Historic Statement Issued
GAFCON, the Global Anglican Future Conference, meeting at GAFCON IV in Kigali, Rwanda, has created and released an historic statement.(1)(2)
In 1534 the Church of England was created via the Act of Supremacy. King Henry VIII wanted an annulment to his marriage but the pope had refused to grant it. The King of England was made the supreme head of the Church of England. Effectively, the pope had been fired as the head of the English church. Today, April 21, 2023, about 489 years later, the bishops of the global south effectively fired Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the accepted head of the Anglican Church.
The Church of England is a subset of the Anglican communion, comprising some 26 million baptised members, although the actual number of active adherents is understood to be less than half of the book membership.
Approximately 85 million members globally make up the Anglican communion. However, around 80% of the church's fellowship reside in the global south, which was where GAFCON was formed. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Justin Welby) as the "first among equals" was considered the leader of the church. But Welby's refusal to prevent the Church of England from approving same-sex blessings at its February 9, 2023 meeting led the global south to declare they had no confidence in him and that the idea that he could continue to lead the church was now indefensible.(3)
Global South bishops had warned over and over that LGBT inroads in the Church of England were entirely unacceptable to the broader church, and urged a change of course. But the cultural overflow proved more than the Church of England could bear. Almost certainly knowing their action would disinegrate any remaining unity, they proceeded to approve same-sex blessings. GAFCON responded exactly as was to be expected. The Anglican communion has at last more formally split.
The denomination has always been organized more loosely than some other churches. The center will no longer be the English church, which is shrinking, but the global south portion of the church, which continues to rapidly grow.
Lessons for Adventists
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is much more tightly interconnected than the Anglican communion. Nevertheless, there are very important lessons here to be learned.
The immediate history of the past few decades has seen very substantial denominational splitting and reconstitution, almost always over the same constellation of issues involving women in ministry and LGBTQ accommodation. What we see is the repeated failure of leadership of churches to resist the inflow of ideas which are clearly antichristian. Instead, there is a constant stream of compromise and accommodation. There is an almost automatic blindness to the power of ungodly culture to reshape the church. But there are always those who seek to be faithful, who become Mordecai's in the gate for the go-along, get-along crew so commonly in control. Then those who attempt to stand for truth are usually harried out of the church as unloving heretics, the leadership bends to the culture, the church is hollowed out, and a reformation happens among those desiring to be faithful to Jesus.
The church thinks it is strong but is already well advanced in blindness. Then comes the testing moment, and the church fails. As the church’s commitment to truth fails, its recourse to bullying and misuse of authority usually ramps up.
Let us pray that no such fate befalls God's remnant church in these rapidly moving days of testing.
Notes
1. https://www.gafcon.org/news/gafcon-iv-the-kigali-commitment
2. Several sentences from the statement are reproduced in this video report. https://youtu.be/0vik_kAffWo
3. https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/prayers-gods-blessing-same-sex-couples-take-step-forward-after-synod
