The Nairobi Communiqué and Commitment: How really serious is the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans?

By Robin G. Jordan

The Nairobi Communiqué contains an unqualified endorsement of the Anglican Church in North America:

The GFCA has been instrumental in the emergence of the new Province of the Anglican Church in North America, giving formal recognition to its orders and welcoming it as a full partner province, with its Archbishop having a seat on the Primates’ Council.

At the same time the communiqué contains this statement:

The fellowship we enjoy as Christians is distinguished from all other associations by the fact that it is at its heart a common ‘fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3). For this reason it has a particular character. It involves repentance and ‘walking in the light, as he is in the light’ (1 John 1:7–9). The character and boundaries of our fellowship are not determined by institutions but by the Word of God. The church is a place where the truth matters, where it is guarded and promoted and where alternatives are exposed for what they are — an exchange of the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1:25). Our willingness to submit to the written Word of God and our unwillingness to be in Christian fellowship with those who will not, is clearly expressed in The Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. This means that the divisions in the Anglican Communion will not be healed without a change of heart from those promoting the false gospel, and to that end we pray.

The “false gospel” to which this statement refers is identified earlier in the communiqué:

In 2008, the first GAFCON was convened in order to counter a false gospel which was spreading throughout the Communion. This false gospel questioned the uniqueness of Christ and his substitutionary death, despite the Bible’s clear revelation that he is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). It undermined the authority of God’s Word written. It sought to mask sinful behaviour with the language of human rights. It promoted homosexual practice as consistent with holiness, despite the fact that the Bible clearly identifies it as sinful.

The communiqué lists three priorities. The third priority is:

Guarding the gospel. We shall continue publicly to expose any false gospel that is not consistent with apostolic teaching and clearly to articulate the gospel in the church and in the world.

Those who signed the communiqué committed themselves and the ecclesial bodies that they lead to publicly exposing “any false gospel” inconsistent with apostolic teaching and clearly articulating the gospel in the church and the world.

The Nairobi Communiqué also lists nine commitments—the Nairobi Commitment. The first, fourth, and fifth commitments are particularly important, as is the commitment to the authority of the Word:

We are committed to Jesus Christ as the head of the Church, the authority of his Word and the power of his gospel. The Son perfectly reveals God to us, he is the sole ground of our salvation, and he is our hope for the future. We seek to honour him, walk in faith and obedience to his teaching, and glorify him through our proclamation of his name.

Therefore, in the power of the Holy Spirit —

1. We commit ourselves anew to The Jerusalem Statement and Declaration.

4. We commit ourselves to defend essential truths of the biblical faith even when this defence threatens existing structures of human authority (Acts 5:29). For this reason, the bishops at GAFCON 2013 resolved ‘to affirm and endorse the position of the Primates’ Council in providing oversight in cases where provinces and dioceses compromise biblical faith, including the affirmation of a duly discerned call to ministry. This may involve ordination and consecration if the situation requires.

5. We commit ourselves to the support and defence of those who in standing for apostolic truth are marginalized or excluded from formal communion with other Anglicans in their dioceses….

If indeed the foregoing are priorities and commitments of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, how then can the GFCA in its communiqué be unqualified in its endorsement of the Anglican Church in North America, an ecclesial body in which—

(1) the authority of church tradition in some quarters is given as much weight as that of the Scriptures, if not greater weight than the Bible’s authority; and

(2) a false gospel is preached and taught—a gospel of salvation by good works and sacraments?

The constitution of the Anglican Church in North America also relegates its affirmation of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration to its preamble where it is simply a part of the narrative explaining the formation of the ACNA. The ACNA’s Fundamental Declarations adopts language that equivocates in fully accepting the authority of the historic Anglican formularies. The theology of the new ACNA eucharistic rites and the revised ACNA ordinal is at odds with the doctrine of the formularies and the teaching of the Bible.

North American Anglicans in the Anglican Church in North America can be expected to make a great deal of the communiqué’s endorsement of the ACNA. On the other hand, they can also be expected to pay little or no heed to the priorities and commitments articulated in the Nairobi Communiqué, particularly those to which I have drawn attention in this article.

As long as the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is unqualified in its endorsement of the Anglican Church in North America, conservative evangelicals, despite the tone of the Nairobi Communiqué and Commitment, would be wise to view the GFCA as not being really serious about guarding the gospel . The GFCA has yet to put its own house in order.