‘We will pray for you...’

‘We are very glad that you are there, spearheading the campaign to encourage the truth and we know that it is very difficult and you are in the deep end, I promise that we will pray for you … that the Lord may help us not just maintain the unity but stand on the truth, one should not be lost for the other..’

These were some of the words of encouragement that one bishop, who serves in a country where Christians cannot evangelise or pray in public, wanted to send to his brothers and sisters in the Church of England.

Another bishop, from a war-torn zone, told me: ‘It is a cause of worry because we are looking to the growth of our faith, the growth of Christianity, the growth of the word of God in the hands of men and we see the revisionists and the activists bring discouragement to the younger generation.’

Our situation is worse

I met both these men at G19, a GAFCON conference for those in restricted situations, who had not been able to attend the main conference last summer. We spent five days considering the joys and challenges faced by these churches as they seek to ‘Serve Christ Faithfully in the Nations,’ in the face of civil unrest, war, famine, threats of imprisonment and many other trials. We enjoyed true Christian fellowship, bridging cultural and linguistic barriers to encourage one another to remain faithful to Christ.

And at the end of all that, they want us in England to know that they are praying for us. They see our situation as more precarious than their own and, though it is humbling, it is probably true.

Love not gender?

In the days immediately prior to G19, I was in London at General Synod. I listened to the House of Bishops reaffirm their guidance that baptism, or a reaffirmation of baptismal vows, should be used to mark gender transition. In a debate about ‘youth evangelism’, I heard a speaker commending their LGBT youth group for creating a crib scene each Christmas, ‘recognising in the arrangement of the figures, that it is love not the gender or the number of parents that make a holy family,’ and praising their church as a place where these young people, ‘try to find the words to tell their stories of coming out to their family and friends’.

Our brothers and sisters at G19 are justified when they speak of the betrayal and grief they feel ‘when the very gospel for which they are suffering is being undermined and denied in other parts of the Anglican Communion’ and their concern that the Anglican Communion ‘has been torn at the deepest level by those who preach another gospel and those who urge us to continue to “walk together” with them’.

Susie Leafe

The question that faces us in England is how will we respond? How will we honour our brothers and sisters living in restricted circumstances? Will we stand on the truth of the only gospel that has power to save? Will we, like them, be prepared to risk our privilege or reputation? As Anglicans we look to our bishops to lead. So, recognising that they are in the deep end, may I ask you to join me in praying that the Lord would grant evangelical bishops the grace and courage necessary to follow the example of Archbishop Ben Kwashi, the new General Secretary of GAFCON, and his wife Gloria who, along with hundreds of other faithful brothers and sisters, will not be attending Lambeth 2020.