From the outset, SPREAD warned that loyalty to church institutions which had fallen under the sway of those promoting false teaching would sooner or later compromise loyalty to the gospel itself. Only a return to the clear sense of the Anglican Formularies, including the Thirty-nine articles, would give a secure base for renewal and reform.
That confessional insight was vindicated with the emergence of the GAFCON movement in 2008 and its Jerusalem Declaration has set in motion a fundamental realignment of the Anglican Communion. Not only did it affirm the Anglican Formularies as authoritative for today, but it also took the crucial ecclesiological step of making explicit that the basis of Anglican unity is primarily confessional rather than institutional. For Anglican governance, this entails that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot in and of itself be the touchstone of Anglican identity and the GAFCON solution was to look to Conciliar leadership by Primates loyal to orthodox Anglicanism, as expressed in the Jerusalem Statement.
