Minority Report: Gafcon, the gay elephant in the Anglican Church's ...

By Jerome Taylor

The Global Anglican Futures Conference in Jordan kicks off tonight and is a pressing reminder of the one issue that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams would like to ignore but simply cannot: homosexuality and the Church.

Every 10 years Anglican bishops from around the world meet in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference. The landmark summit is next month and is supposed to be a place where the Anglican Communion can talk directly to each other about the issues that divide and unite them.

Instead the "Communion" is faced with a real likelihood of schism over the Church's liberal stance on homosexuality which tolerates gay clergy as long as they are not practising.

At the last Lambeth in 1998 the issue of homosexuality dominated the conference and Canterbury has been at pains to try and avoid having the same issue take over this year.

But Gafcon is effectively an "alternative Lambeth" called by more than 250 conservative bishops who reject that stance and would like to see the Anglican Church take a much more literal approach towards homosexuality which the Bible states plainly is a sin.

   

Minority Report: Gafcon, the gay elephant in the Anglican Church's ...
Independent, UK