24/06/2026
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Rearranging the Anglican Communion or Recovering Anglican Faithfulness?
Bishop Glenn Davies takes a sharp swipe at the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals.
Ahead of ACC-19, the 19th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Belfast, attention has turned to the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, a set of recommendations produced by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, known as IASCUFO.
The proposals are called “Nairobi-Cairo” because IASCUFO’s work was significantly shaped through meetings and consultations connected with Nairobi in Kenya and Cairo in Egypt.
The background is important.
At ACC-18 in Ghana in 2023, IASCUFO was asked to explore how the Anglican Communion might address its deep differences over structure, authority, decision-making and common life.
The result was a theological paper published in Advent 2024, followed by a Supplement Paper in Lent 2026.
The stated aim of the proposals is to help Anglicans “make room for one another” and to find ways of walking together despite disagreement.
In simple terms, the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals seek to do two major things.
First, they propose an updated description of the Anglican Communion, reflecting the present reality of a global family of autonomous Anglican provinces.
Second, they call for a broadening of leadership within the Communion, so that authority is not seen as being centred mainly around Canterbury, but shared more widely across the global Church.
On the surface, this may sound attractive.
After all, Anglicanism is no longer an English-centred family of churches, but a global Communion with strong and growing provinces in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world.
However, the Rt Revd Glenn Davies, former Archbishop of Sydney and Bishop of the GAFCON Diocese of the Southern Cross, has offered a sharp critique of the proposals.
For Davies, the problem is not merely structural.
The real issue is theological.
He argues that the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals concentrate too much on how Anglicans can remain institutionally connected, while failing to confront the doctrinal crisis that has fractured the Communion for more than three decades.
At the centre of that crisis is the question of biblical authority, especially as it relates to marriage, sexuality and obedience to Holy Scripture.
Several revisionist provinces have redefined marriage in ways that depart from the received teaching of Scripture and the formularies of historic Anglicanism, including the Book of Common Prayer.
Davies’ concern is that the report largely avoids this central wound.
Instead of asking whether all Anglican provinces still uphold the apostolic faith, the proposals seem to ask how provinces with contradictory teachings can continue to belong together under a looser structure.
That is why he sees the proposals as something like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Anglican Consultative Council.
They may change the seating arrangement, but they do not address the storm.
Davies is especially concerned that the historic understanding of the Anglican Communion as a fellowship bound together by Scripture, doctrine and apostolic faith is being replaced with a model built mainly around provincial autonomy.
In other words, each province may be allowed to go its own way, while the wider Communion tries to preserve a form of institutional relationship.
But can there be true communion where there is no common confession?
Can Anglicans claim to walk together when they are walking in opposite doctrinal directions?
One of Davies’ strongest criticisms concerns the proposed revision of the classic 1930 Lambeth Conference description of the Anglican Communion.
The older language described the Anglican Communion as churches that “uphold and propagate” the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order.
The proposed revision softens this by speaking of churches that “seek to uphold and propagate” that faith.
For Davies, that change is not a small matter of wording.
It may be an admission that some churches no longer actually uphold the faith once delivered to the saints, but merely aspire to do so in a broad and ambiguous sense.
This raises a serious question.
If a church publicly departs from biblical teaching, especially on a doctrine as fundamental as marriage, should the Communion simply adjust its structures to accommodate that departure?
Or should the Communion call such a church back to repentance, discipline and doctrinal faithfulness?
The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals are trying to offer a way forward for a deeply divided Communion.
Their architects hope to preserve unity, broaden leadership and move Anglicanism beyond old colonial patterns.
These are not unimportant concerns.
But Davies’ warning is that unity without truth is not Anglican unity.
A Communion cannot be healed by avoiding the disease.
It cannot be renewed by refusing to name the wound.
And it cannot preserve apostolic faith by making room for teachings that contradict Scripture.
The Anglican Communion must therefore decide what kind of family it wants to be.
Will it be a communion of churches bound together by Scripture, the apostolic faith, the sacraments, historic order and mutual accountability?
Or will it become a loose federation of autonomous provinces, each free to define doctrine according to its own cultural and theological preferences?
That is the real question beneath the Nairobi-Cairo debate.
The issue is not merely Canterbury.
The issue is not merely ACC.
The issue is whether Anglicanism still has a recognisable doctrinal centre.
Salient Questions for Reflection:
1. Can the Anglican Communion remain truly one if its provinces no longer share the same doctrine of marriage?
2. Is provincial autonomy a blessing when it serves mission, but a danger when it protects doctrinal error?
3. Should the Communion prioritise institutional togetherness, or faithfulness to Holy Scripture?
4. What does it mean to “walk together” when some provinces have departed from the received teaching of the Church?
5. Can a Communion be healed without first naming the cause of its division?
6. Does the proposed language of “seeking to uphold” the apostolic faith weaken the historic Anglican commitment to actually upholding and propagating that faith?
7. Is the Nairobi-Cairo vision a genuine path to renewal, or a diplomatic way of managing permanent disagreement?
8. What place should the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglican formularies and Lambeth 1.10 have in defining Anglican identity today?
9. Can there be communion without discipline?
10. Is the Anglican Communion being restructured for faithfulness, or merely rearranged for institutional survival?
