Communion Partners, Global Turbulence, and our Unity in Christ
A Reflection by Dr. Dane Neufeld, Chair of Communion Partners Canada
The recent pledge by The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) to reorder the Anglican Communion in response to “the revisionist agenda” has generated a lot of conversation and confusion. For those of us who have staked our continuance in the Anglican Church of Canada on the wider, orthodox bedrock of the global Communion, this news was especially unsettling. If the global south Churches somehow organized an independent Anglican communion, Communion Partners like us—who are committed to Scripture and the received teaching of the Church—could suddenly feel orphaned and forgotten in the toss and turn of these global shifts.
In the background to these most recent events, a conversation and consultation is already underway within the existing structures of the Anglican Communion, to more accurately reflect the growing presence and leadership of the global south provinces. The Nairobi-Cairo proposals, that will be considered at the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in 2026, seek to decentre the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the sole focus of communion, while retaining the historic, pastoral elements of the role. The proposals also suggest dispersing the leadership of the Communion among the primates of its five regions.
We do not yet know how these proposals will resolve among the other currents in the Communion. Groups like the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) have indicated they are committed to engaging with the process that has been initiated by the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals. Even if it seems the time for engagement has come and gone for GAFCON, many of their leaders are active in the GSFA as well, which makes easy conclusions more difficult to draw. My ongoing prayer is for the structures and membership of the Communion to remain more or less intact, as the leadership of the Communion comes to reflect the growing vitality and scale of the Church in the global south.
As Canadians it can often feel like we are on the periphery of these larger movements and in many ways we are. But increasingly our churches reflect the reality of the global Communion. The Africans and South Asians in our congregation are usually not aware of the larger Anglican political realm. They don’t ask me about GAFCON or Communion Partners, but prefer to talk about normal Christian things: raising children, aging parents, finding jobs, and trusting God in the midst of these challenges. Most of these people just think of themselves simply as Anglican Christians. But I am also aware that many people from the broader Communion will never enter our Canadian churches, because of the perception and reality that many parishes do not reflect the traditional convictions of the historic church.
For this reason, the higher level faith and order considerations of the Anglican Communion are important. If unity can be maintained and nurtured within the existing Instruments of Communion it will enable generations of Anglicans to see themselves as one in Christ across the world. But these considerations are also not everything because we know that the Holy Spirit’s work in building up, reordering and gathering the Church far surpasses our ability to manage or plan. In this way, little has changed for Communion Partners in Canada.
We know that on this topic, some Canadian Anglicans might want us to critique our current crisis more sharply, while others might be puzzled. We inhabit a world which is anxious for quick and easy answers. Sometimes the discipline of the Gospel is not to avoid hard conversations and to speak to the moment, yet James 1:19-20 exhorts us, “You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” We are still called to serve faithfully in the places the Lord has planted us, and to pray continually for unity and for the renewal of our Church, its leaders and parishes.