The month of March has brought into focus two events which, taken together, illuminate with striking clarity the fracture that now runs through global Anglicanism. The first was the gathering of hundreds of bishops in Abuja, Nigeria, convened under the leadership of GAFCON (now the Global Anglican Communion), to affirm a vision of the Church grounded in the normative authority of Scripture and continuity with the apostolic faith. The second was the consecration of a new Archbishop in Canterbury, in a process widely understood as the latest expression of a Church of England seeking its identity in cultural adaptation rather than doctrinal fidelity. These events are not merely ecclesiastical news. They are signs of a divergence that can no longer be concealed: two distinct, and in fundamental respects incompatible, understandings of what the Church is and what gives it its identity.
In Abuja, what took place was not a merely circumstantial reaction. It was a conscious theological stance: the Church is not defined by its institutional history, but by its conformity to revealed truth. In this sense, it represents an act of recovery of the principle that has stood at the heart of Reformed Anglicanism from its beginnings, as expressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer: that Scripture is not one voice among many, but the sufficient norm that orders the life, doctrine, and mission of the Church.
In England, by contrast, the consecration in Canterbury must be read within a deeper and more troubling process. It is not merely a change in leadership, but the visible expression of a Church that has shifted its centre of gravity. Continuity no longer appears to be sought in fidelity to the received doctrine, but in the institution’s capacity to adapt to the cultural demands of the moment. Within this framework, ecclesial decisions cease to be governed by Scripture and begin instead to be shaped by other criteria, particularly contemporary ideological categories which, when they come into tension with the biblical witness, ultimately prevail.
The result is a form of continuity that is, in essence, only apparent. Structures, titles, buildings, and institutional memory are preserved, but the content that once gave them meaning begins to dissolve. When the Church maintains its institutional form while relativising its doctrinal foundation, what emerges is not renewal but a gradual loss of identity. For a Church no longer defined by Scripture will inevitably be defined by something else, and whatever occupies that place lacks both the stability and the authority to sustain it over time.
In contrast, Abuja does not simply offer an organisational alternative, but a theological affirmation: that the true continuity of the Church is not secured through institutional adjustments, but through persevering fidelity to the Word of God. In that sense, the contrast between these two events is not accidental, but revealing of two paths that can no longer be reconciled without a profound redefinition of what it means to be Anglican.
The question that arises, therefore, is not merely descriptive. It demands a clear response: what kind of Anglicanism do we want? One sustained by a clear doctrinal foundation, or one that seeks its stability in institutional continuity, even when that continuity has lost its theological anchoring?
What has taken place in Abuja is not an innovation. It is, in the strictest sense, a recovery of that which gave birth to Anglicanism in its Reformed form. It is worth stating this with precision, for this point is often contested. Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles affirms that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation”, not as one reference among others, but as a sufficient norm. Article XX adds that the Church hath no authority to ordain anything contrary to God’s written Word, nor to enforce as necessary to salvation anything that cannot be read therein or proved thereby. The Homilies repeatedly insist that it is the Word of God, and not autonomous ecclesiastical authority, that forms, corrects, and sustains the Church. The Book of Common Prayer, in its very structure, saturates the Church’s liturgical life with Scripture, not as ornament but as substance. These documents are not cultural relics. They are the doctrinal architecture upon which Reformed Anglicanism was built, and any honest reading of them makes it difficult to sustain the claim that the direction taken by Canterbury in recent decades represents genuine continuity with that inheritance.
Historical Anglicanism, at its best, was not a Church defined primarily by its institution, but by its submission to Scripture. Its unity did not rest upon a centralised hierarchical structure, but upon a shared confession. Its authority did not emanate from a see, but from fidelity to the Gospel. The movement now emerging with strength from the Global South is not proposing something new: it is returning to that foundation. It recovers the centrality of Scripture as the sufficient norm, a moral vision consistent with the apostolic witness, and an understanding of unity grounded not in structures but in shared truth. In doing so, it stands, paradoxically, closer to classical Anglicanism than many of the structures that have historically claimed to represent it.
The contrast with what Canterbury represents today is, at this point, both inevitable and painful. For a long time, the Church of England served as a theological and spiritual reference for the Anglican world. What we now observe, however, is not merely development, but a displacement of the foundation. The issue does not lie only in particular decisions, however significant they may be, but in the principle that appears to govern them.
Scripture no longer operates, in practice, as the final regulating norm. When tension arises between the biblical witness and dominant cultural currents, resolution is not sought through renewed submission to the Word, but through reinterpretation that allows for adaptation. In that process, doctrinal authority is progressively relocated to other centres: contemporary experience, cultural pressure, and prevailing ideological frameworks. This is not merely a methodological shift. It is a shift of authority. And where authority shifts, identity inevitably follows.
The recent consecration in Canterbury must be read within this broader framework. It is not an isolated event, but the visible expression of a logic in which institutional continuity is preserved through structural adjustments, even as doctrinal content becomes increasingly diffuse. The form is retained, but the foundation is altered. An Anglicanism defined primarily by its institutional character may sustain the appearance of continuity, but it lacks the internal resources to sustain fidelity. Church history repeatedly shows that structures can endure even after the truth that gave rise to them has been abandoned.
The problem, then, is not simply that the Church of England has moved beyond certain Reformed emphases. It is that, in many respects, it has ceased to submit to that which constitutes the very basis of historic Christianity: the normative authority of Scripture. When Scripture ceases to define, something else necessarily takes its place. And that “something” is not neutral. It consists of the categories of the present age, dominant ideologies, and cultural sensibilities which, by their very nature, are in constant flux. To construct the identity of the Church upon such a foundation is, inevitably, to build upon sand.
Against this, the contrast with Abuja could not be more striking. There, continuity is not secured through structures, but through fidelity. The aim is not to preserve an institution, but to remain in the truth. And it is precisely this fidelity which, throughout the history of the Church, has given rise to the only continuity that truly matters: the continuity of the Gospel.
For this reason, the question that now confronts Anglicanism cannot be avoided or softened: do we want an Anglicanism that remains recognisable because it preserves its institutional form, or one that remains faithful because it preserves its doctrinal foundation? Both cannot be sustained indefinitely once they have begun to diverge. Sooner or later, one will define the Church’s identity. And the choice is not merely ecclesiastical. It is, at its core, a theological decision about what it means to be the Church.
The present moment demands discernment, but also clarity. This is not merely about the future of an ecclesial tradition, but about the witness of the Gospel in a world marked by increasing moral confusion and a deep crisis of meaning. In such a context, a Church that relativises its doctrinal foundation not only loses internal coherence, but also forfeits its ability to speak a word that transforms. A Church that must constantly redefine itself in order to be accepted has, in practice, ceased to have anything distinctive to say.
The path made visible in Abuja points in a different direction. Not because it promises easy solutions, nor because it represents a tradition free of internal tensions, but because it is rooted in that which does not change: the Word of God. A Church anchored in Scripture does not depend upon cultural approval in order to exist. Its authority is not borrowed from its context but received from God, and that difference changes everything. It enables the Church to speak truth amidst confusion, to offer hope amidst disillusionment, and to sustain a clear identity amidst fragmentation. In other words, it enables the Church to be truly Church, not merely functionally, but in the fullest sense.
True continuity is not institutional, but doctrinal. It is not guaranteed by history, but by fidelity. And where that fidelity is maintained, even when structures change or weaken, the Church remains and its witness is strengthened. Not as a relic of the past, but as a living voice in the present.
The question, then, is not simply which structure will survive, but which truth will be upheld. And in that answer, something more than the future of Anglicanism is at stake: its capacity to remain a faithful, intelligible, and hopeful witness in the contemporary world.
