There were always tensions between the AMiA and the ACNA, simmering below the surface. Ross Lindsay is an attorney and canon lawyer who, along with Kevin Donlon, advised Chuck Murphy inside the AMiA. He wrote a book called Out of Africa: The Breakaway Anglican Churches A Movement with a Mission and it allows us to see behind the curtains a bit. A couple notable examples of this are a CAPA meeting and the first GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem.
The Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) met on October 2-5, 2007. This was a meeting of Anglican Archbishops from Africa. Lindsay says:
“Ellis Brust, the CEO of The Anglican Mission, Cynthia Brust, the Public Affairs Officer of The Anglican Mission, Kevin Donlon, the Canon of Ecclesiastical Affairs of The Anglican Mission, and Ross Lindsay represented The Anglican Mission at the October 2007 CAPA meeting. Bishop Martyn Minns represented CANA and the ACN.”
Lindsay recounts that Archbishop Kolini of Rwanda came into the meeting with an agenda that I am fairly sure was the brainchild of Kevin Dolon, namely, that there was a need for a new church council akin to the early ecumenical councils of the church. However, this agenda was upended by the absence of Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria to attend the planning session:
“The Primates were supposed to meet on the evening before the conference began in order to finalize the agenda, and Archbishop Kolini had arranged for Kevin Donlon and Ross Lindsay to present the case for calling a “church council” to deal with TEC and the related issues that were fracturing the wider Anglican Communion at that meeting. However, Archbishop Akinola did not attend the meeting, so it was cancelled. Ellis and Cynthia Brust had arrived in Mauritius a day early and reported that they had seen Akinola at the Hilton Resort on the other side of the island earlier that afternoon.”
“The next morning Archbishop Akinola checked into to the far less luxurious hotel where the conference was being held, and his room adjoined Kevin Donlon’s. Akinola literally bumped into Kevin Donlon in the hall enroute to the first plenary session. Akinola recognized Donlon because the two of them had served on a committee to write a Catechism for the Anglican Communion. The next day, Akinola introduced Donlon to the delegates as the “Chief Catechist” of the Anglican Communion.”
The implications of this are easy to glide over, but what Lindsay is saying is that Akinola was staying at a luxurious Hilton on the other side of Mauritius when he was supposed to be at a meeting finalizing the conservative agenda. The Brusts had maybe spotted him where he didn’t want to be seen, playing hooky. This is the subtext of what Lindsay says anyway. After skipping that meeting, he moved over to the “far less luxurious hotel” for the conference.
Donlon was able to meet with archbishops in an attempt to push his church council plan. Lindsay narrates events: “Kevin Donlon and Ross Lindsay were able to meet privately with several of the archbishops to discuss Donlon’s proposal for calling a “church council.” Archbishop Orombi politely informed Donlon and Lindsay that Uganda had been willing to provide “temporary” episcopal oversight for several congregations that had chosen to leave TEC, but that neither he nor the Province of Uganda had the time nor the money to pursue the matter further because it needed to devote its resources to larger issues at home like evangelism, poverty, aids, and water.”
Lindsay next makes a charge that has been a familiar one from the TEC or Church of England side: that Martyn Minns was really writing most of what was theoretically emanating from Africa. He says, “At the last session of the CAPA conference, Bishop Martyn Minns projected a draft of the final communiqué onto a screen. Apparently, Minns and Archbishop Akinola had drafted the communique well in advance of the conference because several of the points in the statement had not been discussed during the conference. Several delegates suggested substantive changes to the communiqué, and some minor changes were made. However, the final communiqué was the work of Minns and Akinola, not of the delegates to CAPA 2007.”
If Lindsay is correct the meeting itself didn’t matter much, because Minns and Akinola had predetermined what the statement would be. I have a feeling this is pretty standard for the various Anglican gatherings, but it is a bit jarring when you consider that the assembled delegates are sort of just window dressing for the preordained agenda. Akinola’s own account of the meeting and the communiqué make no mention of Minns’ role and make it sound as if the text came from the meeting itself, at least that’s how I read it in the book by Gbenga Gbesan, page 294.
Lindsay notes that there was little to no support for a church council among the primates.
The next conflict that Lindsay covers is GAFCON Jerusalem, in June 2008. He points out the fact that Akinola was denied entry into Egypt for a pre-meeting, and that Bob Duncan was not at this meeting at all–something that must have been a real talking point amongst AMiA, because both Bob and Nara Duncan have addressed it publicly over the years.
Lindsay points out Duncan’s absence, “The next surprise was the revelation to the delegates from the United States that Bob Duncan, their leader, would not be attending the conference. The delegates were dismayed when they learned that the leader of their movement, who had been intimately involved in arranging the dates and minute details of the conference, suddenly had a “personal conflict” that prevented him from attending.”
Nara Duncan addressed this AMiA talking point in a comment on a blogpost in 2010, “As for “a birthday party” – yes indeed, he did forgo GAFCON for a birthday party! His 60th which I had been planning for two years and which the GAFCON Primates were well aware of when they chose the dates -he was on the planning committee, remember Mr. no-it-all? The meeting was actually scheduled for a week earlier until the Nigerian House of Bishops decided they wanted it a week later. So sorry our life got in the way.”1 Archbishop Duncan himself wrote, “When the date of the Jerusalem Conference was announced, it was for the week I could not attend. Nara had long before made plans for a sixtieth birthday week with family and friends at a villa in Tuscany. Having learned some things along the way, I knew where my first loyalty lay.”2
Lindsay now outlines how there was a struggle about Donlon being on a GAFCON committee: “The final surprise occurred when Kevin Donlon, the Canon for Ecclesiastical Affairs for The Anglican Mission was removed from the “theological resource committee” for GAFCON. Donlon had been appointed to the committee by Archbishop Kolini; however, the GAFON organizers had questioned Donlon’s credentials and removed him from the committee. Donlon has a Ph.D. in Church History from Oxford and an L.L.M. in Canon Law from Cardiff Law School, but the GAFCON organizers said that since he had not published anything, he could not serve on the committee. A power struggle ensued, but Kolini prevailed and Donlon was placed back on the committee.”
The “GAFCON organizers” would have included Chris Sugden, Archbishop Peter Jensen, and others. Now that he was back on the committee, Donlon had bad news to deliver to the conference, per Lindsay:
“The next day at a “town hall meeting” for the delegates from the United States and Canada, Kevin Donlon informed the delegates that they were not going home with a province. Many of the delegates had been led to believe that the purpose of GAFCON was to create a separate ecclesiastical structure for North American Anglicans. Donlon, an astute canon lawyer, suggested to the delegates that they could form a new Anglican “church” if they wished, but only a majority of the Primates of the wider Anglican Communion could create and recognize a thirty-ninth “province”—not a majority of the “GAFCON Primates.”
According to Lindsay, this was a bombshell in the conference: “The delegates from The ACN and CANA were distraught. Bishop John Guernsey telephoned Bob Duncan and thrust his phone into Kevin Donlon’s face. “Bishop Duncan wants a word with you,” Guernsey screamed. Duncan chastised Donlon for telling the delegates that the GAFCON Primates could not send them home with a “province.”
Lindsay’s account jumps ahead in time to showcase another conflict with Bob Duncan: “A year later at the first Assembly of the ACNA in Toronto, Bob Duncan demanded that Donlon “take his seat” after Donlon raised a point of order from the floor. Donlon replied indignantly: “I have no dog in this fight. I am just telling you what is canonically correct, and what is not. Any new ecclesiastical structure must be consistent with canon law, or it will not be recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates.”
To Lindsay, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the TEC lawsuits in Virginia might have gone differently if only Archbishop Duncan had listened to Kevin Donlon:
“While pursuing his L.L.M. in Canon Law at the Centre of Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School, Donlon had studied under Norman Doe, the advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and he had met with John Rees, the Chancellor for the Archbishop of Canterbury; and Mark Hill, the Editor of The Ecclesiastical Law Journal. Donlon not only knew what was canonically correct, he knew personally the advisors to the Archbishop of Canterbury who would ultimately decide when and if the ACNA would be recognized as a province. However, Bob Duncan and his advisors, including the three chancellors of ACNA (none of whom had degrees in canon law), paid little heed to Donlon’s suggestions. Donlon and Lindsay had also offered their legal services to Duncan and the Diocese of Pittsburgh and to the breakaway churches in Virginia during their church property litigation. Duncan and the Virginia breakaway churches declined their offer of assistance. And subsequently, the courts ruled against Duncan and ACNA and awarded the property of the Diocese of Pittsburgh to TEC. The Supreme Court of Virginia also ruled against the Virginia breakaway churches and in favor of TEC holding that a confederate statute that the Virginia breakaway churches had relied upon was unconstitutional.”
Lindsay returns to GAFCON 2008 from this time jump to show that Donlon had also enlisted Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali in his push for a church council. He says:
“Two competing forces were at work at GAFCON: 1) those who were trying to restore the “faith” that was given to the Saints and 2) those who were trying to preserve the “order” that was given to the Saints. Since its inception, the purpose of the canon law had been to preserve “order” within the church. Kevin Donlon, Archbishop Kolini, and Church of England Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali maintained throughout the conference that nothing less than a “church council” could restore “faith” and “order” to the church. However, their recommendations fell on deaf ears.”
“So, GAFCON ended precisely as Kevin Donlon had predicted that it would. Once again, “The Americans had paid, the Africans had prayed, and the English had written the communiqué.”…Like The Windsor Report that preceded it, “The Jerusalem Declaration” called for TEC “to repent and return to the Lord.” It did not create or even call for a 39th province for the theologically conservative Anglicans in the United States and Canada.”
Donlon’s agenda had become AMiA’s agenda, not according to the wishes of the clergy in America or Rwanda, but because of his relationship with Chuck Murphy. Much more was going on here behind the scenes, but these incidents show a bit of the heated rivalry between AMiA and ACNA proper.
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