In our gathering, we reaffirmed our view that we are a global fellowship of confessing Anglicans, engaged in a movement of the Holy Spirit which is both personal and ecclesial.

Anglican Ink posted the text of “Gafon 2 Draft Statement” delivered to the 2nd Global Anglican Future Conference by the communique writing team on Friday, 25 October 2013 in error.

After the story was posted by Anglican Ink a junior press spokesman confirmed to us that the story was not embargoed. Nor was there any statement during the session when the document was released to the delegates that it was under embargo, nor was the document so marked.

Several individuals communicated privately with Anglican Ink, thanking it for keeping members of the FCA informed of the debates shaping the future of the conference. Others wrote with concern saying it should not have been released as it was a work in progress. To the first I responded with thanks, to the second I stated that it was not under embargo.

On Saturday morning the director of press operations at Gafcon spoke to Anglican Ink, stating he was disappointed that we had violated the embargo. He had asked members of the media not to publicize the document as it was a work in process. He told the press not to publicize the document but said would give them an electronic version of the final copy under embargo on Saturday.

Anglican Ink misheard this statement, not hearing the first part of the sentence and construing the second to mean that a final version of the finished document, not the draft, would be released under embargo.

I have offered my apologies to Russell Powell, director of press operations for my error. And I apologize to those who were hurt by this action.

The Rev. Canon George Conger

Editor, Anglican Ink

Photos from the Gafcon Conference in Nairobi can be found at this link on Flickr. I am uploading photos (several hundred) on an on-going basis. If you can identify people in the photograph, or correct mistakes of identification, please drop me a line.

If you would like a high resolution copy of any of these photos please drop me a line at George.Conger@aya.yale.edu  No charge, unless used for commercial purposes.

George Conger

Accusations that Gafcon II would a political rally for the right paid for by American conservatives and fronted by their docile African allies have proven to be unfounded, so far.

Gafcon II is self-funded the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns told Anglican Ink, with the costs of the conference evenly divided between the delegates.

Nor have forecasts of chaos proven true.  Backed by a cadre of Kenyan volunteers and an Australian-American management team, 1352 delegates have been efficiently fed, housed, moved and organized .

Gathered on the campus of All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi the conference has held its plenary sessions and informal worship in the main auditorium of the Trinity Center. The main auditorium in the three story parish hall has been able to accommodate the 30 archbishops, 301 bishops, 541 priests and deacons, and 487 lay people from 27 provinces drawn from 40 countries.

The Church of Nigeria has the largest delegation at 481, including a nine month old infant, with the Ugandan, Australian, UK and North American delegations rounding out the top five. Among the smallest delegations are Bermuda, Mexico, Papua New Guinea. The Episcopal Church of the USA has two clergy and one lay delegate, while the Anglican Church of Canada is represented by a bishop from the Diocese of the Arctic.

A constant armed security presence surrounds the Cathedral campus, while a single entrance with metal detectors screens those entering. Each delegate wears a prominent badge displaying his name and a barcode, which allows him access to the facility.

While the 2008 conference benefited from the largesse of wealthy donors from the US and Nigeria, Gafcon 2013 has kept to a tight budget. Bishop Minns commended the work of Jotham Kilimo chairman of the local organizing committee and his 50 volunteers who have kept the conference on track. Gafcon general secretary was effusive in his praise for Bishop Minns, telling the press he was our “magic Martyn”.

A medical tent with an ambulance on call has been on site throughout the conference. Two leaders of the conference have had to be hospitalized during the meeting. Archbishop Stanley Ntagali was hospitalized for one day following an attack of malaria, while Archbishop Robert Duncan has been hospitalized for most the conference due to an infection.

Fifty buses transported the delegates to the Nairobi Safari Park on Thursday afternoon. A police escort moved the convoy through Nairobi’s chaotic traffic, closing roads to move delegates swiftly to the countryside for their safari tour.

A final statement for the conference will be released at the meeting’s close. That document, however, not the public program will set the public face of the 2nd Gafcon conference and set the course for the future of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

Delegates to the 2ND Global Anglican Future Conference, meeting in Nairobi from 21-26 October 2013, have settled down to a daily round of worship, workshops and presentations.  The program has been decidedly apolitical – in Anglican terms – with only occasional glimpses of the divisions in doctrine and discipline besetting the communion.

The theme of the conference was set on the opening day by an address by Gafcon general secretary Peter Jensen and a series of presentations on the East African Revival – interspersed with worship and hymn signing.

On the second day the chairman of the Gafcon primates’ council and host for the conference, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala gave his presidential address followed by a plenary address by Dr. Mike Ovey, principal of Oak Hill Theological College in London.

A series of shorter presentations followed on the topics of the “suffering” and the “lonely” church.

Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of the Sudan spoke of the situation facing Christians in North and South Sudan. But noted “suffering makes you stronger than before.”

“In 1955 there were less than a million Anglicans, during the war it grew to 4 million,” he said. “Jesus is accompanying us!”

The ways of God were mysterious, he said. “Sometime God wants you to lose your own life. Our people lost everything, but they had hope in Jesus. Jesus answered our hope with our own country.”

The archbishop commended Gafcon saying “I am glad that Jesus is with us. There will be renewal. You are praying with us. We are not alone.”

Bishop Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria recounted the troubles facing Nigeria. His diocese was afflicted by poverty, drought and depredations of the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram. Yet in the midst of economic deprivation and persecution “evangelism among Muslims is possible” and “it is welcome,” he said.

“If you do your ministry as you should, these same people of all religions come to Christ,” he said. Anglicans in Europe or North America who were shy in sharing their faith in places of physical safety and comfort “need to take confidence in Jesus Christ.”

“Some people need to go to prison for political incorrectness,” he observed.

Andrea Minchiello Williams, director of the UK’s Christian Concern spoke of the growing climate of intolerance of religion in Britain. She spoke of her agency’s work in offering legal advice to three Christian street preachers who had been arrested for offending the sensibilities of non-believers.

“We’ve lost our love and passion for Jesus Christ, We need a church that will speak  passionately and fiercely for him in the public sphere,” Ms. Minchiello Williams said.

The Rev. Paul Perkin, the UK coordinator for Gafcon, described the Church of England as a “wordly” institution that had succumbed to the culture around it.

While there were “many flourishing local churches,” the Church of England had been “divided by unbelief” and possessed a “superficial unity masking heterodox beliefs.”

A “superficial unity” masked “heterodox beliefs, he said and “some diocese’s leaders have departed from faithful ministry.”

“There is a battle for Britain in our own day, for the heart and soul in Britain.” Gafcon should “support those who stay in the structures and those who move beyond,” Mr. Perkin said.

The Rev. Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform told Anglican Ink stated that it was possible to be a conservative evangelical cleric in the Church of England, but one should not expect preference, support or sympathy from the hierarchy.

However the Rt. Rev. Henry Scriven, the SAMS-CMS South American director, observed the picture was not so bleak. “Four of the five senior bishops of the Church of England were evangelicals”, he said, adding the vast majority of the House of Bishops were “solid, orthodox men.”

Bishop Richard Ellena of Nelson, New Zealand spoke of the problems facing his diocese and traditionalists in New Zealand. Its geographic and theological isolation made life hard for traditional Christians. “Just being together is a challenge,” he said.

The Bishop of Recife Miguel Uchoa spoke of the events surrounding his diocese’s secession from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil. Recife was a “diocese without a province” he said. Recife was “not alone” though. “My province is Gafcon,” he said.

The conference continues through Saturday.