Gafcon, a network of conservative Anglicans, supported by Sydney and other evangelical dioceses (regions) in the Anglican Church of Australia will set up a new structure to help conservatives in dioceses that bless same-sex marriages.
This will be a new Diocese that will operate in parallel with any Diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia. It will have a Bishop, and the normal structure of an Anglican diocese such as a synod (church parliament and a standing committee.
This announcement means that in certain “progressive” regions of the Anglican Church of Australia, there will be a conservative Anglican Church, much like the Anglican Church of Noth America which operates in the United States and Canada. Gafcon is named after the Global Anglican Futures Conference, which has formed a parallel network to the official Anglican Communion. with a majority of the world’s Anglicans associated with the new structure.
Gafcon is responding to moves by some regional dioceses, Wangaratta and Newcastle, passing legislation to bless same-sex marriages conducted civilly, and the subsequent ruling by of the Anglican Church of Australia’s highest legal body, the Appellate Tribunal, ruling that their action was permitted under the church’s constitution.
Gafcon has also beefed up its structure by appointing Michael Kellahan, a Sydney minister who previously worked for the legal think tank Freedom for Faith, as executive officer.
