The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has issued a statement of global significance following its meeting at St Peter’s Cathedral in Minna, Niger State, between 17th-21st September.

In its communiqué issued on 26th September, the members ‘rejoice in the success of Gafcon 3’ and affirm their support for the unanimous decision of the Nigerian House of Bishops not to attend the 2020 Lambeth Conference unless the Anglican Church of North America and the Anglican Church of Brazil are invited and those provinces which continue in their rejection of Scriptural teaching on sexuality are not invited.

In an address at Jerusalem 2018 Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of the Church of Uganda said he made no apologies that his bishops had taken this position and with the bishops of the two largest Anglican Provinces now withdrawing, with others likely to follow, it is clear that unless the Archbishop of Canterbury is prepared to change course, he can no more expect to gather the Anglican Communion than his predecessor could in 2008. Lambeth 2020 will merely expose the continued failure of the Canterbury based ‘instruments of communion’.