Brothers and sisters of the Anglican Diocese of Cascadia,
May Grace and Peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge and steadfast love of Jesus Christ.
Today, which is the commemoration of the martyrdom of Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, we have woken up to a new reality. Archbishop Mbanda has proclaimed that, “The future has arrived.”
GAFCON Primates have been meeting in Australia this past week to reset the Anglican Communion. Since 2008 in Jerusalem until today, faithful Anglicans have been calling for the repentance and a return to biblical orthodoxy and witness from the provinces who have chosen to follow the ways of the world, calling good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5.20; Romans 1.18-32). They have refused to do so, all the while claiming to be faithful Anglicans. They have departed from the faith (1 Timothy 4.1-4). The GAFCON Primates have reset the communion, and the reordering has begun under the following eight points:
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.
We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
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 and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.
Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.
Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.
To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.
We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3)
It is said that as the fires of martyrdom were lit for Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley to be burned at the stake, Latimer turned to Ridley and said, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out.” In 2008, in Jerusalem, the light was lit for faithful, biblical, Christ centered Anglicanism to shine once more in this dark world. Today that flame has strengthened and grows hotter. Our witness as Anglicans in this dark age is brighter than it has been in a long time. May it never be put out.
