Bishop Warns of Schism in Anglican Communion

|PIC1|The Bishop of Lewes has warned in an interview with Anglican Media Sydney that the Anglican Communion as it is now is finished unless “North American radical liberals are not disciplined”.

Bishop Wallace Benn urged the Episcopal Church in the USA’s General Convention to accept the recommendations of the Windsor Report warning that, “Internationally, the Anglican Communion is in crisis”.

“If the North American radical liberals are not disciplined, it is almost inevitable there will be a major split,” he said.

Bishop Benn, who is also president of the Church of the England Evangelical Council, made the comments while in Sydney to attend the Australian chapter meeting of the EFAC, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion.

|TOP|During his stay in Sydney the bishop encouraged his Australian counterparts to stand firm against the crisis in the Anglican Communion that has ruptured over the issue of homosexuality.

“It is very important for evangelicals to network, to share fellowship and to encourage each other in their faith [in order to] strengthen evangelical roots and ties,” he said.

At the three-day conference last week, Bishop Benn urged international Anglican leaders to return to the Scriptures in order to avoid worsening the divisions.

“The future of the Communion is a return to biblical and orthodox faith and if our leaders stand firm on that we won’t split...other than the North American churches,” Bishop Benn told Anglican Media Sydney.

Also present at the conference was Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney who gave the opening address on ‘Passion for Christ’.

Bishop Benn also said he was ‘very happy’ that Richard Coekin, senior pastor of Dundonald Church in Wimbledon, had his license as a minister reinstated after the Archbishop of Canterbury upheld his appeal.

Mr Coekin’s license was removed by the Bishop of Southwark Tom Butler earlier in the year after organising for three ministers to be ordained by a visiting bishop from the Church of England in South Africa (CESA), a move in opposition to the Church of England’s decision to allow homosexual priests to enter civil partnerships on the condition that they remain celibate.