Two Paths Forward: What ACC-19 reveals about the nature of the Anglican Communion

At The American Anglican Council, Canon Mark Eldredge considers the just-completed meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (of the old Anglican Communion) –

“The recent meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-19) once again brought into focus a question Anglicans have wrestled with for years: What truly holds the Anglican Communion together?

News coverage of the meeting understandably focused on discussions surrounding the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals and the differing perspectives expressed by delegates from across the Communion, but beneath the procedural debates lies a much deeper issue. The real question isn’t simply whether the Communion should adjust its governing structures but whether genuine communion can exist apart from a shared commitment to the apostolic faith. …

We are told that there’s been ‘little evidence of widespread support for GAFCON’s plan to leave the Anglican Communion,’ even while the article [by the Episcopal News Service] acknowledges that Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, and other provinces have continued to absent themselves from Canterbury-led gatherings. Both realities are stated in the same sentence! I can’t help but wonder if the Episcopal News Service reporter was being willfully ignorant or not. The ‘little evidence’ of GAFCON support includes the absentee provinces that make up most of the world’s Anglicans! Whether one agrees with every aspect of GAFCON’s vision or not, the continued absence of these GAFCON provinces signals that the present tensions aren’t ‘little’ or temporary. They reflect convictions that developed over many years concerning doctrine, authority, and the future of Anglican witness, and they can’t be ignored. …”

– Read it all.

See also:

Should the ACC Endorse the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals? – Bishop Glenn Davies writes at The Living Church (this was published before ACC-19) –

“In December 2024, the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order (IASCUFO) released The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals: Renewing the Instruments of the Anglican Communion, with a Supplementary Report released in March 2026. It was two years in the writing, having been commissioned by the 18th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), in response to the 2022 Lambeth Conference Call on Anglican Identity. The reports will be considered by the Anglican Consultative Council at its meeting in Belfast in June 2026. …”

As part of his conclusion, Bishop Davies argues,

“Unfortunately, neither proposal meets the challenge of the hour. The changes to the 1930 Resolution, as outlined above, actually weaken the definition of the nature of the Communion as a fellowship of Churches bound by Holy Scripture, as successive Lambeth Conferences have affirmed.”

– Read it all.

Graphic – The ACC-19 logo, via the Anglican Communion website.

Anglican Consultative Council refuses to give up Ecclesiastical power

“Why are we not surprised?

The 19th Anglican Consultative Council, meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland, voted 72–8 on July 4 to leave the Archbishop of Canterbury’s role as the spiritual and ecclesiastical figurehead of the Anglican Communion untouched. Delegates declined to adopt the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals — the most serious attempt in a generation to reckon with post-colonial reality — and called instead for three more years of ‘discernment and conversation.’

Three more years! When the ecclesiastical establishment wants to kill something, it does not shoot it; it studies it to death. The Windsor Report, the Anglican Covenant, the ‘listening process,’ Indaba — the graveyard of Anglican reform is littered with commissions, consultations and continuing conversations, and now the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals join them in the long grass. The ACC will not even take the matter up again until its next meeting in 2029, hosted by the Church of North India. By then the question may well have answered itself. …

There were voices in Belfast who saw it clearly. The Rev. Berthier Lainirina of the Province of the Indian Ocean warned the council that without structural change, his province and other orthodox churches might conclude they no longer have any place in the Communion at all, lamenting that delegates preferred to pretend all was well when it manifestly is not. …”

– David Virtue comments on the not-surprising lack of action by the 19th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, part of the old Anglican Communion.

Photo: ACC Members, Commission and Network Representatives, Staff and ecumenical guests at ACC-19.

Credit, Neil Turner, Anglican Communion News Service.

Authentic Anglicanism: Stewarding our rich heritage

“I write as a lay Anglican, and also as an academic historian.

I shall firstly address a broad cultural issue which underscores why I believe the Authentic Anglicanism Report is not only timely, but also acutely necessary. I shall then offer a reflection on the enduring richness of authentic Anglicanism, which is something we ought to steward.

This richness of authentic Anglicanism is correctly summarised in the report in four elements – the primacy of Scripture, the confessional basis of our tradition, the liturgical character that ties our confessional doctrine to our lived practices, and an episcopal governance to safeguard the truth of the faith. …”

– The Australian Church Record features on their website this article by Sarah Irving-Stonebraker which was first published in their Easter 2026 Journal.

Analysis: The Abuja “Contradiction” That Isn’t

We didn’t link to the article by Jay Thomas at First Things yesterday, it didn’t seem profitable. However, if you happen to have read it, George Conger at Anglican Ink has published a very clear and helpful rebuttal.

“Jay Thomas’s recent First Things essay ‘Anglicans and the Abuja Contradiction’ purports to expose fatal logical flaws in GAFCON’s Jerusalem Declaration.

In reality, it reveals something far more interesting: how easily appeals to ‘Anglican tradition’ can mask fundamentally un-Anglican premises. Thomas’s argument doesn’t just fail—it fails instructively, demonstrating precisely why orthodox Anglicans found GAFCON necessary in the first place.

Thomas’s thesis is straightforward: GAFCON stands guilty of rank hypocrisy.…”

– Read George’s response here.

Related:

The Thirty Nine Articles.

The Jerusalem Declaration.

Photo: G26 at Abuja, via SydneyAnglicans.net.

Judging the Unrighteous — Exclusion from the kingdom of heaven

From Phillip Jensen –

“If ever there is a passage of the Bible that has caused controversy and division today, it is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

There is not much doubt as to what the passage says or means, yet the application of this passage in the church and in society has led to great conflict.

In today’s episode, Peter outlines something of the background of the conflict within the Anglican Communion over the last two decades, before we turn to the real pastoral importance of this passage in the lives of the leaders.”

– Peter and Phillip Jensen discuss this very sobering topic at Two Ways News.

MISSING: Twelve Primates – The Real Story of the Installation

From Anglican Futures –

“The Anglican Communion is made up of forty-two autonomous provinces who are meant to work together. They are aided in this by four ‘Instruments of Communion’, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is one. It is no secret that for decades the Anglican Communion has been riven with disagreement over the authority of the Scriptures and the inability of the Instruments of Communion to maintain discipline and uphold Anglican doctrine.

Today, at the Installation of the Most Revd Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, the extent and seriousness of that division was laid bare. All the pomp and ceremony could not hide the fact that the leaders of twelve of those forty-two provinces had refused to attend the service.

More importantly, those twelve provinces represented the leadership of the vast majority of Gafcon and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) and by any reckoning the majority of the world’s Anglicans. Those who stayed away were…”

– Anglican Futures points out that most of the world’s Anglicans were not represented. Indeed, many of the world’s Anglicans may be unaware of the increasingly irrelevant event in Canterbury.

Related:

All Gafcon and at least most GSFA Primates passed the test of staying away from Archbishop of Canterbury consecration – John Sandeman at The Other Cheek.

Photo: Neil Turner / Lambeth Palace.

“How to reconcile a fractious Anglican Church”

From The Religion and Ethics Report at ABC Radio –

“The world’s 85 million Anglicans have a new spiritual leader, as Dame Sarah Mullally officially begins her term as Archbishop of Canterbury.

She’s first woman to hold the position.

But her historic appointment has highlighted divisions in the Anglican world, including in Australia, where some conservatives have rejected her leadership.

GUEST: Bishop Mark Short of the Canberra-Goulburn diocese is the new primate of the Anglican Church of Australia. It’s his job to try to reconcile a fractious church.”

– Listen here.

Dr. Glenn Davies and the Future of Anglican Communion in relation to GAFCON

In the latest Australian Presbyterian Profiles in Christian Living, Mark Powell speaks with Glenn Davies, the Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Cross, about the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion and GAFCON.

While this was recorded in late October, it’s just been published.

– Watch here.

GAFCON to Re-Order Communion — Anglican Unscripted with Bishop Paul Donison

In the latest edition of Anglican Unscripted (number 945!), Kevin Kallsen interviews Gafcon General Secretary Bishop Paul Donison.

If you missed Bishop Donison’s recent Australian tour, this is the next best thing.

– Watch here.

Centre of gravity shifts from Canterbury to Abuja – with Paul Donison

From The Pastor’s Heart, a special edition featuring an interview with Gafcon General Secretary Bishop Paul Donison –

“Paul Donison responds to global reaction to Gafcon’s reset of the Anglican Communion and its declaration that Canterbury’s time is over.

The Lord is removing his Spirit from the Canterbury–Lambeth lampstand, and the centre of global Anglicanism is shifting from London to Africa.

The average Anglican today is not English, not Western, not male — she’s a young African woman in her twenties, probably Nigerian. The Anglican Communion is now catching up with that reality.

Since the Gafcon Primates’ announcement on 16 October 2025 — declaring that Canterbury is out and that the Bible will be the foundation document for a reordered Global Anglican Communion — reaction has been electric: claims of schism, conflict in Ireland, tensions in ACNA, questions about women’s orders, realignments in England, silence from some primates, and fresh courage from others.

And what does this mean for a blended province like Australia?

Gafcon General Secretary Paul Donison joins us with an update on plans for the Global Bishops Gathering in Abuja, Nigeria, 3–6 March 2026.”

– Watch or listen here.

Bishop Donison is speaking at Moore College on Wednesday night at 7:30pm:

Reformation Revisited — Gafcon Australia

Here’s an announcement from the Board of Gafcon Australia, 31 October 2025 (Reformation Day):

“Dear brothers and sisters,

On 16 October the Gafcon Primates Council released a statement about the Global Anglican Communion. In this statement, they announced a ‘reordering of the Anglican Communion’ centred on the Bible. As the Gafcon Australia Board, we welcome this announcement and look forward to working with our brothers and sisters around the world to reorder the Communion.

Gafcon has been calling the Instruments of Communion (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting) to repent of their drift from historic, biblical Christian teaching since 2008. In the absence of such repentance and in light of the continued direction of the Canterbury Communion, they have decided that it is time for decisive action.

The Gafcon Primates Council have now officially rejected the Instruments of Communion …

The Anglican Church of Australia remains ‘in Communion’ with the See of Canterbury by virtue of our Constitution. That can only be changed by the General Synod with the agreement of three quarters of all the Dioceses, including all five Metropolitan Dioceses.

That is unlikely to occur in the near future. However, our ‘fellowship’ with Canterbury and other Anglican Churches has been seriously impaired for some time. …”

– Read it all here.

Key Gafcon stories from the last week

In case you missed them, here are some key posts related to last week’s Gafcon announcement. Each will open in a new window  –

The Future Has Arrived — Gafcon Communique 16 October 2025.

Enough’s Enough! — A Bible-Centred Reordering of Global Anglicanism — The Pastor’s Heart with Archbishop Laurent Mbanda.

A Long Awaited Future – Dr Mark Thompson.

The Anglican future is here – SydneyAnglicans.net with a Media Release from Bishop Peter Hayward, Commissary for the Archbishop of Sydney.

Gafcon Reboots the Communion – Anglican Unscripted.

The patience of Gafcon – some historical background.

The Future of Anglicanism Has Arrived: What GAFCON’s Statement Means for Evangelicals – Gafcon General Secretary Bishop Paul Donison.

Sydney Standing Committee welcomes Gafcon announcement – SydneyAnglicans.net.

Gafcon photo.

GAFCON Anglicans Seek to Lead, Who will Follow?

“A group of leading Anglican traditionalists this month announced a reordering of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Top bishops (primates) of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), a renewal movement composed of both historic Anglican provinces and newly inaugurated Anglican churches, are seeking to bind the Anglican family not around a common tie to the See of Canterbury but around shared theological commitments. Among them the centrality of holy scripture. …”

– While we might not warm to the ‘traditionalists’ label, Jeffrey Walton at Juicy Ecumenism finds ‘encouragement in this month’s necessary step’.

The Future of Anglicanism Has Arrived: What GAFCON’s Statement Means for Evangelicals

“On October 16, the anniversary of the martyrdom of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, the leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) released a statement beginning with the striking words: ‘The future has arrived.‘

For many outside Anglicanism, this may sound like insider church politics. But the statement represents something much larger: a historic reordering of the Anglican Communion that has profound significance for global evangelicalism. …”

– On Saturday, Australian time, The Gospel Coalition published this piece by Gafcon General Secretary Bishop Paul Donison.

He shares a way forward for those who find themselves in provinces or diocese who do not align with the Global Anglican Communion.

Photo: Bishop Paul Donison, courtesy Gafcon.

The patience of Gafcon

Historical perspective is always important.

The background to the Gafcon Communique of October 16 2025 is more than 17 years of patience on the part of the Gafcon Primates and biblically faithful Anglicans around the world.

And that first Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in 2008 came after many years of calling Anglican leaders in England, Scotland, Wales, Canada and the United States back to the Scriptures.

In late 2007, Archbishop Peter Jensen outlined, for Sydney readers, the reason for a Global Anglican Future Conference.

A few months later, in March 2008, St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney hosted a meeting explaining why Sydney Bishops would not be attending Lambeth that year.

In June 2008, the GAFCON Final Statement and The Jerusalem Declaration were released at the end of that first GAFCON gathering in Jerusalem.

Ten years ago, in March 2015, Archbishop Peter Jensen gave the Richard B. Gaffin Lecture at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. His topic was “Beginning in Jerusalem: The Theological Significance of the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference”. His address is essential viewing to understand the eternal issues involved. He explains the reasons for GAFCON, giving a glimpse into the pain involved, and the hope for the future.

Other relevant documents can be accessed from our Reference Documents and Press Releases page and in the “Anglican Communion” section of our Resources page.

All this historical background should lead us to do three things –

  1. Thank God for our leaders who value faithfulness to Christ and his Word over the lure of this world.
  2. Pray for godly wisdom for the road ahead, so that many will be saved and built up in Christ for the honour and praise of his Name.
  3. Be committed to the Scriptures and the work of the gospel.

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