Mike Davidson,
CEO Core Issues Trust
Attending GAFCON IV, will no doubt go down as a highlight for CIT in 2023. The 2023 GAFCON video report brings the pleasant memories flooding back!
There are fond memories too, of our time in Jerusalem at GAFCON III[i] as we reflect on the 2018 GAFCON report:
What is different about the 2018 and 2023 reports, or the 2013 experience in Nairobi for that matter, is that the team came home with a deep conviction and sense of call that there was more for us to do, in and for Africa. In a way I’m not surprised to have this sense, because this is ‘my’ continent, where I was born, raised, educated, married and where our children were born. It’s also where I came to Christ, in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Marlborough in Zimbabwe.
New stirrings
I was born in Zambia and raised in Zimbabwe so seeking to establish the Africa Project, with a pilot project in Malawi, seems the right thing for me personally to be involved with. This initiative will potentially draw on the pastoral leaders of churches in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and, of course, Malawi. It’s an ambitious project, and we have a long way to go in raising the minimum funding that will be required to establish a sustainable work, that works to enhance and empower pastoral care workers who operate Biblically to support their nations. We recognise that we have to get behind African leaders, supporting when we can and calling for reform when that’s necessary too.
Working in Africa
Helping church leaders to support those coming out of LGBT in Africa isn’t straight forward. There is an assumed continuity between Africa cultural values that reject homosexuality (which is seen as a fruitless, barren threat to the necessary progeny of virulent tribalism and territorial power,) and the symbol of the created order of the Biblical account of God’s gift of His image in man and women in their intimacy in the covenant of marriage. But these are two distinct things. Christians are ultimately responsible for the preservation of God’s values around sexuality, compassion, redemption and transformation. We work for transformation around sexual brokenness because we have sinned against the Lord almighty.
Our modus operandi: Working Biblically with those leaving LGBT identities and practises
Recently, our Core Issues Trust Trustees have worked to articulate our values around how we work with sexual sin in “A Biblical Theology for Helping LGBT and Former-LGBT Persons”[ii]. This document best articulates why we work as we do and how, moving forward we will continue to promote sound, accountable pastoral care for those no longer satisfied by LGBT identities or experiences. It’s worthwhile pointing to The IFTCC Pastoral Protocol, guidelines that the IFTCC recently published which are formative for the CIT document above.
Understanding Africa and listening to leaders and friends
I’m pleased to announce that there are more than a dozen interviews from GAFCON IV leaders and conference attendees – mostly leaders in their own right, who reflect on the growth of this church movement and the crisis on sexuality that is dividing the Church of England from other Anglican communities. These will be released weekly, and I hope, like me, readers will sense the strategic importance of Africa as we learn how to defend ourselves from aggressive Cultural Marxism and the outworking of the pansexual sexual revolution. If you would like to be signed up to these, please do use the “contact us” links on this website to enable us to include you in our mailings.
[i] https://youtu.be/apnvo0uPS6I
[ii] https://archive.iftcc.org/cit-a-biblical-theology-for-helping-lgbt-and-former-lgbt-persons/
