Saturday, June 28, 2008

Schism    [Travis Kavulla]

Jerusalem — Just minutes ago, conservative Anglicans announced what they are calling “The Jerusalem Declaration,” which states their intention to erect a new “fellowship of confessing Anglicans.”

From their statement:

[W]e grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness…Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together.

For some background on the meeting that produced this declaration, see my NRO piece of several days ago. The movement is being led by the Biblically orthodox churches of the Global South — mainly Africans — in alliance with conservative Anglicans in the West.

The declaration is the unanimous product of the bishops and archbishops meeting here in Jerusalem, whose dioceses together encompass almost a majority of Anglicans worldwide. (There are others who are likely to be sympathetic to the pronouncement but not physically present in Jerusalem; together, they probably total a majority.)

The statement specifically declares that a new church should be established in North America to rival the “false leadership” of the Episcopal Church, as the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion is known.

Anglicanism is the third largest Christian sect in the world. I do not think it is an overstatement to call this the most serious split in the church’s 500-year history. This is extremely momentous news.

The once-a-decade Lambeth Conference, to which nearly all Anglican bishops are invited, will convene next month in England, the historic center of the Anglican Church. The Jerusalem Declaration is a shot across the bow of this “global Communion with a colonial structure,” and most conservatives are boycotting the English meeting. It is hard to see how this rift will be repaired.

06/28 05:21 PMShare