Critics have suggested that former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is not less than partly chargeable for the newest schism inside Anglicanism, following a breakaway move by Gafcon, the traditionalist Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
Last week Gafcon announced that it not recognises the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, traditionally the top of Anglicanism worldwide. Other Institutes of Communion, similar to the Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) have also been rejected.
In its statement, Gafcon chairman, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda said, “We cannot proceed to have communion with those that advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the ultimate authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.”
He added, “We haven’t left the Anglican Communion; we’re the Anglican Communion.”
The Gafcon aligned group will confer with itself because the Global Anglican Communion, while those that recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury will simply be the Anglican Communion.
The move was apparently sparked by the appointment of Sarah Mullally, a progressive, as the primary female Archbishop of Canterbury.
However General Synod member and theologian, the Rev Dr Ian Paul, suggested that this may occasionally simply have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Speaking to Premier Christian News, Dr Paul said that Welby could have done more to take care of good relations with the worldwide Communion.
“I feel that the Archbishop and the Communion as a complete have failed,” he said.
“They failed to take care of fellowship, they did not take heed to the voices of those in Africa and Asia.
“They’ve did not hold to account provinces which say, ‘we’re just going to do our own thing, and don’t feel obliged by the bonds of fellowship’.”
His thoughts were echoed by Susie Leafe, the director of orthodox group, Anglican Futures.
“I feel it’s absolutely the failure of the Instruments of Communion, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I feel it has been because they’ve tried to institutionally hold the Anglican Communion together,” she said.
“They’ve focused on keeping people coming to meetings, keeping people giving money, those sorts of things. But what they have not done is checked out the very fundamentals of why we’re gathering together.”
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