Thinking about theGAFCON Statement, Part One

Probably the best way to encapsulate the GAFCON statement is to quote GAFCON's description of itself: "a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and the power of the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we have received it."

It is a movement. In other words, there is, now, an international group of Anglicans from 38 countries- representing millions of church members, who are willing to pray, work, stand for, and declare a creedally orthodox, and Biblicaly grounded message- as Anglicans! As such it is a "confessing" movement- meaning, what binds us together is that which we confess- more so than any organization to which we belong. What binds us together is shared belief.

That may not sound particularly unusual- most of this could be said of the membership of the Good Samaritan. However, to say this as Anglicans (including the Episcopal Church) is, to some, startling. Most Episcopalians would describe what binds them together as a certain "ethos"- a nebulous combination of liturgical memory, a certain liturgical language, common church membership, certain shared cultural preferences, and a tolerance for various ways of thinking about God. Various circles wtihin the Episcopal Church would be more definitive than this, but little else could be said about the whole of the Episcopal Church. Ethos means far more to us than any sort of authority found either in the Bible or in our founding Anglican documents (called by some, the "formularies").

However, such a description of what it means to be an Episcopalian bears little resemblence to any Biblcal model of church membership where it is beliefs- plainly laid out in the Scriptures, expressed in worship that honors Jesus as the only and true Lord, and a missionary purpose to win the lost and serve the poor that bind us together. GAFCON's commitment is to do our best to restore that Biblical vision of the church to the wider Anglican Communion.

The beliefs that the GAFCON statment expresses are contained, in their entirety, within the Anglican heritage which many of us cherish. In fact, the heart of GAFCON is a calling back to our original Anglican distinctives. Mention is made of the Bible, the Creeds, the 39 Articles of Religion (found in our Prayer Book) and the Councils of the early Church. There is nothing within the GAFCON statment with which most people from Good Samaritan would disagree. This why I was so happy to be a part of it.