“We wish we could write to you about our great joy for mission, evangelism, and church planting, but recent statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury require us to yet again address an urgent matter surrounding biblical ethics confronting our beloved Anglican church,” said GAFCON Primates in one of their strongest statements yet.
The Primates (picture above with invited guests) met in the USA to celebrate the investiture of Archbishop Steve Wood as the third Primate of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), also welcoming him as a Primate of the Anglican Communion.
However, statements by Archbishop Justin Welby of the Church of England led the primates to call out a “clear breach” of Scripture and resolutions of Anglican churches internationally.
“The recent actions of the General Synod of the Church of England, where Archbishop Justin Welby has championed the introduction of same-sex blessings into the life of the Church of England, has galvanised the Gafcon movement in the ongoing reset of the Anglican Communion,” the primates said. “However, Archbishop Welby’s recent explicit repudiation of Christian doctrine in his interview on Britain’s podcast, The Rest is Politics, has brought us to repeat our serious call for his personal repentance.”
The English archbishop told the podcast that “all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship whether it’s straight or gay. In other words, we’re not giving up on the idea that sex is within marriage or civil partnership. We’ve put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage, equal marriage under the 2014 Act, they should be able to come along to their local, to a church, and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.”
Repentance call
The primates, who represent the majority of Anglicans across the world, said that while the Archbishop may claim that he had not changed the doctrine of marriage, he had “demonstrably changed the doctrine of sin, by promoting the sanctification of sin by means of a divine blessing”.
“This is in clear breach of Holy Scripture, which unequivocally teaches that the only proper context for sexual intimacy is in the relationship of a man and woman who have been joined together in marriage,” the statement continued. “All forms of sexual intimacy outside of this context are condemned as immorality and are behaviours from which the people of God are regularly called to repent (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
“It is also in clear breach of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which rejected, ‘homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture’, and which the Archbishop as recently as 2022 declared to be the teaching of the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England.”
We declare afresh to all those in England who, “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to all the saints,” that you are not alone
The primates, who represent the majority of Anglicans across the world, said that while the Archbishop may claim that he had not changed the doctrine of marriage, he had “demonstrably changed the doctrine of sin, by promoting the sanctification of sin by means of a divine blessing”.
“This is in clear breach of Holy Scripture, which unequivocally teaches that the only proper context for sexual intimacy is in the relationship of a man and woman who have been joined together in marriage,” the statement continued. “All forms of sexual intimacy outside of this context are condemned as immorality and are behaviours from which the people of God are regularly called to repent (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
“It is also in clear breach of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which rejected, ‘homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture’, and which the Archbishop as recently as 2022 declared to be the teaching of the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England.”
In a strong rebuke, the primates called on Archbishop Justin Welby to “personally and publicly repent of this denial of his ordination and consecration vows”.
The communique, issued from South Carolina where the primates had been meeting, ended with support for Anglicans in England and Europe holding firm to the authority of Scripture.
This includes the Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE), supported by Gafcon as a grouping for those who cannot by conscience remain within the revisionist structures.
It also includes The Alliance group, which remains within the Church of England, in defence of biblical marriage.
“Finally,” the statement said, “we declare afresh to all those in England who, ‘contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to all the saints’, that you are not alone.”
