Following the decision by the Church of England’s General Synod to bless same-sex “marriages”, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been subjected to a barrage of criticism from the worldwide Anglican Communion. Although same-sex “marriages” are still not permitted in Anglican churches, in February the General Synod voted in favour of prayers of dedication, prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for God’s blessing being offered at same-sex civil ceremonies. The bishops voted for this by 36 votes to four, the House of Clergy voted 111 to 85 and the House of Laity voted 103 to 92.
The response of GAFCON (The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) was that “God does not bless sin”. Archbishop Foley Beach, Primate of the Anglican Church in North America and chairman of GAFCON wrote to Archbishops Welby (Canterbury) and Cottrell (York) to say, “I write to you with a heavy heart as we are hearing of the continued crisis of leadership and faith coming out of the Church of England. Once again, our Western Anglican provinces continue to go their own way on matters of faith and practice without consultation or concern for the majority of Anglicans around the global community. Their actions not only deny holy practice, but reject the authority of Scripture, the teaching of the historic church, and the consensus of the Body of Christ from every tribe, tongue, people and nation alive today. . . . The release of the recent statement, ‘Bishops propose prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and for God’s blessing of same-sex couples’ is a clear rejection of Lambeth 1998, 1:10, and one cannot help but ask the question: What is next? We continue to find ourselves disillusioned with the incredible audacity of major unilateral decisions (e.g. changing the nature of what it means to be male and female in His image (Gen 1:27)) that run counter to ‘the faith once delivered’ (Jude 3).”
In addition, the bishops of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) issued a press statement saying that it was with great sorrow that they learned of the Church of England’s intention to incorporate
into the Church’s liturgy the blessing of same sex-unions. They said the Church of England had disqualified herself from leading the Anglican Communion as the historic “Mother Church” and had chosen to break communion with those provinces who remained faithful to the historic biblical faith expressed in the Anglican formularies [Thirty-nine Articles, for instance]. They stated that the GSFA no longer recognises the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as the first among equals and leader of the global communion. They went on to say that they wished to reset the Communion on its biblical foundations and looked forward to collaborating with the GAFCON movement and others to keep the priority of proclaiming and witnessing to the gospel of Jesus Christ foremost in their lives.
Clearly the Church of England has, by conforming to the liberal agenda and by its departure from Scripture, alienated itself from the worldwide Anglican community. The Church of J C Ryle and the Thirty-nine Articles has been treading a very boggy path in recent years, a path which has led them to misinterpret Scripture and teach that sodomy is a not sin but a positive thing. It would be good if all false teachers, in the Church of England and elsewhere, would be brought to say, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart” (Ps 40:8). FRD