GAFCON POTENTIALLY FATAL FLAWS

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COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

March 7, 2026

G26 in Abuja: High Expectations, Muted Results

A UK Anglican blog known for its orthodoxy observed that what emerged from GAFCON’s mini-conference (G26) in Abuja, Nigeria was a “terribly British” way of doing business.

The Anglican Futures writer noted that many had expected a rival to the newly appointed Archbishop Sarah Mullally—a pro-pansexual, progressive woman bishop and former head nurse—to emerge, along with a rival communion. Anticipation was high.

Instead, a triumvirate was announced—with no primus inter pares to compete with the occupant of Lambeth Palace. As the writer observed, “The initial response was muted. Many feared that once again orthodox Anglicans had been marched to the top of the hill, only to be marched back down again”—a reference to the “Grand Old Duke of York” nursery rhyme. It seemed GAFCON’s bark was worse than its bite, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury had little to fear.

The result is rule by committee. Three men will now lead the newly formed communion: a Rwandan archbishop, a Brazilian archbishop, and an American bishop. The latter, Paul Donison, is essentially a public relations operative—all flare, little substance.

GAFCON is clear that it is “reordering” the Anglican Communion—not breaking away, nor executing a takeover, since there is nothing to take over. The Anglican Communion is, at heart, merely a set of relationships between provinces and between dioceses within provinces. It is at the diocesan and provincial level that episcopal and archepiscopal jurisdiction plays out, not at the level of the broader communion.

The Problem with Conciliarism

The approach taken by GAFCON is a conciliar one that has little basis in Anglican ecclesiology. Anglicanism is confessional, acknowledging Scripture as primary, alongside the Thirty-Nine Articles and the two sacraments.

A number of scholars have challenged this direction, including Dean Chuck Collins, who has spent over 40 years in Episcopal and Anglican circles, and the distinguished Anglican scholar Dr. Gillis Harp.

Anglican theologian Philip Edgecombe Hughes (1915–1990) also weighed in on the matter. Hughes was an Anglican theologian and patristics scholar best known for his work in Reformed Anglican theology. He consistently subordinated conciliar authority to Scripture. Drawing on the Reformed Anglican tradition—particularly the Thirty-Nine Articles—he maintained that general councils “may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God” (Article XXI). For Hughes, no council, however authoritative, could claim infallibility, because infallibility belongs to Scripture alone.

Conciliarism—rule by rotating committee—will only work if all parties remain on the same page. That is not guaranteed. While there is consensus that homosexual marriage (per Lambeth Resolution 1:10) and the failed Windsor Report are off the table, the issue of women’s ordination remains very much alive. Anglo-Catholics sit uneasily in the Anglican Church in North America, as they do in the Church of England—further complicated by active homosexuals drawn to the liturgical tradition who remain uncommitted to justification by faith alone in the finished work of Christ.

Anglican theologian Ephraim Radner argues that the conciliar tradition developed because the Church is wounded, not because it is inherently democratic. Councils emerged to maintain communion, address crises, and preserve doctrinal unity. He emphasizes that conciliarism is a practice of bearing wounds, not simply a method of governance. Radner is also critical of modern attempts at conciliar structures, arguing that they try to solve problems structurally rather than penitentially.

In Roman Catholicism, conciliarism does not override the magisterium. Indeed, the official Catholic position since the nineteenth century holds the opposite: the magisterium—especially the papal magisterium—has final interpretive authority, and councils function only with and under the pope.

Recovering the Reformation Heritage

Dr. Gillis J. Harp, a retired history professor at Grove City College, argues that the path forward for orthodox Anglicans lies in recovering their Reformation heritage, not in building new institutional frameworks.

Harp traces the current doctrinal drift in part to a decision made at the founding of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 1780s, when American Anglicans chose not to require clergy to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles. By the late 1970s, those Articles had been relegated to a “Historical Documents” appendix at the back of the American prayer book.

“The Articles will help reinvigorate Anglican theology because they reflect the core teaching of the Protestant Reformation,” Harp writes. He identifies key doctrines—including the supremacy of Scripture, justification by grace through faith, and the proper administration of the sacraments—as non-negotiable for any genuine Anglican recovery.

The Three Streams Problem

Both Archbishop Bob Duncan (ACNA emeritus) and Bishop Phil Ashey (Diocese of Western Anglicans) have championed the Three Streams model, but it has been roundly criticized by reform theologian Dean Chuck Collins as insufficient Anglican ecclesiology.

Collins writes: “‘Three Streams’ threatens our Anglican identity. An idea that was hatched in 1954—in Lesslie Newbigin’s book The Household of God—cannot possibly describe what the Church of England was founded on or what Anglicans believe today. Three-streams not only explains why there is wild diversity and sometimes no continuity from Anglican church to Anglican church, but the idea that equal respect be given to Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal streams is nowhere in the historic Anglican formularies or hinted at in Anglican teaching until modern times. It is the latest in a long line of conciliar attempts to reach consensus apart from confessional Anglicanism. Each ‘stream’ holds contradictory views on primary issues of faith, including authority in the church and the place of the Reformation in determining belief and practice. The notion of three streams does violence to the founding conviction that Holy Scripture—the Bible alone—is the primary authority of the Church of England, as understood and explained in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the two Books of Homilies.”

The Jerusalem Declaration and the G26 Communiqué

Since GAFCON’s inception in 2008 and its founding document—the Jerusalem Declaration—its leaders have sought to cement the differences between Canterbury and GAFCON. It is a remarkable document; membership requires signing the Declaration.

Its five core commitments are:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, containing all that is necessary for salvation.

2. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught, and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respecting the Church’s historic and consensual reading.

3. The Anglican Communion will be guided by the Jerusalem Declaration, with its second clause emphasizing the centrality of the Bible in the Church’s identity and authority.

4. The Declaration calls for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.

5. The Anglican Communion will be reordered with one foundation of communion: the Holy Bible.

The recent G26 Communiqué is equally unambiguous. The Abuja Affirmation represents GAFCON’s formal declaration of a new Global Anglican Communion, rooted in biblical authority, orthodox doctrine, and separation from Canterbury’s structures—framed not as schism but as a claim to continuity with historic Anglican faith.

Conclusion: From Conciliar to Confessional

The only remaining hurdle is whether GAFCON can move beyond conciliarism to a genuinely confessional Anglicanism. That shift would go a long way toward establishing an authentically Anglican witness capable of standing the test of time—and of replacing the morally and theologically compromised Canterbury-driven communion.

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