Are the foundations of the Global South secure? An appeal to the Global South Fellowship and Gafcon
by Stephen Noll, Anglican Ink:
Twice in the past six months, prominent Anglican theologians have written articles questioning the formularies of Global South entities: Gafcon and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GFSA). Both articles appeared in the online edition of First Things. While First Things is a highly reputable “journal of religion and public life,” it has largely ignored the movements of global Anglicanism and in turn seldom read by Global Anglicans. It is important now that these articles be read carefully and discussed by Anglican leaders worldwide.
The first article, written by Professors Hans Boersma, Greg Peters, and Gerald McDermott, all affiliated with Forward in Faith USA, is titled “Is the Anglican ‘Reset’ Truly Anglican?” The authors question the Anglican bona fides of GAFCON IV’s “Kigali Commitment.” I have previously written a reply to this article, and while I am somewhat sympathetic to the critique of Kigali’s expression that Scripture “is its own interpreter,” I find more problematic these critics’ claim that “without tradition as norm and guide, the canonical context and clarity of Scripture are meaningless” and that “a sola scriptura hermeneutic, which fails to recognize the Bible’s origin in the ancient Church and its authoritative interpretation by the Church fathers and creeds, opens the way to a liberal method in which every reader serves as his own authority.”
I propose as a kind of “via media” between these views the more authoritative clause from the Gafcon Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, which states:
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