Right of Reply – Woke, common sense and GAFCON: Chuck Stephens

Key topics:

• Rob Hersov critiques “woke” ideology and its global cultural impact.

• African Anglicans push back against liberal Church leadership via GAFCON.

• Orthodox Anglicans outnumber liberals, asserting faith and unity globally.

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By Chuck Stephens

This is a prompt and prompted response to Rob Hersov’s article “The woke 
insanity destroying America, and infecting South Africa”.  Specifically 
to one sentence that sums up his place as a thought leader:

“And in South Africa peak woke is over and the pushback has begun.”

He rolls ten talking points into the term “woke”.  These are critical 
race theory, DEI, transgender madness, defund the police, cancel 
culture, the myth of systemic racism, white privilege, identity 
politics, climate hysteria and open borders.  It is a very comprehensive 
list.  In one word, it is “revisionism”.  Revising the familiar 
narratives of common sense with distortions.

The scope of “woke” is quite astounding – no wonder President Trump 
started his second presidency with a “full court press”.  Call it the 
Great Reversal.

There are historical precedents.  One is China’s Cultural Revolution.  
China’s vast cultural heritage was poisoned, setting the stage for Mao’s 
triumph and bloodletting. The cultural revulsion of the Marxists led to 
the bloody Cultural Revolution.  Here is how John Carpenter aptly 
describes the Leftist playbook:

“Few civilizations had more to boast of: paper, printing, gunpowder, 
silk, and a meritocratic culture of scholarship. Confucianism’s wisdom 
tradition rivaled Solomon’s Proverbs, and the imperial examination 
system gave poor peasants a path to power. Zhang Jian, born destitute in 
the Qing dynasty, rose to ministerial rank by merit alone. But Mao’s 
useful idiots denounced Confucianism as bourgeois oppression, cast 
filial piety as stifling, and convinced a generation that the old ways 
were the “four olds,” dead weight to be thrown overboard. Hence, they 
unleashed a “Cultural Revolution,” destroying centuries of wisdom and 
killing tens of millions. If the Marxists could do that to China, with 
such a glorious inheritance, it could happen anywhere.”

Read more:

Sound familiar?  It had been averted in England, whose historians note 
that John Wesley and George Whitefield, two Anglican clergymen triggered 
the 18th-century Great Awakening.  Historians agree that this spiritual 
renewal saved England from the kind of blood-soaked social renewal that 
engulfed France. By reviving faith, they prevented a generation from 
turning their anger into nihilistic rage.

Speaking of the French Revolution, it certainly deposed the monarchy 
through its reign of terror.  But Democracy was still-born, and soon 
supplanted by dictatorship with the rise of Napoleon.  Only when his 
empire was vanquished could the Republic really rise.  There are 
parallels to these three historic examples in the “pushback” that Rob 
Hersov observes.  Certainly, woke has gone broke and that is no joke.

In Africa, the pushback is taking on new proportions.  For twenty years, 
African Anglicans have patiently tried to cajole and rebuke liberal 
Anglicans especially those in the UK.  The high incidence of child abuse 
has brought both Anglicans and Catholics into disrepute.  Suddenly, the 
archbishop of Canterbury was forced to resign due to such a scandal.  
Just as suddenly, the Church of England in its self-absorption, chose a 
new archbishop - a woman who has endorsed same-sex marriage.  This was 
one bridge too far, because the two issues that have preoccupied 
Anglicans for the past 50 years are the ordination of women and the 
marriage or ordination of LGBTQ+ people.

In the church context, letting societal beliefs, convictions and values 
creep into core theology is called “syncretism”.  So it is that African 
Anglicans, who have remained firmly attached to orthodox Anglican 
beliefs, have confronted liberal Anglicans over practices that do not 
align with scripture.

For a long period, this co-habitation in one denomination by two schools 
of thought has bought some time.  A new movement was launched – not a 
new denomination – called GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference).  
This gave rise to terms such as “dissident fidelity”, “pluralistic 
unity” and “mutual loyalty”.  This is more of a checkerboard than a 
rainbow!

One Anglican described it this way: "the charge that GAFCON is a 
breakaway or separatist group is not supported by the evidence. It is a 
movement of reform and revitalisation which has enabled faithful 
Anglicans to remain within the Communion, especially in North America 
and Brazil. While being clear that participation in its common life is 
based upon fidelity to the biblical gospel, not merely upon historic 
ties, the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration of 2008 says quite 
unequivocally that 'Our fellowship is not breaking away from the 
Anglican Communion'.  (Rev. Charles Raven)”

But given the pushback against woke in the secular world, and the rise 
of conservatism against Leftist agendas in recent trending, the African 
contingent finally threw down the gauntlet this month, upon learning of 
the selection of a liberal woman as Archbishop of Canterbury.  Enough is 
enough.

Is the church democratic?  Or does it practice top-down leadership?  
Here are some calculations that are rounded and not comprehensive.  
Also, they are generalized because in one country like Canada, there are 
both evangelical and liberal Anglicans, so the statistics are not exact. 
  However, they tell the tale:

Liberal Anglicans are concentrated in the UK (13 million), Australia (4 
million), USA (2 million called Episcopaleans), Canada (1 million), New 
Zealand (0.5 million), Ireland (0.5 million).  Totaling 21 million.

Whereas evangelical Anglicans are concentrated in Africa – Nigeria (20 
million), Uganda (11 million), Kenya (7 million), Sudan and South Sudan 
(5 million), Tanzania 2 million, southern Africa (4 million).  This 
totals 49 million.

The above two clusters total 70 million, by far the majority of the 95 
million in the world-wide Anglican communion.  In short, orthodox 
evangelical Anglicans out-number liberal or “syncretistic” Anglicans by 
2-to-1.  So it came as no surprise, upon learning of the new 
archbishop’s selection, that GAFCON issued its own statement saying it 
“abandons global Anglicans, as the Church of England has chosen a leader 
who will further divide an already split Communion.”

The October 3 statement read: “due to the failure of successive 
Archbishops of Canterbury to guard the faith, the office can no longer 
function as a credible leader of Anglicans, let alone a focus of unity… 
The reset of our beloved Communion is now uniquely in the hands of 
Gafcon, and we are ready to take the lead.”

Read more:

Then the most Reverend Dr Laurent Mbanda, chairman of the GAFCON 
Primates’ Council and Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, 
published a letter declaring that the true Anglican Church is now under 
GAFCON.  It’s sort of a religious UDI (unilateral declaration of 
independence).  A gathering of Anglicans is being convened in March 2026 
in Nigeria to chart the way forward.

We’re here to win. Not merely a theological argument. But to win souls 
for Jesus. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift 
sword, his truth is marching on!