ON THURSDAY, the Church of England’s bishops quietly hit the brakes on trials of ‘stand-alone’ services for same‑sex unions and blessings. They have decided that such rites need to go through a further approval process, one that will require a two‑thirds majority in all three Houses of the General Synod.
On the very same day, the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON), which describes itself as a global gathering of authentic (orthodox) Anglicans who guard God’s gospel, published a communiqué titled ‘The Future Has Arrived’. The communiqué dramatically rejects the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which it says ‘have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion’. Gafcon declares that is now the Global Anglican Communion.
After 17 years of warning, the orthodox majority of world Anglicans have finally drawn the line in the sand. A schism of the Anglican Church has finally come after years of procedural wrangling, in particular over marriage.
Under Archbishop Welby, the Church England’s commitment to its definitive ‘modern statement’, Lambeth I.10 (1998) on marriage, which affirms that sexual intimacy belongs to one man and one woman in marriage and rejection same‑sex practice, while urging pastoral care for all, progressively weakened. For two years the Archbishop of Canterbury was trying to ‘square a circle’ with present-day identity politics through a process called Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF). This commends prayers for same‑sex couples within ordinary services. Accompanying this has been discussion of wedding‑like rites for homosexual couples. It is that second step they have now stalled. Not the blessings. They have conceded that stand‑alone services require Synod’s law‑proper route and a majority that they do not have.
For Gafcon this was always about doctrine not votes. They made it clear in 2023 that the Canterbury‑aligned structures had forfeited moral authority by departing from biblical teaching on sex and marriage. Last week’s statement from Gafcon simply acts on that logic.
The significance of this this rupture organisationally rests in the fact that global Anglicanism was supposed to cohere through four ‘Instruments of Communion’ tied to Canterbury: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. No longer. Canterbury has protected institutional unity at the cost of confessional clarity, Gafcon says. If sexual ethics can be reinvented while Canterbury presides, then Canterbury is no longer the guardian of the faith but the broker of a truce. The bishops’ partial retreat in England only underlines the point. They paused a mechanism. They did not restore the doctrine.
Within the British Isles there is division rather than unity. The Church in Wales has permitted the blessing of same‑sex civil marriages and partnerships since 2021 on an experimental basis. Its governing body has been openly preparing for the next steps, as flagged in September’s agenda papers. On July 31, Britain’s first woman and openly LGBTQ archbishop Cherry Vann was appointed Archbishop of Wales.
The Government’s appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to hold the role, was possibly the last straw for Gafcon and allied Global South leaders. It was certainly a missed opportunity to reset. Gafcon responded within hours that the appointment ‘abandons global Anglicans’, while the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches issued its own caution that the choice did nothing to reunite a fractured Communion.
You can call that harsh. You cannot call it sudden. Gafcon has been saying for years that sexual revisionism would end the old Communion. The English bishops’ October 16 manoeuvre did not address the root. Blessings within ordinary services remain. For those who still hold to Lambeth I.10 and Canon B 30, that is the doctrinal breach in plain sight.
The question is whether Gafcon is now ‘the’ Communion? Its claim will be contested. A realignment may not be decided by a press release, but by who gathers, who recognises whom, and who shares the Lord’s Table. Watch where the largest and fastest‑growing provinces put their weight in the coming months. Whatever the legalities, the moral centre of gravity has shifted to those who still preach and practise the creational truth of man‑woman marriage.
Call this a divorce if you like. It is in fact a consequence. Neglect marriage and even the Church divorces. The way back is not a mystery. It is repentance, truth‑telling and the courage to honour the creational gift at the heart of the common good.
