Dissident Anglican movement meets in London
Leaders of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), a dissident movement formed over opposition to the ordination of gay bishops, have met in London today to begin discussions on the future of the Church of England.
The FCA was founded out of the Global Anglican Future conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem in 2008, when they boycotted the official Lambeth Conference, when many church-leaders, especially from Africa, objected to the ordination of gay bishops in the US.
Today, some 200 delegates from nearly thirty countries attended the meeting at St Mark’s Church in Battersea Rise, and sought to re-assert what they regard as ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ biblical teaching.
Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, described the FCA as the “only game in town.” Speaking to the BBC, he said: “It is a point of rallying Anglicans from around the world. Of exciting them again about the gospel of Jesus,” adding, “[this] is the mainstream… it represents, the people involved in it, represents the vast majority of Anglicans.”
The Telegraph reports, however, that there are hints of a more complete schism between the Church of England and the FCA, citing the opinion of both Archbishop Jensen, and of church-leaders from Nigeria and Kenya, that it was time to move away from “an Anglocentric” orientation of the Church.
They also criticised what they described as “revisionist attempts” to leave “traditional doctrines” behind on issues such as homosexuality, and, under Dr Williams’s tenure, the transformation of “Christianity merely into a movement for social betterment.”
