Book Review: Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today

In June 2008, The Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) was hailed as one of the most significant developments in worldwide Anglicanism for many years. It was seen as constituting a clear signal from so-called ‘traditionalist’ Anglicans that they wished to distance themselves from both the tenets of theological liberalism and its practical outworking in church life.

On 29th June 2008, the participants in GAFCON issued a Statement on the Global Anglican Future, which described GAFCON as ‘a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it’ and as ‘a movement in the Spirit’. The Statement launched ‘the GAFCON movement as a ‘fellowship of confessing Anglicans’, The Jerusalem Declaration serving as ‘the basis of the fellowship’. The Declaration was described in the Statement as ‘a contemporary rule…to guide the movement for the future’ and was set out in full within the body of the Statement.

In September 2009, a Commentary on the Declaration was published under the title Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. The Commentary was prepared by the Theological Resource Group of GAFCON and in its published form, it is supplemented by a document entitled The Way, The Truth and The Life, which consists of a number of papers written by members of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group and describes itself as a ‘handbook, to serve as a theological introduction and definition for GAFCON’.

To understand the GAFCON movement and its theological reference points and to gain some insight into the nature of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, it is necessary to read the Statement, the Declaration, the Commentary and The Way, The Truth and The Life as a whole, which was no doubt the intention behind their publication together under the banner Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. To read more, click here.