Brothers and sisters, As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday, we are seeing a moment of historic significance in the Anglican world. Last week, Gafcon (a worldwide movement of orthodox Anglicans, of which we are a part, with Gafcon representing the majority of the world’s Anglicans) announced decisive steps, in opposition to false teaching, to reorder the Anglican Communion. Our leaders released a communique, or statement, which you can find here: https://gafcon.org/communique-updates/the-future-has-arrived/
While the communique represents a thorough commitment to reordering the Anglican Communion on multiple levels, I highlighted a couple of specific points from it in Sunday’s sermon. I would like to reiterate those points. For one, we are moving forward with a renewed sense that commitment to the inerrant Scriptures will be at the very center of our fellowship and the basis of our unity:
We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached,taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion.
Additionally, the communique has made it clear that we are committing not to have fellowship and communion with those churches who have abandoned the Gospel and the authority of the Scriptures:
We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority.
What does this mean, in practice? It means that the majority of the world’s Anglicans are moving forward together with a renewed sense of commitment to the Gospel and to the authority of the Scriptures. It also means that the majority of the world’s Anglicans are moving forward together resolved not to have fellowship or communion with churches and leaders who have denied the Gospel and the authority of the Scriptures.
On a global scale, our movement is separating itself from false teaching and deliberately uniting around the Scriptures. In the words of the communique:
We are now the Global Anglican Communion.
Pray that the Lord would bless our Communion, as we seek to be faithful to the Gospel.
In Christ,
Fr. Caleb Evans