Anglican Mainstream responds to Inclusive Church

Statement on behalf of Anglican Mainstream in response to the Press Release by Inclusive Church dated March 26 2007.

Inclusive Church have now joined the six members of the House of Bishops who declared full fellowship with TEC following the Dromantine Primates meeting.

The issue is not one of ecclesiastical power structures but of obedience to the liberating truth of God in the Bible.

It is important also to be truthful about history.

Since the Lambeth Conference of 1998 adopted Lambeth 1.10 by an overwhelming majority of over 600 votes representing almost 90 per cent of the Bishops, how can Inclusive Church claim the conclusions of the working party “were hijacked by a few conservative bishops.”? The fact of an overwhelming majority for Lambeth 1.10 has benchmarked this orthodox position as a moral compass point for our church.

Anglican Mainstream has been contributing to the listening process in discussions with the Listening Officer, and at their own invitation, in two meetings with Inclusive Church's leadership. Anglican Mainstream also sponsored a meeting at General Synod when the experiences of those who are moving on from homosexual practice and attraction to a fuller identity in Christ were shared.

Meanwhile Anglican leaders in Nigeria have been working closely to uphold human rights issues in the proposed legislation on homosexuality. The Nigerian position is that those in their country who were set free from the slavery which was itself a powerful global expression of contemporary western culture then, do not wish to return today to the cultural bondage of sexual licence.

It is illegitimate to identify inclusion for lesbian and gay people irrespective of their behaviour which is an expression of submission to contemporary culture against the teaching of the Bible as an heir to the campaign to end the slave trade which made its stand for the teaching of the Bible against the culture of its time.