GAFCON Australia and the Chair of GAFCON globally have responded to recent events in Perth and the Church of England respectively.
First, Perth. davidould.net has let you know about Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy’s decision to approve a motion of the Perth Synod to effectively signal that sexual activity outside marriage is now perfectly acceptable. Here’s what the Chair of GAFCON Australia, Rev. Peter Smith (a priest licensed in the Diocese of Perth) wrote:
Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Kay Goldsworthy, will now allow bishops, priests, deacons, youth workers, and church workers to engage in sexual relationships outside of marriage. This decision follows the removal of “chastity in singleness” and “faithfulness in marriage” from the church’s code of conduct, Faithfulness in Service, after the recent Perth Synod.
Why Does This Matter?
i. This represents a most serious departure from orthodox Anglican teaching. Scripture and church doctrine affirm that sexual activity belongs only within the union of one man and one woman in marriage. This change deepens divisions in the already fractured Anglican Church of Australia. How can one bishop permit what others prohibit?
ii. Moreover, it highlights the global rift within the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop’s decision coincides with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent comments endorsing sexual activity in “committed relationships.” The Anglican churches of the Global South have consistently criticised the Western church’s capitulation to secular sexual ethics.
What’s Next?
In her Presidential Address to the Synod, Archbishop Goldsworthy acknowledged that some Perth Anglicans may leave over this issue. It will be untenable for some to serve under a bishop who disregards fundamental teachings on chastity and marriage. Those leaving should be honoured, prayed for, and supported. The Diocese of the Southern Cross potentially offers a new home for them.
However, others will remain in the diocese, continuing to call for repentance and renewal. Those who stay need to remember there will be no turning back to orthodoxy in Perth any time soon. Ministers and congregations weary and discouraged by recent events must be encouraged to stand firm on God’s unchanging word and continue to proclaim the power and the beauty of the gospel of grace. They need our prayers, support, and solidarity.
Gafcon Australia is committed to support faithful Anglicans, whether they choose to stay or go in Perth. This struggle is part of a global one to uphold the faith entrusted to us. Every generation is required to stand firm on the unchanging gospel. We do this to witness the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ among the nations, for the holiness and health of the Church and ultimately for the glory of God.
“Be patient, then brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its crop, patiently waiting for the autumn spring rains. You too be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.” (James 5:7-8)
Rev’d Peter Smith
Chair, Gafcon Australia
Meanwhile in the Church of England things are also a mess. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recently appeared on the “Leading” podcast and was asked about sexual ethics. Here’s what he had to say…
Where we’ve come to, is to say that all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship whether it’s straight or gay.
Justin Welby has abandoned his own church’s teaching on sexuality – Premier Christianity
Yes, you read the right – Welby has now effectively, like Goldsworthy, abandoned the church’s centuries-old position on chastity and sexual purity. A brief search online will demonstrate just how much outrage this has caused. The Pastor’s Heart podcast has a helpful conversation on the topic.
The GAFCON Primates Council (many of whom were gathered in the USA for the installation of the new Primate of ACNA), has issued a communiqué:
Gafcon rebukes Archbishop Welby and affirms orthodox Anglicans in England
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)
We, the Gafcon Primates, meeting in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, to celebrate the investiture of Archbishop Steve Wood as the third Primate of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and to welcome him as a Primate of the Anglican Communion, send greetings to the faithful.
We wish we could write to you about our great joy for mission, evangelism, and church planting, but recent statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury require us to yet again address an urgent matter surrounding biblical ethics confronting our beloved Anglican church.
The recent actions of the General Synod of the Church of England, where Archbishop Justin Welby has championed the introduction of same-sex blessings into the life of the Church of England, has galvanised the Gafcon movement in the ongoing reset of the Anglican Communion. However, Archbishop Welby’s recent explicit repudiation of Christian doctrine in his interview on Britain’s podcast, ‘The Rest is Politics,’ has brought us to repeat our serious call for his personal repentance.
In this interview, he publicly states that:
“all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship and whether it’s straight or gay. In other words, we’re not giving up on the idea that sex is within marriage or civil partnership. We’ve put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage, equal marriage under the 2014 Act, they should be able to come along to their local, to a church, and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.”
While he may claim not to have changed the doctrine of marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury has demonstrably changed the doctrine of sin, by promoting the sanctification of sin by means of a divine blessing.
This is in clear breach of Holy Scripture, which unequivocally teaches that the only proper context for sexual intimacy is in the relationship of a man and woman who have been joined together in marriage. All forms of sexual intimacy outside of this context are condemned as immorality and are behaviors from which the people of God are regularly called to repent (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
It is also in clear breach of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which rejected, “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture,” and which the Archbishop as recently as 2022 declared to be the teaching of the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England.
We are guided by Jesus’ solemn words of warning to the Church of Thyatira, because, “they tolerate the teaching of Jezebel,” which endorses sexual immorality. Only judgment awaits Jezebel and all who follow her, unless they repent (Revelation 2:21-22; 22:15). Any toleration, let alone endorsement, of immorality is liable to God’s judgment.
For this reason, in response to his public comments, we solemnly repeat our call for Archbishop Justin Welby to personally and publicly repent of this denial of his ordination and consecration vows, where he promised to, “teach the doctrine of Christ as the Church of England has received it.”
Gafcon supports all faithful Anglicans, both those who have chosen to leave established provinces where the authority of Scripture has been compromised, as well as those who choose to remain as they seek to reform their province from within.
Therefore, we continue to champion The Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE) as Gafcon’s authentically-Anglican structural provision for those who cannot by conscience remain within the historic, revisionist structures.
Additionally, we express our support for The Alliance as they seek to stand firm in defense of biblical marriage within the Church of England, and we stand ready to defend, authenticate, and support them.
Finally, we declare afresh to all those in England who, “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to all the saints,” that you are not alone.
Gafcon Primates’ Council.
Reformation Day,
31 October 2024.
I should be surprised at these pieces of news. I should be shocked. Either one of them should have been enough to make my jaw drop.
None of them has happened to me just now as I read. I’ve come to expect the worst from the Archbishop of Perth, so much so that I no longer feel the same outrage as I once felt. In Justin Welby’s case, I could see the decline but I hoped and prayed, and expected, even, that he would realise the error of his ways before he got to this point.
But my lack of shock, I think, is as big of a problem as those two things that you reported.
But what now, especially for the Australian bishops? Is it too much to expect that they individually reject what Kay Goldsworthy has said and done? And that they actively state their positive support for what I think is the standard reading of the ‘Faithfulness in Service’ standard?
They won’t do that, Andrew, because a number of the dioceses have made similar changes.