The recent meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-19) once again brought into focus a question Anglicans have wrestled with for years: What truly holds the Anglican Communion together?
News coverage of the meeting understandably focused on discussions surrounding the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals and the differing perspectives expressed by delegates from across the Communion, but beneath the procedural debates lies a much deeper issue. The real question isn’t simply whether the Communion should adjust its governing structures but whether genuine communion can exist apart from a shared commitment to the apostolic faith.
For readers who would like additional background, I encourage reading Bishop Phil Ashey’s earlier essay, A New Vision of the Global Anglican Communion Based on Conversation Rather Than True Communion? Fatal Flaws in the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals. Written well before ACC-19 convened, it anticipated many of the concerns now being debated publicly. Likewise, David Virtue’s recent commentaryon the ACC proceedings raises important questions about the proper role of the Anglican Consultative Council within the life of the Communion. Together, these articles help frame the larger issues now before us.
One of the first comments reported from the ACC meeting by the Episcopal News Network in their main article came from the Rev. Anastasia Huntley, who said, “We want to remain in communion with one another… We are a family, and families can fight and families can have disagreements… but that doesn’t break them.” The thing is, every faithful Anglican should agree with the desire to remain in communion that is expressed in those words. Christians ought to seek unity wherever possible! Our Lord Himself prayed that His followers would be one.
But this kind of thinking deserves closer examination. It’s a statement that completely ignores the reality of families in this world, as they actually are, not as we wish that they would be. Families do experience disagreements, and many times, these disagreements strengthen relationships through forgiveness and reconciliation. But many families in this world experience broken covenants where the damage is far too deep for reconciliation, whether it’s through betrayal, abandonment, or other deep breaches of trust. Simply affirming that we’re a family doesn’t resolve those realities. Reconciliation requires more than continued conversation, especially in a broken family; it requires the hard work of decisive action that restores trust grounded in truth. Throughout the history of the Church, communion has never been maintained merely by remaining in the same room. It’s been sustained by a common confession of the faith once delivered to the saints.
The ENS article also summarized the current tensions by noting that “leaders of some theologically conservative provinces… can no longer give deference to the Archbishop of Canterbury because of the Church of England’s moves… toward greater LGBTQ+ inclusion.” That description, however, risks reducing a much larger theological disagreement down to a single cultural issue. I’ve seen it time and time again, where progressives may call Christians bigoted or hateful, reducing everything down to a single issue rather than addressing the underlining problems that actually divide us.
The concern repeatedly expressed by GAFCON and many Global South leaders has never been opposition to individuals based on their sexual orientation. Instead, it’s been the conviction that the Church has no authority to redefine what Scripture has consistently taught regarding faith, doctrine, and Christian morality. Questions surrounding marriage, sexuality, and more recently gender identity are manifestations of a deeper issue: the authority of Holy Scripture and the Church’s responsibility to remain faithful to the apostolic witness. Until that underlying question is acknowledged, discussions about institutional unity will continue to address the symptoms rather than the cause. (You can read the Global South’s recent statement on ACC-19 here.)
During her opening address, Archbishop Sarah Mullally observed, “What unites us is greater than what divides us… hope cannot grow without trust.” Well, that’s definitely true! But trust can’t just be declared, and that’s it. It has to be built through confidence that there are standards to the faith that still exist and that shared commitments to truth remain meaningful to all the parties involved. Where provinces have arrived at fundamentally different conclusions concerning biblical authority, appeals to trust, however sincere, can’t substitute for the difficult work of addressing those theological differences with honesty.
One statement in the coverage is particularly difficult to reconcile with the facts presented in the same report. We are told that there’s been “little evidence of widespread support for GAFCON’s plan to leave the Anglican Communion,” even while the article acknowledges that Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, and other provinces have continued to absent themselves from Canterbury-led gatherings. Both realities are stated in the same sentence! I can’t help but wonder if the Episcopal News Service reporter was being willfully ignorant or not. The “little evidence” of GAFCON support includes the absentee provinces that make up most of the world’s Anglicans! Whether one agrees with every aspect of GAFCON’s vision or not, the continued absence of these GAFCON provinces signals that the present tensions aren’t “little” or temporary. They reflect convictions that developed over many years concerning doctrine, authority, and the future of Anglican witness, and they can’t be ignored.
Perhaps the most revealing statement came from a delegate from the Church of England, who argued that maintaining a strong relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury was “absolutely critical” to Anglican identity, adding, “If we dilute the relationship with Canterbury, we take away the reason for being Anglican. We might as well be someone else.”
Is that what people really think? Because it surprises me, and I know that way of thinking would surprise many others who believe that Anglicanism is a way of being Christian reflected in the Anglican formularies and doctrines that were developed in the English Reformation, beliefs that can outlast and outgrow one episcopal See. Historically, Anglicans have never understood communion with Canterbury in the same way Roman Catholics understand communion with the Bishop of Rome. The See of Canterbury has long occupied a place of honor within the Communion, because it was viewed as a faithful guardian of the Anglican tradition and the mother church of the Communion. But honor isn’t the same as supreme authority, and an honored seat at the table doesn’t make the table!
What makes Anglicans truly Anglican is not geographical association with Canterbury but a shared commitment to Holy Scripture, the catholic Creeds, the historic Anglican formularies, episcopal order, and the apostolic faith they together express. Canterbury has historically served that common life and helped to promote that common life. It’s never been its source.
The discussions at ACC-19 therefore reveal something much deeper than disagreement over governance. They expose two competing visions of communion itself. One understands communion primarily as maintaining institutional relationships despite growing theological divergence. The other understands communion as the visible expression of churches united by a common confession of biblical faith.
That distinction matters. And whether it matters to Canterbury, the ACC, or the Primates Council, it matters to GAFCON.
Structures are important. Relationships are important. Conversation is important. But none of these can replace the shared faith that gives communion its meaning. As Bishop Ashey argued in his earlier assessment of the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, genuine communion requires more than continued dialogue. It requires a common commitment to the truth of the Gospel. Our prayer should therefore not be merely for institutional preservation but for faithful renewal. The Anglican Communion will find its future not by preserving structures for their own sake, but by rediscovering together the authority of God’s Word and the unity that can only be found in Jesus Christ, who is Himself “the way, and the truth, and the life.”