Conservative Anglican fellowship launched in South Africa

Just months after being launched in London, a conservative Anglican movement has made its way to South Africa where 70 clergy and laity have gathered to affirm the orthodox Christian faith.

|PIC1|The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (South Africa) was launched Thursday at St. John's Church in Port Elizabeth and participants want to send out a clear message that "the Scriptures exhort us to remain faithful to the faith 'once for all delivered to the saints,' to the Lordship of Christ and hence to Apostolic teaching and practice."

At a time when some conservative Anglicans are choosing to split from their national churches over differences on scriptural authority and homosexuality and form separate groups, organizers of the FCA insist their movement is not an act of secession but a way of keeping orthodox, biblical Anglicanism "inside the fold," as Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, explained earlier.

The movement comes out of an invitation by conservative Anglican bishops from mainly the Global South. Last summer, leaders at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) who believe some in the Anglican Communion are preaching a "false gospel" affirmed Christian orthodoxy and invited like-minded Anglicans to establish a fellowship.

They have pointed to The Episcopal Church in the United States and its departure from Anglican tradition and Scripture. The Episcopal Church widened rifts within the global Anglican Communion in 2003 when it consecrated its first openly gay bishop.

This year, U.S. Episcopal leaders passed resolutions that some believe will further impair the unity of the global body. One resolution declares the denomination's ordination process open to all individuals, including practicing homosexuals.

In a greeting to those at the launch of FCA (South Africa), Archbishop Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria, said his concerns and fears over the direction of The Episcopal Church remain.

"Revisionists will not come to repentance," he said. "The action of TEC at its recent General Convention have confirmed our fears that for them, there is no going back. They are intensifying their search for new disciples in Africa, using mammon to buy silence and cheap compromise of the Gospel. They claim to be theologically with us, but are in full alliance with all that we stand against.

"GAFCON and FCA people must continue to stand very firm on the word of God. We must not waver or succumb to pressures posed by finance and economics. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. We must trust him who has called us. He is faithful and will provide what is needed for his work."

Greetings were also sent from Anglicans in the United Kingdom, where the FCA movement was launched in July.

Anglicans from across South Africa, including the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Church of England in South Africa and the Traditional Anglican Communion, have joined the fellowship.

FCA leaders maintain that their movement is evidence that healing, and not schism, between various Anglican groups can take place.

“It is a spiritual movement and fellowship for renewal, reformation and mission – uniquely bringing together those whose key shaping and commitment, but not exclusive identity, has been through the Anglo-Catholic, conservative evangelical, and charismatic expressions of Anglicanism," FCA (South Africa) leaders stated.

The launch of FCA (South Africa) comes after the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town passed a resolution last month to provide pastoral guidelines for gay parishioners living in "covenanted partnerships." South Africa is the only African country where same-sex marriage is legal. The resolution was proposed to provide a pastoral response to homosexual parishioners whose relationships are recognized by the state.

Messages of support were also read out from the Bishop of Chester, the Rt Revd Peter Forster, who said: "I am delighted to send fraternal greetings from those in the Church of England who are seeking to uphold the biblical faith and practice of the Anglican Communion and pray God’s blessings on your work as you seek to meet the many challenges to the faith today in the power of the Spirit and through faith in God and his Word.”

Dr Philip Giddings, Convenor of Anglican Mainstream also sent a greeting, adding: “We are delighted to see the development of the faithful work and witness of Father Gavin Mitchell and others in Anglican Mainstream South Africa. We rejoice that they are taking forward the concern for orthodox Anglican witness at this critical time and have ensured that those of us in the rest of the Anglican Communion are aware of the challenges you are facing and how you are addressing them. We stand in solidarity with you in this vital work.”

For more information on the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans please visit: www.fca.net