A few highlights from the Virtue-report:
(1) "The second All Africa Bishops Conference, organised by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), met in Entebbe, Uganda, from 23rd to 29th August 2010. Participants included 398 bishops representing the following Provinces: Burundi, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Southern Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, West Africa and the Diocese of Egypt. Also in attendance were some invited partners and guests."
This second conference of CAPA occurs six years later--six years and an ACNA-hugfest-of-confessional-confusion later. The Africans are not American Anglicans.
(2) "The first conference, with the theme 'Africa Has Come of Age', was held in Lagos, Nigeria in October 2004. The theme for our second conference in Uganda was 'Securing our Future: Unlocking our Potential' (Hebrews 12:1-2). Its aim was to mobilise bishops to overcome obstacles to their ministry and mission and provide them with the information, skills and tools to accomplish their ministry."
(3) "The Anglican Churches in Africa have continued to witness growth so that the centre of gravity of Christianity today appears to be shifting to the continent. Nonetheless, the church's relevance and impact on global mission and to social, economic and political transformation of the continent remains a challenge."
This is noteworthy, this seismic shift away from Western Anglicanism, so soiled, so besotted, so weightless, and so ever-proud of its apostasies, soiled trousers and shorts. That Africans will not be party to--the Western version.The colonialist English, American, and Canadian Church, for over a century, have been under the divine hand of judgment...with His Majesty withdrawing good sense and His presence...and sovereignly allowing the ever-fecund and fertile minds of the leaders to create their self-made fictions of a "weightless god." God's patience and longsuffering with this insolence is stunning. Psalm 2 assures us of the divine response--mockery and devastation. It has been slow, incremental, doctrinal, perceivable and it is--on our view--irreversible, barring a new Reformation. For COE leaders, it has been "sociology trumping the Bible." The giants have shrunk into pygmies. Yet, Anglican believers remain in the West.
Neverthless, there is a remnant. There are "Anglicans in the Wilderness" or "Exiles in the Babylonian Captivity." We exist with little visibility and no leading spokesmen. The current ACNA leaders carry the baggage of their American educations and past.(Canterbury is featured in photo above.)
(4) "The Anglican Churches in Africa will maintain its stand on the protection of Anglican orthodoxy and authority of Scripture as a rule of developing a Christ-centred life to uplift human lives and dignity."
This is duly noted. 1662 BCP? The Articles of Religion? We have been told this about the Anglicans in Africa. We have been told that the 1662 BCP is used throughout Nigerian Churches. We have been told that the English Reformation, doctrinally and biblically, is still important to Africans. Time will tell.
These things mean nothing to the Americans; Exhibit A = Bob Duncan and the others, all talk, no show. Exhibit B = the ACNA inaugural celebration in Bedford, TX with Metropolitan Jonah and Rick Warren as featured spokesmen. It was classic incompetence.
RA believes the term the "weightless god" needs expatiation and application. All Bob Duncan can talk about is the "transforming love of Christ" without other loci. Thankfully, the classical Book of Common Prayer, 1662, and its daily use for Morning and Evening Prayer along with chanted Psalms (using those from St. Paul's Cathedral, London) and all associated Bible readings, have shielded the practitioners from this "vanilla, weightless and worthless god of therapeutic insignificance."
RA recommends this as a doctrinal, praiseworthy and pious approach that is safe.
Furthermore, we recommend reading and studying the Bible to see the mistakes that ACNA religious teachers are making.
As the Rev. Dr. Cornelius Van Til always reminded us, summarily, that all heresies and apostasies began and ended with the doctrine of God.
(5) "The Anglican Churches in Africa recognises its historic contributions to the growth of Christianity right from its inception and propagation of the gospel throughout the continent and, in particular, the role of the African Church fathers and martyrs. We also recall its immense contributions during the missionary era to the provision of social facilities such as education, healthcare and the production of the African elite. Based on this, the Church mobilises its resources and takes its responsibility in shaping the Christian minds of the church worldwide in the third millennium."
We expect there will be histories on African Anglicanism in the decades to come, barring Christ's Second Advent.
(6) "We affirm the Biblical standard of the family as having marriage between a man and a woman as its foundation. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation of children some of whom grow to become the leaders of tomorrow."
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