To: The Lord Evans of Weardale KCB DL, Chairman of the Crown Nominations Commission for the selection of the next Archbishop of Canterbury
Dear Lord Evans,
We send you greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ and write following a recent meeting of the Primates Steering Committee of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches.
We have been following the process of selection for the next Archbishop of Canterbury with prayerful concern. We treasure a shared history that includes Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the other Reformation martyrs and those from the Church of England who, often at great cost, selflessly served the cause of the gospel in the lands we represent.
Notwithstanding the grievous decision of the General Synod in February 2023 to turn away from the Church’s scriptural and historic teaching on marriage and human sexuality, we write to urge that the next Archbishop of Canterbury should be someone who will uphold the orthodox faith shared by the great majority of global Anglicans.
By rejecting the authority of Holy Scripture, the General Synod also chose to reject the hopes and convictions of the Anglican Global South. In our Ash Wednesday statement of 2023 which followed, we therefore stated, with great regret, that we could no longer recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as the ‘primus inter pares’ spiritual leader of the Communion.
So while we recognise that the appointment of an orthodox Archbishop of Canterbury cannot of itself turn back the clock, this could be an opportunity to begin undoing the damage by showing that the Church of England is now willing to take seriously the deep concerns of her ‘daughter’ Churches.
It would also help to restore trust which has been undermined over the past twenty years by failure to exercise meaningful discipline where Provinces have unilaterally departed from the Apostolic faith, and by the neo-colonial manipulation of procedures to marginalise orthodox voices.
In this instance we feel it is necessary to say that we are not at all confident in the process for choosing members of the Crown Nominations Commission from the wider Communion. It appears that, yet again, the convictions of Global South Anglicans will not be given the weight they deserve.
Nevertheless, we assure you of our prayers for the task with which you and your colleagues have been entrusted in the hope that you will hear and take full account of those millions of faithful Anglicans who still hold the Church of England in great affection even though she has deeply grieved them.
Archbishop Justin Badi Arama, Chairman of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches and Primate, the Episcopal Church of South Sudan