Poon Questions (of GAFCON)

Michael Poon asks some questions about the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) about who it includes and excludes, and by what authority it is set up. He starts with this apparent quotation.

"Everything is permissible" - but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible" - but no

"Everything is permissible" - but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible" - but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. (1 Corinthians 9: 23-24)

It is wrongly attributed. It is: 1 Corinthians 6: 12, and a bit.

12 'All things are lawful for me', but not all things are beneficial. 'All things are lawful for me', but I will not be dominated by anything.

Poon is saddened and shocked by the Conference announcement.

He asserts that Canon A5 "Doctrine of the Church of England" and C15 "On the Preface to the Declaration of Assent" of the Church of England are the bases of orthodoxy in the Anglican Communion, as in the draft Covenant. So, if some Primates claim to be orthodox then the question is how are they more orthodox than others? Who (presumably) is not orthodox?

He wonders if the primates involved were speaking personally or representatively and if such went through due process.

There is a Global South Steering Committee, but it has not endorsed anything. It too, he says, represents a broad spectrum Anglicanism that maintains the historic faith, and clearly sees GAFCON coming from a "radical evangelical" stance. He notes (actually regrets - but why regret non-consultation in something that is not approved?) that Asia, West Indies, and Middle East are missing, and indeed Jerusalem as a location for this conference precludes orthodox Christians from Muslim countries attending. He sees (the same) northern Anglican Christianity names on the conference creation list. There is a lack of broader consultation then, and he wonders if the Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem of the Middle East was consulted (on the Anglican principle of consult the person in charge of a territory).

Clearly he infers that private judgments and personalities are at work here, rather than (as the Archbishop of Canterbury does!) doing their job of upholding official positions.

What is interesting about this is that he, and others, are obviously excluded, and yet claims are made for this 30 of 55 million representation. It is a nonsense claim anyway.

The way to understand GAFCON, I suggest, is rather like an internal battle of orthodoxy. We know that "liberals" are the enemy of GAFCON, but they are rather like an enemy that the orthodox have never been able to get at because of the layers of Anglican breadth, even that breadth that claims to be within historic orthodoxy. The key speech is not actually related to GAFCOM directly, but by the Principal of Wycliffe Hall, in England, Dr. Richard Turnbull, when in October 2006 he identified "liberal evangelicals" as in the way, and the necessity to get them out of the way in order to get the main enemy (the liberals) dealt with. It is not just other evangelicals, of course, but others who are insufficiently orthodox, but who claim orthodoxy.

Yet the radical evangelicals, as they were called by Michael Poon, find "Common Cause" with the most doctrinaire of Anglo-Catholics because of the issue of authority. Both want a change in authority, as compared with all the moderates, hangers on, orthodox but apparently weak, the passive, never mind the unorthodox, from this Anglican Communion. Nevertheless these Anglo-Catholics are not in the driving seat. With no 'broad Church' helping smooth the way, two conflicting dogmatic elements are bound to come to serious differences. Already Martyn Minns has had to speak to part of the evangelical constituency about the absence of ordained women in the new structures.

The drivers of this GAFCON are a more closely connected bunch. We have African Christianity. It is a heady mix of post-Western Reformation, biblical literalist and pagan-magical (thus miracles, signs and wonders) Christianity. It kind of recreates the Biblical magical world in its cultural readings, even of last days and disasters, adding to it a developed but strained-out "great tradition" Protestant Christianity and highly authoritarian local understandings of leadership (based on wide differences in education, authority given to leaders, and basic local cultural understandings of leadership). This heady mix is added to by pouring once superstition into its Christianity as a means to reward and success, and the growth in this kind of religion that comes about with risky modernity on top of an older culture. This is not an evolution theory of religion, incidentally, because the outcome need not be something more moderate and settled. It is what it is.

Conservative Evangelicals find this the engine that they, a minority in the West, have been looking for. It suits them to come under the episcopal authority of such Churches, partly because in reality they remain the drivers of the cause.

The parallel is the Militant Tendency in the Labour Party in the 1980s. Thus alliances are made, and whilst there are official structures (as in the African Provinces) the real driving is by the militants. We see this again and again - Chris Sugden, it is, who set up the GAFCON domain name with the outcome decided even before they met at Nairobi. They were there at Dar es Salaam in February 2007, they had their names all over documents supposedly from Peter Akinola even if approved by him. These primates are all willing, like left wing socialists were amongst Militant, but they are not the drivers of the strategy.

What does one do about a Militant Tendency? Not lean over and use their argument, as has been done up front in the Advent Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. No wonder they ignore it - they could not care less. No, one should do a Neil Kinnock, which is to start the process of kicking them out.

Except that they are kicking themselves out, as their strategy involves separation and then coming for personnel and plant in the existing Canterbury Communion on a selective basis. So the answer is, Michael Poon, and all others - let them go.

Of course what concerns the remaining "orthodox" is their own ranks. Well, they should maintain their own ranks. This will be a task for them, once the militants set up shop. The danger, of course, is forms of bloodletting that take place. It is what the militants would expect too, as a way of recruiting to their more ordered, more authoritarian, Communion, under their rules.

My own 'Resist Canterbury' has been a little modified and moderated. I am convinced that the Archbishop has got it wrong, and that he will gain nothing via this Advent Letter. Taking it at face value, Liberals should have nothing to do with it. But the strategy of the Archbishop won't work, and when it fails the liberals (and those bishops who turned up at the University of Kent in summer 2008) will be those who are most stable as a bloc. Oh, the militants know this too. This will be part of their appeal to more moderate evangelicals, up to a point. The moderate evangelicals have to decide with whom they wish to live.