The Primate of All-Nigeria and chairman of the GAFCON movement has lambasted the Church of England for embracing an American-driven “false gospel”,
The Primate of All-Nigeria and chairman of the GAFCON movement, the Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, has lambasted the Church of England for embracing an American-driven “false gospel”, and said he would lend his support to independent Anglican groups in the British isles. In his first pastoral letter since assuming the leadership of the GAFCON movement, Archbishop Okoh lauded the work of his predecessor, the Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala, and welcomed his successor, the Most Rev. Jackson ole Sapit as Archbishop of Kenya. GAFCON would hold a third international conference in 2018, he said, and would continue working towards the reform of the Anglican world. However, his ire was directed at the Church of England. “In the beginning, the focus of our concern was North America and we thank God that he has raised up the Anglican Church North America as a new wineskin in that continent. Now our concern is increasingly with the British Isles. A line has been crossed in the Church of England itself with the appointment of Bishop Susan Goff, of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, as an Assisting Bishop of Liverpool. The false teaching of the American Episcopal Church has been normalised in England and this divisive act has meant that the Church of Nigeria’s Akure Diocese has had no alternative but to end its partnership link with Liverpool Diocese,” he wrote. “When the GAFCON movement began in 2008 with our first conference in Jerusalem, my predecessor as Primate of All Nigeria and former Chairman, His Grace Peter Akinola, declared that GAFCON was a rescue mission for the Anglican Communion. His words were prophetic and they are being fulfilled,” Archbishop Okoh wrote, adding he was confident the church would emerge from its current turmoil. “The Apostle Paul tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We therefore preach the gospel, make disciples and commit ourselves to prevailing prayer, knowing that the most dangerous attack on the Church today is not persecution from the outside, terrible though that can be, but a globalised secular ideology which has established itself inside the Church. We must therefore devote ourselves to the task of restoring the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion and this is the way to true unity.”
