GAFCON Relaunch

It is clear that GAFCON has been as uneventful as launching yet another website. From having a meeting, and presenting its back-room decided "Jerusalem Declaration", nothing much has happened in terms of spread, support or whatever it intended. As the inadequate to them and dangerous to others Anglican Communion Covenant gets railroaded through the Church of England, and is passed or discussed elsewhere, and the Anglican Communion sways this way and that (more disciplinarian, then inclusive at the 2010 Primates Meeting to discuss what primates are for, then reminding that it is still expecting moratoria to be observed), GAFCON has basically done nothing. The Primates Council (or whatever it gets called) has done little if nothing as well.

We hear the news (along with a load of superstitious rubbish about natural disasters and violent governments) that Bishop Martyn Minns will soon man a London office as Deputy Secretary and Executive Director with a GAFCON/FCA Chairman’s office in Nairobi, Kenya. There will be a leadership conference in New York in 2012 and then GAFCON 2 in 2013.

GAFCON peddles the myth that there was one faith delivered once to all the saints. It simply isn't historically true. The faith evolved, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, from Jewish messianism through to Greek culture and Roman power, with many varieties, offshoots and arguments, taking a long time to achieve a varied Reformation of which GAFCON represents one reinvented part.

So far it has shown itself to be lacking in support in the West that it probably over assumed. The history is that a tiny group of Conservative Evangelicals used African provinces to bolster their own position. As a result of forcing certain issues against movements in the West, the Anglican Communion has procdeded with even more TINA (There Is No Alternative) intent with its Anglican Communion Covenant. Trying to claim that the Covenant is not disciplinarian while strengthening the centre, it is the Covenant that remains the biggest danger to Anglican breadth and diversity, whereas GAFCON so far has proved to be a noise-off and obviously in desperate need of a relaunch. If you are going to be entryist, you do actually have to enter and set up shadow institutions.