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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepastorsheart">Facebook</a> then on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ThePastorsHeart">YouTube</a> and on our <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> website and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Enough’s Enough! — A Bible-Centred Reordering of Global Anglicanism — with Laurent Mbanda
“We are now the Global Anglican Communion,” says Archbishop Laurent Mbanda — the Chair of Gafcon, Primate of Rwanda, and leader of Global Anglicans.
Bible-believing Anglicans around the world are praising God today.
The Anglican Communion is being reordered — reset — with the Bible once again at its foundation.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the revisionists, and the so-called Canterbury Communion are out — they’ve repeatedly abandoned Cranmerian Anglicanism, and ultimately, Jesus himself.
This reordering seeks to restore the Communion’s original structure — a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation. There will be no communion with those who have abandoned the authority of Scripture.
A new Council of Primates will be formed, electing a chairman to preside as primus inter pares — first among equals.
Archbishop Mbanda is here in Sydney this week with a group of Primates and the founding fathers of Gafcon. Their informal consultations culminated in a clear and momentous statement — so significant that an online Global Primates Meeting was held at 11 p.m. Sydney time last night to ratify the decisions made.
Many of those leaders are now on planes heading home. But Archbishop Mbanda, joins us in our Pastor’s Heart studio.
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We are now the Global Anglican Communion. That's what the leader of Global Anglicans, the chair of GAFCON, the Primate of Rwanda, Laurent Mbanda, says. It is the Pastor's Heart. It's Dominic Steele coming here from Sydney, and with me, the leader of Global Anglicans, Laurent Mbanda. Bible Christians who are Anglican all around the world are praising God today. The Anglican Communion is to be reordered, to be reset. The Bible is to be the foundation of an authentic communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Revisionists, and the Canterbury Communion are out. They have repeatedly abandoned Cramnerian Anglicanism and Jesus. The reordering of an authentic global Anglican communion seeks to restore the Anglican Communion's original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the formularies of the Reformation. There will be no communion with revisionists who have abandoned the Bible. There's to be a council of primates of member provinces. They'll elect a chairman who'll preside over that council. Archbishop Laurent Umbanda is with us in Sydney, and he's been here with a group of primates and the founding fathers of the GAFCON movement. There have been informal consultations all week, culminating in a statement that was so clear and so significant that there was a global primates meeting online at 11 o'clock last night, Sydney time, to ratify the decisions that were made. A whole lot of those primates and leaders are now on planes flying home. But Archbishop Mbunga, thanks for delaying your flight back to Rwanda and coming to talk to us after what's been a huge week.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let me say that it has been on my heart for a while. And the reason it has been on my heart for a while is because as chair, I don't work alone. I always try to consult, I always try to talk to people, I want to know where they are and what they think. But also, as we knew that we were anticipating this announcement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and knowing that uh we have been on a journey since 2008, the CAFCON, and we have met several times. We have also written documents, we have expressed who we are, we have talked about our identity, we have um um many times uh talked about uh Canterbury, uh we met in Kigari, and we talked about the Ash Wednesday, which we are familiar with. So I think it was time to start thinking, okay, so what do some of these founding fathers think? It was also time to say, okay, we have talked a lot. It's very time for um to to walk the talk, and um so it was good to think and to start thinking and praying as we prayed to think, okay, maybe this is the right time to look back where we have been, to see where we are today and ask ourselves a tough question as so where are we going on this journey that we started 2008? And so as I thought about that, I uh decided to call as a chairman to call a small group, especially the founding fathers, to be inspired by their hearts, by their commitment, by what led them to GovCon 2008. But as also I thought about those founding fathers of GovCon, like Peter Jensen, like Peter Kinora, and others, Henry O'Rombi, and uh even though he was not here, and others. So I think it would be interesting to have these people to sit down with them. Yes, and uh and also a few a few primates to sit and think together and look back together and come to where we are together in the context of everything that is going on. So that's how we came together. That's how the Lord made it for us to be able to together here. And uh it was it was amazing to be in the same room, it was inspiring to be in the same room. It was it was uh it was a good moment to listen to people like uh Pitakinola and uh how God used him. So I'm thankful that we had an opportunity of being together and thinking together and uh and asking ourselves some questions and both of uh of so what have you done? So where do we go?
SPEAKER_01:So the statement you ended up producing was so significant you decided we need a full count primates meeting to ratify it, to consult with them.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that that statement is was almost organic as we are talking and sharing and and and and seeking to clarify some of the document. We had a lot of documents, we had written a lot, but there were things that needed some sharpening, some clarification, or those other things that needed to come together. So as we discussed, and those things were coming together, there was a sense of wow, this is this is really good. This is the moment, this is something that we need to share with others. So these things were coming together. I felt like it's very interesting if we can sense uh we have thought, we have brainstorm, we have looked back, we have uh looked where we are today, we have looked at the contact, and here is what is coming out. Would it be interesting to share it with other primates? So that's how we we we really called uh let's say an extraordinary um primates meeting, and uh I'm glad that uh people responded.
SPEAKER_01:Now, you've issued a statement, eight points. I thought I might read each point to you and then get you to elaborate on each point as we go. Yes. Um the the first big line is we resolved to reorder the Anglican Communion. That is a big statement.
SPEAKER_00:It is a big statement. It is a big statement because GAFCON in 2008 reset the communion. We made a commitment there. We developed a Jerusalem declaration out of that meeting, that that conference. And so, as we have been talking, and given what is going on, and also given that the revisionists continue to deny what the scripture teaches, continue to walk away as as the fabric continues to turn even more further, I think it was time to say, and to be who we have always said we are, and to move toward what we have always said. So it's reordering because the reset had been done, and now we may need to sharpen and make things clear and clearly set the direction of where we are going. And we had said it in that statement that we said two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01:We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, translated, read, preached, taught, and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church's historic and consensual reading.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. The Bible is what brings us to unity. Wasn't it the Bible? You and I wouldn't probably know each other. That's quite right. It's what Christ did for us that brings us together, and we find that in his word. And so that Bible becomes the center, that Bible becomes the what brings us together in unity. That Bible also is what gives us the message of the good news to be witnesses of Christ, of what he has done in us and what he is doing through us. So that is that that that is a call, that is to the heart, that is the foundation.
SPEAKER_01:We reject the so-called instruments of communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the primates meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
SPEAKER_00:I think that the last part says it well. They have failed. They have failed to bring us together, they have failed to keep us together. Part of it is the leadership that uh has been in the place that didn't abort the instrument, that the instrument didn't serve us mainly because of the failure of leadership. That's what I believe. But that failure also becomes from the rejection of what the scripture teaches, from removing and distancing ourselves from themselves, from what the Bible says. And so that's why we talk about bringing back the Bible, that's what we say, restoring the Bible to the center, that's why we see the Bible as the unifying, that's why we see the Bible as the uh witness of the gospel. And so those instruments, they didn't, they failed, they failed us. And this is not the first time we have raised that. We talked about it in 2008, we talked about it in 2013, we talked about in 2018, about time to walk the talk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. If I think back to 2023 and Kigali, it felt like we could we same so came so close to saying it then. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It was amazing. It was amazing in the Kigari. It was it's it felt like the time was right. But you know what? We were still hoping, we were still praying, we were still thinking, well, maybe there will be repentance, yeah, maybe there will be that return back to the center. Maybe the leadership that was in place or that might come will do something that brings us together, that will reinforce the discipline, that will bring the they make the instrument it work for us. But that failed.
SPEAKER_01:Another two years and it's a good one. Another two years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you keep walking, walking, walking, walking. The good news is that we were on a journey, that we never gave up, even though we expected and gave opportunity for people to repent to bring us together. Now that that is failing, as we read the resetting, we also lead the reordering. And GAFCON is reading.
SPEAKER_01:We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned resolution 110 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
SPEAKER_00:Again, that is not new. That is something that has been there. It goes back to that year you just stated, it goes back to the time when when they failed to bring discipline, when people departed from the teaching of the scripture. So we have expressed that. Right now, what we are doing is just re-articulating it, sharpening it, bringing it to the surface.
SPEAKER_01:So here we get to the changes. Therefore, GAFCON has reordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the formularies of the Reformation as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the global Anglican Communion.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and that's very interesting because from day one from 2008, we said we are in the communion. We are the Anglican communion. Those who are not Anglican communion and the Anglican communion are those who have departed from the Word of God, from the scripture, from the instrument that holds us together, from bringing the Bible back to the center. So we never left.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We have been there, and the message has been clear. We have been articulating it. So no, uh I'm not sure if anyone can say, uh, no, you are not Anglican. Anglicans are those who have left what makes us Anglican. And so um that's why we have always been, you know, um uh GAFCO is global future Anglican conferences. So with that, then we are global. That name has been there. We are Anglicans, that has been there. We are with the Anglican communion, that has been there. So there is nothing new except that we are really making it clear and sharp.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, some people will accuse you of being schismatic. What do you say to them?
SPEAKER_00:Why would they accuse me of being uh uh schismatic when they are the ones who departed and they are not saying anything about themselves? Maybe I should turn that to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And say that's what they have been, but that's not what we we we are or what we've been. We have always been there, we stay there, we continue there, instead we say, no, come back, let's go.
SPEAKER_01:Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.
SPEAKER_00:Again, that is bringing it back to the service. We have said it. We even said it in the Ashwenis day. We even talked about Nato going to Rome in that meeting. We even talked about a number of meetings, we even talked about uh uh a broken relationship. So this is this is this is exactly what we have been talking about. We now want to walk it.
SPEAKER_01:Provinces, I'm at number six now, provinces which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the Sea of Canterbury and the Church of England.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, again, let me say that there are some provinces that already didn't have that reference to the Sea of Canterbury. Take the example of Brazil, take the example of uh the um SNA, the Anglican Church in North America, take the example of the Church of Rwanda if you want to. I think Nigeria doesn't have a reference. Nigeria, yeah. So yes, but then if we are saying that we have no relationship, but I think that like the Australian Church, I think does have that as part of its constitution.
SPEAKER_01:So I'd hope that the powers that be on the general synod of the Australian Church would work with.
SPEAKER_00:Now that's something to think about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We have something to think about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. There is some homework for those who who who have that, that's where they're saying, you need to consider and start thinking, how do you move away from that?
SPEAKER_01:How do you move away? Yeah. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and that again goes back to 2008. And it is reminded, uh, or it was a reminder to 2013. We re-articulated it again in 2018. In Kigari, I believe that we also talked about. So that has always been what brings in into being a member of Gafco. And we continue to make that so for the provinces, for the dioceses, and where there are provinces that are not part of that, and there are bishops or dioceses that uh that uh want to be part of GAFCON, they have created branches and we will continue to create branches. There have also been people who have been affiliated with GAFCO on their own. So three levels: a province comes, a diocese can come through a branch, individuals can come as affiliate, and those who have not yet come can always come. We want to force anybody, it has to be your conviction of where do you want it to be in relation to the teaching of the scripture? Where do you want it to be in relation to the Bible being the center of what you are doing?
SPEAKER_01:Um, and then the last one we shall form a council of primates of all member provinces to elect a chairman as Primus into Paris, first amongst equals, to preside over the council as it continues to contend for the faith. So a new leader.
SPEAKER_00:A new leader, and I'm looking to that celebration.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That is coming in March G 26.
SPEAKER_01:So tell us about this important meeting of bishops in March 26.
SPEAKER_00:Well, in March 2026 in Abuja, we are convening a meeting of the bishop's conference. Now, this is not again new to us. We have we had the G20 G25, we have G26 coming, we will have G27 coming, we'll have GAFCON 8 coming in 2028. Before we had the GAFCO that went from happened uh 208 and then you wait another five years. So we are coming together, and in this coming together, it so happened that this this time we are saying, let us walk the talk. We started the journey in 208. So you've you've started to map out an agenda for this conference next March? Well, not yet, but this also becomes this is good, this feels like it's the big agenda. This is a this alone is a good uh agenda, is being made. Yeah, but this alone is good, it's good enough to for us to spend. You can spend uh a whole lot of time talking about that.
SPEAKER_01:I've never wanted to go to a bishop's conference before, but I've got quite excited about this.
SPEAKER_00:The key thing is this these bishops are coming together, we'll spend time together in prayer, we'll spend time together in fellowship and worship, we'll spend time together to to even expound more on this. We'll spend together in times of celebration of our new identity, the global Anglican Communion.
SPEAKER_01:Now, is it a coincidence that the leaders, the bishops of 85% of the world's Anglicans will be gathering in Abuja in March next year, while the leader of 15% of the world's Anglicans, Sarah Malali, will be being installed over in London two weeks later?
SPEAKER_00:Uh it's just by coincidence because we didn't plan it that way, they didn't plan it that way. But if it happens that way, praise the Lord. We we'll move. Maybe she will attend.
SPEAKER_01:Well, wouldn't it be great if she attended, if she repented, signed the Jerusalem? I mean, that's really the longing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, where there is a deeper issue, but if she repented and signed the Jerusalem declaration, what do you think would happen?
SPEAKER_01:I think she'd have to resign.
SPEAKER_00:Well, but the thing is this that if she repented, which is what we have called for, it will be an answered prayer for the Sea of Canterbury. Because we have always called if they repent and come. But that repentance also has to restore the Bible to the center. That repentance cannot just be more words that we say, it has to be followed by action. Now, having said that, I also have to say that there are certain uh uh number of provinces that still have uh struggle with uh uh with a woman in uh leadership. And um so, but that has but that the essential is the repentance.
SPEAKER_01:Um what about bishops who haven't previously been part of GAFCON? I'm just thinking about my old Moore College classmate Mark Short, who's now the primate of or the primate elect of Australia. Can he be invited?
SPEAKER_00:He has to sign the Jerusalem Declaration.
SPEAKER_01:Can you sign the Jerusalem Declaration?
SPEAKER_00:Well, if you wholeheartedly read the Jerusalem Declaration and believe that this is what really speaks to my heart, this is who I am, this is what I buy. Uh 100%, this is what I'm committed to, and you sign it, you are welcome.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm imagining, I mean, this statement's only 15 hours old, but um, I'm imagining already your phone is starting to run hot with primates from around the world talking about how do I fit in in this. And uh, I mean, I'm just thinking about the excitement of um well that statement by Titus Chung. Um, when I read that uh after Sarah Malale's appointment and and how clear he was on the gospel, um, I mean, uh it he he just sounds great.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Um uh his statement was a good estatement. I read it also. Yeah. But now the Jedi, the Jerusalem of Declaration.
SPEAKER_01:Read it, study it, say it, and come. And you'll be reaching out to the others in the global south in the same way?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we don't need to because I think things are clear, but our arms are open. We are open to receive, we are open to to embrace. Um the it's interesting that you talk about in the global south. GAFCON is very interesting. Global South or GSFA is very interesting because we cross in. So if you look survival, yes. So if you look at uh if you look at uh um GAFCO, we are, I believe, 12 uh primates. It's only two that are not in GSFA. It's me and Nigeria. So the door is open, our arms are open. And and after all, we are talking about the Bible at the center. So if you read the Jerusalem Declaration and you fear that commitment, that conviction, that's where it should be. Come.
SPEAKER_01:Now, other statements that have come out in the last 15 hours, we've seen um uh uh the primate of the Anglican Church of North America, Steve Woods, and also uh Bishop Julian Dodd, they've both put out statements, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, and and I don't think that their statement contradicts. They don't contradict, they actually complement. I also believe that they have uh signed the Jerusalem Declaration. I also believe that uh they are standing in the right place, and we invite others who feel that God is leading them to be part of this.
SPEAKER_01:So where to from here?
SPEAKER_00:Where to from here? We are heading to Abujah G26. We are also saying, Yeah, think, pray, let God lead you. Look at this Jerusalem declaration, and join this global Anglican communion if you feel that that's where God is leading you. There are some that are that are in the provinces that are revisionists, and if I feel like all my province is not coming, you can join the branches that are next to you or that are in your country, you can be an affiliate. You see, for some it will take time, time, and as it takes a time, but you are on a journey, you are in the process, you are welcome. But the Jerusalem declaration needs to be signed.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks so much for coming to talk to us this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so good to be here. Thank you very much. Do you want to pray for the communion? Definitely, yes, I would love to do so. Let us pray together, our gracious Father. We want to give you glory and praise where you have got us from to where we are today, for what you have done in our lives, for the manifestation of your love through your Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins. We thank you for what he has done for us, we thank you for what he has done in us, we thank you for what he is doing through us. We pray, Father, that we'll be continue to be obedient to your word. We pray that we will step out and preach the good news, proclaim Christ unshamed free to the nations. We pray for those that are uh on the fringes, and Lord, pray that uh you will bring them in. Also pray for those that have hardened their hearts, Lord, that you will turn their hearts to you, may they repent, may they put you to the center of their lives, may they heed your word and be obedient to it. May you have your own way, Lord, in our lives, in the life of your church. May you bring healing and unity around the scriptures, in the land of the witness, of Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son.
SPEAKER_01:Archbishop Lawrence. My name is Dominic Steele, and you've been with us on the pastors afternoon. Thanks for your company. We will look forward to you joining us again next Tuesday afternoon.
