The Future Has Arrived: A Response to GAFCON's Vision for Global Anglicanism

By the Venerable Canon Dr. Kenneth D. Gillespie, OSC

www.virtueonline.org

November 12, 2025

On October 16, 2025, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) issued a bold statement declaring "the future has arrived." In this declaration, GAFCON announced it had single handedly reordered the Anglican Communion, rejecting the traditional Instruments of Communion and establishing itself as the authentic expression of global Anglicanism. The statement claims to represent up to eighty-five percent of practicing Anglicans worldwide and positions GAFCON as the guardian of biblical orthodoxy against the revisionist agenda of Canterbury and the Western provinces.

GAFCON may indeed represent the future of Anglicanism in terms of numerical strength and global reach. The demographic reality is undeniable: the vast majority of Anglicans now live in the Global South, particularly in Africa, where conservative theological convictions remain strong. Yet as we consider this future, we must ask a more fundamental question: Is this future sufficient to preserve the integrity of Anglican tradition and protect against theological drift into heresy?

This article contends, with genuine concern rather than condemnation, that GAFCON has already accepted a gateway heresy that will inevitably compromise its ability to maintain orthodox Christian teaching over time. The issue is women's ordination, and the implications extend far beyond questions of ministerial order into the very foundations of biblical authority, theological method, and ecclesial identity.

The Borrowed Tools of Revolution

To understand how women's ordination functions as a gateway to broader theological compromise, we must first examine its intellectual genealogy. The modern push for women's ordination did not emerge from careful biblical exegesis or development of doctrine within the Christian Tradition. Rather, it emerged from second-wave feminism, which itself borrowed heavily from Marxist ideology.

In classical Marxism, the proletariat's victimization by the bourgeoisie isn't merely about suffering, it is about identifying an exploitative relationship embedded in the economic system. The crucial epistemological move is that Marx argued the oppressed class has privileged insight into the system's contradictions. They see what the privileged cannot or will not see. This creates moral and analytical authority from the position of victimhood.

Second-wave feminism, particularly through figures like Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, and Shulamith Firestone, adapted this framework to gender relations. Women were positioned as a class whose unpaid domestic labor and restricted access to resources constituted systematic victimization by patriarchy. The personal became political, individual experiences of oppression revealed structural patterns of male dominance that pervaded every institution, including and especially the Church.

This framework introduced several key principles that would prove corrosive to Christian orthodoxy:

First, standpoint epistemology: The idea that women, as an oppressed class, have privileged access to truth about gender and power. Their lived experience cannot be legitimately questioned by those in positions of privilege (men), because such questioning is itself an exercise of patriarchal power.

Second, structural suspicion: All traditional arrangements between men and women, including those established by Scripture and Tradition, are presumed to reflect patriarchal oppression rather than divine design. The burden of proof falls on those defending traditional practice.

Third, liberation as telos: The goal of theology becomes not conformity to revealed truth but liberation from oppressive structures. Doctrines and practices that restrict women's access to any role or office are automatically suspect, regardless of their biblical or traditional warrant.

When these principles entered the Church's consideration of women's ordination, they fundamentally altered the nature of the debate. The question was no longer "What do Scripture and tradition teach about the ministerial priesthood?" but "How do we liberate women from patriarchal exclusion?" The answer was determined before the theological work began.

Women's Ordination as Gateway Heresy

The concept of "gateway" or "catalytic" heresy refers to theological errors that, while not immediately denying core doctrines, establish principles and trajectories that inevitably lead to explicit heresy. Women's ordination functions as precisely this kind of error.

Consider the hermeneutical moves required to justify women's ordination in Anglican tradition:

First, one must set aside or reinterpret the consistent testimony of Scripture regarding male headship and the male priesthood. This requires adopting a hermeneutic that distinguishes between the "liberating core" of the gospel and the "culturally conditioned" restrictions of Scripture. But once this distinction is made, who determines what else is merely cultural? The principle, once established, can be applied to any biblical teaching that conflicts with contemporary sensibilities.

Second, one must dismiss or diminish two thousand years of universal Christian practice. Every church, East and West, Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic, practiced male-only ordination until the twentieth century. To overturn this requires either claiming that the Church was wrong for two millennia or that contemporary insights supersede traditional wisdom. Either position radically destabilizes the authority of Christian Tradition.

Third, one must accept an anthropology that minimizes or eliminates the theological significance of gender complementarity. If maleness and femaleness bear no essential meaning for representation of Christ (the Bridegroom) to His Church (the Bride), then what theological significance do they bear for marriage? The same anthropological moves that enable women's ordination necessarily undermine the Christian sexual ethic.

Fourth, one must embrace a trajectory hermeneutic that privileges where we believe the Spirit is leading over what Scripture and Tradition have actually said. This opens the door to ongoing revision of doctrine based on claimed movements of the Spirit that align, remarkably, with the prevailing winds of secular culture.

These are not merely pragmatic accommodations. They represent fundamental shifts in how Scripture is read, how tradition is weighted, how anthropology is understood, and how doctrine develops. And they are identical to the shifts required to justify same-sex blessings, transgender affirmation, and ultimately the full LGBTQ+ agenda that GAFCON claims to oppose.

The Trojan Horse

Women's ordination functions as a Trojan horse within conservative Christianity. It appears to be a discrete issue about gender roles in ministry, a "secondary matter" that need not divide the faithful. GAFCON itself has declared that women's ordination is "not a salvation issue" and should not disrupt their mission to proclaim Christ faithfully.

But like the Trojan horse of legend, women's ordination contains within it the seeds of comprehensive theological capitulation. The horse looks innocent enough; indeed, it arrives bearing the language of justice, equality, and the full use of women's gifts in ministry. What could be wrong with wanting women to flourish in service to Christ?

The danger lies not in the stated intentions but in the theological principles smuggled inside. Once women's ordination is accepted as legitimate, the Church has implicitly accepted:

• That Scripture's plain teaching can be set aside when it conflicts with contemporary notions of justice.

• That the universal practice of the Church can be overturned without rupturing continuity with Tradition.

• That complementarity between the sexes has no theological significance.

• That experience and cultural context can override biblical revelation.

• That doctrinal development means progressive alignment with secular values.

These principles, once established, provide the framework for justifying any revision of Christian teaching. They are not isolated theological moves but comprehensive hermeneutical revolutions. And every church body that has accepted women's ordination has, within a generation or two, proceeded to embrace the full progressive agenda on sexuality and beyond.

The correlation is not accidental. The same authorities, arguments, and anthropology that justify women's ordination provide the foundation for every subsequent compromise. This is why Canterbury's appointment of a female Archbishop who is also "a self-described pro-choice feminist and the chief architect of the divisive same-sex blessing liturgies" is not surprising but inevitable. Once the gateway is opened, traffic flows predictably through it.

GAFCON's Compromised Position

Here we arrive at the heart of the concern: GAFCON, despite its bold claims to represent orthodox global Anglicanism and to reject the revisionist agenda, has already accepted the gateway heresy. Among GAFCON member churches, the diversity of practice on women's ordination is striking:

• Nigeria has had a decades-long struggle with permitting and restricting women ordained to the diaconate while almost all GAFCON churches now do so.

• Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Brazil, and Uganda ordain women as priests.

• The ACNA has the protection of women’s ordination guaranteed in its constitution.

• Kenya and South Sudan have consecrated women as bishops.

Most tellingly, when the Anglican Church of Kenya consecrated female bishops in 2021, directly violating GAFCON's own 2017 moratorium, the GAFCON Primates chose accommodation over discipline. Rather than enforcing their stated position, they issued a statement declaring that "while there is disagreement and ongoing discussion on the issues of the ordination of women as deacons or priests, and the consecration of women as Bishops, we are agreed that these are not salvation issues and are not issues that will disrupt our mission." Since then, Kenya consecrated a second female bishop.

This response reveals the fundamental weakness in GAFCON's position. When forced to choose between maintaining theological consistency on women's ordination and preserving organizational unity, they chose the latter. They redefined the issue as "secondary" rather than confronting the reality that it involves the same hermeneutical and anthropological compromises they claim to oppose in other contexts.

The trajectory is already clear. In 2017, GAFCON recommended that provinces "retain the historic practice of the consecration only of men as bishops until and unless a strong consensus to change emerges." By 2021, when that consensus had not emerged but violations had occurred, the recommendation was quietly abandoned. The language shifted from calling for continued practice to accepting disagreement. The direction of movement is unmistakable.

Trajectory Matters

GAFCON claims to have established a "fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation." But what happens when those provinces, in their autonomy, continue to expand women's ordination? What happens when the pressure to ordain women bishops, present in virtually every GAFCON province that ordains women priests, becomes irresistible? What happens when provinces begin to consecrate women as primates?

GAFCON has already demonstrated it will not discipline member provinces for violating stated positions on women's ordination. It has classified the issue as "secondary" and "not a salvation issue." But this classification is itself a capitulation to the logic that will eventually justify every other compromise.

Consider the parallel situation with Canterbury. When Canterbury approved same-sex blessings, GAFCON rightly recognized this as an abandonment of biblical authority requiring separation. But Canterbury did not arrive at this position overnight. It arrived there through decades of precisely the kind of theological compromise GAFCON has already accepted on women's ordination. Canterbury too claimed that certain innovations were "pastoral" responses that need not divide the church. Canterbury too emphasized unity and mission over doctrinal consistency. Canterbury too redefined controversial issues as "secondary matters" requiring latitude rather than discipline.

The difference between GAFCON and Canterbury is not one of principle but of position on a trajectory. GAFCON is earlier in the journey, but they are traveling the same road. They have accepted the anthropological, hermeneutical, and methodological moves that make further compromise inevitable. They simply haven't yet arrived at the destinations those moves logically entail.

The True Spiritual Battle

From a pastoral and spiritual warfare perspective, there is a pattern worth discerning. The enemy's strategy is rarely frontal assault. It is infiltration, misdirection, and the slow erosion of foundations. Women's ordination functions as precisely such a strategy.

It arrives clothed in the language of justice and dignity. It appeals to our best instincts, our desire to honor women's gifts, to oppose genuine oppression, to be on the right side of history. It seems so reasonable, so compassionate, so obviously aligned with the full flourishing of God's image-bearers.

And because it arrives this way, it bypasses our defenses. We do not recognize it as the introduction of a theological virus that will, over time, corrupt the entire system. We debate it as a practical question about roles and gifts rather than recognizing it as a fundamental question about authority, revelation, and the nature of the Church.

This is the genius of the deception. By framing women's ordination as a secondary, practical issue rather than a primary, theological one, the enemy ensures that churches will accept it without recognizing the magnitude of what they are accepting. Only later, when the full implications become clear, do they realize they have admitted principles that make orthodox Christianity impossible to maintain.

The Marxist-feminist ideology underlying the push for women's ordination is not simply a set of political ideas. It is a spiritual assault on the Church's understanding of Scripture, tradition, authority, and anthropology. It promises liberation but delivers bondage. It promises justice but produces confusion. It promises the full flourishing of women but ultimately empties the faith of content that could sustain anyone, male or female.

A Call to Vigilance

GAFCON deserves gratitude for its courage in confronting Canterbury's abandonment of biblical authority on sexuality. The demographic and spiritual reality they represent, millions of African, Asian, and South American Anglicans committed to orthodox Christianity, is a source of hope in a time of widespread apostasy in Western Christianity.

But hope requires vigilance. GAFCON cannot protect Anglican orthodoxy while accepting the very principles that have destroyed orthodoxy everywhere they have been accepted. The future GAFCON represents will be insufficient to preserve the faith unless it confronts the gateway heresy already present within its own membership.

This will require several difficult steps:

First, GAFCON must recognize that women's ordination is not a secondary issue but a primary one, touching the integrity of Scripture, tradition, and doctrine. The classification of this issue as "adiaphora" is itself a capitulation to progressive methodology.

Second, GAFCON must articulate clearly why the same hermeneutical moves that justify women's ordination also justify same-sex blessings and transgender affirmation. Making these connections explicit will help member provinces see the trajectory they are on.

Third, GAFCON must be willing to discipline member provinces that continue to expand women's ordination, particularly to the episcopate. Without such discipline, the organization's commitment to biblical authority becomes merely rhetorical.

Fourth, GAFCON must provide a positive vision for women's full participation in the Church's mission that does not require abandoning the male priesthood and diaconate. Women are not honored by being given access to an office for which they were not created; they are honored by having their actual callings and gifting recognized and celebrated.

Fifth, GAFCON must recognize that achieving consensus among member provinces may be impossible, and that maintaining theological integrity may require accepting a smaller communion. Better a faithful remnant than a broad coalition compromised at the foundations.

What is the GAFCON Future?

The future has arrived, GAFCON declares. But which future? If it is a future that accepts the anthropological, hermeneutical, and methodological compromises embedded in women's ordination, then it is a future that will inevitably lead to the same destination Canterbury has reached, just a generation or two later.

The pattern is clear from history: every Christian body that has embraced women's ordination has, within decades, proceeded to abandon biblical teaching on sexuality, the uniqueness of Christ, the authority of Scripture, and core doctrines of sin and salvation. Not some. Not most. All. The correlation is perfect because the causation is real.

GAFCON stands at a crossroads. It can continue down the path of treating women's ordination as a secondary issue, maintaining organizational unity at the cost of theological consistency. If it chooses this path, it will become in time exactly what it now opposes, a communion that has sacrificed biblical authority for cultural accommodation.

Or it can recognize that the gateway heresy has already been accepted, repent of this acceptance, and begin the difficult work of recovering a theological foundation that can actually sustain orthodox Christianity over generations. This will require courage, humility, and a willingness to be smaller and more marginal. But it is the only path that offers hope of genuine faithfulness.

The question is not whether GAFCON represents the future of Anglicanism in numerical or organizational terms. It clearly does. The question is whether that future will preserve anything worth preserving. Whether it will, in the end, still be Christian in any orthodox sense, or whether it will have followed Canterbury's trajectory while simply taking longer to get there.

The answer to that question depends on whether GAFCON has the wisdom and courage to recognize the gateway heresy it has already accepted, and the theological clarity to understand that some issues, despite current classifications, are indeed salvation issues because they determine whether the Church will continue to preach the Gospel or transform it into something unrecognizable.

This is written not in condemnation but in concern, the concern of one who sees beloved brothers and sisters in Christ walking toward a cliff while confident they are on solid ground. GAFCON's vision is inspiring in many ways. But unless it addresses the foundational compromise already present within its own ranks, that vision will prove insufficient to preserve the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

May God grant GAFCON, and all of us, the discernment to recognize deception clothed in the language of justice, the courage to confront comfortable compromises, and the wisdom to understand that not everything presented as progress actually moves us forward in faithfulness to Christ.

The future has indeed arrived. The question is whether it is the future of faithful Christianity or the future of comfortable apostasy wearing the garments of orthodoxy. May GAFCON choose wisely, while there is still time to choose.

The Venerable Canon Dr. Kenneth D. Gillespie, OSC is a licensed marriage and family therapist and an ordained Anglican priest. He currently serves as Archdeacon and Chair of the Commission for Safeguarding and Episcopal Services Panel for the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, where he has held multiple leadership roles over seven years, including Canon to the Ordinary, Governmental Chaplains Coordinator, and member of the Education, Training, and Formation team since 2017. He is a founding member and Abbot of the Order of Saint Cuthbert, a religious community within the Anglican tradition.