Although I’m pretty much just a spectator at this point, this is still good to see. The participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), a meeting of orthodox Anglicans from around the world that was held in Jerusalem this past week, have released a statement that amounts to a declaration of independence from those elements of traditional Anglicanism that refuse to uphold the orthodox faith.

Of course, what do they mean by “the orthodox faith”? The statement answers that as well. Here’s the meat of it from my point of view:

2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

It’s that part I bolded that concerns me. As an Anglican I was more-or-less an Anglo-catholic, while the Thirty-Nine Articles are an essentially Protestant and Calvinist statement of faith. Accompanying the Oxford Movement and the rise of Anglo-catholicism was a de-emphasizing of the Thirty-Nine Articles as normative. Consequently, this statement has the affect of putting the Anglo-catholic genie back in its bottle.

I have mixed emotions about all of this. On the one hand, the tolerance of doctrinal variance that allowed the members of the Oxford Movement to move in a strongly Catholic direction within the Anglican tradition also allowed the rise of the current leadership of the Episcopal Church. Consequently, I’m glad to see the GAFCON primates take a firm line on the content of the faith. On the other hand, if I were still Anglican I’d be having to look for the door, as I simply cannot accept a number of the Thirty-nine Articles—and if I were to remain Anglican despite that I’d be contributing to the very doctrinal wishy-washiness that I abhor.

I suspect that those remaining orthodox Anglo-catholics are going to be doing some hard thinking right about now.