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"Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?" Psalm 113:5-6 NKJV
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A Message from Bishop Anderson
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Bishop Anderson
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Dear Friends of the Anglican Realignment, This week GAFCON 2 is meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, and several of our AAC staff members are there helping with communications and leading one of the mini-conferences. You can watch our Communications Officer, Robert Lundy, interviewing delegates on the first day of mini-conferences here. Canon Phil Ashey sends greetings from Nairobi in his message below. A pre-GAFCON meeting of members of the Council of Primates of GAFCON was held over this last weekend, and then the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, flew in to speak at Sunday services and spend time in discussion with the primates. This is in stark contrast to the first GAFCON, which Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, actively disregarded. With Welby's cordial visit and taped greetings to be used later in the week, a different spirit seemed afoot. While we are pleased that Welby took time to greet His Grace Robert Duncan, Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, we would like to see additional concrete signs that the new Archbishop of Canterbury is welcoming of the ACNA. One easy step would be to include Archbishop Duncan or his successor in any invitation of archbishops and primates to official Anglican meetings in the near future. We are presently at the halfway point to the next Lambeth Conference, and it would be my hope that if such is held in 2018 that ACNA bishops would be included. But even before that, there are Primates' meetings which are usually held every year to two years. It would be good to see the ACNA primate included in those invitation lists.
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This does not mean that such meetings would gloss over the deep theological and spiritual differences that now exist between the GAFCON churches and the churches of revisionist Anglicanism, but coming together as equals in the same room and discussing the differences openly is a first step to dealing with them. I have found that conflict avoidance does not really avoid conflict - it just drives it underground and makes it more damaging and harder to deal with. Why not put the light of Christ on the conflicts and see how things might be sorted out?
As GAFCON has progressed this week, we've heard wonderful reports of the worship, preaching and Bible studies, and of an address by retired Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sidney (Australia) in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, holding up the validity and participation of Archbishop Robert Duncan and the Anglican Church in North America. We have also heard how the Lord imbues his followers with the fullness of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts sufficient to the needs of the day and hour. As the African Anglicans like to say, "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good." I really can't say much more. Believing that and living into that provides the wellspring of grace that we need from moment to moment.
GAFCON will publish a statement as it concludes tomorrow, which we will report on next week.
May God bless and keep you in all righteousness. Amen.
Blessings and peace in Christ Jesus,
+David
The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council
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A Message from Canon Ashey
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Canon Ashey reports from Nairobi, Kenya at the GAFCON 2 gathering.
View Canon Ashey's Anglican Perspective video here.
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GAFCON 2 Opening Session: Archbishop Jensen's address
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Source: Anglican Ink October 21, 2013 By George Conger  | |
331 bishops pointing "One Way"
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Gafcon is the future of the Anglican Communion, Dr. Peter Jensen, the General Secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans told the opening session of the 2nd Global Anglican Future Conference on 21 October 2013. Whether Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Charismatic, High or Low Church all those gathered at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi were confessing Anglicans. "We believe the apostolic faith and we do not believe the faith of those who contradict the Bible and who deny the uniqueness and supremacy of Christ," he said "We therefore live under the cross of Christ." Dr. Jensen, the former Archbishop of Sydney, outlined the week long conference schedule stating the meeting would end with a communiqué setting out the fellowship's goals for the future. But the heart of the archbishop's talk focused on what all the delegates from 40
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Worship and praise at GAFCON
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countries and 27 provinces shared. The Biblical mandate to go out and make disciples and preach the Gospel lay at the heart of the fellowship, he said. "We are here to learn how to be disciples of Jesus and to learn how to make disciples of Jesus." But the Anglican churches had not been faithful to Christ's call. "We have failed to make disciples through teaching the commands of Jesus found in the Bible at depth. That is why so much of the church in the west has simply collapsed, capitulated and compromised before a virulent, antagonistic secularism." Disdain and ignorance of the Scriptures was not solely a Western disease. "We too are in danger of not teaching our people in Africa and Asia and South America and elsewhere. They too face immense challenges from religion and ideologies opposed to the gospel." The "ideologies" that had "emasculated the West" were spreading round the world like a "destructive tsunami. We must teach our people so that they will be ready for it," he said. The delegates to Gafcon were the foot soldiers in the fight against apostasy. "We are here to partner with each other in this great work of going into all the world," teaching, preaching and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. "We are here to support one another," he said, "When Anglicans are made to feel old fashioned and out of touch for believing the Bible, we want to say 'We stand with you: You are not alone'.... The rest of the article may be found here. Archbishop Jensen's address to the Primates' gathering on Sunday can be found here.
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[GAFCON] Delegates Share Across Cultures as Mini-Conferences Begin
| Source: GAFCON
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Pacific brothers: Papua New Guinea,
Australia and Fiji
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October 24, 2013
By Jeff Walton, GAFCON media team
On the third day of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) delegates divided into a series of mini-conferences that will stretch over two days. The multi-session events have the same participants throughout, with topics ranging from marriage and family, the challenge of Islam, aid and development and theological education among the nine topics....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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| Source: GAFCON 
October 25, 2013
Press Release
The second Global Anglican Future Conference, which concludes this weekend in Nairobi, resolved to expand its leadership role in supporting and recognising Anglicans in places where Biblical faith has been compromised.
A meeting of bishops within the conference this week voted without dissent to affirm the Primates Council in recognizing and overseeing theologically isolated Anglicans. This includes the expansion of the Anglican Mission in England and similar bodies around the Communion.
The text of the GAFCON Bishops' resolution follows:
To affirm and endorse the position of the Primates Council in providing oversight in cases where Provinces and Dioceses compromise biblical faith, including the affirmation of a duly discerned call to ministry. This may involve ordination and consecration if the situation requires....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Yale holds 1st annual pro-life conference, 'Vita et Veritas' on campus
| Source: LifeSiteNews 
October 23, 2013
By Christina Martin
...This past weekend, CLAY [Choose Life at Yale] hosted the first pro-life conference at Yale, called "Vita et Veritas" which means "life and truth" in Latin. Vita et Veritas is a conference that seeks to make the pro-life vision intelligible on college campuses. The event took place at the St. Thomas Moore Chapel with speakers who represented different pro-life perspectives on abortion....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Egyptian Copts: A Tale of Two Weddings
| Source: Christianity Today
October 23, 2013
By Jayson Casper in Cairo
The wedding party stood outside the church, eagerly awaiting the ceremonious arrival of the bride. Instead, drive-by shooters killed four, including two children and the groom's mother, and injured 18.
Beyond its poignancy, the attack in Cairo's industrial neighborhood of Warraq was significant for being one of the first to target Egypt's Christians specifically, versus the now-common attacks on their church buildings.
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Photo by Mai Shaheen
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"Since the revolution, this is the first instance Coptic people were targeted randomly in a church, with weapons," said Mina Magdy, general coordinator for the Maspero Youth Union, a mostly Coptic revolutionary group formed in response to church burnings in 2011 after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
Since then, sectarian incidents have escalated, most severely in the period following the violent dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins after the military responded to massive demonstrations to remove the Islamist president from power. Human Rights Watch documented 42 attacks on churches and numerous assaults on shops and homes....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Video: Abp Justin on the royal christening
| Source: Lambeth Palace
October 23, 2013
Prince George was christened in the Chapel Royal at St. James' Palace in London on  October 23.
In this short film the Archbishop of Canterbury talks about the christening of HRH Prince George of Cambridge, as well as the broader significance of baptism.
See the Archbishop's video message here.
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