GAFCON News

From the GAFCON conference in Nairobi:

Link to GAFCON itself.

After celebrating the East African Revival on the opening evening of the conference, those attending GAFCON2013 on Tuesday morning were presented with challenges facing the church around the world.

The day began with a Eucharist in Nairobi Cathedral where there was standing room only. Afterwards the 331 bishops, over a third of those in the Anglican Communion, gathered for a group photograph in which they gave the “One-way” sign.

In his chairman’s address Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya said the challenge facing the church “is that the nations which were once the spiritual powerhouses of world wide mission have now become deeply secularised and even hostile to the Christian faith”.

“What really rots the fabric of the Communion is the process by which weak churches are gradually taken captive by the surrounding culture,” he said.

The Archbishop went on to note that there are powerful and well-funded organisations working to see Kenya adopt the same values that are causing so much havoc to faith, family and society in the West.

He suggested that some would like to see the position of orthodox Anglicans in the Communion similar to African wildlife – limited to special game reserves where they must stay and not challenge false teaching.

“It has now become clear that the Communion needs new wineskins, a new way of ordering its affairs to fulfil the Great Commission. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has now come to this conclusion and I am grateful for His Grace’s honesty in acknowledging that the neo-colonial leadership structures need to be replaced.