Anglican Church in Australia Splits as Conservatives Reject Leaders’ Endorsement of Same-Sex Marriage
Australia’s Anglican church has split after conservatives who want to uphold the traditional marriage ethics formed a new diocese which it describes as a “lifeboat” for faithful Anglicans.
The Diocese of the Southern Cross was announced at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Canberra on Sunday. GAFCON is an international coalition of conservative church leaders, which is chaired by Tasmania’s Anglican Bishop Richard Condie.
Condie said in a press release on Aug. 15 that the newly formed diocese is a “new structure for Anglicans in Australia who can no longer sit under the authority of their bishop.”
In the recent Lambeth Conference, he also noted that the breakaway is a response to the declining trust in the Bible, including the church’s rejection of the traditional concept of marriage between a man and a woman and the “watering down of standards of behaviour” by clergies and church workers. …