THE DECLINE OF GAFCON
GAFCON (the Global Anglican Futures Conference) has just concluded its fourth assembly, at Kigali, Rwanda. It ended on a whimper and not a bang. Its limp "Kigali Commitment" declared "no confidence" in the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Four Instruments of Communion that guide the Anglican Communion but failed to set up even an outline of any kind of a replacement structure. Nothing really changed. It is the same old rhetoric from the same old crowd.
GAFCON was set up in 2008 and held its first meeting on the eve of the Lambeth Conference of that year. The driving factor was opposition to rights for homosexuals in the life of the church. The organizers and leaders were mostly bishops of equatorial Africa where homosexuality was criminalized. It issued the Jerusalem Declaration that called for the replacement of the Episcopal Church by a new anti-homosexual "Anglican" entity in America. The next year, the homophobic and misogynist Anglican Church in North America was drawn up. (The new Anglican Diocese of SC joined this new denomination in 2017.)
First, it must be said that GAFCON is a self-created group without any place in the Anglican Communion. It is entirely outside the institutional structure of the AC. It is in no way a function of the AC which is guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Four Instruments of Communion. Most of the bishops who support GAFCON are also members of the Anglican Communion, but some are not, as Foley Beach.
The threat of GAFCON from the start was to split up the Anglican Communion and to replace the traditional AC with a new form of Anglicanism. The new would be dogmatic, at least on the issues of homosexuality, and intolerant of any other views. Classical Anglicanism was never doctrinaire because it had to include a wide variety of religious ideas and expressions. Likewise, it was never intolerant of these diverse views. So, in order to move Anglicanism to a rigid anti-homosexual rights stand it would have to create a whole new form of Anglicanism and replace the old classical form. This has not happened and events suggest it is not going to happen.
The statistics show that GAFCON never became the majority force in the AC and has even begun to decline. There are 883 bishops in the Anglican Communion. Last year, 660 of them attended the Lambeth Conference. Homosexuality was the biggest topic of the day. Of the 660 bishops present, only 125 signed a statement demanding the enforcement of 1.10 (anti-homosexuality) resolution of 1998. Thus, only a small fraction of the Anglican bishops joined the anti side last year.
There have been four GAFCON conferences, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023. The figures show that only a small minority of Anglican bishops have attended and that the high point was in 2018. This year's gathering was smaller than 2018.
2008 291 bishops 1,148 participants
2013 331 bishops 1,358 participants
2018 333 bishops 1,966 participants
2023 315 bishops 1,300 participants
Bear in mind that some of the bishops attending were not members of the Anglican Communion. If there are 883 bishops in the Anglican Communion, GAFCON has drawn only around a third to any meeting and only half as many as attended the Lambeth conferences. One should not exaggerate the claim often promoted by the anti-homosexual coalition that they represent the great majority of Anglicans in the world. No meeting of GAFCON has come even close to half of the Anglican bishops in the world.
The numbers of attendees this year must have been disappointing given the urgency declared by the anti-homosexual coalition in the wake of the Church of England's decision to offer prayers in churches for persons in same-sex relationships. In fact, fewer people and fewer bishops attended IV than attended either II or III.
The decline of GAFCON is not to say it is not a significant threat to classical Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. It is a threat. However, so far it has been a protest movement and one without teeth. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not appear to be too worried as he put out a rather bland statement that really says nothing new. Apparently, he intends to go right on leading the AC along with the Four Instruments. He has not been intimidated by the rebels.
Moreover, all this is not to say that schism might not come in the future. However, it does seem that the height of the storm has passed and the schismatics have probably missed the best chance they had to rally a worldwide movement to create a new version of Anglicanism and the Communion. They have had fifteen years to make a schism and they have not done so, I suspect because down deep most Anglicans in the world believe that classical Anglicanism is worth saving, the big tent of varying views and toleration.
The Anglican Communion is a loose coalition of 42 independent churches that follow the traditions of the old English prayer books. To be an Anglican, one has to be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican Church in North America is not in communion with Canterbury. It is not truly Anglican and so is not the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. They are not in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the American province of the Anglican Communion whether GAFCON and the ADSC like it or not.