Day0: A Turning Point for Global Anglicanism - Dominic Steele

Dominic Steele reports from Abuja, Nigeria, as nearly 500 Anglican leaders gather for GAFCON 2026 in what many believe could prove a decisive moment in the reshaping of the Anglican Communion. 
Delegates have arrived from across Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australasia, despite significant travel disruption caused by the US–Iran conflict and Middle Eastern airspace closures. For many Australians, flights were cancelled only hours before departure. 

This preview episode of The Pastor’s Heart sets out what is expected in the coming days: proposals for the structure and operation of a new Global Anglican Communion, distinct from Canterbury. 
The story stretches back through the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008 and the strong Kigali statement of 2023, in which leaders representing the majority of the Communion expressed no confidence in the existing Instruments of Communion. This week, foundations for a renewed and confessionally orthodox global fellowship are anticipated to be agreed.

Steele outlines the program for the week, including plenary sessions, presentations and votes on doctrine, fellowship and leadership structures. Particular attention will be given to the biblical basis of communion, the failures of current Canterbury-centred mechanisms and how future alignment will be defined. Questions around governance, canonical relationships and financial partnerships are also expected to be addressed.

Over the next five days, The Pastor’s Heart will release daily 30-minute reports with interviews from primates and key leaders, alongside full-length conversations on YouTube. Coverage is brought in partnership with Anglican Aid. This episode provides essential background to what may become a defining chapter in modern Anglican history.

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Transcript

The Big Headline: New Communion

Background: From Lambeth To GAFCON

Kigali Statements And Fallout

Anglican Aid Spotlight

GAFCON And Global South Unity

SPEAKER_07 1:17

It is Dominic Steele here from Abuja, Nigeria, where the big global Anglicans launch the big GAFCON conference involving almost 500 delegates from all around the world will get underway tomorrow. Our pastor's heart coverage is courtesy of AnglicanAid. You can go to anglicanAid.org. And there are leaders here from Argentina, from Australia, from Brazil, from Burundi, from Canada, from Chile, from Ethiopia, from Germany, from India, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, the UK, the USA, and Zambia. On the plane here, I met a bishop from Kenya and another from South Africa. For us coming from Sydney, it was a long and difficult trip to get to Abuja, made much more complex by the uh USA-Iran war and the consequential shutdown of air travel through the Middle East. Um, for many of us coming from Australia, our flights were cancelled just hours before we were about to leave and we've had to reschedule, and some delegates didn't actually make it here. Now, to give you the headline, in the next few days, I anticipate there will be an agreement reached on the detail of the way the new global Anglican communion will operate. My read between the lines is that some of the organizers here are probably a little disappointed that some of the key global south leaders are not here in Abuja in the way that they were present in Kigali two years ago. But what's going to happen here is the foundations of the new global Anglican Communion will be agreed on this week by the people in the room, and then when others see what it is and reflect on the alternative being offered by Canterbury, I think many more provinces will sign up. I'm going to give you the background, then what's planned for the week, and then some of the elephants in the room that'll need to be dealt with. So first, background. The origins of this week's gathering go, in a sense, back to 1988. It was at that point that the Anglican Lambeth Conference passed Resolution 110, a resolution that affirmed traditional Christian teaching that sexual activity was to be confined to heterosexual marriage. Now, what happened was the American Episcopal Church made a man in a homosexual relationship, Gene Robinson, a bishop. And the leadership of the Anglican Communion took no disciplinary action against the American Episcopal Church. And really, since then, the leadership of the Communion on this flash issue of sexuality has been hopelessly compromised. And Orthodox provinces, leaders, dioceses, who've called for repentance, who've drawn lines in the sand, have had those lines smudged over, ignored, and frequently flagrantly violated by the various liberal leaders. GAFCON itself came into being in 2008, a meeting in Jerusalem, and the formation of a contemporary statement of Christian Orthodoxy known as the Jerusalem Declaration. And from that time on it's been possible, using the Jerusalem Declaration, to discern with clarity the faithful and the unfaithful within the Anglican Communion. And pretty much the Africans and the Global South have lined up on the side of the angels, and the Canadians, the Americans, then the New Zealand provinces, and most recently the English, have led the charge into apostasy. Most distressing of all has been the leadership of the unfaithful bishops of the English Church away from Orthodoxy and towards apostasy, most noticeably under the leadership of Justin Welby and Sarah Millale. So much so that when the leaders representing 85% of the Anglican Communion gathered in 2023 in Rwanda, there were extraordinarily strong things said about the English and the communion leadership. Here's a line from the Kigali Conference. We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the other instruments of communion, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meetings, are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and authority of Scripture.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

I thank Anglican Aid for the sponsorship that you gave me. I studied diploma in theology at Bunda Bible College. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Reverend David is one of 2,000 pastors trained with support from Anglican Aid in the last five years. When you give to Anglican Aid's Global Anglican Communion Fund, you'll help resource the world's poorest diocese to preach Christ faithfully and care for people in need. Visit Anglicanaid.org.

SPEAKER_07 6:27

Now, those of us who were delegates at that Kigali conference, I think we're pretty much expecting the Global South people to work closely with the GAFCON leadership to take the initiative in drawing up plans for a revitalized, faithful Anglican communion independent of Canterbury. And so it was a disappointment to see that although there were positive words at last year's Global South conference in Cairo, that initiative wasn't taken. I think, in a sense, they balked. I mean, I wasn't there, I haven't got a sense of the why, but the output of that meeting was nowhere near as strong as the statements made by the Global South leadership to me just 12 months earlier in Rwanda.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

What do you see in the future between the GAFCON and the Global South?

SPEAKER_03 7:25

GAFCON and Global South two institutions that uh overlap and what they do, and uh in the future, it is my hope and primary that the two may become one.

SPEAKER_06 7:43

There was a a moment in the um I'm I'm sure I'm sure you were in the Primates meeting or the bishop's meeting at the time, but in the um the laity and clergy auditorium where we were yesterday afternoon, um when they were taking input ideas for the statement, one delegate from the floor said um something similar to that. And there was big applause around the auditorium. And uh Richard Condy, who was chairing the meeting, said, uh, look, I just want you to know I'm gonna take that feedback back to the uh to the primates and to the to the bishop's group.

Defining A New Structure

SPEAKER_03 8:15

Yeah. We are planning for that, we are dreaming that, and we are moving towards that. And uh it is all our prayer that we will see something new within the Anglican Communion in the nearest future.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

The good thing is primates of global south, primates of GAFCO, we are coming together. Um, and uh the vision um we are going to develop it will be approved by the assembly of uh global south and by the primary council of uh GAFCON movement. So we are going to meet together and we are going to move in a direction that we will agree. Perhaps a bit of a timeline. Um uh definitely we will have to agree before the next uh assembly of Global South, which will be in May next year.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Oh Specific, I wonder if I can ask. Um, and and this this idea of unity between uh GAFCON and the Global South has been a big theme of this conference and quite clearly a great desire of the delegates. There was almost we're almost waiting for all the primates to meet together on Tuesday afternoon, I think it it was. Um, and you're obviously in a unique position being in both those groups. Are we allowed to ask what was the what was the mood and the sentiment in that meeting?

Coverage Plan For The Week

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Love, friendship, focus on the future. You know, if you look at the the different primates, the the outgoing chair of GAFCO is the treasurer of global south. The president of uh global south is also a primate of uh the GAFCO movement. So um uh we are already together, but we need now to define the structure for the future. And the the definition, the new definition of the Anglican Communion, then it's going to be ratified by the Assembly of Global South and by the um uh Primates Committee of uh GAFCO.

Inside The Conference Programme

Wednesday: Bible At The Centre

Confession Over Canterbury

Thursday: Lines, Money, Fellowship

SPEAKER_07 10:36

So the bottom line is where we are is that it's come back to GAFCO to lead on the implementation of the recasting of the Anglican Communion. And this week it's expected to happen. There's every reason to expect that this week will be written about in church history books in hundreds of years' time. It marks the shift of Anglican Christian leadership from Canterbury to Abuja. Now, I'll tell you our Pastor's Heart program for the next few days and then give you the overall program. We'll be bringing you a 30-minute report each evening for the next five days. Everything you need to know about the GAFCON conference, the Global Anglican Communion Conference, um, in 30 minutes. We'll hear from primates from around the world who are here, plus thought leaders and the details of the controversies and the outcome of the votes. Plus, we'll put up on the Pastors Heart YouTube channel all the raw interviews that we do so you can tune in and hear from each guest in slightly more detail. Now, the programme itself of the conference in Abuja. Tuesday night, it's opening ceremony. Then Wednesday and Thursday, it's a pretty much identical format. After morning prayer and Bible reading, there'll be two 90-minute plenary sessions, one in the late morning, one in the early afternoon. Each of those plenaries will include three presentations and then buzz groups, and then everyone giving feedback and voting really via an app. Let me work through the content of the presentations. In the first block on the Wednesday morning, there'll be a looking back section, the road to that Martyr's Day statement last year, when the leaders of GAFCON said, Enough's enough, we're finally done with Canterbury. Then the future has arrived, and the key issue that the Bible is to be at the center of the heart of the restored, revitalized communion, that our communion is based on our shared trust of the Bible. Then in the second block on Wednesday, we'll note together the failure of the Canterbury structures, that communion requires confession, that we that's confessional belief, that we can't be in communion together if we don't share the same belief. And this session is expected to refute the ongoing lie of the liberals that we're walking together. When in fact we're not walking together, we're walking in opposite directions. One is on a path to trusting in Christ, and the other is on a path to apostasy and judgment. And then the last presentation on the Wednesday will be an introduction to the revitalized global Anglican Communion. Each time there's a presentation, there'll be feedback and voting. I'll give you the Thursday presentations in more detail in our preview tomorrow, but in broad terms, they relate to where the lines will be drawn, what meetings we'll attend, who we'll accept money from, and how will we count ourselves in fellowship with who, how we will align or not align canonically, how we'll differentiate ourselves. And then there's how leadership of this new revitalized communion might work going forward. I don't think I've heard anyone suggest that the current structure, where a British Prime Minister who isn't a Christian, gives a name to a British king who isn't a Christian, and together they decide on who the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be, and then the Archbishop of Canterbury goes through with the pretense that the king and the prime minister are Christian, and it's just limped along in that way until the Prime Minister was a public Hindu. But how could you have a Hindu or an atheist appoint the chief shepherd of the Church of God? That's not a formula for successful faithfulness or mission. That's a formula that will give us the compromised mess that we currently have. Anyway, proposals will be made on the way forward for selecting leadership, and they'll be voted on on Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, there'll be a draft statement reading, and then final feedback before the conference's decisions are announced Friday afternoon. Then Saturday, there'll be a meeting of the leaders to put it all into practice. Two of the flashpoint issues that are bubbling around in the background, kind of elephants in the room. Well, first, what's the relationship going to be going forward between GAFCON and the Global South? There was a real call for a united working together at Kigali. But then the Global South really stopped walking and stalled. I'll be pushing over the next couple of days to get some of the leadership here to speak to me on the record on that topic. But um before they do that, here's how I'm putting the jigsaw pieces together. A few years ago I was talking to New Zealand Bishop Jay Bean, and he said, We all agree on the problem, but we disagree on what to do. Now, my read is there are still quite a few in the global south who, despite what they said at the Kigali meeting, want to continue to work with or walk with within the Canterbury-led structures and Canterbury-led meetings, to attempt to reform from within. But, and this is the GAFCON view, that gives continued credence to the lie that it is possible to keep walking together. It allows one to maintain the line of walking together when that's clearly not the case. And now, interestingly, there are some here who are leaders in both groups, and we will put the question to them on that in the next few days. The second elephant in the room that needs to be resolved, and it's really the two extreme problems of what do you do with um people who are with GAFCON or with the Global Anglicans theologically, they're with the Jerusalem Declaration, but they want to stay linked to Canterbury. And what do you do with the diocese that is uh with GAFCON on doctrine, but can't disconnect legally from the Anglican Communion? And an example of that is the Sydney Diocese. It seems to me to get a legal challenge or a legal change to the constitution of the Australian Anglican Church is pretty well impossible. So there's some of the elephants in the room of the next few days. I'm really looking forward to them, to hearing from brothers and sisters from around the world about their work and service in Jesus Christ, to being encouraged by them, to be encouraged in the Word of God, and to be encouraged in the standing firm to guard the gospel and to preach Christ faithfully. Thanks for being with us on this little pastor's heart special from Abuja, Nigeria. We'll look forward to starting our coverage for you properly tomorrow. My name is Dominic Steele. We're here for anglicanaid.org. See you tomorrow.