THE Anglican Church yesterday announced that it would be focusing its energies on revitalising its congregations which “are suffering a decline in membership”.

But in making the announcement, National President of the Brotherhood of St Andrew Oswald Seymour insisted that the slide was in no way linked to the split in the worldwide Anglican community over the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, V Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

According to Seymour, Robinson’s appointment which has sent the church body into a tailspin “has nothing to do with the diocese of Jamaica”. In fact, he said the split abroad has had “no impact” on the Anglican church in Jamaica.

Rather, he said that Jamaica’s dwindling congregations – especially in rural areas – was due in part to population shifts and urbanisation which have taken a toll on their membership.

Furthermore, Seymour said the Anglican church in Jamaica was not in support of the more radical stance being taken by its Episcopal counterparts in the United States and elsewhere.

“The way the Anglican church is organised is that each diocese and each province is independent, so nobody sets our agenda…the unfortunate situation is that we are part of the worldwide community of Anglicans but we do not legislate, direct, order or advise other territories on the positions that they take, but our position is quite clear within Jamaica that we are not in support,” Seymour told journalists attending a press conference at the church’s headquarters building in Kingston yesterday.

“The position of our church on that alternative lifestyle is well known. It is unscriptural, it’s not right and it is not acceptable to us,” he noted further, adding that “we do not condemn individuals and ‘bun dem’ or call for ‘more fire’, what we do is call them to repentance and restoration”.

According to Seymour, while “the impression is being given that this is a problem peculiar to the Anglican Church, it is a human problem”.

“There is no evidence that there are more gays in the Anglican church than elsewhere,” he noted.

Meanwhile, General Secretary of the Brotherhood Godfrey Perkins told reporters that the church wanted to “recapture the intention and interest of those of our members who have been away from the fold for a considerable amount of time”.

Against this background, he said the church would be placing special focus on “our young men, as much of the crime and violence and anti-social activities of our time are mainly carried out by our men”.

Perkins said the church was “looking at new strategies, new tactics to communicate, motivate and bring back into sound thinking and sound teaching, persons who were formerly of the church”.

Referring to what he called the “rumblings in the Anglican communion at this time”, Perkins said it was important that the public at large be reminded of what the Anglican Church stood for “against the background of all that is happening elsewhere”.