As I watched the news yesterday morning with the announcement of what is effectively an Anglican split – the GAFCON group is saying that they will stay within the Anglican Communion, but will operate independently of the instruments of the communion – I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of the day on which they chose to make the announcement, the day of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
It may seem slightly odd that with many of the obscure saints across the Christian calendar who have a day to themselves, the church chooses to celebrate perhaps two of the most important saints together – but when you consider that these were the two people on whom the Church was built you can maybe start to understand why they are considered together. It is especially important when you start to look at the evidence within the New Testament and realise that whilst in later times the official recognition of Christianity in the Roman Empire needed some degree of orthodoxy to be imposed, back in these early days, Peter and Paul had significant differences in their opinions on a multitude of subjects in particular as the Church started to draw in Gentile converts alongside the original, Jewish membership.
Check out Mum’s sermon from yesterday that explores further the differences between Peter and Paul.
