Australian Anglicans back orthodox in Global South, U.S.
The Sydney Standing Committee has bolstered the heavyweight pressure being put on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Commission to penalise the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) over the controversial appointment of Bishop V. Gene Robinson.
After a lengthy debate in late May, Standing Committee resolved to support the conservative primates of the Global South — representing two-thirds of the Communion — in their call to the Lambeth Commission to urge ECUSA to turn back to God and withdraw from their election of openly gay Bishop Robinson.
Standing Committee also supported the Primates’ call to the Commission to invoke disciplinary action, if necessary, that could involve ECUSA’s expulsion from the Communion.
It supported the Primates’ view that such extreme action was necessary because Bishop Robinson’s appointment in the Diocese of New Hampshire last year demonstrated that ECUSA had ‘abandoned’ the teaching of Scripture as it relates to matters ‘necessary to salvation’. The Standing Committee therefore believes they need ‘to repent, and to rescind and revoke their election of Bishop Robinson’.
It also supports the maintenance of those parishes and dioceses ‘who are seeking to uphold the historic faith of the Anglican Communion as set forth in Holy Scripture’.
Editor’s Note: With more than 60,000 Anglican Christians in diocesan churches on any given Sunday morning, the Diocese of Sydney represents about a third of active Australian Anglicans. Click here to read the entire article.