Forward in Faith Response to the Abuja Affirmation

PDF in the FiFNA newslettter

Feast of Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, 2026

Greetings to God’s faithful in the Name of Jesus Christ, the one and only savior of the world.

Beloved in the Lord, at the most recent GAFCON event, known as G26, bishops and laity gathered to work on significant developments for the global communion. Several of the Forward in Faith bishops and clergy were present for G26. We give God true and hearty thanks that the global Church has again insisted, as she has since GAFCON 2008, that the Anglican Formularies are trustworthy guard rails for faith, discipline, and worship.

From that genuine thankfulness, we also feel compelled to call our global brothers and sisters to remember that our faith is truly catholic. The catholic order of the Faith is not reducible to institutional structures but intrinsic to the essence of the Faith. Since the broad era of the English Reformation (1534 – 1662), several movements within the Church have had their principal origin from within our Anglican segment of Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church. These movements have largely preserved the inseparable union of faith and form.

One is the great Evangelical Revival in England, also known as the First Great Awakening in the American colonies. It was spearheaded by fiery Anglican preachers like George Whitfield, John Wesley, and Johnathon Fletcher.

The second is the Oxford Movement, again stewarded by careful Anglican theologians like E.B. Pusey, John Henry Newman, and John Keble. It, too, had its effects here in the United States with leaders like Jackson Kemper, James Llyod-Breck, and Charles Grafton.

A third movement within the Church has been the charismatic renewal. Leaders like Dennis and Rita Bennet cultivated a renewal of the Spirit’s ministry within the Anglican world. Like previous movements in the Anglican Church, this movement was a catalyst for profound transformation across Christian organizations.

We recognize the diversity in these movements. We also recognize that each has laid claim to the Anglican Formularies with various levels of success and integrity. John Wesely feared a day would come when the Methodists would become a dead sect among other dead sects. George Whitfield lamented that all his converts were a rope of sand. Tractarians would have later generations forsake the perspicuity of Scripture for human reason. And the Charismatic renewal has run on a parallel track in time with a theologically progressive agenda.

It behooves us, therefore, to remind the Church that matters of ecclesiology are not secondary theological points. Evangelical and Charismatic renewal are movements within the Church, not invitations to remake the form of the faith. In truth, the liturgy is a pneumatic event through which Christ meets with his people. The reading of the Word of God written in the liturgy is a call to evangelical encounter and action.

Our hope and call to the Global Anglican Church is a simple appeal to fully return to our shared catholic faith and order:

• Article 20 states that the Church does not have power to ordain anything contrary to God’s word written.

• The Jerusalem Declaration says in statement 2, “The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.”

• Statement 7 says that “bishops, priests and deacons” are in “historic succession” with the “classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.”

• Statement 8 acknowledges that God created “humankind as male and female,” implying that human nature is not a generic essence. Men and women are not interchangeable. Rather, the implication is that human nature exists in two kinds, male or female, and is therefore both specific and immutable.

• The 1662 Ordinal has no place where “she” may be ordained as Bishop, Priest, or Deacon.

• Since Article 21 says that duly called councils may err, we are appealing to our fellow believers to avoid importing all unnecessary errors from history into our current global family. We urge you to avoid coming under the displeasure of the Lord as our previous instruments of communion have been so disciplined by him.

With these clear statements from our Formularies and the Jerusalem Declaration, we are thankful the global communion is halting the promotion and acceptance of same-sex activity by teaching the clear and plain word of God. In this same vein, we request that the sin against the Incarnation concerning the interchangeability of men and women come to an end.

The development of “gender” as a 20th century philosophical action advancing certain agendas is not agreeable to Scripture, Tradition, or Reason. Scripture deals with the created order and clearly teaches that God’s grace never contradicts nature. Rather, grace heals nature. Men, alive in Christ, become more masculine. Women, alive in Christ, become more feminine. The instruction of St. Paul that there is no longer “male or female” in Christ refers to the shared and common salvation given to each member through baptism. St. Paul delineates and upholds the created order and explains what the natural order looks like immersed in the sea of Christ’s grace (Rom. 1:26; 1 Cor. 11:9, 14; Eph. 4:24; 5: 22-33; Col. 1:16; 1 Tim. 2:13). Men and women are not interchangeable; they are interdependent (1 Cor. 11:11-12).

According to our Anglican tradition, the apostolic Ministry is one. The great Anglican divine Richard Hooker taught that Holy Orders conferred a special indelible mark with three degrees in that singular Order of New Covenant Priesthood. Hooker says,

“The ancientest therefore of the Fathers mention those three degrees of ecclesiastical order specified and no moe [sp]. …  Deacons, Presbyters and Bishops … Deacons which are in the third, or [P]resbyters in the second degree of priesthood, when the very heads and princes of all, even certain of the Bishops themselves. … I may securely therefore conclude that there are at this day in the church in England no other than the same degrees of ecclesiastical order, namely Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, which had their beginning from Christ and his blessed Apostles themselves (Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Laws, V. Chp. 78. Par. 12.).

Within the one Apostolic Ministry are three degrees of Priesthood. Each degree participates in the new covenant priesthood in distinct and particular ways. The Presbyter and Deacon are devolutions of the Episcopal office as ministers who aid and support him in the ministry. This is the teaching of the Scripture, the Fathers, and the Formularies; it must continue as our teaching, as well.

We also appeal to our global communion to work towards the establishment of an Apostolic See that shares in the fullness of the apostolic deposit. Part of our Anglican theological method is the theology of place. When the Lord taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” he taught us to pray for more than eschatological hope. We intercede for the redemption the world. He answers this prayer, in part, through the anamnesis of his once-for-all death up on the cross, eternally offered in the heavens, and now present on altars and holy tables across the globe. The ‘daily’ bread we request is that bread ‘above nature,’ which is his word spoken (Matt. 4:4) and his flesh eaten (John 6:35).

Holy places, which include chancels, naves, narthexes, and graveyards sacramentally participate in the work of redemption wherein the meek shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5; 13:40-42; 24:40-44). The need for Patriarchates functioning as repositories for our common catholic heritage are not options over which we may disagree, like mitre styles or crozier shapes. Such cathedrals are centers for prayer and formation, for partnership and training. A rightly placed primus tethers us sacramentally to the past while anticipating the future.

The Gospel is not merely a matter of academic articulation, emotional sentiment, or moral uprightness. The Gospel is about the visible and tangible redemption in space and time. This visibility is manifest in the sacramental nature of the Church. As the Word became flesh and dwelt among us that we might see his glory, hear his voice, and receive the touch his hand, so he still does all of this through the sacraments he instituted (John 1:14; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:7; Phil. 3:17; 2:21, 25-29; Col. 1:24-25).

It is truly grievous that our historic sees in York and Canterbury have fallen so quickly into disrepute by adopting and promoting the very things condemned by Sts. Jude and Peter (Jude 3-13; 2 Peter 2:5-22). We continue to pray for their repentance and trust those noble martyrs and saints like Anselm, Alphege, Beckett, Scrope, Julian, Latimer, Cranmer, Laud, and Charles I intercede for the repentance of the English Church. To the degree that those historic sees are apostolic, it is to that degree our Lord will eventually renew them as he has done in the past. Until then, it is incumbent on our global communion to promote the fullness of faith and order.

To our dearly beloved brethren, the work of resetting and restoring the Communion must continue lest we become an unrooted confessional body that will melt away like a sand rope, grow into a cold sect, or import corrupting doctrines into our ministries. We have every confidence that the courage and conviction exist in the global church for these difficult yet necessary tasks.

Forward in Faith North America