The Other Cheek is going to Africa this weekend. Destination: Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The reason: the meeting of Gafcon – the Global Anglican Futures Conference, which draws together the evangelicals, charismatics and conservative Anglo Catholics who make up 75 per cent of the world’s Anglicans.
It will be a joyous time, meeting many Christian sisters and brothers, a large proportion of them Africans. I had the privilege of meeting Christians from around the world while I worked for Bible Society, so once again, I am bound to find out how low on the league ladder of sanctification I sit.
But this gathering meets under the shadow of the Church of England bishops making a big decision to promote prayers of blessings for same-sex relationships. How should those who think this is not a wise or Biblical move respond? Can we achieve a balance of grace and truth at this moment? How can we disagree firmly but not harshly?
There’ll be a fascinating mix of cultures within the Gafcon umbrella. And of the great strategic moment, representatives of a second group of conservatives, groups under the Global South Anglicans’ banner, will be present. An effect of the Church of England, the mother church of the Anglican Communion, moving in a progressive direction is to unite and galvanise a conservative majority against them. At the Gafcon conference, we will get a good idea of what the conservative pushback will look like
Here is a short explainer video about Gafcon:
The Other Cheek will join forces with other Aussie media, Dominic Steele’s the Pastor’s Heart podcast and David Ould’s website. The Other Cheek will carry a daily video feed from Gafcon, also carried by the Pastor’s Heart and David Ould.
We will focus on celebrating the diversity and vigour of the Christians at the conference. We’ll get to see how Christianity works in their cultures.
For this writer, it is stimulating that African media will be part of our project, with the Nigerian Anglican TV channel and Uganda Family TV joining in.
So for a special week, The Other Cheek will have heaps of video content. Please don’t worry; we’ll be back to text soon after!
What shapes the conservative pushback to progressive moves in Anglicanism and other churches?
- Compatibilists and Incompatibilists:
These terms are borrowed from the United Methodist Church, the 12million member church currently splitting g over LGBTQIA issues. Compatibilists will happily co-exist with people who disagree about marrying or blessing same-sex relationships in the same church or having ministers in gay relationships. Incompatibilists of the left or right believe that a church or denomination needs to make up its mind – and stick to it. Gafcon and the Global South Anglicans at the Kigali meeting are incompatibilists as far as their national churches are concerned. - In or Out
Gafcon and the Global South seek to be the NEW Anglican Communion, that’s why they have NOT left, while some boycott Communion meetings and as a whole, sheltering breakaway churches in the US, Canada, Aotearoa NZ, Brazil and South Africa and Australia. Increasingly it looks like a fledgeling breakaway in the UK will grow after the Church of England signalled it was moving in a progressive direction. - Why respond?
Many evangelicals do stay in progressive churches. The Propel movement in the Uniting Church in Australia is a good example. Anglican evangelicals in the US and Aotearoa, NZ have done the same. They will argue that they are left alone. For example, the Uniting Church has parallel marriage rites that help the conservatives stay in; official prayerbooks in Anglican churches have not changed. So the formula Lex Orendi Lex Credendi (what we pray is what we believe) encourages some to stay.
The Alternative view is summed up in the saying of the Catholic Writer John Neuhaus (founder of First Things) “Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.” An example often pointed to is women’s ordination, support of which is effectively compulsory in the Episcopal church in the US. - The second wave.
In many denominations or national churches, the opening up to LGBTQIA ministers and marriages is promulgated on a free-choice basis. Churches or ministers can opt-in – this is the Uniting Church or the Anglicans of Aotearoa NZ situation. Effectively same-sex blessings are currently optional diocese by diocese in Australian Anglicanism following rulings of the church’s legal body, the Appellate Tribunal.
However, at some stage, the social justice theology and politics of the LGBTQIA movement is likely to demand access to same-gender marriage services in every local church. Sometimes, this comes as a second wave, possibly with a new wave of leaders. The progressive movement in churches is often incrementalist. For example, in the US, each of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church is required to provide for same-gender marriage. - Church is voluntary.
The national churches sending delegates to Gafcon in Kigali have varying degrees of religious freedom. None make Christianity compulsory. None make a particular version of Christianity mandatory. We are free to have conservative and progressive churches – those churches should be able to decide what they stand for. Unfortunately, the experience of some churches is of progressive Bishops and other leaders subverting orthodoxy, defying the church’s doctrinal standards. This has been common in progressive Anglicanism. - The Anglican Future
Gafcon’s Kigali meeting could set the agenda for the future of Anglicanism and whether the conservative strain will prevail. It may be that the conservatives form a conservative block with a significant majority in the Anglican communion. Rowan Williams, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, once spoke of a “two-track” communion. We may see the start of a conservative “inner communion” with a progressive periphery. We may also see the conservatives wrest the titular leadership of the Communion away from the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the direction of the Communion no longer dominated by white and northern progressives.
Great John, thanks for this, very interesting and important to have you there reporting.
I am dismayed by the way the Churches are so fixated on gay/sexual matters. These issues are secondary. The churches should spend more time dealing with injustice, the rampant unfairness existing in capitalist societies, the scourge of inequality and the plight of those at the bottom of the economic pile. Make Jesus’ priorities our priorities first.
For conservative churches, this is not a secondary issue. You say ” Make Jesus’ priorities our priorities first.” Jesus priorities are summarised in Mark as “The Kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the Good news.” (Mark 1:15). We need to not only turn and believe His gospel, but to repent of living not according to the law of the Kingdom of God. Fleeing from sexual immorality is mentioned in nearly every book and letter in the New Testament. So, it gets to the heart of what it means to repent of our sins and to follow him.
Sexual immorality covers many sexual sins and temptations that opposite-sex attracted Christians face every day, and there can be an obsession by some Christian commentators on LGBT+ issues which become blinkers against other sins that we need to confess in this area. It grieves me to hear about the way in which some wives were taught about sex during marriage prep which led to unhappy marriages (you can listen to With All due Respect episode Better sex for examples). We must repent of this. But sexual immorality includes gay sex. There is no same-sex provision in God’s view of marriage. The Same-sex marriage movement only picked up steam once the extent of sexual abuse in churches was revealed; and I don’t think our world would be in this position if churches had taken the position to repent much earlier.
There are genuine secondary issues within how churches include LGBT+ peoples in our churches such as same-sex attracted vs. using queer vocab and pronouns; I’m more ‘progressive’ on those concerns.