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Anglican Trajectories

#clippings #Gafcon #GACK #Anglican-Communion #ordinariate #Trajectories

Clipped from: https://nhc.anglican.center/p/anglican-trajectories
By The Rev. Fr Jay Thomas

Canterbury, Abuja, Rome, or...

Stained glass window with a world map and compass.

Sailing the high [church Anglican] seas ( Photo by 5010 )

In a prescient article from March 27, 2026 the famous (or infamous) Episcopal Priest and journalist George Conger drew attention to three divergent trajectories for the Anglican Tradition that have coalesced throughout March of 2026.

  1. The first, and most long-standing, is the normative Anglican Communion centered around the historic See of Canterbury. However, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally—enthroned on March 25, 2026—is neither fit for the office ontologically or theologically. For all intents and purposes the See remains vacant, and the Communion listless.
  2. The second trajectory is the newly reconstituted Global Anglican Communion bound—as of March 6, 2026—by a confessional identity centered around the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008 (JD) and organized in direct opposition to the Canterbury Communion and its theological relativism.
  3. The third trajectory is the personal ordinariates of the Roman Catholic Church established in 2008 to preserve the living patrimony of the Anglican tradition within the Church of Rome. These ordinariates were recently reinvigorated with a Vatican statement, published on March 24, 2026—notably the day before Mullally’s enthronment—stating positively that as Anglicans entered into “full communion with the Catholic Church, it [the Catholic Church] was enriched.”

So, Conger poses the question: for a traditional Anglican, “where is their spiritual home most securely found?”

As a traditionalist priest in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), I am—presumptively—finding my place along the second trajectory. But for a number of reasons I find little peace with that path. Indeed, of the three options presented (as such), the only palatable trajectory is the third: communion with the Church of Rome and the continuation of the Anglo-Catholic patrimony that I cherish. But are these the only three trajectories? Or, is there a fourth?

Confessionalism vs. Settlement Churchmanship

What is so bad about confessionalism? First, it is worth mentioning that Anglicans—all Christians, Lord willing—are confessionalist. We confess the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. More specifically, every Sunday and Principle Feast Day in the ACNA we “Confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.” But this type of catholic confessionalism isn’t what is meant by “confessionalism” in the modern sense of the Abuja Affirmation. Abuja binds the consciences of churchmen and women to a strict understanding of the Anglican tradition. This strict understanding gives me profound pause; particularly in what it allows for within those rigid bounds

In a subsequent article, I plan to expound more on the nature of confessionalism and how it relates to Abuja, the Jerusalem Declaration, and Anglican history. But in this article, I want to examine the issue of Churchmanship within the Anglican tradition as it applies to this new-found confessionalism in comparison to the Ordinariates of Rome.

Since time immemorial (or, at least 1559) there have existed two primary churchmanships within the Anglican Tradition. The emphases of these traditions have morphed over the years; a High Churchman isn’t the same as an Anglo-Catholic, nor is a modern reformed evangelical Anglican the same as a Low Churchman; and yet, there is more overlap and similarity than dissimilarity. The genius (and possibly downfall) of the Elizabethan and Restoration settlements is an intentionality to not settle certain disputes between these churchmanships. Instead, a common order of worship was prescribed to bind all in one fellowship around a common table by a common font, through common prayer. This broad settlement pushes fiercely against the concept of confessionalism because what bound the church was not strict dogmatic or doctrinal agreement, but an ability to pray together.

To change from a communion of prayer, to a communion of confession poses some existential problems for this Settlement of Churchmanship. Most notably, I wish to draw attention to the challenge posed by the participation of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA) within the signatories of the Abuja Affirmation, and what their inclusion means for the future of orthodox Anglicanism.

A Case Study in South Africa

As a parish priest in a rural agricultural town, I have a particular interest in South African Anglicanism. Every year for a couple of months a number of migrant workers from South Africa are granted temporary visas to come and work in the Peanut and Cotton farms of South Georgia. These South Africans are faithful Anglicans and every Sunday they arrive at my parish in a work truck. They receive with attention and faithfulness the preached Word, and they partake with us of the Blessed Sacrament. They then join us for fellowship and teaching—for breakfast and Sunday School. They are just as much members of my parish, as they are the parishes they have come from. Indeed, I have received a gift from their parish priest for my cure of their souls while they are in the states; a priest of the notably Anglo-Catholic province of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA).

ACSA is not a member of GAFCON and it is not a signatory to the Abuja Affirmation. Indeed, I am notably concerned by the direction of this province in recent years, specifically within the capital regions (as opposed to the rural towns my parishioners come from).

In opposition to ACSA, there is REACH-SA which, like the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), was founded in rejection of the Anglo-Catholic revival—in essence, they reject the settlement and its inclusion of a breadth of churchmanship. However, unlike the REC, they have not walked back these puritanical founding principles. Instead, they have doubled down. As a self-styled Anglo-Catholic, my existence as an Anglican stands counter to the very raison d’etre of REACH-SA. What are some examples of them doubling down on their Puritan (and thereby not Anglican) doctrine?

I would consider each of these not just a reformed low church impulse, but rather, a rejection of the Anglican tradition—indeed, of the catholic faith. This has gone beyond the pale. And yet, after Abuja, we now say that we hold to the same confessional identity… Can that possibly be true?

Or, do we just confess that we don’t want there to be blessings of same sex unions or liberal theology in the church? Is that all that binds us together? It almost seems so…

The Roman Alternative

Pope Benedict XVI, who founded the Anglican Ordinariates, famously stated: “A strong Catholic potency has always remained within Anglicanism; [But] Jesus did not found a Catholic party in a cosmopolitan debating society, but a Catholic Church to which he promised the fullness of truth.” In essence, to be a catholic is more than just subscribing to a catholic mindset in a pluralistic church, it means joining the catholic church. Historically, down through the English Reformers, Anglicanism has always claimed to participate in the fullness of the catholic church; we truly belong to “the Catholic Church to which [Jesus] promised the fullness of truth.” But what if that’s not true?

To an Anglo-Catholic like me, the inclusion of ardently anti-catholics (like REACH-SA) in the Abuja Communion pointedly undermines that claim. If the only options (discounting for the moment the Canterbury Communion) are Abuja or Rome, how can a catholic side with Abuja for reasons other than sheer convenience?

It is worth considering the seriousness of this crisis. Personally, it has sent existential shock waves through me.

It was the habitual reflex of the broad churchmanship consensus—which we claimed was truly catholic—that opened the door for these unhappy bedfellows at Abuja. REACH-SA has never been a part of the Anglican Communion, and they have only been accepted now by GAFCON because the mainline Province in South Africa has a theologically liberal center of gravity in Capetown. But if the churchmanship consensus can allow for this, then it has failed. Indeed, maybe this whole experiment was flawed from the start?

It is into these existential questions that Rome offers its answer. The consensus was a flaw; the only way to be truly catholic, is to be a part of the church whose very identity is catholic, rather than to be a catholic in a reformed church. It is a compelling answer. An answer, which, as the Anglican Communion descends into disarray, sounds more and more viable by the day. Or, as Conger says, “Rome has now put its understanding of Anglican heritage on the table in a form that cannot easily be ignored. It has said, in doctrinal black and white, that the Anglican tradition at its best is not a problem to be solved but a gift to be received, purified and shared. Set beside the spectacle at Canterbury, that claim lands with particular force.”

Wither a Fourth Trajectory?

Conger’s question stands: for a traditional Anglican, “where is your spiritual home most securely found?”

As I come to this final portion, my heart fails me. Where is the Anglican tradition which I love? A tradition bound together for centuries by a theological method rooted in Common Prayer. A tradition where the reformational formularies were respected, but lived in light of the Prayer Book; in essence, Prayer Book Catholicism. We must return to the center of our tradition. But does that center exist?

I pose this question to the luminaries of our tradition—to the churchmen and clerics who love the Anglican way. Most especially I pose this question to our bishops; to my bishops, my right reverend fathers in God whom have been entrusted with the stewardship of this faith and this tradition. Can you offer a compelling vision of a fourth way? Or, are we bound to these three trajectories? Can you convincingly answer the question: Where is the Anglican’s spiritual home most securely found?