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Once Removed
S. M. Hutchens on Sectarian Endurance & Women's Ordination
Not long ago, Touchstone received for possible review a book of positive reflections on GAFCON, the Global Anglican Future Conference, established in 2008 as "a global family of authentic Anglicans standing together to retain and restore the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion" and working to "guard and proclaim the unchanging, transforming Gospel" against "moral compromise, doctrinal error and the collapse of biblical witness" in parts of the Anglican world. What Christian of Touchstonian temper could possibly quarrel with such a praiseworthy reason for existence?
One of the considerations GAFCON found it necessary to place to the side for the formation of its fellowship, however, was a large part of the disagreement upon which the whole struggle against communion-breaking innovation in modern Anglicanism was founded: women's ordination. The Conference is dominated by—and can make its claim to represent the majority of Anglicans only because of—its African bishops, who despite their doctrinal and moral conservatism have for the most part no objection to it. In this matter at least GAFCON joins the provinces whose apostasies it was formed to oppose.
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S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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