Most Christians in the UK probably have only the haziest idea of what Anglicanism looks like in South America. The Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 inhibited Protestant and Anglican missionary work in the continent, while the English language has always been marginal, unlike most other areas of the Anglican Communion where British influence was much stronger.
This is a pity, because out of the continuing crisis in the world-wide Anglican Communion a reinvigorated and missionary church is emerging in South America, in spite of official persecution and rejection. In fact the pattern of North America is being repeated. Just as a new GAFCON-recognised Province, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), arose out of the aggressive and assertive revisionism of the American Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada, so in South America a new orthodox Province is coming into being as the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) and various TEC satellite provinces in central and northern South America follow the lead of their North American counterparts.
Recife
This new emerging Province is based on the Anglican Diocese of Recife, an area of northern Brazil bordering the Atlantic Ocean which constitutes the eastern tip of the South American continent. Until recently it was part of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, having been planted as a missionary diocese in 1974 under the visionary leadership of Bishop Edmund Knox Sherrill, a convinced evangelical. The diocese prospered, while the rest of the IEAB declined as it fell under the financial influence of The Episcopal Church of the United States.
Ministerial authority withdrawn
Matters came to a head after the 1998 Lambeth Conference. The Diocese of Recife under Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti was the only Brazilian Diocese to support Resolution I.10 which reaffirmed biblical teaching on marriage and stated specifically that homosexual activity was incompatible with Scripture. This resistance to the revisionist programme led to Bishop Cavalcanti, and the vast majority of the clergy who supported him, having their ministerial authority withdrawn. Fortunately, Archbishop Greg Venables, Primate (then and now) of the Anglican Church of South America (formerly the Southern Cone) agreed to recognise the orthodox clergy and give them oversight until more permanent arrangements could be made.
New church launched
The IEAB then began legal action to strip the Diocese of Recife of its assets and finally succeeded in 2015. As a result, on 12 March 2016, the new Anglican Diocese of Recife was launched as a new church recognised under Brazilian law with over 60 pastors and more than 45 congregations, including the largest Anglican church in Latin America, (one of the largest of all the Americas) under the leadership of the current bishop, Miguel Uchoa.
In the providence of God, this newly liberated diocese is becoming a strategic centre for mission. The GAFCON Primates have authorised Bishop Miguel Uchoa to provide episcopal oversight throughout central and northern South America for Anglican churches who are unable to continue as part of revisionist dioceses. Bishop Miguel has already received one church in Colombia and brought it into the umbrella of Recife. Reflecting this wider mission, the Anglican Diocese of Recife is now in the process of reconstituting itself as the Anglican Church in Brazil.
Seventy churches planted
At a recent GAFCON Consultation on Church Planting, I had the privilege of meeting Bishop Flavio Adair Torres Soares, a suffragan bishop of the Anglican Church of Recife who embodies the missionary vision of this province in the making. Since 1996 when the orthodox Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti was elected, 33 new churches have been planted as part of a programme of expansion. As well as having oversight of the church planters, Bishop Flavio is planting a church himself. The pattern of growth is organic, being based on multiplying cell groups which build one-to-one discipleship into the very fabric of the church’s structures.
None of this is happening in isolation. Bishop Miguel Uchoa is part of the leadership team of ‘Caminemos Juntos’ (Let’s walk together!), a joint venture between GAFCON-aligned leaders in South America and the ACNA’s Greenhouse church planting movement based in Chicago to reach Latin Americans throughout the Americas, which gained momentum after the second global GAFCON Conference.
In South America the gospel is driving the emergence of new structures. In Bishop Miguel’s words what is at stake is this: ‘For them (the IEAB) faith is an expression of the spirit of the age… . Jesus is just part of God’s revelation… . For us, faith is our only reason to live, faith in Jesus Christ alone as Saviour and Lord”.
