The head of the conservative Anglican group GAFCON has dismissed January's Primates meeting as pointless and a failure.
Peter Jensen, the General Secretary of GAFCON – Global Anglican Future – has written an opinion article on the website anglican.ink criticising the meeting called by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The gathering of the heads of 38 Anglican provinces around the world was aimed at trying to preserve their communion in the face of entrenched differences around attitudes to homosexuality. The starkest divisions were between north American Episcopalian liberals, and Anglicans in Africa and the powerful GAFCON over the acceptance of same-sex relationships. The Episcopal Church was removed from full participation in the Anglican Communion for its support of same-sex marriage.
But Jensen described this as "the mildest possible rebuke over the greatest offence for the greatest offenders, with the hope that there may be repentance."
He added: "It is now perfectly clear that the meeting failed in its intention. Far from being rebuked, the leaders of the Episcopal Church said that they intend to continue in their present course and indeed to export their ideas vigorously to the rest of the world."
Jensen went on to criticise the Church in the UK for compromising with secular society. "As the year has unfolded, attention has shifted to the United Kingdom. Almost weekly there has been a fresh indication of the power of the cultural forces which are opposed to the faith to capture and determine church outcomes," he wrote. "Episcopal leadership from those who stand for biblical truth is strangely muted, while those who wish to come to terms with the culture are making powerful symbolic gestures of accord with error. Most egregiously and most significantly, there is the decisive move in the Scottish Episcopal Church to provide for same-sex marriage."
The former Archbishop of Sydney pointed out that the General Synod of Canada has taken the first step towards allowing for same sex marriages by clergy. "It is as if the meeting in January never took place," he wrote. "No protest, no plea, no promise makes the slightest difference."
Jensen concluded his piece: "GAFCON exists to honour the word of God and to unite those who wish to stand unflinching by its teaching. We know of many in the UK who have the same aim and we encourage them to be faithful to the whole counsel of God as they enter a conflict not of their own making."
