Leading up to this event, African Anglicans said the situation in the global church had gotten worse since 2003. “We have a new Archbishop of Canterbury who is born again and has a testimony,” said Uganda’s Archbishop Stanley Ntagali. “I have personally met him and I like him very much. But, the problems in the communion are still there, and they don’t change just because there is a new global leader. In fact, 10 years later, the crisis has deepened.”
Many African Anglican conservatives draw inspiration for reform from the renowned East Africa revival, which started in Rwanda in the 1930s. “We need to learn from our history,” said Kenya’s Archbishop Eliud Wabukala. “Divisions about the Bible had spread to some missionary organizations in East Africa after the First World War, but the leaders of the East African Revival knew that there could be no true evangelism and no true revival unless the scriptures are allowed to speak as what they really are, the inspired Word of God.”