As the GAFCON statement affirms: that future has now arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is this future for Anglicanism? Three points stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statement says the Anglican Communion will now rest on a single foundation: the Holy Bible, \u201ctranslated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense.\u201d This is a deliberate echo of the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura<\/em><\/a>. In other words, unity is no longer defined by loyalty to Canterbury or participation in Anglican institutions but by submission to Scripture as God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement names and rejects the so-called \u201cInstruments of Communion\u201d\u2014the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates\u2019 Meeting. Why? Because they have consistently failed to uphold biblical truth, especially following the 1998 Lambeth Resolution I.10<\/a> which affirmed that Christian marriage is between a man and a woman. These \u201cInstruments,\u201d while once helpful, have fallen into revisionism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement emphasizes that GAFCON has not left<\/em> the Anglican Communion. Instead, it claims the original vision: a fellowship of autonomous provinces united by the gospel and the Reformation formularies. This was how the first Lambeth Conference in 1867 understood Anglicanism and what held member provinces together in unity\u2014before the so-called \u201cInstruments\u201d turned Canterbury into the sine qua non <\/em>of what it means to be Anglican. Now, GAFCON says, the center of the Communion is not a person or an office, but the Word of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In place of the old \u201cInstruments,\u201d Gafcon proposes a Council of Primates (archbishops) from all provinces that affirm the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, with a primus inter pares<\/em> (\u201cfirst among equals\u201d) serving as chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> Despite 25 years of warnings by most Anglican primates, repeated departures from the authority of God\u2019s word have torn the fabric of the Communion.2. Rejection of Failed Instruments<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
3. Return to the Original Model<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2014The Kigali Commitment https:\/\/t.co\/eESYLlpxWM<\/a><\/p>— The Gospel Coalition (@TGC) April 25, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>