation against something like mad cow inclusiveness, the sort of inclusiveness that might suggest that women can exercise ministry at every level of the Church's life and that gay and lesbian persons are to be included in the full life of the church.
He certainly believes GAFCON is about inclusion. He says,
"Bishops and their wives, and clergy and laity, including the next generation of young leaders, will attend GAFCON. It will bring together Anglican leaders from around the globe, who are committed to the accepted teaching of the Bible, of the Church throughout the ages, and of the Anglican Communion. This will enable Anglican Churches in all parts of the world to develop their understanding of the gospel by building relationships across the usual dividing lines of humanity, race, culture, gender, and economics. This expresses the true inclusiveness of the gospel — that all who receive the good news of Jesus have a contribution to make to the spiritual health of the whole."
"All who receive the good news of Jesus have a contribution to make..." It just turns out that women's contributions may not include ordination or leadership over men and gay and lesbian people can contribute live, labor and money, unto the Lord, but can only receive constant demands that they repent, mask their sense of self or get cured from that which makes them alive.
Read the whole thing HERE. It doesn't work.
1/21/2008
2 comments:
OK... Comments, gripes, etc welcomed, but with some cautions and one rule:
Cautions: Calling people fools, idiots, etc, will be reason to bounce your comment. Keeping in mind that in the struggles it is difficult enough to try to respect opponents, we should at least try.
Rule: PLEASE DO NOT SIGN OFF AS ANONYMOUS: BEGIN OR END THE MESSAGE WITH A NAME - ANY NAME. ANONYMOUS commentary will be cut.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Chris Sugden said...
ReplyDelete"This is one of God’s ways of ensuring that Churches in the West are not overwhelmed by the power of their surrounding culture, because they are in fellowship with and accountable to Christians in other cultures and contexts."
I thought all this was about the "faith once delivered to the saints". So someone else's cultural context is really more important to propagation of the faith than that of the "wicked West."
To follow up, Sugden is really admitting that culture has something with Gospel. Duh! Scripture is not divorced from its various cultures, I would think. My understanding of the "Living Word of God" is that it speaks to me where I am now and it is freshly revealed. Hence, it tends to be dynamic.
ReplyDelete