Source: The Age
OUTSPOKEN Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen is galvanising opposition to homosexuality in the church, in the lead-up to an unofficial meeting of conservative bishops in Jerusalem.

As rifts in the worldwide Anglican Church threaten to become a schism, the Sydney Archbishop said American Anglicans had become missionaries for homosexuality in defiance of the Bible and Anglican teaching.

The Global Anglican Future Conference is provocatively timed just before the 10-yearly meeting of all the world's bishops at Lambeth in London. That meeting must resolve the sexuality crisis or worldwide Anglicans will probably divide into two separate churches.

Dr Jensen denied the Jerusalem meeting in June was an "alternative Lambeth", but liberals are sceptical. Leading Australian liberal Muriel Porter said the conference could hijack Lambeth because conservatives would come seeking to impose a predetermined outcome.

Dr Jensen, the main Western leader of the conservative evangelical strand, said he hoped to meet Bishop Dawani in Jerusalem next week. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, the other main conservative Anglican leader, will be there too.

Earlier, in a statement, Dr Jensen said: "Some American Anglicans are as committed to their new sexual ethics as to the Gospel itself, and they intend to act as missionaries for this faith, wishing to persuade the rest of us." He said the rest of the Anglican world must be vigilant to guard the teaching of Scripture. "The problems posed by the American church are not going to remain in America."

Dr Jensen told The Age the worldwide church had irreversibly changed. Since the Americans defied the world's bishops in 1998 and the Bible by endorsing same-sex unions and consecrating a gay bishop, Lambeth had lost its authority, he said.

Full article: Anglican archbishop spurs opposition to gays - National - theage.com.au