REFORMED, EVANGELICAL…ANGLICAN?
As REACH SA, we are a Reformed, Evangelical, Anglican Church. But what does it mean to be Anglican? On the back of our service leaflets, you’ll read — “we strive to preach the pure Gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, handed down by the Apostles and rediscovered at the Reformation.”
Anglicanism arose from this rediscovery of the Gospel. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, shaped it through three documents: the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer. The design was a fellowship of self-governing provinces united by Scripture and these Reformation ‘formularies.’
In recent decades, many Anglicans have departed from the plain teaching of Scripture, and this has led to concern among conservative Anglicans around the world. In 2008, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) met in Jerusalem, forming the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans — of which REACH SA is a founding member. This was a way for us to serve and benefit from participation in a wider family of Anglicans around the globe for the first time since the late 1800s.
A bit of our own history. Our churches began in the early 1800s as Church of England plants, but our fellowship with England ended when the first bishop we received, Robert Gray, an Anglo-Catholic, broke away to form the Church of the Province of South Africa (now, Anglican Church of South Africa). Although REACH SA had the legal and historic claim to authentic Anglicanism, it was the bishop who had the connection to the Church of England, and we have been excluded from their structures since.
To reflect these realities and make clearer our identity and mission, in 2013, REACH SA adopted the operating name, Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church in South Africa (REACH SA). Prior to this, we were known as the Church of England in South Africa (CESA).
At our annual synod in 2023, the ‘province’ of REACH Southern Africa was formed, including REACH South Africa, Namibia, DRC, Zambia, and Mozambique. Each is self-governing, but the current presiding bishop of REACH SA, Siegfried Ngubane, also serves as the first Archbishop of the province of REACH Southern Africa, representing us within GAFCON’s structures.
GAFCON’s initial aim was to find a future for global Anglicanism, and has repeatedly called for repentance from those who have drifted towards liberalism, particularly in the area of biblical sexual ethics and with regard to the ordination of women. Sadly, this repentance and return to historic and Reformed Anglicanism under the word of God has not materialised.
The appointment of Sarah Mullally as the newest Archbishop of Canterbury emphasises this sad refusal to see the word of God as authoritative in church and life. REACH SA responded to this appointment with a statement indicating our “deep sorrow and concern.” Beyond her consecration as a bishop contrary to Scripture’s plain teaching about the role of women in ministry, our sadness is also due to her advocacy for unbiblical positions on sexuality and same-sex marriage. This further testifies to her departure from historic Anglican teaching which upholds the authority of the word of God in faith and life.
In response to this continued trend towards liberalism, on October 16, 2025, GAFCON, representing eighty-five percent of the world’s Anglicans, published a communique entitled, “The Future is Now.” In this statement; they boldly and clearly rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” for abandoning the word of God as their final authority.
GAFCON has not left Anglicanism; it is authentic Anglicanism, restored to its Reformation design: autonomous provinces united not by an office or a person, but by the word of God, “translated, read, preached, taught, and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense.” As REACH SA we are part of this global fellowship holding to the the pure Gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, handed down by the Apostles and rediscovered at the Reformation, and united by the word of God.
(written by Rev. Matthew Courtney)