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In this column last month, Chris Sugden and Vinay Samuel helpfully answered the question ‘Why GAFCON ?’. This month, as the full significance of the third GAFCON conference held in June becomes clearer, I want to offer a personal reflection on the question of where GAFCON is going.

The short answer is nowhere! The appeal in GAFCON’s Letter to the Churches to the Archbishop of Canterbury to restore godly leadership has been ignored and there can be no doubt now that it is through GAFCON that the faithful Anglican tradition will be continued. The powers-that-be seem determined that the Communion should embrace the optional orthodoxy of ‘good disagreement’.

In his insightful contribution for this column last month, Chris Sugden showed that the lack of accountability and anxiety about brand protection revealed in the Oxfam scandal are also unresolved problems for the Anglican Communion.

Both have a global reach and both have to deal with imbalances of power and the need for inclusive leadership.

In January two new Anglican Primates were elected, the Bishop of Maridi, Justin Badi Arama, as Archbishop of South Sudan and the Bishop of Shyira, Dr Laurent Mbanda, as Archbishop of Rwanda.

Both nations have suffered internecine violence, and by far the most notorious example remains the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which an estimated 1 million people died. Given the long history of insecurity which predated South Sudan’s recent independence, internal strife was predictable, but Rwanda was an established kingdom well before the colonial era, in which different ethnic groups lived peacefully. Moreover, Rwanda was the home of a powerful revival in 1929 which spread spontaneously during the 1930s and became known as the East African Revival.

Anglicans claim to be part of the Reformed Western catholic tradition and one of the most visible ways that continuity over the centuries is maintained is through episcopacy, which the English evangelical reformers of the 16th century quite deliberately retained in contrast to their continental counterparts.

Was that wise? In the present-day Anglican Provinces of the West, the claim to Reformed catholicity is looking ever more dubious as apostolic substance ebbs away. Moreover, disunity and doctrinal incoherence in the Anglican Communion has been an episcopally led phenomenon.

The Mothers Union (MU) is one of the great success stories of the Anglican Communion.

Beginning in 1876 with Mary Sumner’s vision for Christian marriage and family life, the movement now numbers some 4 million members worldwide, with the largest concentration being in Africa.

Most Christians in the UK probably have only the haziest idea of what Anglicanism looks like in South America. The Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 inhibited Protestant and Anglican missionary work in the continent, while the English language has always been marginal, unlike most other areas of the Anglican Communion where British influence was much stronger.

This is a pity, because out of the continuing crisis in the world-wide Anglican Communion a reinvigorated and missionary church is emerging in South America, in spite of official persecution and rejection. In fact the pattern of North America is being repeated. Just as a new GAFCON-recognised Province, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), arose out of the aggressive and assertive revisionism of the American Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada, so in South America a new orthodox Province is coming into being as the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) and various TEC satellite provinces in central and northern South America follow the lead of their North American counterparts.

GAFCON has confirmed the dates for its third international conference. Between 17-22 June 2018 it will return to Jerusalem, the venue of the first Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008 (from which the movement takes its name).

The GAFCON announcement explains that ‘The city stands as a constant reminder of the birth of the gospel and the movement’s determination to remain true to the teachings of our Lord and his Word’ and so, to appreciate the significance of the 2018 conference, it is worth recalling how it all began.