Conservatives from the world’s largest Anglican provinces who are angered by liberal thinking in churches in North America and elsewhere plan to create a global fellowship that challenges worldwide Anglican unity but stops short of a formal split.
The plan was expected to be adopted yesterday on the final day of the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem. The summit was called by Anglican leaders in Africa and parts of North America and Australia outraged by what they consider a “false gospel” in liberal churches.
Opponents played down the significance of the new fellowship, contending the Anglican Communion already has networks of like-minded churches. But theological conservatives insist they are at the beginning of a movement that will alter the centuries-old Anglican family.
“A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold,” they said in their “Statement on the Global Anglican Future.”
The Anglican Communion is a 77 million-member family of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. It is the third-largest grouping of churches in the world, behind Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and has always held together different views. However, long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret Scripture erupted in 2003 when the US Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
The Episcopal Church is the US Anglican body. Anglicans in developing countries — where the fastest-growing and largest churches in the communion are located — mostly hold to a strict interpretation of the Bible. The archbishops, or primates, of the provinces of Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and the Southern Cone based in Argentina were among those at the Jerusalem event.
The Jerusalem meeting was held just ahead of a once-a-decade gathering of all Anglican bishops, called the Lambeth Conference.
The upcoming assembly is viewed by many as a test of the leadership of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual head.
Williams does not have the power to force a compromise among conflicting Anglican factions and has faced criticism from many Anglican camps for his actions in the crisis.
Some of the more than 200 bishops in Jerusalem plan to boycott Lambeth, which begins on July 16 in England. Williams has invited US bishops who consecrated Robinson but has barred Robinson and a few other bishops from attending.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS