The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

Out with Apostasy and Colonialism: Center of gravity shifts from Canterbury to Abuja - with Paul Donison

• Paul Donison • Season 7 • Episode 47

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Paul Donison responds to global reaction to Gafcon’s reset of the Anglican Communion and its declaration that Canterbury’s time is over.

The Lord is removing his Spirit from the Canterbury–Lambeth lampstand, and the centre of global Anglicanism is shifting from London to Africa.

The average Anglican today is not English, not Western, not male — she’s a young African woman in her twenties, probably Nigerian. The Anglican Communion is now catching up with that reality.

Since the Gafcon Primates’ announcement on 16 October 2025 — declaring that Canterbury is out and that the Bible will be the foundation document for a reordered Global Anglican Communion — reaction has been electric: claims of schism, conflict in Ireland, tensions in ACNA, questions about women’s orders, realignments in England, silence from some primates, and fresh courage from others.

And what does this mean for a blended province like Australia?

Gafcon General Secretary Paul Donison joins us with an update on plans for the Global Bishops Gathering in Abuja, Nigeria, 3–6 March 2026.


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Dominic Steele:

The Lord is taking away his spirit from the Canterbury Lambeth Lampstand. The center of gravity in the Anglican Communion is moving from Canterbury to Abuja, Nigeria. It's the Pastor's Heart. She's probably Nigerian. And the framework of the Anglican Communion is catching up with that reality. And the English colonialists need to come to terms with that. In March 2026, there'll be a conference of Anglican bishops from all around the world, bishops who are confessionally Anglican. That is, they have signed the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration. That meeting will mark the official launch of the new Global Anglicans. It was six weeks ago that Rwandan primate Archbishop Laurent Mbanda joined us on the Pastor's Heart telling us that the Anglican Communion is to be reordered, to be reset. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England are out, and the Bible is back, back at the foundation of the communion. When we spoke to Archbishop Mbanda, the ink was barely dry on that statement. Well since then there's been a lot of action and reaction from all around the world as people have grappled with this news, tensions and realignments in the Anglican Church in North America, the situation in Ireland, decisions coming out of the GAFCON Primates Council, questions about women's orders, schism, and communion relationships. And how does it work for a mixed province, one like Australia, where the growing majority wants to align with the Bible and the believers in Africa, and yet there's a significant minority still harking back to apostasy and canterbury. Well, we start with Paul Donison and the pastor's heart. And Paul, you were here for that meeting six weeks ago, and um you're back. It's been a busy six weeks for you.

Paul Donison:

It's been a very busy six weeks, Dominic. It's been wonderful, uh, but very full because the reactions have been enormous, both positive and obviously some negative. Um, but you expect that. If we're saying anything that's important, it's gonna get a variety of responses.

Dominic Steele:

So tell us, I mean, it was so new, it was really just an idea on the 15th or so when we spoke last month, or when I spoke to Archbishop Mbanda last month. But things are starting to crystallize. What is the plan for the March meeting in Abuja, Nigeria?

Paul Donison:

Yeah, so in March uh in 2026, we're meeting in Abuja. We've moved from one of these new mini-conferences, global mini-conferences. Uh, it's not so many anymore, because the realization is we need to really have all of the Orthodox bishops invited. It is a bishops conference intentionally. So the plan will be to meet in Abuja and to really listen together. I mean, this is this is the conciliar nature of the church, have the bishops in the room, all those who've signed the Jerusalem Declaration, um, and meet, pray, and hopefully speak with one voice. And a lot of the questions that have emerged since the October 16th statement, we believe a lot of them, you know, by God's leading, will actually be answered in the Abuja conference. It's got to a point where some of the media outlets keep asking me for a new update, saying, is there anything new? Is there anything new? And I keep saying, I think you'll probably have to wait till Abuja. Abuja will be where something new and fresh comes out of that conference.

Dominic Steele:

And then I I take it you're thinking that there'll be some sort of ceremony, some sort of inaugural moment. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Paul Donison:

That's the hope. I mean, what we said in the October 16th statement, what the primates said was that the uh the plan would be that a council of primates, uh, which has been from the beginning of GAFCON, that we gather our primates together, but this council of primates would together uh elect, choose a Primus Inter Paris, a first among equals. We know we're using you know loaded language by saying that. Um so that's been the intention. All the rest that happens, uh hopefully celebrating that appointment and election, uh being able to celebrate other decisions that come out, this is all gonna be part of Abuja. Um I mean, uh the odds are they on Laurent Mbanda? Well, I think what's important is that GAFCON's leadership has really tried to set a reordering moment in this. And so my understanding, and it's yet to be determined when the bishops gather in Abuja, but my understanding is that uh the intention of the October 16th statement was to say that there'll be a council of primates that gather there, which we hope is actually even potentially a broader alliance than has been traditionally part of the GAFCON primes.

Dominic Steele:

Wouldn't it be awesome? I mean, I I'm I mean my prayer is that um the primate of Australia might go.

Paul Donison:

Wouldn't that be amazing? And and and and if he could sit in the room and be part of that primates' council, it would be incredible. I mean, I'm sure he got major blowback from some places, but again, the pullers from here. Well, and that's that's again, anything we do that's important within uh within gospel ministry is going to r result in all kinds of reactions. So our hope is that it would be a broad gathering of those who can sign the Jerusalem Declaration, and then amongst them they'll vote. Now, if they elect Archbishop Umbanda, that'll be great. Um, if they elect someone else, that'll be great because it'll be the Lord's choosing amongst the primates. The key thing, though, is this has not been GAFCON sort of crowning itself as we are the primates' council. GAFCON's leadership has said we need to have a council of primates that gather, and that will be the reordering moment. That they will decide. They will decide.

Dominic Steele:

Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm imagining though, you guys are talking to some of those primates who are I mean, there's some people who you kind of know will turn up like the guy from Nigeria, the guy from since he's hosting it. I hope he's there. Arch Bishop Bendiku is vital to all of this, and he's such a gracious host. But then there's others that you're thinking, we don't know if they're going to come, we need to invite them, and you're out talking to them. I'm presuming what's going on at the point.

Paul Donison:

That's a hope that and and it's not just primate focus. We really are trying to get a broad group of primates together, but also bishops. So our hope is that this could be a real gathering moment. Some bishops who may have been at conferences years ago, but maybe have fallen a bit away from the GAFCON movement. Uh, this would be an opportunity to reach out to the Trevor Burrus. So you reach out to South Sudan, you reach out to the reach out to everybody, and we're not going to obviously uh push hard. We want people to make good conscience decisions to go. Uh, but we really the the invitation is what? If you can sign the Jerusalem Declaration as a bishop in this communion, we want you there. We want you part of this.

Dominic Steele:

So um what about Australia? I mean, you've you've been touring Australia. That's right. I'm sure you've been getting questions like I mean, I don't know what the definition you might call Australia a blended province. There's a lot of mixed and blended. Yeah, exactly. Tell us about your observations here and what your hopes are here.

Paul Donison:

Well, what I've seen here, of course, is that you go to a place like Sydney, obviously, and there's other places. So we we're in Tasmania, and you see places that have very strong gospel leadership. There's a there's a clear commitment to GAFCON. Even those places know we need encouragement still. I mean, that's been the great thing about coming to Sydney and having some meetings is to not assume that Sydney's on board, historically such a huge role, but encourage that, encourage intentional increased engagement. Um, but certainly going to other places, we recognize that there are people live living and serving a diocese where it is a mixed blended diocese, um, just like a mixed blended province. And we want to be able to say to those folks, you really can engage with the global Anglican communion. You can really be part of this. Um, the obviously the ordered way normally is through a province. That's why we have a primates council. So if a province signs on, that's the most sort of regular approach. But then we've got other dioceses around the world. I think of Muita Kira out of Tanzania, um, other places where you've got a singular diocese that has said, hey, we're fully GAFCON. And we found ways to connect them in and be part of the Africa. How do you do that?

Dominic Steele:

How do you do that with if the the province as a whole is not with you, or maybe even in the constitution, the province can't be with you or is somehow linked to Lambeth or what Aaron Ross Powell?

Paul Donison:

And this is the question we get asked a lot because the challenge is when you're when you're living in a region, for example, where uh like a diocese like let's let's pick a diocese in uh Tanzania, in that case with Muay Akira, his his He's a great guy. He's a wonderful guy, and he's our branch chair for Tanzania. And so in his case, I mean he's decidedly GAFCON, but Tanzania is in a mixed position now. So our view, and people have interpreted that what October 16th said was choose this day, you're either in those kind of provinces or outside of those provinces. But again, remember that what we say in the statement, and I always tell people, read the statement from October 16th carefully, read it slowly and understand what we're saying, because in that statement, we talk about a vision of Anglicanism that goes back to the Lambeth Conference origins, where we had not evolved into this weird, near magisterial kind of approach to Anglicanism being run by these four man-made instruments of communion, unity, the the Archers of Canterbury, the ACC, the Lambeth Conference, and the Primates meeting. It's almost become ex cathedral Anglican. Precisely. And they're new, as I keep saying to people, people act as if these things were written into the homilies by Cranberg. But the truth is that, you know, 1860. Exactly, exactly. Our formularies are always submitted to Scripture. But that instead we're saying the vision of Anglicanism has not been under these structures before, but the unity has been the Bible. But then autonomous Anglican dioceses and provinces that are bound together in communion. And I think what's happened within the Anglican communion is we've actually begun to misunderstand what that word is within the old structure. A communion is a fellowship, it's a family of autonomous provinces that choose to be meet together confessionally, that we share a common confession. And so, in so many ways, what we've been saying is that the October 16th statement doesn't say anything different. These are autonomous diocese and provinces. We do say we encourage people to sever ties canonically and constitutionally with the Church of England, with the Archbishop of Canterbury. But notice we say encourage, because if they're autonomous, then how can a global body like the GAC say you must? We can't say you must.

Dominic Steele:

So it's not kind of like um exclusive, like a marriage. Do you know that you're either with GAFCON or Canterbury? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Paul Donison:

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Because the challenge again is one woman or another one. And see, the the challenge is that what we're saying in the statement is that we are the Anglican Communion. We've said that from the beginning. There's nothing really that new in the October 16th statement. We just stated these things together clearly with a few more applications, you could say. But part of it is we keep saying we've not left the Anglican Communion. We've said that from the very beginning in Jerusalem 2008. And so though others will continue to call us schismatics and say, oh, this is a global Anglican communion, it's another body, it's not. Schismatics or reformers.

Dominic Steele:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Paul Donison:

Well, that's exactly it. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I mean, people would have said that of Luther and Calvin. Absolutely. And Cranmer, I mean, when Cranmer left behind the Bishop of Rome and the Church of England remained intact, of course, what did Rome say? Oh, you're a bunch of schismatics. Cranmer said, no, we're reformers. We're keeping the Bible at the heart of what it means to be Anglicans, to be English Reformed Christians.

Dominic Steele:

I mean, I felt at Kigali that it it felt, oh wow, this is a moment that could be talked about in church history textbooks in 400 years' time. Exactly right. But it feels even more the case for the Abuja meeting. Absolutely.

Paul Donison:

Hey, you read it? Absolutely. And I think there was a sense I went to Kigali in 23 and was so pleased to again be that my what was my third GAFCON conference. I wasn't at Jerusalem in 2008, but I was there 13 in Nairobi and then 18 in Jerusalem and then 23 in Kigali. And I've just been so refreshed every time I go, as I know you have and others. But the other thing is I did actually have some expectation at the 23 meeting, and I didn't have a role. I wasn't Gen Sec at that time. But I had a hope and expectation that we would go even a bit further with what the conference said. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Dominic Steele:

I was a I thought they didn't go as far as I was expecting them to go or wanted them to go. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's right.

Paul Donison:

And so I think what happened was we were teeing up the future direction we were going. And then under the gracious uh God-given leadership of Archbishop Umbanda and the primates and all the primates' council, I mean all the bishops and I mean people often think that we're just primate-led. Our council actually is multifaceted. We've got primates, we've got regional secretaries, we've got lay people. I mean, who are the key primates who are engaged at the moment? Yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, I mean, we we're yet to see who's all going to show up for Abuja. I mean, because again, people are busy. The challenge of you know having a primate-led movement is that you know these primates are all primates of the extremely busy jobs.

Dominic Steele:

However, this is an important day. This is a very important day.

Paul Donison:

But I mean, certainly with Nigeria hosting as key. Um we we've got we've got strength from across the board with um with Uganda, with uh ACNA, with Brazil. Uh it's been wonderful talking to Archbishop Miguel and I mean just such a strong voice out of Brazil. Um, you know, and and he and he and he also broadens out sort of a whole uh South American reality with the Portuguese speakers. Um Bishop Enrique Lago out of Chile is a new primate, really solid. I mean, a GAFCON man. Um I mean, across the board, we've got Myanmar. I mean, Stephen Tan has been very engaged. Their province voted uh just a few weeks ago. I was talking to uh Bishop Clement Sun U, who's our regional secretary for Asia. He's in Myanmar, and they had some resolution at their province saying, oh, yes, we again have nothing to do with England and with Canterbury. I mean, it's in their constitution still because it takes time to work these things out. But they're making declarations at their synonical level saying we really want nothing to do with these dead and unbiblical structures. And I think that's courage.

Dominic Steele:

So they're really engaged. Let's push into, I mean, in terms of complexities, uh, these two good guys in Ireland who uh two bishops who put out strong statements um for Jesus, for the Bible, and and yet they're getting wrapped over the knuckles from on high.

Paul Donison:

Yeah. Well, it's challenging because again, I was providentially I was in Ireland about a week after the October 16th statement. That was long play. No, no, I mean it was it was I mean, I didn't I've done a lot in between. My my my cathedral my cathedral is incredibly gracious in my time. Um I hear your wife and kids are arriving in Australia today. So that would be a good idea. We got to go to Sydney today. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Reunions in Sydney so I can see my family. But uh they're hugely supportive and it's just it's a joy. And the the being in Ireland, for example, the week after the meeting was so, so critical. And and it was planned long before. I mean, in other words, we had teed up the Ireland meeting long before we knew there would be a meeting uh in October for uh for the for what became the GAC, the Global Anglican Communion announcement. So being able to be there, though, and talk to David McClay, for example.

Dominic Steele:

Oh, yes, GAC. You mucked it up with the word GAFCON all those years ago. You can't call it GAC. That's right. You've got to call it Global Anglican.

Paul Donison:

It's got to global Anglicans, just global Anglicans, Global Anglican Communion. You're absolutely right. I know, I know. It's not a GAF nor a con. It's I mean, I'll just say it, right? The Gen Secret. I mean, people have criticized this for years. I mean, we're now saying that GAFCO's become more of a brand. Like it's like Qantas. No one knows what Qantas stands for. Well, some do. But it's just like there's the brand. From the start. We've got to have a no acronym policy. Global Anglicans. But you know, going there and talking to Bishop David McClay, who's our regional secretary for Europe now. I mean, so again, a GAFCON man who's who's just so, so engaged. But he he was under huge criticism instantly. I mean, took a strong statement and continues to hold that. But again, part of it has been the misunderstanding. And I think whether it's willful misunderstanding or whether it's honest misunderstanding will be yet to be seen. But in a lot of the Western churches, it's almost like this has been used by certain primates to say, ah, see, if you're with GAFCON, now you've gone too far. They're they're looking for a reason to bring action against these guys. And I've I said when I was in Ireland, I'm not a constitutional expert, but there are protections within our constitutions around the globe with provinces that make sure that primates don't have that kind of, again, magisterial power just to throw someone out, thought police. I mean, we're into sort of Orwellism. We have, you know, it's against, it's against the primates code to think these things or or believe these things about the Anglicanism. The challenge is as I go there, my ability to say to folks, listen, hear it from GAFCON Global directly. We are not saying that if you're part of GAFCON, you have to leave the Church of Ireland. We're not saying that. What we're saying is we want you to be engaged with GAFCO. End stop, full stop.

Dominic Steele:

It's the same message for the mixed um province there as it is to the mixed province in Australia. Now, Anglican Church in North America, you're a bishop in the Anglican Church in North America. From my seat here in Sydney, I just look over there and think, what is going on?

Paul Donison:

Yeah. Um, we've got canons in place and constitutional processes. We've even refined some of those processes and are working through it. We've learned a lot. Um, but we're in our adolescence. We're you know, 16, 17 years old as the ACNA, which means we're kind of an awkward teenager instead of Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Dominic Steele:

We should say for those who are listening to this who are not following this closely, there's three senior bishops who are um uh under investigation accusations against them. And uh and and really it's all been a bit messily handled. That's probably an understatement. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Paul Donison:

That's exactly right. And and and we're what we're attempting to do is is follow our canons and follow our procedures. And I will say, to quote my friend Brian Holland, who's the uh dean president at Trinity Anglican Seminary, he wrote a great substack on this when this all came out, because people are saying the sky is falling, these these these disciplinary proceedings are demonstrating maybe the church is is done for, at least the ACNA. Um but the truth is, is as Holland says in his substack, he said, um discipline is not a sign that the church is dying. Discipline is a sign that the church is taking holiness seriously. And I think there's something in that, that we're actually leaning into this and we're making mistakes along the way and we're repenting of those, we're fixing our systems, but there is an earnest desire to actually deal with these disciplinary issues open, publicly, canonically, constitutionally. Um and so in doing so, there the hope is that actually we're learning through this uh so that the church actually can be a safer place. So I believe that at the end of all of this, though we are going through a real, a real trial and tribulation right now as the ACNA, um, that I think on the other side of this, the Lord will have taught us a lot about what it means to be the church and how to do things well for safe churches and for good leadership.

Dominic Steele:

Now talking about um complementarianism, because that's an elephant in the room. Sure. I'm a complementarian person, but there are some people who uh who would think you have to be complementarian to be in GAFCO, but you're running a broader line than that.

Paul Donison:

Oh, much more so. Because the the again, one of the misconceptions has happened uh that GAFCON has a particular position on complementary and egalitarian realities. The truth is these are really important issues. Really important issues. And obviously, I live in the ACNA happily with all that tension.

Dominic Steele:

Happily, it's certainly there's certainly tension there.

Paul Donison:

And I say happily because I'd rather have the, I mean, I'd rather have these problems than the other problems of what we came out from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada. I mean, I'll take these problems. Um, these are problems within the family, and they're really important issues. Uh, but in the Jerusalem Declaration in Article 12, intentionally it wrote in about diversity within secondary matters. And anyone who is part of that initial conference will know that's exactly what we were talking about. That the Article 12 was speaking specifically about women's orders and was uh among other things, but certainly was saying we have got to allow there to be diversity. Because again, I'll say, Dominic, that within the Anglican pro the global um Anglican communion provinces, within the GAFCO provinces, outside of Nigeria, my understanding is there is not a single province that's a full member of GAFCON outside of Nigeria that's fully complementarian from bishop to deacon. Every one of the other provinces will have some degree of egalitarian ministry at some level of order within their churches. So this is just the reality that we are a mixed within the province. Which in their within their province. That's right, dioceses will go one way or another way. And so from our perspective, is GAFCON again back to the vision of a fellowship of autonomous provinces that, as Article 12 says, has appropriate diversity on secondary issues. Secondary issues again being those things that are not keeping people from eternal salvation or damning them to hell. Right? First order issues are about things that get in the way of someone's salvation. I mean, or do you think it's really issues?

Dominic Steele:

I mean, does the scriptures speak clearly? You know, and so I mean we would agree that the scriptures speak clearly on the issue of sexuality, gender. Um when you come to complementarianism, maybe somebody might say to me, um, well I can j I can read it to interpret the scriptures this way. And I think I'm not sure you can, but maybe I could concede if you crossed your fingers, squinted, you know. Sure, sure. You sort of could work it out to get there.

Paul Donison:

Well, and these and these issues are really important because again, I do think we've talked about the sort of the univocal nature of scripture on certain issues, and then there's there's arguably, and not everyone agrees with that, there's a multiple reading uh or multiple readings within scripture, arguably, even those who are having a plain canonical reading of scripture that would disagree and would say attempt to be fully biblical to say here's an egalitarian position. Um and so so the argument is is I think even further than that, though, is when Paul, for example, in some of the moral vice lists, will go through these disciplinary issues of things that are going on in unrepentant behavior, and will say those who do these things, and of course homosexuality is included in that, will say those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And and we got to take that seriously. And so suddenly this idea that I often tell people in my own cathedral context who are newcomers, they'll say, listen, you know, we're not perfect. We're not suggesting everyone's perfect, we're all sinners, but we're repentant sinners. And so when the church teaches us not to be repentant of sin, then we are actually creating a first-order issue of someone's salvation. Yeah. On question of if a woman's in the pulpit or not and ordained, those are really important issues that get people very upset and they worry. They'll say, Well, if you read the Bible that way, then I'm not sure you're reading the Bible right. But at the end of the day, most will say, will agree it's not going to keep people out of heaven because a woman may or may not be in that role. Some will disagree, and then for them it's a first-order issue. GAFCON has said from the beginning, it's not a first-order issue, and therefore we can disagree on it.

Dominic Steele:

Now, the big conference you've got, we've got this one in Abuja, but your next big, big conference is 2008, and you're moving from Jerusalem to Athens.

Paul Donison:

Yeah, 2028, we uh voted the primates voted in our most recent meeting that having done all the research, we're so thankful that we had uh our global operations manager, a good Sydney boy, uh Canon Jody McNeil, uh did some great research for us at the request of the primates and for a whole lot of reasons, discerned that our 10-year pattern of going back to Jerusalem was just not tenable. And so we looked at a few other options, and you know, we've sort of gone Europe. If you if you sort of put Jerusalem in Europe, you say Jerusalem, and then we've gone Africa, Jerusalem, Africa. And we thought, well, where could we go, which would be a Jerusalem-like site that would have the same kind of biblical, unique role that could be really attractive and a place to gather? And we said Athens. And we presented that, and it looks really good. So yeah, we're going to Athens in 2028. It's gonna be, we hope, the biggest conference ever. And I can just imagine some of the sites. Well, I'm not even gonna say them, just those who are listening can or watching can think about all the cool sites right around Athens that we could gather, take photos, right? I mean, there's gonna be such great things we can do together. Great photo opportunities, great worship opportunities.

Dominic Steele:

So yeah, it's gonna be really cool. Great. Now, you've been touring Australia. Um, how's it been going?

Paul Donison:

I think it's gone great. We did five cities in five days, which uh means I really I have not I've not had much sightseeing, but uh met a lot of great people. And uh I've I've I've really gotten comfortable with Qantas Airlay Airways. Um I know Qantas Plains really well. Um but no, it's been so great to start in Melbourne and then one of the things all around.

Dominic Steele:

Is actually I'm imagining having serious conversations with some of our senior leaders attempting to win them over.

Paul Donison:

And that's exactly it. I mean, it's been an opportunity for honest conversation. Uh, we've had both leaders' meetings, one-on-one meetings, and then big public events. And I've just been so encouraged to have people sit down with me and say some hard things, say, hey, we don't like how you wrote that. And I said, I didn't write it. I was, you know, I was at the meeting, but it's the private statement. But but being able to talk through and say, I get what you're saying and I hear you, but then being able to have an opportunity to respond and seeing in many cases folks realize, wow, this is actually a much better moment than we realize. As I've been saying, Dominic, in a lot of places, the Western critics, even within, you know, the more evangelical camp, the Western criticism has has been profound. There's been a lot of it around the world. I've heard it. I'm not surprised by any of it. Um, what people need to remember is there's good answers to all of that. Some of the answer is wait till you know G26, we'll answer some of those things. But remember that the response in most of the Africans, South A Southeast Asian, um, South American churches have been really positive. Like when I talk to our folks around the world in those settings, they're saying this is amazing. They're so excited. In fact, some of them are saying that's a very important thing. I mean, it's fine. Exactly. And the whole colonial thing, which I think is more and more than a lot of people.

Dominic Steele:

I mean, we just talked about this before that I mean, there is an issue of the problem of apostasy and revisionism, but there is also an issue of the way the English have treated the Africans. Exactly right.

Paul Donison:

Well, even look in the Crown Nominations Committee. I mean, the the the view on this was such a snub. It was such a sub because again, it's it's this idea that there'll be some token members who will you know broaden out the council, still a m tiny minority uh making up the Crown Nominations Committee. And then the names come out, and we all look at the names, and frankly, everyone in the global church was saying with no disrespect to the individuals, who are these people? I mean, they didn't go and grab a primate out of a country or a major leading bishop or a theologian out of the global south. They grabbed people that most of us didn't even know. And again, the the view was again, this is sort of typical English colonial tokenism that says, you know, we'll take it from here, you know, we'll give you a little bit. Keep talking, be part of the conversation.

Dominic Steele:

Don't you worry about that, Chaps.

Paul Donison:

Yeah, don't you worry about that. And I think the same thing, and I'll be critical of the Iascapho report, the Nairobi Cairo um report that comes out talking about a rotating presidency of the communion. Again, this is just typical, I think, colonial tactics on we'll just give you a little bit so you can feel like you've got a bit more of a voice, but there's no sense that the communion office is going to change any of the ways they function. You know, the apparatus underneath this is gonna continue to function as it always has. And I think what GAFCON is trying to say is no more. We're just the global church where the epicenter of Christianity, let alone Anglicanism, has moved completely to the majority world. Um we we knew that years ago with Philip Jenkins' books, with Lamin Sene, who got whose gospel is this? I mean, they were all saying the epicenter is.

Dominic Steele:

I mean, I'm sure it was for you and as it was for me, that when you go to one of those Gaffred Gaff GAFCON conferences, you just have the experience of meeting this extraordinary number of highly quality Christian leaders. Absolutely. Um from Africa.

Paul Donison:

And and what's encouraging is is not only the strength of conviction, the faith under pressure, all the things we know about the persecuted church, the joy, the incredible joy. I think sometimes the Western church has got to rediscover the joy of the gospel. You go to the African church, you go to the South American church. I go to I go to Miguel Uchoa's Cathedral in Brazil for confirmation, and it's it's a party. I mean, people are so excited to have hands laid on by bishops for come Holy Spirit and refresh your people. And they're they're having a party. And I'm thinking, yeah, we need a little bit of that in Dallas. I think the more Western churches could do a little bit more of that. Um but it's not just the joy for me, also, it's it's the strength of their training. I mean, what I'm so impressed with when we're doing our bishops' training institutes, when we're having speakers come up and really give truly global representation on the stage at our conferences, these are brilliant leaders. These are mission leaders, these are theological leaders. I go to the Nigerian church, and I was I was so amazed and humbled at the quality of teaching. Every morning we had a morning prayer, we had preaching, and I thought, these preachers are amazing. I mean, I would give up my pulpit in Texas anytime for these guys to come in. And so I think part of what we're relearning, Dominic, is that God has done an amazing thing in the majority world church. And it's time for a lot of the Westerners, and many of us who've gone to the conferences have seen this, but it's time for us to have an opportunity to catch up and say, the Lord's moving forward. And I'm just so thanks that we are thankful that we get to be part of it in the West.

Dominic Steele:

I mean, I just personally um sit in awe as over the last few years I've got to know Lauren. And I mean, that he, as a man, as a young man, was the leader of the Compassion Project, Caring for People post the genocide in Rwanda. And then I I talked to him a couple of years ago and I said, So what's your project at the moment? This is before CAFCON. What's your project at the moment? And he said, Oh, I'm starting the East African Christian University. That's right. And I just thought, what am I doing with my life? Exactly. Exactly.

Paul Donison:

Exactly. And it launched during COVID. Yeah. This is thinking, let's launch a new Christian university that is just packed with students now. And again, do it during COVID. I'm just here twiddling my thumb. I know. I know. No, it's really incredible to see. And again, this is what I think is encouraging when people ask, why should you be part of GAFCON? Right. And there's a lot of folks, I think, in strong Western churches. I mean, ACNA, I mean Sydney and ACNA are in similar camp. I mean, we've got we've got great leadership. I mean, ACNA is in a bit of a mess right now. We're dealing with some of that, but still, all these people around the room, and I go for college of bishops' meetings, these are brothers who love the Bible, love the Lord, and long for the day of his appearing. Um, why do we need GAFCON? And I think part of it is not only do we get an opportunity to give and support and and and and add to this movement, but really we get to receive. We get ourselves emboldened, we get strengthened. Uh, I've been sharpened as a leader. I say things from the pulpit in a Western context that I would have never said 20 years ago. Not because I was afraid, but because I'd never had it modeled for me.

Dominic Steele:

And you've watched the example of some of these. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming to talk to us. This has been great, Dominic. My guest on The Pastor's Heart, Paul Donison. He's the general secretary of the GAFCON movement. And uh look, that's going to be a big couple of days in Abuja, Nigeria next March. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on The Pastor's Heart, and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.

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Dominic Steele

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