In his address, Archbishop Akinola described how many Anglican believers around the world, especially in Africa, view the liberals in Western churches [see The Times]:

"Having survived the inhuman physical slavery of the 19th century, the political slavery called colonialism of the 20th century, the developing world economic enslavement, we cannot, we dare not, allow ourselves and the millions we represent to be kept in a religious and spiritual dungeon."

"We will not abdicate our God-given responsibility and simply acquiesce to destructive modern cultural and political dictates."

Even as the meeting began in Jerusalem, observers were warning that the day of the Archbishop of Canterbury's spiritual leadership over the Anglican Communion "is over."  The GAFCON meeting produced a plan for a new fellowship of more orthodox Anglican churches.  As Ruth Gledhill explains:

The new fellowship for orthodox Anglicans would have a leadership of six or seven senior conservative bishops and archbishops, such as the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Bob Duncan, who chairs the US Common Cause partnership that acts as an umbrella for American conservatives, Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, and the Church of England's Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.

The aim is not to split with the worldwide Anglican Communion, which counts 80 million members in 38 provinces, but to reform it from within.

Formal ties will be maintained with the Archbishop of Canterbury but fellowship members will consider themselves out of communion with provinces such as the US and Canada.

There are orthodox and faithful Christians in the American and Canadian churches, but those in leadership in those churches have steadfastly refused to stop an onward march into theological and ecclesiastical disaster. 

Jerusalem was a controversial location for the GAFCON meeting.  But, after all, the famous "Jerusalem Council" of the early church was held there as recorded in Acts 15:6-21.  In that council, the apostles and elders of the early church met and reached the consensus that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for both Jews and Gentiles, and that Gentile converts to Christ were not required to first become, in effect, Jews.

Perhaps we are seeing before our eyes what we should have anticipated -- that Jerusalem is a good place to remember what the Gospel is.

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