(By Harry Farley, Christian Today). Anglicans must listen more carefully to the rapidly growing conservative provinces like Nigeria and South America, according to the head of major project assessing the state of the Church around the world.
New research shows a rapid growth in the global Anglican Communion over the last 50 years despite dire decline in the Church of England and The Episcopal Church in the USA. The extensive data, laid out in Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion, highlights the shift from a predominantly white Western denomination to now where Anglicans are now predominantly from the global south.
David Goodhew, editor of the research, said the shift must be reflected in the Church’s theology and practice.
‘One doesn’t just do theology by weight of numbers but it would be simply unjust to ignore the fact that the bulk of the Anglican Communion is now outside the Western world and also to ignore the gifts there,’ he said in an interview with Christian Today.
‘Those of us who are white Westerners who have historically had the power in the Communion should be very careful before we start ordering others around or indeed talking over others,’ he added.
‘We should be thinking very hard when we feel something strongly that there may be quite a bit of our culture in there. It isn’t just we’re right and they are wrong.’
Tensions across the worldwide Communion have ramped up over the issue of sexuality in particular with the deeply entrenched conservative provinces appalled the American’s endorsement of gay marriage. GAFCON, a conservative grouping of mainly African leaders, have called for alternative leadership other than the Archbishop of Canterbury – currently seen as the first among equals among all Anglican figures.
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When using the word “gifts” in a Christian setting (which is what I assume The Layman is intended to be), I would assume the author is referring to spiritual gifts. Nowhere in the scriptures, however, can I find any reference to hatred and/or homophobia as a spiritual gift. So this article is basically a long way of saying that if the world is attracted to discrimination, then by all means, the church should adopt discrimination as a practice. “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” —1 Cor. 2:12