One-fourth of Anglican primates reject leadership of Archbishop of Canterbury over same-sex blessings
February 21, 2023
Following the Church of England’s decision to bless homosexual unions, the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches has issued a statement rejecting the leadership of Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury as first among equals in the Anglican Communion.
The statement was signed by the leaders of ten of the 42 provinces of the Anglican Communion: the primates of South Sudan, Chile, the Indian Ocean, Congo, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Uganda, Sudan, Alexandria (Egypt), and Melanesia. The statement was also signed by the primates of the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Church in Brazil, which are part of the Global South Fellowship but not part of the Anglican Communion.
According to the statement (citations omitted):
As the Church of England has departed from the historic faith passed down from the Apostles by this innovation in the liturgies of the Church and her pastoral practice, she has disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic “Mother” Church. Indeed, the Church of England has chosen to break communion with those provinces who remain faithful to the historic biblical faith expressed in the Anglican formularies and applied to the matter of marriage and sexuality in Lambeth Resolution 1.10[iii] of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
As much as the GSFA Primates also want to keep the unity of the visible Church and the fabric of the Anglican Communion, our calling to be ‘a holy remnant’ does not allow us be “in communion” with those provinces that have departed from the historic faith and taken the path of false teaching. This breaks our hearts and we pray for the revisionist provinces to return to ‘the faith once delivered’ (Jude 3) and to us.
The GSFA is no longer able to recognise the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Hon & Most Revd Justin Welby, as the “first among equals” Leader of the global Communion ... We pray that our withdrawal of support for him to lead the whole Communion is received by him as an admonishment in love.
“With the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury forfeiting their leadership role of the global Communion, GSFA Primates will expeditiously meet, consult and work with other orthodox Primates in the Anglican Church across the nations to re-set the Communion on its biblical foundation,” the primates continued. “The Church of England is the “historic first” province, but now that it has departed from the historic faith the responsibility falls to the remaining orthodox Primates.”
They added:
We will not walk away from the Communion that has so richly blessed us and for whose faithfulness to God and His word our forebears have paid a costly price. What has happened in the Church of England has only served to strengthen our resolve to work together to re-set the Communion, and to ensure that the re-set Communion is marked by reform and renewal.
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Posted by: TheJournalist64 -
Feb. 21, 2023 10:56 AM ET USA
It was inevitable that after the rejection in 1930 of the historic prohibition against contraceptive use, stemming from at least the first century, the Anglicans would succumb to the cultural pressure to overturn all sexual morality and all Biblical teaching on sexual normalcy, and all of the relevant natural moral law. Sad but unavoidable.
