The argument is interesting: An established national church cannot ultimately oppose the culture of her nation. Some (including myself) would argue that this is precisely why no church should be established, since such politically motivated alliances always have a dominant partner, and history makes it very clear who the dominant partner always is.

From its inception Gafcon has been to an extent "political". It was born out of the boycott by many bishops of the 2008 Lambeth Conference and that first meeting produced the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement. The former sets out what are the widest possible bounds of legitimate diversity within Anglican orthodoxy, and the latter helps that to land in practice. They may well prove some of the most important documents ever written in Anglicanism.

With uncanny foresight, the 1948 Lambeth Conference declared: "Former Lambeth Conferences have wisely rejected proposals for a formal primacy of Canterbury... authority which binds the Anglican Communion together is therefore seen to be moral and spiritual, resting on the truth of the Gospel, and on a charity which is patient and willing to defer to the common mind."

"The face of Christianity is undergoing a fundamental transformation," Sam George, the director of the Global Diaspora Institute at Wheaton College, told me. "What is happening in America is just a part of a larger transformation because Christianity is getting a new face. It is getting more Black and brown and yellow."