Multidisciplinary Subjects
THE GEOGRAPHY OF FRACTURE: PROVINCIAL REALIGNMENT, MIGRANT CLERGY, AND THE RE-MAPPING OF GLOBAL ANGLICAN ORTHODOXY (1998-2026)
1 DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL STUDIES; EKITI STATE UNIVERSITY, ADO EKITI
Abstract
The Anglican Communion has experienced profound theological, institutional, and relational tensions since the 1998 Lambeth Conference, particularly over questions of human sexuality, biblical authority, and ecclesiastical identity. These tensions have contributed to significant realignments among Anglican provinces and the emergence of transnational networks such as the Global South Fellowship and the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). While existing scholarship has examined these developments largely through theological, ecclesiological, and institutional perspectives, comparatively less attention has been given to their geographical consequences and to the role of migrant clergy in connecting emerging centres of Anglican orthodoxy. This article examines the changing geography of global Anglicanism between 1998 and 2026, focusing on provincial realignment, clergy mobility, and the emergence of alternative networks of ecclesiastical authority. Drawing on historical and documentary analysis of Anglican Communion, provincial, Global South, and GAFCON documents, together with relevant scholarship on religious transnationalism and the geography of religion, the study conceptualizes Anglican realignment as a process of geographical re-mapping rather than simply institutional fragmentation. It argues that theological conflict has contributed to the development of a more networked and multi-centered Anglican landscape in which provincial boundaries increasingly intersect with transnational relationships and alternative jurisdictions. Migrant clergy are particularly significant within this process because their movement across national and ecclesiastical boundaries facilitates the circulation of theological ideas, institutional affiliations, and claims to Anglican orthodoxy. The article concludes that contemporary Anglican realignment represents not merely a fracture within an established Communion but an ongoing reconfiguration of its geographical, institutional, and transnational centres of authority.
Keywords: Anglican Communion; provincial realignment; migrant clergy; GAFCON; Global South; religious transnationalism; Anglican orthodoxy.
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