Next ABC Will Not Meet Global South Orthodox Standards on Biblical Sexuality

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

July 21, 2025

It should be apparent by now that candidates to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury being proposed by the church’s deep thinkers, (20-strong Crown Nominations Commission) will not meet biblical standards on sexuality that the Global South demand.

The picks to date are woefully lacking theologically, except as church managers.

Church of England progressive candidates, from an Iranian woman bishop, a former nurse now a bishop, to a small cluster of white male bishops that includes an Anglo-Catholic, bode ill for both the CofE and the wider communion who repudiate any talk of homosexuality or committed same-sex relationships. They demand that orthodox biblical standards on human sexuality only, be fully recognized. But that ship has sailed, and not a single candidate would get proposed if they had not ticked all the progressive boxes.

According to the recent Church of England synod, there were no new leads and the list of players still includes Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani as the front runner to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

She is the daughter of the Anglican bishop in Iran, whose family fled after the Islamic Revolution. She is now Bishop of Chelmsford. In 2023, she was one of 44 Church of England bishops who signed an open letter supporting the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith (i.e. blessings for same-sex couples) and called for "Guidance being issued without delay that includes the removal of all restrictions on clergy entering same-sex civil marriages, and on bishops ordaining and licensing such clergy".

This is a non-starter for Global South bishops. That she is a woman when there is no female archbishop in the Global South is one reason; the other is her pro-gay stance which is a complete halt to ‘conversation, ‘dialogue’ or ‘compliance’ talk.

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell in his presidential address at the opening of the sessions, admitted that “we seem no nearer a settlement which will hold us together” on provisions for same-sex couples. Is the issue dead in the water? For now, but based on history in other parts of the communion, the pansexualists will not rest till they have won. The game is still on.

The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev. Martyn Snow, who stepped down from the position of lead bishop, saying that, while he hoped that the Church would be able to find a way forward “on matters of sexuality, relationships, and marriage . . . I don’t think that can happen under my leadership”. No new lead bishop is being appointed at this time.

Is the job in fact unmanageable, screamed one headline? Perhaps, and another story voiced the idea that the Archbishop of Canterbury could scale back his global role to avert Anglican schism.

The idea is that The Anglican Communion would explore diluting the Archbishop of Canterbury's role as its central symbolic leader, in an attempt to prevent internal divisions over the ordination of women and inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community from tearing apart the world's third-largest Christian faith.

To avert an all-out split, a representative body within the global Communion, which was asked to review its structure and decision-making processes, has proposed a rotating international figurehead, assuming some of the current organizational duties of the Archbishop of Canterbury, while they would focus on personal and pastoral ministry to the Communion.

The position could rotate among the Communion's five global regions of Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and Oceania, with a term of six years.

Bishop Graham Tomlin, who led the work for the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO), told Reuters the existing structures needed to change.  But will it happen? There were certainly no debate at the recent Synod.

The recommendations state a rotating figure "would add a welcome and overdue diversification". Tomlin is hopeful that the proposals will be adopted at a 2026 gathering.

Let the King choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury? But not without a constitutional crisis, screamed another headline.

Whoever is elected both GAFCON and the GSFA will, in the course of events, announce their disapproval in carefully constructed statements showing that the CofE has lost its way and they will not sit down with the new occupant in Lambeth Palace.

GAFCON bishops will meet in Abuja, Nigeria in March 2026. The Most Rev. Dr. Laurent Mbanda, Chairman, Gafcon Primates Council says, “GAFCON continues to lead the renewal of the Anglican Communion… at such a time as this.”  This is a broad slap at western Anglicanism which is sinking under its own progressive weight and that includes the Church of England.

GAFCON bishops will not sit down with any western bishop who have bought into pansexuality. GSFA bishops argue they have not left the communion the Church of England has left them.  A formal split is not anticipated.

Will the GAFC ON gathering be a defining moment, and one that could finally bring a formal split in the Communion much like the Global Methodist Church a conservative movement that split from the United Methodist Church over same sex marriage?  Thousands of churches switched allegiance, no longer recognizing their old denomination. Sodomy killed it. Time will tell if a formal split is possible in the Anglican Communion.

There is no third way, no ‘communion across difference’, a much-favored notion of Western liberals when talk of a shattered unity comes up. No one wants it but it might be unavoidable.

The Church of England will be viewed henceforth as a pariah church if it, whoever elected, compromises over human sexuality. It will be viewed as not fit for purpose.

The Global South primates will conclude, if they have not already done so, that most of the bishops in the Church of England, TEC and Canada are not really Christians. They are management wonks more concerned with institutional survival than with the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints.’

As one Church of England commissioner put it to me; “In these latter days I have come to doubt whether many of the bishops here are actually converted. At the heart of the English Reformation was the principle that Christ died on the Cross in atonement for our sins. It is through faith in his blood shed for us that we are saved. I think it unlikely that even 5% of the current clergy, of any tradition, believe that they have been saved by his blood. And that includes the bishops, who behave more like managers of a small business, unable to preach effectively because they no longer grasp the concept of sin – let alone use the word.”

There you have it. It is absurd to think that former archbishop Rowan Williams’ Hegelian Jesus could save anyone. Williams’  ‘soft Christianity’ saves no one and nothing. See here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/rowan-williams-and-another-gospel

Justin Welby, it was hoped, would be an evangelical turnaround, with his connections to ALPHA and Holy Trinity, Brompton. Evangelicals were bitterly disappointed when Welby started swinging in the wrong direction, time and again, not simply over safeguarding but his acknowledgement of the legitimacy of committed same-sex relationships. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Welby said he was “thick” not to think of it sooner. Evangelicals felt he was “thick” even suggesting the idea as it had no basis in Scripture, tradition or history. Welby is now gone and evangelicals have been left twisting in the wind.

But the die has now been cast.

The Church of England is little more than a shill for the state as is the case for nearly all state churches. Its worshipping numbers have been overtaken by the Roman Catholic Church and figures compiled from government and academic sources show that 930,000 Muslims attend a place of worship at least once a week, as against 916,000 Anglicans.

Is the Church of England relevant to anything or anybody?

"We are very different than we were 100 years ago," said one C of E bishop. The real question is, can the communion be held together with the Mother Church in this twilight zone much longer?

END