AMiE: Tanks on UK Canterbury's Front Lawn

Fulcrum's 'listening ear' to AMiE's concerns

I must admit to having laughed out loud (though not in a good way) having read the full statement on Fulcrum’s website criticizing the establishment of the Anglican Mission in England when I saw that it ended with these words:

We therefore call upon those evangelicals who have started down this new path to talk with Fulcrum and the full breadth of evangelicals who share many of their concerns but who question their strategy. We believe that only in this way can those who have launched AMiE hope to secure what they claim they wish to find, a goal to which Fulcrum is also committed — a way forward together in mission as evangelicals within the Church of England.

I am frankly not sure how, following events since the launch of Fulcrum at a fringe meeting at the 2003 Blackpool NEAC 4 (organized behind the scenes and sprung on the leadership with just three days notice), anyone from the Fulcrum Leadership Team could seriously address evangelical conservatives in such terms. Perhaps the first step might be an apology!

For more from Rev. Richardson, see:

http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2011/06/fulcrums-listening-ear-to-amies.html#comment-form

For those following this, AMiE, or, "Anglican Mission in England," is an initiative of GAFCON, or the Global Anglican Fellowship Conference, itself representing about 75% of Global Anglicans, to send missionaries to evangelizie and establish Reformational Anglican parishes in England.  We used the term "Tanks on Canterbury's Front Lawn," a phrase culled from a recent Telegraph article, calling for action from Archbishop Rowan Williams.  Fulcrum, as we understand it, is a broad evangelical (??) Anglican group.  Fulcrum is questioning this GAFCON inititative.  We will follow this development with the tag "AMiE" for future searches.  From our vantage point, this looks like a theological invasion from the Global South Anglicans. This is the first "period in the hockey." The gloves will come off with much wrangling, a few lost teeth, albeit done with--all the while--with good old fashioned Episcopo-speak and muddling. We'll be following this closely.  Rev. Charles Raven, elsewhere, has said, to wit and in essence, "We may be seeing the Church of England again for the first time."