The Anglican Mission in England

Today, GAFCON announced yesterday’s advent of the Anglican Mission in England (AMIE). Its origin was explained this way:

The AMIE has been encouraged in this development by the Primates’ Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) who said in a communiqué from Nairobi in May 2011: “We remain convinced that from within the Provinces which we represent there are creative ways by which we can support those who have been alienated so that they can remain within the Anglican family.”

Does this sound familiar? Within The Episcopal Church, the American Anglican Council and the Network of Anglican Dioceses and Parishes (NACDAP) expressed similar goals.

The press release continues:

The AMIE is determined to remain within the Church of England. The desire of those who identify with the society is to have an effective structure which enables them to remain in the Church of England and work as closely as possible with its institutions. Churches or individuals may join or affiliate themselves with the AMIE for a variety of reasons. Some may be churches in impaired communion with their diocesan bishop who require oversight. Others may be in good relations with their bishop but wish to identify with and support others.

Does this really sound helpful, or is AMIE simply subverting the local church? I thought the Church of England was the Anglican Mission in England.

In the U.S., of course, NACDAP morphed into the Anglican Church in North American, poaching congregations, liberating property from The Episcopal Church, and declaring itself to be an Anglican Communion “province in formation.”

More history is offered in this paragraph:

The launch of AMIE follows four and a half years of discussions with senior Anglican leaders in England about ways in which those who are genuinely in need of effective orthodox oversight in the Church of England can receive it.

Need I point out that Bob Duncan and his merry men were encouraged in their nefarious enterprise by none other than Rowan Williams?

I welcome AMIE. Perhaps it will awaken the somnambulant Church of England to the dangerous game it and its leaders have been playing. Rowan Williams has yielded all too readily to the extortion of Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics at home and abroad. He has been blind to the damage he has caused elsewhere. Perhaps when the damage is done to his own church—that damage will come soon enough—he will open his eyes to the colossal errors he has made. It will, of course, be too late.