Global Anglicans Issue Statement: ‘We Cannot Walk Together’ with Apostate Anglicans in Church of England
Following the February 2023 decision to bless and affirm same-sex mirage by the Church of England, the global conference of Conservative Anglicans, GAFCON, has issued the Kigali Commitment, a scathing response to the apostasy that has inundated the Church of England.
The conference issued the statement from its annual conference, which was held in Kigali, Rwanda. GAFCON, which describes itself as a “spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it,” rebuked Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the actions that led to the apostasy of the Church of England synod.
“We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture. The Instruments of Communion have failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ. All four Instruments propose that the way ahead for the Anglican Communion is to learn to walk together in ‘good disagreement.’
However, we reject the claim that two contradictory positions can both be valid in matters affecting salvation. We cannot ‘walk together’ in good disagreement with those who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). The people of God ’walk in his ways,’ ‘walk in the truth,’ and ‘walk in the light,’ all of which require that we do not walk in Christian fellowship with those in darkness (Deuteronomy 8:6; 2 John 4; 1 John 1:7).
Successive Archbishops of Canterbury have failed to guard the faith by inviting bishops to Lambeth who have embraced or promoted practices contrary to Scripture. This failure of church discipline has been compounded by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who has himself welcomed the provision of liturgical resources to bless these practices contrary to Scripture. This renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible.”
Past GAFCON statements have not merely contained their criticism of the Church of England. In its 2008 Jerusalem Statement, GAFCON extended their rebuke to the Episcopal Church USA, Anglican Church of Canada, and all other branches of international Anglicanism that have abandoned orthodox faith for a false gospel that has left churches “compromised and enfeebled in their witness.”
“The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8), which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death, and judgment. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.
The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses, and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold.
The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honor promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined, and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure.’”
Ironically, the apostate leaders of the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Churches of England and Canada, the kind of enlightened leftists who have embraced the wokest form of woke that one could possibly smoke by embracing LGBTQ madness as a form of “diversity,” are now being called out for treating their sister churches in Africa and Asia as mere colonies of Western Anglicanism.
The current situation in Anglicanism closely mirrors the situation within the United Methodist Church, where apostate American bishops insist on maintaining political control by limiting the influence of conservative churches in Africa and Asia. Western Anglicans should heed the Jerusalem Statement and Kigali Commitment of GAFCON.
The adherence to orthodoxy does not receive its validity because it comes from a particular continent or a particular ethnic group. Rather, The Truth of the one true Gospel of Jesus Christ is true whether it continues to come from the Western missionaries, who brought the gospel to the developing world over the past centuries, or whether the flow reverses and the world is evangelized by the believers of Asia and Africa. Perhaps God will use the poor and humble conservative Anglican believers of the third world to shame the leftist heterodox, pride-drunk Western Anglican Church. If that is God’s plan, may it be so for his glory.
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
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Godly, strong men – praise God.
How long before the Anglican. Church is larger in Africa than in Great Britain ?
Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
Quit bearing false witness, child. And in continuing in that sin, you are not demonstrating any love whatsoever. Quit posting using other people’s name. Pick your own screen name.