A LETTER FROM JERUSALEM
from the Representatives of Forward in Faith, North America
to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)
June 29th, 2008
Eleven years ago, Forward in Faith, North America (FiF NA), called for the formation of an orthodox Anglican Province in North America. Today, its representatives took part in the beginning of that goal’s fulfillment as GAFCON declared “the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently know as the Common Cause Partnership”.
GAFCON’s call for its Primates’ Council to recognize the new province is the fruit of long and hard work by many over many years. But FiF NA was the first to call for the creation of a province, and has worked diligently for it, even when other conservative bodies had not yet come to support that step.
The Common Cause Partnership (CCP), of which FIF/NA is a founding member, is a federation. Its members are divided over a number of issues, not least the issue of the ordination of women. Your representatives rejoice in GAFCON’s resolve “to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us”, and seek to voice again the 2008 FiF NA Assembly’s call to the CCP to take up its promised common study of the ordination issue, and to consider a moratorium on ordaining women until the study is completed.
FiF NA was represented at the GAFCON by its President, Bp. Keith Ackerman and his wife, Joann; its Vice-Presidents, Fr. William Ilgenfritz and Fr. Larry Bausch; its Executive Administrator, Canon Ed den Blaauwen (who coordinated the deputation’s travel arrangements); Dr. Michael Howell, a member of the Council; and by Canon Warren Tanghe, who recently retired from the Vice-Presidency.
Other FiF NA members among the GAFCON pilgrims were Bp. Paul Hewett, a member of the Council, who represented the Fellowship of Anglican Churches in America (FACA); Bp. Richard Boyce of the Anglican Province of America, likewise a member of the Council; Bp. John-David Schofield of San Joaquin; and Bp. Jack Iker of Fort Worth, another member of the Council, together with Fr. Lee Nelson and Dean Ryan Reed from that diocese.
Your deputation worked closely with Fr. Geoffrey Kirk, the official representative of FiF in the United Kingdom, and the other FiF UK members present, including Gerald O’Brien (a member of the Church of England’s General Synod), and GAFCON’s treasurer, Mr. Hugh Pratt, who generously gave a copy of FiF UK’s book, Consecrated Women, to every participant.
GAFCON was organized as a pilgrimage, and it was the delight of every member of the FiF NA deputation to stand and worship at the very places where the Tradition teaches Jesus taught and did mighty works, and died and rose for our salvation. But every single member of FiF NA’s deputation was fully involved in GAFCON’s gruelling work schedule, which involved not only listening to others speak, but discussion in small groups and provincial meetings which fed back to the co-ordinating and drafting committees.
The members of the delegation took an active part in the workshops to which the conference leadership assigned them: Frs. Bausch and Tanghe, together with Bps. Hewett and Boyce, in the workshop on Anglican Identity; Dr. Howell, and Fr. Ilgenfritz in the one on Marriage and Family; Bp. Ackerman and Fr. Nelson in the Gospel and Leadership; and Fr. den Blaauwen in the Gospel and Culture.
Your deputation had a direct effect on the drafting of GAFCON’s Statement on the Global Anglican Future. Bp. Ackerman and Fr. Tanghe worked with theologian Dr. Edith Humphreys and canonist Fr. Kevin Donlon and others on a small working group on ecclesiology, which submitted a paper to the drafting committee as it prepared its first version of the document. They likewise submitted suggestions for the improvement of that draft, both directly and through the Common Cause gathering, some of which were included in the final version.
All members of FiF NA’s delegation networked during breaks, meals, bus rides and other downtimes, both speaking about the situation in the United States, and presenting the case for the catholic understanding of holy order to the largely evangelical constituency of the GAFCON, including young clergy from Melbourne, Sydney, New Zealand and Ireland. Fr. Ilgenfritz’s networking included “significant conversations” with Primates.
FiF NA’s delegation was responsible for the early-morning Eucharist on the Sunday the conference began. Bp. Ackerman and Canon den Blaauwen co-ordinated the two major services, on its first full day, and today, its final day, and respectively organized the four weekday Eucharists at their respective hotels. Fr. Ilgenfritz served as one of the conference chaplains.
Aside from his other contributions, Bp. Ackerman led two bus tours, was part of a small leadership delegation which met with the Greek Orthodox Archbishop in Bethlehem, and another which welcomed the Melchite Archbishop in Galilee – and, by laying on hands, healed of pain from an earlier surgery a woman who turned out to be a member of FiF UK!
Mrs. Ackerman was active in the bishops’ wives’ group, sharing her ministry of many years with Palestinian Christian women, and was instrumental in the decision of the wives’ group to set up a website for bishop’s wives to help market goods from the Two-Thirds World to realize one of the GAFCON goals namely to engage in economic development.
In addition to his important discussions with African pilgrims about where things stand for people of color in the American Church, Michael Howell served as unofficial photographer of the GAFCON: his photos will be posted on his website, at <www.smilodon-photo.photoreflect.com>.
Some 1,200 people from five continents took part in the GAFCON. “The organization”, commented Fr. den Blaauwen (who has organized the last few FiF NA Assemblies), was tremendous”, and the quality of the various presentations at the plenary, workshop and Bible study sessions was exceptional.
FiF NA’s pilgrims see GAFCON as not unlike the Fort Worth Congress of 1989, where there was an international presence and a clear sense of the consensus which brought us together, issuing in a call for the lead bishops to establish a structure that could further the cause. What was different here is the fact that several of the Primates who matter have already acted, and the great energy and urgency apparent both in the conference as a whole and in its leadership. What was begun here will not drag on. Its effect can already be seen in the strong reaction of the Episcopal establishment. And the BBC has announced that it will air a documentary film on GAFCON on the eve of the Lambeth Conference.
We did not meet to talk about something we hope will happen someday. We met to talk about something that is already happening, and to plan its direction for the future.
The Lambeth Conference of 1998 called on the Communion to reach out to those who are Anglicans, but outside the Communion. FiF NA was the first body in North America still tied to the Anglican Communion to recognize churches of the Continuum as fellow-Anglicans, and enter into full communion with them.
Your delegation rejoices in GAFCON’S decision to ask its Primates’ Council “to authenticate and recognize confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy, and congregations”. While not all Continuing bodies are interested in a relationship with the Communion, GAFCON is the first on-the-ground effort within the Communion to reintegrate those which do. About two-thirds of Continuers were represented at GAFCON.
GAFCON’s final statement endorsed FiF NA’s vision for a new province in North America, and identified the CCP as the vehicle for carrying it out. The GAFCON movement recognizes the ordination of women as one of the issues which divides it, as it does the CCP, and is committed to seek the mind of Christ together on these issues.
It took many years’ prayer and hard work – and not least your prayers and FiF NA’s efforts on your behalf, even at a time when others dismissed our vision – to get to this point. It will take a great deal of effort, both in the international GAFCON movement and in North America’s emerging province, to carry out what has been begun over this last week in Jerusalem.
We members of the FiF NA deputation wish to express our thanks to each of you whose generosity has made it possible for each of us to be here, and to play what we believe to be a significant role in this turning-point of the Anglican realignment.
But the work has only just begun. What has happened here makes even more urgent the 2008 Assembly’s request that every household which is able to do so support FiF NA with the 55 cents per day it will take simply to meet its budget, and to give beyond that amount as it is able.
Under the providence of God, our advocacy has borne fruit. It must continue so long as the disputed issues are under consideration. But at the same time, we must begin to develop pastoral and ecclesial structures, so as to take the place as a fully orthodox ecclesial body now opened to us by the formation of the new province for which we have so long prayed and worked.
Your servants for Christ Jesus’ sake,
Bishop Keith Ackerman
Mrs. Joann Ackerman
Fr. Larry Bausch
Canon Ed den Blaauwen
Dr. Michael Howell
Fr. William Ilgenfritz
Canon Warren Tanghe
The Statement on the Global Anglican Future can be found at <www.gafcon.org>
