The GAFCON / FCA Primates Council Plots, Plans and Fusses.

The long promised Communique from a group of Primates called "The Primates Council" has finally been published, Friday August 29, 2008. First assumed to be something that would be published immediately on the conclusion of their meeting in London (that would have been on Friday or Saturday of last week, the 22 or 23 of August, it was then supposed to come out on Monday. Nothing. On August 27 David Virtue posted a comment that " there are some 'technical' hick-ups remaining." On August 28 he reported that "I have been told that there is a kind of transition going on, from a wide and inclusive leadership group (maybe a little 'activist style'?) to a smaller, more formal group of Primates." See the whole thread HERE.

GAFCON has posted the full text HERE.

It becomes clear that this Statement is the launch of a new group (adding to the already overly full life-boat filled with the alphabet soup mix of organizations of righteous Anglicans.) The group is called The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans - FCA.

FCA appears to be the Primates Council "holding tank" for all sorts of people and groups that want to join in some new, as yet unspecified, world wide Anglican thing. It is also the organization to follow up on the directives of the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem. So GAFCON will become an idea and a conference, and FCA will become a fellowship of those who will form down the road a new Anglican beast to replace the old lion of Canterbury.

The Communique said this about the Primates Council tasks:

"The twofold task of the Council is ‘to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.’ The Primates have therefore laid the basis for the future work of both the Council and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA).


The Primates are organizing themselves as follows: "The Council will consist of Primates assisted by an Advisory Board which will work with them on fulfilling the aims of the movement. In addition, a Secretariat has been created."

The Primates Council then spelled out the so called "reality" in which they operate:

"We maintain that three new facts of the Anglican Communion must be faced. We are past the time when they can be reversed.

• First, some Anglicans have sanctified sinful practices and will continue to do so whatever others may think.
• Second, churches and even dioceses affected by this disobedience have rightly withdrawn fellowship while wishing to remain authentic Anglicans. So-called ‘border-crossing’ is another way of describing the provision of recognition and care for those who have been faithful to the teachings of Holy Scripture.
• Third, there is widespread impaired and broken sacramental communion amongst Anglicans with far-reaching global implications. The hope that we may somehow return to the state of affairs before 2003 is an illusion.

Any sound strategy must accommodate itself to these facts."

The Primates Council is, I think, right in their conclusion (item one) that there is no going back - moratoria are not the answer. They are wrong in thinking that the problem is that some have "sanctified sinful practices." The problem with the moratoria is that they were dead in the water on first printing because they could never be required, only suggested.

The fact that bishops and people may wish to withdraw from a particular church and still remain Anglican is a perfectly reasonable desire. Again, the question is not about what those leaving want for themselves - Anglican identity - it is what they want to see happen to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada - that those churches either repent or be dismissed from the fellowship of the Anglican Communion.

The "impaired and broken sacramental communion" is a fact. The pure will not eat with the impure.

All of which makes it clear that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a stopgap measure on the way to organizing a purer worldwide Church refined by the fire of zeal for a pure Gospel. The Primates Council has initiated the "holding company" that will make a little list of all the righteous. When they do so they will certainly have a World Wide confessing Church, but it will be confessing a rigidity and indignation that will be less and less like anything that the Anglican Churches throughout the world have ever experienced. There will be weeping and gnashing of many teeth and blood on the road. It's like that in the fast lane.

The Communique knew this criticism was going to come and so the Primates write,

"GAFCON remains a gospel movement. It is far from saying that its membership are the only true Anglicans or the only gospel people in the Anglican Communion. We thank God that this is not the case. But the movement recognises the acute spiritual dangers of a compromised theology and aims to be a resource and inspiration for those who wish to defend and promote the biblical gospel."

The Primates writing this thing want us to believe that they are a "party" in a wider community of Anglicans. They believe there are other "true Anglicans" or "gospel people in the Anglican Communion." What they mean, I believe, is that there are some currently in the Anglican Communion and its member Churches that cannot buy into the GAFCON/ FCA movement - Primates who did not sign on to this statement, for example. When they come over the mix will be complete. This little section of the Communique says the door is open to the squeamish who didn't sign on now. But the door is closed to the Episcopal Church unless it repents, which the Primates believes is no longer likely or even possible.

So, now to FCA:


"The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will function as a means of sharing in this great task. We invite individuals, churches, dioceses, provinces and parachurch organisations who assent to the Jerusalem Declaration to signify their desire to become members of the Fellowship via the GAFCON web-site or written communication with the Secretariat. The Fellowship will develop networks, commissions and publications intended to defend and promote the biblical gospel in ways which support one another."

FCA is, as I suggest, a holding tank every bit as much a strategy for future kingdom building as is the holding tank proposed at Lambeth. It is bait.

Now to the matter of the formation of a province in North America for the Common Cause Partnership. Concerning the work of the Primates Council and Advisory Board, "It is expected that priority will be given to the possible formation of a province in North America for the Common Cause Partnership."


So, no new news on the Province, except to say it is the business of the Primates Council and not the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. That card is being held by the Primates themselves.

The Communique goes on at length about the shortcomings of the Lambeth Conference. At the close of that section they kiss the Global South bishops goodbye, at least those who think the Windsor Process and the post Lambeth "work" outlined by the Archbishop of Canterbury hold some promise. The Primates write,

"Given that some esteemed colleagues from the Global South have strongly commended the Windsor Process to us, we are reluctant to say that it cannot work. But there is nothing new here such as to make us hesitate from the course we are taking, given the urgency of the situations with which we are dealing and the realities already on the ground. As they themselves remark, ‘the Anglican Communion as a communion of ordered churches is at the probable brink of collapse’. We warmly appreciate the good words which they have written about GAFCON and look forward to co-operation with them in the future as we ourselves try to avoid that collapse and renew the Communion."

Got it? What they are saying is that the Global South wider crowd who is still hanging on to some promise from within the Anglican Communion as currently ordered are wrong. There will be cooperation with them and if they turn to the truth I am sure they can join the GAFCON Primates and the new order they will develop out of FCA, but if not, so long.

So who finally signed off on this plot? Here they are:

The Most Rev Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria

The Most Rev Gregory Venables, Primate of The Southern Cone

The Most Rev Emmanuel Kolini, Primate of Rwanda

The Most Rev Valentino Mokiwa, Primate of Tanzania

The Most Rev Benjamin Nzmibi, Primate of Kenya

The Most Rev Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda

GAFCON stated "The primates' council will initially be formed by the Anglican primates participating in the GAFCON from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Southern Cone, Uganda and West Africa. Also the Anglican Church of Tanzania delegation to GAFCON is in agreement with the statement but will need the endorsement of their House of Bishops before their archbishop join the council."

The shift is that Archbishop Justice Akofi of West Africa is now off, and Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania is on. All the Primates, save the Archbishop of Tanzania have bishops stirring about in the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada. (correction.. Archbishop Akofi is not listed because they could not reach him, according to The Living Church. If that is the case there are seven Primate involved. Only five actually met in London, six signed and seven are considered members.)


In the Communique the Primates reference a letter (their link doesn't work) from Bishops
Bill Atwood, Anglican Church of Kenya; John Guernsey, Anglican Church of Uganda; Don Harvey, Anglican Province of the Southern Cone; Martyn Minns, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and Chuck Murphy, Anglican Church of Rwanda.

There is no reference to any letter from the Common Cause Partnership US Bishops. This is a letter from bishops within the Primates own jurisdictions asking for a North American Province.

In all of this we might note that (i) the number of Primates buying on has not grown, (ii) the request received for development of a new Province recognized by the Primates is from their own bishops in North America, (iii) The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a membership organization in support of the Primates Council and its actions (a kind of GAFCON continuation popular front for the liberation of the Anglican Communion, etc.), and (iv) there is no longer talk of this being the work of the Global South.

Goodbye Global South, goodbye Lambeth, goodbye Archbishop of Canterbury. As far as the Primates Council is concerned, "the Anglican Communion as a communion of ordered churches is at the probable brink of collapse." Will these Primates meet with the others at the next Primates Meeting? How will they dare?

This Communique on the one hand says nothing not already in the works at GAFCON. It simply puts in place the various pieces. But it has become divisive in its own house. There are notable realignment provinces missing from this group and for good reason. This is not about saving the Communion. It is about replacing it, and if that is not possible, about starting something else entirely and recruiting from the Anglican Communion as it can.

Shame.