GAFCON Meeting Could Reshape the Anglican Communion
by Kirk Petersen,The Living Church:
More than 1,250 theologically conservative Anglican leaders from 40 countries around the world are preparing to meet in Kigali, Rwanda, for a five-day conference that seems likely to result in a further repudiation of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the primus inter pares of the Anglican Communion.
To a significant degree, the repudiation has already occurred – but the issue has taken on a new urgency. The fourth Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), long scheduled for April 17-21, will be barely two months after the Church of England General Synod voted to authorize prayers of blessing for same-sex unions.
In response, GAFCON declared “several churches and provinces are considering their future with respect to the Church of England,” and noted that the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) – a separate but overlapping group of conservative provinces – “have already declared that they are in impaired communion with the Church of England and said that they do not recognize the present Archbishop of Canterbury as the “first among equals” leader of the global Anglican Communion.” Part of the meeting in Rwanda will focus on developing and gaining buy-in for a formal statement on the relationship with Canterbury.
The Church of England vote in February stops well short of steps taken in recent years by the Episcopal Church, which fully authorizes marriage rites for same-sex couples. But the Church of England is the mother church, inextricably linked to the Communion by the very word “Anglican,” and conservative provinces see the vote as a powerful affront. The General Synod vote also drew harsh criticism from LGBT activists and allies, for whom nothing short of full marriage equality is acceptable.
For his part, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has attempted to thread the needle by saying he will not personally bless same-sex unions, while also declaring himself “extremely joyful” at the vote.
Welby has accepted the reality that his office’s role as one of four “Instruments of Communion” almost certainly will be diminished. At a February meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council – which is another of the Instruments – he said “I will not cling to place or position. I hold it very lightly, provided that the other Instruments of the Communion choose the new shape — that we are not dictated to by people, blackmailed, bribed, to do what others want us to do.” The two remaining Instruments are the roughly decennial Lambeth Conference, held most recently in 2022, and the Primates’ Meeting, which gathers at various intervals around the world, most recently in London in 2022.
The Anglican Communion is potentially on the precipice of major structural change, and the upcoming meeting in Rwanda may play a significant role.
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