NEAC5 closes in acrimony after claims of ‘set-up’

This is from the Church Times. Its worth reading the entire article as it showcases the tactics being employed to create this new province and shows how deeply divided conservatives are on the issue. Gafcon is described as being a bully.

A MEETING billed as the National Evangelical Anglican Consultation (NEAC5) ended in acrimony on Saturday, amid accusations of a hijack by hard-line conservatives and of bullying and manipulation by the chairman of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), the Revd Dr Richard Turnbull, Principal of Wycliffe Hall (Comment, 14 November).

Delegates rebelled when they found on their chairs at the start of the afternoon session a resolution from the CEEC executive calling for NEAC to support the Global Angli can Future Conference (GAFCON) Jerusalem Declaration. There had been no mention of it in the morning session, and it was not on the agenda. An accompanying note said that no amendments would be allowed.

Rodney Curtis, a management consultant who worships at St Ebbe’s, Oxford, likened attending the meeting to “watching a car crash in slow motion”, as Dr Turnbull ignored advice from Dr Philip Giddings, the convener of Anglican Mainstream, and Canon Michael Saward to withdraw the resolution. “The management of the day was so amateur that I felt embarrassed,” he said. “We were being bounced into supporting GAFCON at the say-so of Richard Turnbull.”

He described Dr Turnbull as having been “publicly humiliated”, and GAFCON as having been made to look like “a bullying, manipulative movement”. A procedural motion brought by Philip Love grove, a veteran of the General Synod, called for a move to next business. That motion was carried by 123 votes to 104.

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=66485