LONDON (AFP) — The Archbishop of Canterbury expressed deep concern on Monday at radical proposals made by a breakaway Christian orthodox movement that rejects a liberal stance towards homosexuality.
Rowan Williams, the head of the world's 80 million Anglicans, said the changes proposed at a conference in Jerusalem last weekend were "problematic in all sorts of ways."
The Global Anglican Future (GAFCON) conference led to the creation of a new group claiming to represent half the world's Anglicans calling itself the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
Its members are mainly drawn from churches in the southern hemisphere -- Africa, Asia, Australia, South America -- but disgruntled evangelicals from Canada, England and the United States have also lent their support.
The Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, is expected to play a leading role in the new power bloc.
The group's creation comes just two weeks before Williams hosts the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference meeting of bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion in Canterbury, southeast England.
Many of the bishops who attended the Jerusalem meeting plan to boycott the Lambeth Conference, which starts on July 16, in protest at the ordination in 2003 of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the US Episcopal Church.
The GAFCON conference called for the creation of a new council of primates "committed to mission and biblical Anglicanism as well as a new structure of accountability".
It also signalled its desire to shift many of Anglicans into what it called "a post-colonial reality" where the Archbishop of Canterbury is recognised for his historic role, but not as the only arbiter of what it means to be Anglican.
Williams responded: "GAFCON's proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.
"A 'Primates' Council' which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion," he added in a statement.
The archbishop also questioned "how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?"
And he argued that millions of Anglicans did not agree with the breakaway conservatives.
"I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel.
"This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province."
In a 14-point declaration on Sunday, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans accused the US church of proclaiming "false gospel" over the consecration of Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
It said: "We acknowledge God's creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.
"We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married."
It also criticised the Lambeth Conference, saying it was planning to welcome "bishops of these unrepentant churches" and said its authority "has been undermined".
"The Lambeth conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions," it said.
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