NeuroDivine

The Church often moves slowly. It moves through councils and canons, through tradition and tension, through conviction and caution. Yet even in its slowness, the Spirit does not wait. She stirs in quiet corners, unsettling certainty with grace, and calling forth witnesses whose ministries bloom beyond the boundaries of what is officially permitted.

Among these is Bishop Elizabeth Awut Ngor of South Sudan—consecrated quietly within a GAFCON province that does not formally allow women bishops. Her ministry was not revoked, nor publicly rebuked. It continues, faithfully and fruitfully, in a Church that has not yet caught up with the grace it has already received.

She is not an anomaly to be explained away. She is a parable—a living reminder that the Body of Christ is not built solely by decree, but by discernment. Her presence unsettles neat narratives and invites deeper listening. She stands among the cloud of hidden witnesses: those whose ministries are not always named, but whose fruit is undeniable.

And if GAFCON can hold space, however tentatively, for a woman bishop within its ranks, then perhaps it can also learn to hold space for gay members—not as problems to be solved, but as people to be loved. Not as exceptions, but as expressions of God’s image. The presence of LGBTQ+ Anglicans is not new; what is new is the possibility of being seen not merely as tolerated, but as called.

This is not naïve optimism. It is the hope that lives within the Church’s own story—a story where outsiders become apostles, where the margins become the centre, and where the Spirit speaks through those the Church did not expect to hear.

Scripture itself bears witness to this movement of inclusion. When the Ethiopian eunuch, a figure marginalised both racially and sexually, looked upon the waters and asked, “What is to prevent me from being baptised?” (Acts 8:36), the answer was not a theological treatise—it was baptism. It was welcome. It was grace.

To honour these hidden witnesses—women and queer Christians alike—is to honour the truth that ministry is not measured by visibility, but by fruit. It is to recognise that the Church’s beauty lies not in uniformity, but in faithful diversity. These lives do not protest—they proclaim. They make real the grace they embody, even when structures lag behind.

And perhaps, in the listening, the Church might discover that fidelity is not found in rigidity, but in responsiveness. That the Spirit who inspired Scripture still speaks—and sometimes, She speaks through those the Church did not plan to hear.

And perhaps, too, the provinces that have walked apart—those aligned with GAFCON—might one day find their way back into full communion with Canterbury and the wider Anglican family. Not through compromise of conscience, but through shared discernment, mutual honour, and the recognition that the Body of Christ is richer when it is whole. For reconciliation is not the erasure of difference, but the embrace of grace.

A Prayer for the Hidden Witnesses and the Hope of Communion

God of the margins and the centre, You speak through silence and surprise, through women consecrated in quiet, through queer lives radiant with grace, through those the Church did not expect to hear.

Bless those whose ministries bloom beyond permission, whose callings defy convention, whose witness is hidden but holy.

Teach your Church to listen with the ear of the heart, to recognise fruit where it grows, to honour the gifts you give without fear, without favour.

And stir within us the hope of communion— that those who have walked apart may one day walk together again, not in uniformity, but in unity, not in agreement, but in grace.

May your Spirit continue to move, in synods and in silence, in declarations and in dreams, until all your children are seen, and all your witnesses are named.

Amen.