By David W. Virtue, Virtueonline
The push to form a rival Anglican Communion has reached a climax at the G26 gathering of primates meeting this week in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The move culminates more than 28 years of theological conflict over the authority of Scripture and human sexuality — disputes that have plagued the Communion through four successive Archbishops of Canterbury and now threaten to transform long-simmering divisions into a permanent split. GAFCON, which claims to speak for nearly 100 million Anglicans, represents the majority of the global church.
At the heart of the dispute lies Lambeth Resolution 1.10, passed at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which upholds marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman and affirms abstinence for those not called to marriage. Four archbishops — George Carey, Rowan Williams, Justin Welby, and now Sarah Mullally — have each failed to hold the Communion together. The institution today lies in tatters, as Global South primates move to reconstitute it along orthodox lines.
At the four-day conference now underway in Abuja, GAFCON — a global movement of “authentic Anglicans, guarding God’s gospel” — plans to elect its own “first among equals,” just weeks before Archbishop Mullally’s formal installation at Canterbury Cathedral. The timing is no coincidence.