One of the area’s luxury hotels - the Jordan Valley Marriott Resort & Spa - was the site of a secret meeting of conservative world Anglican leaders that suddenly ended Wednesday.
How many were attending? We don’t know. They said they are not plotting the overthrow or replacement of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of some 80 million Anglicans.
The Anglican Communion is the world’s third-largest Christian denomination after the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox Church, though the number of Anglicans who actually attend church might be closer to 55 million.
The group decamped when one of their main leaders, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, was not given a visa allowing him into the country. Why the Jordanians would pull this is anyone’s guess. Another famous conservative Anglican leader - Archbishop Gregory J. Venables of the Southern Cone [Latin America] - also had to skip the Jordan meeting.
The remaining group decided to head for Jerusalem, where Thursday night they will release a 94-page booklet during a press conference, stating their aims for the 35 million Anglicans they claim to represent.
Jerusalem is the site for the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), beginning Sunday, for 1,000 Anglicans and Episcopalians. It will include many workshops, plenary sessions, praise and worship times and visits to holy sites.
The purpose of this conference is a tad foggy. One of their leaders relayed in an e-mail that they aim to “prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission is a top priority.”
GAFCON, then, is the first salvo in a campaign to create a newer, purer Anglican Communion by getting like-minded Anglicans all in one place. There is not enough support among conservatives at this time for a full break from the archbishop of Canterbury, whose position carries much weight around the world.
That support might exist in 10 years, especially if the Church of England, Anglicanism’s British branch, becomes completely compromised concerning Islam and sexual morality issues.
So GAFCON and the aborted pre-GAFCON meeting in Jordan are setting the stage for an eventual split.
Many of the people attending these gatherings have smoldered for years over the church’s creeping universalism, the flouting of biblical authority, the increasing numbers of same-sex blessing ceremonies and the tolerance of gay clergy and bishops in the Episcopal Church.
GAFCON also is the conservative Anglican alternative to Lambeth, the once-every-10-years conference of Anglican bishops at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, starting in mid-July.
Lambeth usually attracts more than 800 bishops, but GAFCON has peeled off about one-quarter of that number who have elected to go to Jerusalem instead.
No doubt the folks meeting in the Middle East have a strategy for Lambeth, a huge world stage where for three weeks every cause imaginable gets huge media exposure.
Unfortunately, this year’s Lambeth was organized to confound the media by avoiding decisive votes and statements. The massive gathering will be organized as a series of private Bible studies among the bishops.
So, no matter where you turn, there are a lot of secret meetings going on. At some point, the smoke needs to clear.
Julia Duin can be reached at jduin@washingtontimes.com. Her Stairway to Heaven column runs on Thursdays and Sundays.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.