Gafcon in Kigali: A struggle for the future of Anglicanism

Last month, the Rwandan capital of Kigali was the unlikely host of a gathering which will shape the future of the world’s third-largest Christian denomination – the Anglican Communion. Hundreds of conservative and evangelical delegates from across the world met in Kigali under the banner of Gafcon – the Global Anglican Future Conference. And there, they put a bomb under longstanding Anglican structures by declaring they would not accept Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the closest thing Anglicanism has to a pope, as their leader. Fired up by fury at how the mother church of Anglicanism – the Church of England, which Welby leads – has decided to bless same-sex unions, Gafcon has begun a struggle for control, and in some ways a struggle for the soul, of the Anglican Communion. 

Guests this week:

• Susie Leafe, conservative Anglican activist

• Rico Tice, Church of England vicar

• Andrew Atherstone, evangelical church historian