{"id":298897,"date":"2025-11-18T10:22:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/298897\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:22:13","slug":"global-anglican-ties-are-under-stress-its-unclear-if-theyre-at-the-breaking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/298897\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Anglican ties are under stress. It’s unclear if they’re at the breaking point"},"content":{"rendered":"

After decades of fierce controversies over sexuality and theology in the Anglican Communion, some leaders of a conservative coalition<\/a> say it\u2019s time to make a final break from what has long been one of the world\u2019s largest Protestant church families.<\/p>\n

That would make a slow-growing Anglican schism complete \u2014 if it happens.<\/p>\n

But how many church provinces go along with the rupture remains to be seen. Some of the communion\u2019s largest and fastest-growing churches in Africa belong to the conservative group that announced the break \u2014 known as the Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon. But several member churches have been silent on the plan, weeks after it was announced.<\/p>\n

Gafcon\u2019s announcement came shortly after the October appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally<\/a> as the first woman to be archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion\u2019s symbolic spiritual leader. Many in England and other Western countries hailed this as a historic breaking of a stained-glass ceiling.<\/p>\n

But leaders of Gafcon criticized the appointment, as did some other bishops. Some said only men should be bishops, but their bigger criticism was her support for some LGBTQ+-inclusive policies \u2014 the key fault line in the communion.<\/p>\n

Within days of Mullally\u2019s appointment, Gafcon issued another declaration. It completely rejected the Anglican Communion as it has been structured historically. That structure has included a set of governing and advisory bodies and recognition of the archbishop of Canterbury as a symbolic \u201cfirst among equals\u201d among leaders of self-governing national churches, known as provinces. Since provinces are self-governing, the archbishop\u2019s authority is highly limited.<\/p>\n

The \u201dfuture has arrived,\u201d said Gafcon\u2019s chairman, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, in its October statement. \u201cWe declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered.\u201d His statement decried churches it said had violated a 1998 statement by the communion\u2019s bishops, opposing same-sex unions and describing \u201chomosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gafcon proclaimed what it calls a restructured \u201cGlobal Anglican Communion.\u201d It would be overseen by a new council of top national bishops, or primates. Whoever is elected chairman would be \u201cfirst among equals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncertainty as to how large a breakaway could be<\/p>\n

The question remains is: How many Gafcon members are actually going along with this plan, and how many want to remain in the existing Anglican Communion as a loyal opposition?<\/p>\n

Primates of Africa\u2019s two largest national provinces, Nigeria and Uganda, have joined their Rwandan counterpart in endorsing the measure, according to Bishop Paul Donison, Gafcon\u2019s general secretary. So have smaller churches ranging from Myanmar to the Americas.<\/p>\n

Nigeria Archbishop Henry Ndukuba confirmed his church\u2019s endorsement of Gafcon\u2019s plan. He called Mullally\u2019s stances on same-sex issues \u201cdevastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis election is a further confirmation that the global Anglican world could no longer accept the leadership of the Church of England and that of the Archbishop of Canterbury,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Donison said Gafcon\u2019s statement was drafted at a meeting in Australia, which included several church leaders on Zoom, though several others did not participate. Gafcon\u2019s statement said its bishops would \u201cconfer and celebrate\u201d restructuring at their next major meeting, scheduled this March in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Among those signing on to the Gafcon statement is the conservative Anglican Church in North America, formed in a break from the more liberal U.S. and Canadian churches.<\/p>\n

The Gafcon move will \u201cmark a decisive moment in the life of the Anglican family,\u201d said ACNA Archbishop Stephen Wood, in a statement issued shortly before he took a leave of absence<\/a> amid allegations of sexual and other misconduct, which he denies.<\/p>\n

The Anglican primate of Congo is committed to maintaining Anglican ties.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Archbishop Georges Titre Ande decried liberal trends in some churches but added: \u201cThe Anglican Church of Congo has no intention to leave the Anglican Communion, rather to keep working … to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion without leaving it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tensions have been worsening for many years<\/p>\n

The communion consists of churches descended from the Church of England. Anglicanism, with its unique mix of Protestant theology and Catholic-like ritual and sacraments<\/a>, spread worldwide via colonial and missionary activity. It is especially vibrant in Africa. The London-based communion<\/a> estimates it has about 85 million members across 165 countries.<\/p>\n

Simmering tensions in Anglicanism exploded after 2003, when the U.S. Episcopal Church ordained its first of several openly gay bishops<\/a>. Conservatives formed Gafcon and other structures. Large provinces such as Uganda\u2019s and Nigeria\u2019s have largely stopped participating in traditional Anglican structures.<\/p>\n

The Anglican Communion itself is weighing a proposed new structuring that would de-emphasize Canterbury and share leadership roles more widely.<\/p>\n

The proposals \u201cwon\u2019t solve all the differences in the Anglican Communion, but they do seek to provide a structure within which people of deeply different convictions can remain in good conscience within that Communion,\u201d said Bishop Graham Tomlin, chair of the committee that drafted the proposals. The plan will be aired before an advisory council next year.<\/p>\n

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe<\/a> of the Episcopal Church said the latest Gafcon statement was \u201cmore of the same\u201d from a subgroup that has largely disengaged from the Anglican Communion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a pretty clear agenda here, which I don\u2019t think has very much to do with the church,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really interested in being in relationship with people who want to continue our relationships across the communion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vocal unhappiness over a female leader<\/p>\n

Even if the communion remains intact, its profound divisions surfaced with Mullally\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

Mullally has affirmed the Church of England\u2019s current definition of church marriage as between a man and a woman, but she supported a plan for blessings of same-sex couples and has acknowledged<\/a> \u201cthe harm that we have done\u201d as a church to LGBTQ+ people.<\/p>\n

Homosexuality remains taboo in many African countries, in some cases criminalized under colonial-era laws or newer legislation. Uganda enacted legislation in 2023 prescribing the death penalty for some homosexual offenses.<\/p>\n

Stephen Kaziimba, Uganda\u2019s archbishop, lamented Mullally\u2019s \u201csupport and advocacy for unbiblical positions on sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her appointment widened \u201cthe tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion,\u201d Kaziimba added in a letter to Anglicans.<\/p>\n

Bishop Lukas Katenda, leader of the conservative Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of Namibia, a Gafcon-aligned faction independent of the Church of England, dismissed Mullally\u2019s appointment as \u201ca joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is not a person to look up to for evangelism, for mission, for proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for winning souls or to call people for repentance,\u201d Katenda told The Namibian newspaper.<\/p>\n

When the Anglican Diocese of Upper Shire in Malawi shared the Gafcon statement criticizing the appointment of Mullally on its Facebook page, it attracted approving comments from followers who said \u201cAmen.\u201d However, the diocese also reposted a statement from the general secretary of the Anglican Communion, urging it to stay together.<\/p>\n

In Accra, Ghana, Patrick Okaijah-Bortier, parish priest of St. Andrew Anglican Church, said many clergy in his country were unhappy about Mullally, notably because of her support for same-sex blessings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is worrying,\u201d he said. \u201cIf she pushes this agenda, she may end up losing almost all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another cleric in Accra, Georgina Naa Anyema Collison of the St. Joseph the Worker Anglican Church, said she supported Mullally\u2019s appointment because \u201cI\u2019m a female\u201d yet opposed her position on same-sex unions.<\/p>\n

But in South Africa, where same-sex marriages are legal<\/a>, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, offered \u201cwarm congratulations\u201d to Mullally. In another statement, Makgoba\u2019s office said he is focused on interfaith peacemaking efforts and \u201chas neither the time nor any interest in engaging with these internal Anglican differences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After decades of fierce controversies over sexuality and theology in the Anglican Communion, some leaders of a conservative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-298897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}