On the evening of November 7, the ACNA announced that Sutton recused himself from the Wood matter “to ensure the utmost objectivity in these proceedings,” and that Sutton had appointed the Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs to appoint, in turn, a three-member panel of bishops to “review and approve the composition” of the already-selected Board of Inquiry.
“If the Board of Inquiry has already been impaneled, we have every reason to believe that Bishop Sutton was involved, [and] we have no reason to believe that such a board is trustworthy,” Miller told TLC. “As eager as we are to see this move quickly, a new board, organized without the involvement of the archbishop’s staff, nor of Bishop Sutton, will have to be appointed.”
“There’s no good moving quickly if you’re headed in the wrong direction,” he said, adding that Sutton’s recusal and the three-member panel’s future review of board members would be a “step in the right direction” if the panel members were known.
In addition to these new charges, the complainants’ cover letter criticizes communications by the ACNA’s provincial office and by some individual bishops that suggested the complainants took their allegations to the Post before attempting to use the canonical disciplinary channels of the church.
A timeline in the letter outlines the process the complainants say they followed. Claire Buxton, who alleges that Archbishop Wood made continual sexual advances toward her, alerted one priest of her complaint four days after Wood’s election in June 2024, and another priest a month later, who informed the Rt. Rev. Chip Edgar, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, the document said. Edgar’s diocese overlaps with Wood’s Diocese of the Carolinas.
New for @Livng_Church: Complainants say they tried to canonically advance accusations against ACNA Archbishop Steve Wood for more than a year, and question the possibility of a fair hearing while he retains his powers.https://t.co/pDcdtrUhGE
— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) November 8, 2025