by David Virtue, VOL
Is GAFCON and GSFA the future of the Anglican Communion? //TEC Faces Decline and Canon Application Failures. CofE Faces Evangelical Failures and Backlash to Woman Archbishop Appointment//ACNA leadership failures//Continuing Church Mergers
2025 was not a year to remember or repeat. The steady drumbeat of “reset” and “realignment” continued with a fractured communion. The West and North moved further away from the gospel, even as the Global South embraced the faith with greater intensity.
As the West embraced the culture and ditched the Bible, provinces like Nigeria embraced the gospel and the pain of persecution while adding 15 new dioceses, even as their people were being slaughtered by Islamic terrorists. By contrast The Episcopal Church merged dioceses as their numbers fell and parishes closed.
Western Anglicanism is not worth dying for; there is nothing in it worth saving. It has been hollowed out by years of compromise with the culture over (homo)sex and a refusal to believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father. The Great Commission has long been decommissioned.
One is reminded of the words of Jesus; “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven. …” Western Anglicanism is frightened of its own spiritual and theological shadow. It fears rebuttal… if you stand for nothing you will fall for anything and that is the state of our Anglican churches in the West today. Western Anglicanism pays lip service to the creeds, refuses to accept the full authority of scripture and wonders why its pews are empty. Sodomite marriages have not filled pews.
ALL IS NOT LOST
On October 16, 2025, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) issued a bold statement declaring “the future has arrived.” In this declaration, GAFCON announced it had single handedly reordered the Anglican Communion, rejecting the traditional Instruments of Communion and establishing itself as the authentic expression of global Anglicanism.
The GAFCON reset of the Anglican Communion aims to restore biblical authority and has declared that the Anglican Communion will be reordered as a fellowship of autonomous provinces. Many orthodox provinces have expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the Anglican Communion, particularly following the election of Sarah Mullally as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury.
Global South leaders claim to represent up to eighty-five percent of practicing Anglicans worldwide with GAFCON positioning itself as the guardian of biblical orthodoxy against the revisionist agenda of Canterbury and the Western provinces.
While there is talk of a formal schism with the West, that seems not to be on the cards. The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) has been clear in its disapproval of Western Anglican innovations particularly in response to the Church of England’s decisions regarding same-sex blessings and the appointment of Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman leader in the church’s 1,400-year history. She is viewed as progressive (revisionist) on a number of issues but especially sexuality, which has alienated her from the vast majority of the Anglican Communion’s bishops.
However, the GSFA, which has overlapping bishops with their GAFCON brethren, are committed to maintaining the unity of the visible church and the fabric of the Anglican Communion. They will remain true to the historic faith, the Anglican formularies, the authority of Scripture and sexual morality, honoring the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1:10.
GAFCON will represent the future of Anglicanism in terms of numerical strength and global reach.