There are about 100 million Anglicans in the world, thanks to the British Empire, which brought the Church of England to all corners of the world, resulting in one of the largest Protestant denominations in the world. But as many as 85% of global Anglicans, concerned with the theological and moral liberalism of the mother church, have just declared themselves out of fellowship with the Church of England.
Now the Church of England has announced that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the head of world Anglicanism, will be Dame Sarah Mullally, the first woman to ever hold that office. Many GAFCON churches reject women’s ordination, let alone female bishops, but Mullally was also one of the leaders of the pro-LGBTQ initiative and is an open supporter of abortion. Moreover the new Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, a lesbian, became the first openly LGBTQ bishop in the Anglican Communion.
When that happened, the head of GAFCON At the time, Rwanda released a statement saying Vann’s election “shatters the communion.”
And now, a new communion is emerging. The GAFCON bishops decided to break fellowship with Canterbury. In doing so, they insist that they are the true Anglicans. Here are the eight principles from the official statement:
1. We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion.
2. We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
3. We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
4. Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.
5. Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.
6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.
7. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.
8. We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
Think of that: “We are now the Global Anglican Communion“! And why not? Why should 15% of the church–who happen to be theologically and morally liberal, Western, and affluent–rule the 85% who still hold to the faith that was taught to them by the missionaries? Sounds like privilege, colonialism, and racism, all of which I thought liberals were against! And aren’t the ones who believe in a particular theological tradition better representatives of that tradition than those who no longer believe in it but hold high offices in its institutions?
“This signifies a new epoch in the history of Anglicanism,” observes Stephen Wedgewood in World. “No longer a collection of churches descended from England, Anglicans are now a global communion led from Africa.”
There is more to be said about this seismic development in global Christianity, and we will say more about it in tomorrow’s post.
I want us to consider the Jerusalem Declaration, which GAFCON has made “the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.” I wonder if there are lessons here for other Christian traditions, for those that have devolved into generic liberal mainline Protestantism and also for those that have kept their confessional identity.
Photo: Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, via GAFCON
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