BBC: Traditionalist Anglicans claiming to represent at least half of the membership of the worldwide communion, and more than a third of its bishops, have declared war on what they call the "false teaching" used to justify active homosexuality.
They have set up what amounts to a church within a church in order to organise for a long struggle against the ordination of gay clergy, the blessing of gay relationships, and what they claim is a drift towards accepting other religions as offering "equal access to God".
The Rev Rod Thomas, of the conservative Church of England group Reform, helped to formulate the organisation's strategy.
He claimed that traditionalists had been forced to create a new alliance to prevent the Bible being rewritten by liberal Anglicans to suit their current lifestyles.
"The Anglican Church is being destroyed by false teaching of the Bible on issues such as homosexuality", he said.
"We are gong to stand against this trend, and spread the true message of the Bible with confidence."
Traditionalists believe the Bible rules out active homosexuality, for example.
Road to schism?
They met in Jerusalem to bolster their claim that they were in touch with the authentic teaching of the early Church.
The group emphasises its intention of staying inside the Anglican Communion, but the alliance's mission statement appears to be a significant step towards eventual schism.
It is ready to send bishops anywhere in the world if traditionalist Anglicans call for help in countering liberal policies which in the view of the "Primates' Council" undermine strict biblical teaching.
The Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, said the "revisionist agenda which we've seen in the same-sex agenda is a missionary one and will spread its views as much as it can.
So the rest of us have to do missionary work to defend the gospel and to promulgate it." Battling ‘Liberal’ Church Policies >>> By Robert Pigott, Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News, Jerusalem | June 30, 2008
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