Conger

The Episcopal Church’s legal battles entered a new phase last week, as lawyers for the national church filed suit in California against the Bishop and Diocese of San Joaquin in a bid to take control of its assets, while the Methodist Church sought to enter the fray in Virginia on behalf of the diocese.

Lawyers for the national church filed suit in a Fresno County Superior Court on April 24, seeking to transfer the assets of the diocese under the control of Bishop John-David Schofield based in Fresno to the new diocese based in Stockton created by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori under former Northern California Bishop Jerry Lamb.

“While it is regrettable that legal action is necessary, the diocese and The Episcopal Church have no other viable option but to seek the intervention of the court to recover the property and assets of the diocese,” said Bishop Lamb, the provisional Bishop of San Joaquin–Stockton

Last December, a supermajority of clergy and lay delegates at the San Joaquin-Fresno synod voted to quit the Episcopal Church and join the Province of the Southern Cone. Dioceses may not succeed from the Episcopal Church as “such actions are contrary to the Canons and Constitution of The Episcopal Church and the diocese,” the media Stockton diocese said.

Writing to the Fresno diocese, Bishop Schofield said, “please be assured that we have been expecting this litigation, and the contents contain no surprises,” adding that “in spite of the claims by The Episcopal Church, nothing in their current constitution and canons prohibits a diocese from leaving one province and moving to another.”

Bishop Schori’s handling of the San Joaquin affair has raised concerns. One group of bishops and church leaders commissioned a legal opinion on the validity of her actions from an international lawyer, who concluded she had committed 11 violations of canon law and should be brought to trial for abuse of office.

The Presiding Bishop issued a counter statement the same day, saying that her advisors had concluded that she had properly interpreted church canons. The Episcopal Church has no independent judiciary and has no way of reconciling opposing views save through political confrontations.

In Virginia the United Methodist Church on April 24 filed a brief in support of the national church and Diocese of Virginia against the breakaway congregations now grouped under the banner of CANA.

The Methodist Church argued that Virginia’s law granting congregations to withdraw from their parent churches in the case of schisms raised questions of the “appropriateness of the government’s intrusion into the freedom of any church body to organize and govern itself according to its own faith and doctrine.”

Virginia’s Attorney-General Robert McDowell in January filed a brief opposing the national Episcopal Church’s. A spokesman for the breakaway congregations, Jim Oakes, said the law, enacted in the wake of denominational splits following the American Civil War, was a tested and “reasonably neutral way for the state to adjudicate” the dispute.

Davis Mac Ayalla of Changing Attitude Nigeria

The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned threats of violence made against leaders of Changing Attitude UK and Nigeria.

In late March unknown assailants attacked the head of Changing Attitude Nigeria and sent death threats via a text message from Nigeria to the head of Changing Attitude UK. The death threats followed the beating of the Bishop of Kano by a mob, which left the Rt. Rev. Zaka Nyam near death.

On April 9, Dr. Rowan Williams said the “The threats recently made against the leaders of Changing Attitudes are disgraceful.”

He noted the Anglican Communion, through resolutions passed by the Lambeth Conference and in statements made by the Primates’ Meetings, had “unequivocally condemned violence and the threat of violence against gay and lesbian people. I hope that this latest round of unchristian bullying will likewise be universally condemned.”

On April 8 Changing Attitude released a statement saying that on March 24 “gay leaders of Changing Attitude Nigeria were seriously assaulted. They, and the Director of Changing Attitude England, were also threatened with death because ‘they are polluting Nigeria with abomination and immorality’.”
Changing Attitude also released a letter signed by twenty Anglican bishops and church leaders inferring that attacks on the gay leaders was driven by conservative opposition to the normalization of homosexuality within the life of the Church.

The Rev. Colin Coward said some “highly judgemental and often abusive comments and pronouncements about LGBT Anglicans” had “lead some members of Anglican Communion churches to believe that threats and violence against those who are LGBT (or those who support a more open stance towards LGBT people) are not only justified but are authentic expressions of Christianity.”

However, critics of the Changing Attitude statement note that the group had produced no evidence to substantiate its claim that conservative Anglicans were behind the threats.

The culprits behind the beating of the Bishop of Kano have been identified and are the subjects of a police investigation. On March 3 a gang of young men affiliated with the Evangelical Church of West Africa in Kano attacked Bishop Nyam as he was leaving the church, dragging him from his car and beating him into unconsciousness.

The Bishop was pulled to safety by members of the congregation, who had been meeting with the Bishop to discuss plans to rebuild the church, which had been damaged during last years’ Muslim-Christian riots.

The motive for the attack, Church of Nigeria officials tell The Church of England Newspaper arose from a false story circulated by Muslim government officials that state assistance to rebuild the church had been embezzled by Bishop Nyam, the chairman of the local chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Bishop Nyam survived the assault but was hospitalized and is expected to recover. When queried by CEN, Lambeth Palace stated they were unaware of the attack.

An American state court has handed the Episcopal Church a major defeat in its battle for control of the property of breakaway congregations in Virginia, rejecting its argument that there was no “division” in the Episcopal Church.

In an 88 page opinion released on April 3, Fairfax County Judge Randy Bellows held that a Nineteenth century law governing the disposition of church property in the event of a church schism applied to the dispute between the Diocese of Virginia and CANA—the American jurisdiction of the Church of Nigeria.

The Episcopal Church and Diocese of Virginia last year brought suit against 11 congregations of the Anglican District of Virginia seeking control of the breakaway parish properties, including the diocese’s two largest congregations—Truro Parish and the Falls Church in suburban Washington.

Judge Bellows rejected the Episcopal Church’s contention that the CANA secessions were a local matter. He held “it blinks at reality to characterize the ongoing division within the diocese, [the Episcopal Church], and the Anglican Communion as anything but a division of the first magnitude.”

“The rapidity with which [The Episcopal Church's] problems became that of the Anglican Communion, and the consequent impact-in some cases the extraordinary impact-on its provinces around the world,” he said.

The Episcopal Church and the Diocese have challenged the legality of the law, saying it violates Federal constitutional guarantees separating Church and State. A hearing before Judge Bellows is scheduled for May 28 on this issue. Virginia’s Attorney General has announced he will defend the legality of the statute against the Episcopal Church’s claims. The third phase of the litigation—disposition of the property—will be addressed later this year.

While the trial court’s ruling on the applicability of the relevant law does not rule out the Episcopal Church eventually prevailing in the fight, the April 3 ruling comes as a blow to the Church’s plans to use civil courts to enforce the interpretation of Church canons by the Presiding Bishop.

The Virginia law “plainly deprives the Episcopal Church and the Diocese, as well as all hierarchical churches, of their historic constitutional rights to structure their polity free from governmental interference and thus violates the First Amendment and cannot be enforced,” US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on April 4.

The Diocese of Virginia objected to the ruling as well arguing that the “people in the CANA congregations were free to leave, but they cannot take Episcopal property with them.”

A spokesman for the parishes lauded the judge’s decision that upheld its contention that “”our churches’ own trustees hold title for the benefit of the congregations.”

CANA Bishop Martyn Minns said he was confident they would prevail. “There will be another hearing on the constitutional issues that have been raised and I am sure that there will be a variety of appeals but we are confident of the rightness of the path that we have chosen and grateful to God for his favor,” he said.

The Church of Nigeria has surpassed the Episcopal Church in the United States as the Province with the largest number of dioceses, following the creation of 19 dioceses at a joint meeting of the Church’s House of Bishops and Standing Committee on March 26-29 in Nnewi.

“Plans and funds are now in place for the creation of one full-fledged and eighteen new missionary dioceses,” the Church reported, and twenty new bishops were elected to fill a vacant post and the new sees. The Nigerian Church will now boast 131 dioceses and missionary jurisdictions.

“The creation of new dioceses as a deliberate evangelistic strategy is bearing remarkable fruit,” the final communiqué said, as “those missionary dioceses created twelve months ago have reported that they have already planted over three hundred new congregations.”

In other business the meeting addressed the issue of polygamy in Nigerian culture. “While there are complex pastoral issues that must be addressed, we as a Church stand against it” the bishops wrote and affirmed as the “biblical norm for holy matrimony” life-long monogamy.

The Church of Nigeria had set out to become “known around the world as a champion for Biblical Sexual Morality. We recognize that we cannot simply ask others to conform to biblical norms if we ourselves are unwilling to look inward especially on the issue of the sanctity of marriage,” they said.

The Nigerian Church also affirmed its participation in the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem. The bishops affirmed the importance of the Lambeth Conference within the life of the Communion, but said that its present configuration prevented them from attending.

GAFCON will “provide a unique opportunity for those who hold to the historic teachings of the Church to meet and discern God’s call for our common future as Anglican Christians,” they wrote, noting that “in the last few days God has shown his favor on these plans by sovereignly providing the funds necessary for all of the Bishops, their wives, the clergy and lay delegates of the Church of Nigeria to attend” the June gathering in Jerusalem.

Christian Aid’s “Nets for Life” anti-malaria programme had its formal Nigerian launch last week in Abuja.

Nigerian government ministers, Church, NGO and business leaders kicked off the campaign on Feb 28, which seeks to distribute 82,500 mosquito nets treated with insecticide to malaria prone regions of the country. The programme is underwritten by grants from Coca-Cola, ExxonMobile and the Standard Chartered Bank in partnership with Christian Aid and Episcopal Relief and Development.

Malaria was the leading cause of illness in Nigeria, the Director General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control told the gathering. Half of Nigeria’s adults would have an attack brought on by the illness each year while children would have three to four attacks each year Dr. Dora Akunyili said. The disease was so prevalent that seven in ten hospital admissions in Nigeria were due to malaria.

The executive director of ExxonMobile Nigeria told the gathering his company had invested almost £20 million in malaria projects across Africa and would pledge a further £5 million in 2008.

“Science tells us that the malaria parasite thrives on disorganized human systems. But it can be defeated through collaboration. Nets for Life are exactly the type of collaborative effort that can have real impact in combating malaria”, ExxonMobil’s Cyril Odu said, according to local press reports.

Christopher Knight, the chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank said malaria cost Africa over £6 billion a year and was a “major constraint to sustainable economic development.”

In 2006 his company had set a goal of distributing 1 million mosquito nets across Africa. Working with the Church of Nigeria and community leaders, Nets for Life started a pilot programme in the Plateau and Benue states that had distributed 11,000 treated nets last year.

The Archbishop of Jos, Dr. Benjamin Kwashie thanked the companies for their work, saying it was a good start to beating back the disease.

“The funds invested in this project might not be enough, but God works in miraculous ways for more people to be touched. In caring and in doing good, you might not know who is being touched, but God returns the goodness in many more ways”, Archbishop Kwashie said.

CANA Bishop Martyn Minns appears to have been inadvertently invited to the Lambeth Conference.

A clerical error, or as one aide suggested-deliberate mischief - caused a flurry of excitement at Lambeth Palace this week after reports surfaced that Bishop Minns had been asked to pledge his financial support to assist overseas bishops to attend the conference.

The fundraising letter was part of a mass mailing sent to all of the bishops of the Communion asking their help in defraying the £3,500 conference costs to assist their brethren from the developing world to attend the gathering. Bishop Minns told The Church of England Newspaper he had received the letter last week, which closed with the note that the conference organisers looked forward to seeing him at Lambeth this July.

Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire told CEN he had ‘not received any kind of invitation to Lambeth, and my plans remain up in the air’.

Attempts to contact Dr Nolbert Kunonga, the former Bishop of Harare, to ascertain whether he had received the note were unsuccessful.

A spokesman for Lambeth Palace stated there had been no change in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation policy, and they were at a loss to explain the letter. The Lambeth Conference organizing committee stated it had not sent the letters, and suggested it might have been a hoax to create further mischief in the run up to the summer gathering.

The Most Rev. Peter Akinola, Archbishop of  Abuja and Primate of Nigeria, and the Rt. Rev. Kuang-Hsun Ting ( 丁光訓 ),  Bishop of Chekiang (Zhejiang), 1955 - ?, Photo taken July 18, 2006 in Shanghai.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s observation that some form of Sharia law in Britain “seems unavoidable” has drawn mixed reactions overseas. Muslim leaders have welcomed Dr. Williams’ comments and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland has come to his defence in the ensuing row.

However, Western religious, political and social commentators—and film stars—have been less than enthusiastic in their responses.

Australia’s Attorney-General Robert McClelland told reporters the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd “is not considering and will not consider the introduction of any part of Sharia law into the Australian legal system.”

The Diocese of Sydney was equally firm. Diocesan spokesman Bishop Robert Forsyth of South Sidney said: “We do not agree with the archbishop’s comments.”

“In the case of Australia, we are thankful for freedom of religion but would oppose the idea of different systems of law for different people groups,” Bishop Forsyth said in a statement.

The Times of India called Dr. Williams comments “nonsense concocted in cloud cuckoo land.” Allowing British Muslims to have “marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court rather than the ones patronized by white English Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Bulldog” would be a social disaster it said.

It noted former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had “agreed to orthodox Muslim demands for the protection of [Sharia] Law” in marital disputes, as Dr. Williams’ had suggested. The result had led to Muslim women being denied the right to alimony in divorce cases.

Church leaders in Nigeria and the Sudan were equally perturbed by the consequences of the speech. One Sudanese church leader told The Church of England Newspaper Dr. Williams appeared to have conceded one of the principle disputes that had led to the decades old war between Christians and Muslims in the Sudan.

In an interview with the BBC, the Archbishop of Jos in Northern Nigeria, Ben Kwashi said he was “shocked. I am disappointed. I am in total disbelief.”

Dr. Williams’ comments would have major ramifications in Nigeria, he said. “If the Christians are the ones asking for Sharia Law, now that will be used against us who are saying that we do not think Sharia law will help the cause of freedom and the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Northern Nigeria.”

Populist American radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, whose 3 hour radio show draws over 20 million listeners, denounced Dr. Williams’ remarks, saying “This is what you get when you have unchecked, unbridled liberalism. By the way, this is liberalism disguised as an archbishop, as a religious figure. Liberals will give away the culture and the freedom of western democracies.”

Across the intellectual spectrum, Roger Kimball, the editor of the highbrow intellectual journal the New Criterion, called Dr. Williams a “civilization Quisling.” Unlike his predecessor Thomas a Becket who “faithfully served his church and was savagely punished for it, Rowan Williams loses no opportunity to besmirch his Church and is lavishly praised for his perfidy.”

Dr. Williams’ lecture was also a topic of conversation at the Berlin film festival last week. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis told reporters on Friday “the Archbishop of Canterbury has been getting it from all sides today,” but had “made a big mistake.”

However, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland has defended the archbishop. The Rt. Rev. Sheilagh Kesting wrote Dr. Williams on Friday saying she was “appalled by the way the response to your lecture has become a personal witch-hunt calling for your resignation.”

The Al-Azhar in Cairo—the Anglican Communion’s dialogue partner with Islam—on Saturday welcomed Dr. Williams’ remarks. Sheikh Abdel Fattah Allam told the Egyptian news agency MENA the introduction of Sharia law in Britain was a “move in the right direction and will have a positive impact in Muslim countries.”

Dr. Williams’ comments would be well received, he said, as they “encouraged dialogue between cultures and civilizations in a framework of mutual respect of religions.”

Mohammad Hashim Kamali, professor of law at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, told Al Jazeera television the Archbishop’s suggestion that Muslims be allowed their own courts was a “good start” and would “not have any harmful consequences” for Britain.

Sharia law “is part of the Islamic identity, especially for the Islamic minority communities” in the West, he said.

“It is a recognition of the demand we have been experiencing in recent decades,” Dr. Kamali said. “The fact that there is a response by a credible religious figure is welcome news.”

Archbishop Peter Akinola has urged the Nigerian government’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to expand its brief and root out corruption in the civil service, industry and the church.

Speaking at the dedication of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Asaba in the Niger Delta on Jan 19, Archbishop Akinola charged that “corruption had taken a firm root” across Nigerian society. He urged the government’s anti-corruption investigators to redouble their efforts and “bring whoever is found wanting to book.”

Since independence Nigeria’s rulers had squandered its natural riches. If the amount of money invested by the government had been used “judiciously, Nigeria would have overtaken China and India in terms of development,” he declared.

“Our health system,” he went on, “has collapsed, the educational system is dead and our roads are in deplorable shape, yet these same leaders go to church and pray to God. No amount of prayers can cover your sins. Christ obeyed God till death, why can’t you obey Him in simple daily matters?” he said according to a report published in the Vanguard newspaper of Lagos.

Politicians often approached him for his support and prayers, he told the congregation at St. Peter’s. Yet those who solicited his prayers nullified their effect by the crimes they committed in office. Politicians, who claimed to love the people, often should little sign of this affection for the welfare of the common man in their public acts.

The seeds of corruption began with acquiescence to small sins and petty misdeeds, he said. Honor God in the small things and seek the good of all, Archbishop Akinola said.

The boycott of the 2008 Lambeth Conference does not mark the end of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Sydney has said. However, the Lambeth Conference’s role as an “instrument of unity” is no more.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Feb 5, Dr. Peter Jensen said he and his suffragans would not attend the July 16 to Aug 3 gathering out of “faithfulness” to Scripture and in solidarity with Africa’s Anglicans.

On Jan 30 Archbishop Peter Akinola stated the Nigerian bishops along with those of Rwanda and Uganda “are not going to the Lambeth Conference.”

The proposed agenda of the 2008 Lambeth Conference will differ in purpose and structure from past gatherings of the Communion’s bishops. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme on Jan 27, Archbishop Rowan Williams stated he wanted the Lambeth Conference to give “space” to the “huge number of Anglicans” for whom homosexuality is “not the overwhelming issue, who really want to talk about mission, about development, and questions like that.”

Dr. Williams said he hoped Lambeth would allow the bishops to have a “good serious look at what structures we need to avoid the kind of confusion we’ve had in the last couple of years.”

His desire was also for “both ends of the spectrum” to “make some concessions to stay together. So the American Church is willing to say, ‘Alright, we won’t rush things,’ if the African and other churches are willing to say, ‘We won’t instantly condemn’.”

In his Advent letter to the Primates, Dr. Williams stated the Lambeth Conference would be “a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice.”

However, the agenda does not envision creating a forum for the bishops to find their voice. The bishops will be given a “look” at the proposed Anglican Covenant, but no action will be taken, nor will there be any consequences for rejecting the common voice reached in 1998.

Archbishop Akinola expressed disquiet with the proposed agenda. “What is the use of the Lambeth conference for a three weeks’ jamboree which will sweep” the issues dividing the Communion “under the carpet,” he said.

Dr. Jensen explained that while the 1998 Lambeth Conference “made it clear that the leaders of the overwhelming majority of Anglicans worldwide maintained the biblical view of sexual ethics,” within five years Anglican churches in the US and Canada had “officially transgressed these boundaries in defiance of the Lambeth resolution and the teaching of the Bible.”

The “fallout” had made it “clear that we shall never go back to being the communion which we once were,” he said.

The African provinces that are boycotting Lambeth are “are not ending the Anglican Communion, or even dividing it. They are simply dealing with the reality that the nature of the communion has now been altered and reflecting that Lambeth is not as crucial to the future as it once was.

Dr. Jensen said he had come to share the African view “that since the American actions were taken in direct defiance of the previous Lambeth Conference, the Americans have irreparably damaged the standing of the conference itself.” To attend the conference without a resolution of these questions would be to “overlook” the “issues at stake.”

As the Conference is presently constructed, “those who say [that these issue do] not matter are the ones who are attending Lambeth,” Archbishop Akinola said.

Leaders of the Global South coalition tell The Church of England Newspaper there appears to be little the Archbishop of Canterbury can say or do at this stage to salvage the situation. While assurances have been given and programmes laid out at every Primates meeting since 2003, no substantive action has occurred.

“Why will it be different this time?”, one primate said.

The Church of Nigeria will begin a new round of Prayer Book revision, Archbishop Peter Akinola said in a pastoral letter published at the end of the church’s House of Bishops’ meeting last week.

The current Prayer Book, last revised in 1996, will seek to use modern language and African imagery to “help us to worship God meaningfully and relevantly in our setting and many situations,” Archbishop Akinola said.

He encouraged Anglicans to “prepare prayerfully so that the liturgy does not become a cold and lifeless aspect of our worship life, but a vibrant, inspiring and liberating encounter with our self-revealing God.”

The revision process for the Nigerian Church’s new prayer book will differ from that taken by the Episcopal Church with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in that no doctrinal innovations or revisions will be made.

In 2005 the Nigerian Church amended its constitution outlining the substance of its faith and subordinating its ecclesial structures to doctrinal formularies. Language that defined the Church as being “in communion with the See of Canterbury” was rescinded.

The Nigerian Church would now be “in communion” with “all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.”

Sources familiar with the revision project tell The Church of England Newspaper the Church of Nigeria is committed to the “historic faith once delivered to the Saints” and to Anglicanism’s traditional formularies. The new book will seek to acculturate these doctrinal truths into a West African context, allowing the Church to grow through a living liturgy.

The state has intervened in the Diocese of Virginia property lawsuits, backing the legal arguments of the Nigerian-led breakaway group, CANA.

In a brief filed in the Fairfax County Circuit Court on Jan 10, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell defended the constitutionality of a state law governing church property disputes, dealing a sharp blow to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s campaign to halt the defection of traditionalist congregations through litigation.

“As a matter of federal constitutional law, the Episcopal Church is simply wrong. The Constitution does not require that local church property disputes be resolved by deferring to national and regional church leaders,” the government brief said.

While not addressing the factual issues in dispute between the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church in its suit against the 11 breakaway congregations, the attorney general said CANA’s legal arguments were “constitutionally sound.”

Virginia law states that if the majority of a congregation’s members decide to secede from their parent church, that congregation can retain the parish property, if there is no legal encumbrance recorded on the property deed.

The Attorney General stated the “Episcopal Church believes that, when there is a property dispute involving a hierarchical denomination, the National and Virginia Constitutions require deference to regional and national church leaders.”

This was false, he argued, as civil law governs church property disputes when issues of doctrine are not before the court.

Lawyers for the Episcopal Church have disputed the applicability of the Virginia statute that allows congregations to keep their property, and have also disputed the constitutionality of the law.

The Church of Nigeria is not interested in territorial aggrandisement, but in preserving the catholic faith, Archbishop Peter Akinola said last week in an open letter to the Primates.

Continued inaction on the American crisis was crippling the Communion. “We are losing members. We are losing time. We are losing our integrity as an important part of the One, holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,” Archbishop Akinola said.

Released upon his return from Shanghai from a meeting of the Global South primates’ coalition, Archbishop Akinola defended his church’s intervention in the United States.

“Although they have variously been described as ‘interventions,’ ‘boundary crossing,’ or ‘incursions,’ they are a direct and natural consequence of the decision by The Episcopal Church to follow the path that it has now chosen,” he said.

These pastoral initiatives were “undertaken to keep faithful Anglicans within our Anglican family” and have been undertaken at a “considerable cost of crucial resources to our province.”

He rejected any notion of “moral equivalence” between the border crossings and the innovations of doctrine and discipline taken by the American Church, saying Nigeria had responded to a “heartfelt” cry for help from persecuted traditionalists.

Archbishop Akinola also rejected assertions that the creation of flying bishops for the US violated “historic Anglican polity” and the canons of the Council of Nicaea. This suggestion, he said employed “bad faith” and bad history, noting that the Council of Nicaea placed right doctrine over the sanctity of jurisdictional boundaries.

Patristic scholars have supported Archbishop Akinola’s observation that the Windsor Report and subsequent statements by US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori have not accurately recounted the actions of the Council of Nicaea. Writing in the April 2005 issue of Touchstone magazine, Prof. William Tighe wrote in ‘Abusing the Fathers’ “any attempt to construct a theory of the inviolability of diocesan boundaries cannot find any support in the theory and practice of the early Church.”

Archbishop Akinola stated that at its heart, the conflict was not about “structure or conferences but about irreconcilable truth claims.”

“Until the Communion summons the courage to tackle that issue headlong and resolve it we can do no other than provide for those who cry out to us,” he said. “One thing is clear we will not abandon our friends.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has released a statement noting his “relief” that a press report accusing the bishop of Uyo, Nigeria of uttering homophobic statements has been shown to be false.

On Sept 20, after a meeting earlier in the week with Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, Lambeth Palace released a statement of clarification.  “As I said last week,” Dr. Williams wrote, “these reports were very concerning and it is a great relief to have had full assurances that the stories were false and should never have appeared. I am grateful that the prospect of the severe offence that would have been caused has now abated”.

On Sept 7, Dr. Williams first expressed his “deep shock” at remarks attributed to Bishop Isaac Orama, based upon a Sept 2 United Press International (UPI) report.

Citing a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) story, UPI quoted Bishop Orama as having said “Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man.”

Contacted by The Church of England Newspaper after the UPI story was published, Archbishop Akinola’s office investigated the matter and told the CEN the story was false.  Leaders of the Church of Nigeria were dismayed Dr. Williams would issue such a harsh statement without first checking upon its veracity.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has begun soliciting the views of the primates as to whether the Sept. 25 statement from the House of Bishops adequately responds to the primates’ request for clarification on The Episcopal Church’s stance on gay bishops and rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

Archbishop Williams has begun telephoning and writing the primates, seeking their views. However, his trip to Armenia and Syria, and the opening of the Church of England’s House of Bishops meeting on Oct. 1, has hindered a speedy response to the New Orleans statement.

Public statements from some of the primates indicate a split of opinion along factional lines, with some declaring the statement adequate, while others have dismissed it as dishonest and non-responsive to the primates’ request.

Archbishop Alan Harper, Primate of Ireland, said the “American bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics.”

Bishop David Beetge of the Highveld, the acting primate and vicar general of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, said he welcomed the decision “for the simple reason it gives us more space and time to talk to each other.”

The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane said he believed the bishops had “responded positively to the substance of [the primates'] requests.”

Other primates were more critical. “What we expected to come from them is to repent. That this is a sin in the eyes of the Lord and repentance is what we, in particular, and others expected to hear” from the House of Bishops, said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya.

The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, said the bishops’ response fell short. The primates had given The Episcopal Church “one final opportunity for an unequivocal assurance” that it would conform “to the mind and teaching of the Communion,” he said, and the bishops failed to do that. The primates are unwilling to accept further “ambiguous and misleading statements” from The Episcopal Church, he said.

Published in The Living Church.

Reactions to the US House of Bishops New Orleans statement amongst the Primates have broken along factional lines, with conservatives denouncing the statement as insubstantial and dishonest, while liberals have praised its candor and modesty.

The divergent views of the adequacy of the US response to the Primates request for clarification of American church practices towards gay bishops and blessings further complicates the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hopes of forestalling a schism within the Communion.

Straightened finances and fears of a boycott by the primates of Wales, Ireland and Scotland to an emergency primates’ meeting to discuss the American response to the primates’ Dar es Salaam communique, has led to Dr. Williams telephoning the Communion’s primates to try to find a common mind.

Whether the primates’ round robin will produce an amicable resolution appears to be further hampered by the different world views of the players in Anglicanism’s great game. Aides to the Archbishop told The Church of England Newspaper during his meeting with the American bishops in New Orleans that Dr. Williams hoped to find the right combination of words that would satisfy the church’s disparate factions.

However, leaders of the Global South coalition have demanded not words, but action from the American church, and have little trust in the veracity of American promises of good behavior. Leaders of the liberal wing of the US Church and across the Communion are also divided, with some arguing that truth must not be subordinated to expediency while others hope their place within the councils of the church can be saved through the artful use of semantics.

The Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh lauded the American response, saying the American “Bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics.”

Archbishop Harper noted the “generous agreement” of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori “to put in place a plan to appoint Episcopal visitors for dioceses that request alternative oversight” and stated that while the bishops had declined “participation in the ‘Pastoral Scheme’ offered by the Primates,” they had “at least” recognized the “useful role” of the Communion in these debates.

Dr. Harper stated this seemed to be a “balanced and relatively generous response in a very delicate area of inter-provincial relationships.”

Bishop David Beetge of the Highveld, the acting primate and vicar general of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, said he welcomed the decision “for the simple reason it gives us more space and time to talk to each other.”

The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane said he believed the US had “responded positively to all the requests put to them by the Primates in our Dar es Salaam communiqué.”However, he went on to damn the American Church with faint praise saying “Certainly they have responded to the substance of those requests.”
However the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Peter Jensen was not as sanguine. “At first reading, the statement from the TEC bishops does not seem to say anything new,” he noted. “The situation may not then be changed in any way.”

The African churches were stronger in their condemnation. “What we expected to come from them is to repent. That this is a sin in the eyes of the Lord and repentance is what me, in particular, and others expected to hear coming from this church,” Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said.

The Assistant Bishop of Kampala, David Zac Niringiye told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme Uganda believed the statement was inadequate as it was “not a change of heart”, but a temporizing solution.The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola stated the US response fell short of what was required. The primates had given the US “one final opportunity for an unequivocal assurance” that it would conform to the “to the mind and teaching of the Communion.”

He said the primates were unwilling to accept further “ambiguous and misleading statements” from the US Church. “Sadly it seems that our hopes were not well founded and our pleas have once again been ignored.”

Meanwhile the Anglican Mainstream group said they were disappointed with the response because it failed to address the specific questions asked of it by the Primates’ Meeting in February, and backed the Common Cause College of Bishops. In a statement they said: “The first two points — on the election of non-celibate gay and lesbian bishops, and on public rites for blessing same-sex unions — suggest that the TEC House of Bishops has agreed not to walk further away from the rest of the Anglican Communion for the moment.

“However, the TEC House of Bishops gives no indication of being prepared to turn and walk back towards us so that we may walk ahead together, and in reality same-sex blessings are continuing.

“Moreover, there is no response to the Primates’ request to suspend all legal action.”

The Church Society also rejected the House of Bishops statement saying it demonstrates TEC has ‘abandoned orthodox Christianity’.

Nigeria has added four more bishops to the roster of CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.  Their election will increase the total number of African-sponsored missionary bishops to the United States to 17 by year’s end: six from Nigeria, two from Uganda, two from Kenya, and seven from Rwanda

The President of the American Anglican Council, the Rev. Canon David Anderson, the former rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio, the Rev. Canon Roger Ames, and two Nigerian priests serving expatriate African congregations in the United States, the Ven. Amos Fagbamiye and the Rev. Canon Nathan Kanu were elected by the Nigerian House of Bishops on Sept 12.

The four will be consecrated later this year in the US and will assist Bishop Martyn Minns in “providing an indigenous ecclesiastical structure for faithful Anglicans in this country,” CANA said.

The Nigerian House of Bishops also re-elected five and elected two new archbishops.  Edmund Akanya of Kebbi succeeded the Josiah Idowu-Fearon as Archbishop of Kaduna and Benjamin Kwashi of Jos succeeded the Emmanuel Mani as Archbishop of Jos.

The Archbishop of Lagos, Ephraim Ademowo of Lagos; the Archbishop of Owerri, Bennett Okoro of Orlu; the Archbishop of Ondo,  Samuel Abe of Ekiti; and the Archbishop of Ibadan,  Joseph Akinfenwa of Ibadan were re-elected to five year terms.

According to a press release published on CANA’s website, the convocation now boasts 60 congregations and 80 clergy spread across 20 states.  A quarter of CANA’s members are Nigerian immigrants, with the balance consisting for the most part of former members of The Episcopal Church.

Canon Ames, who with his parish seceded from the Episcopal Church in 2005 for the Diocese of Bolivia, said that approximately 50 former Episcopal parishes under the jurisdiction of the Bolivian church were in talks with CANA to transfer jurisdictions.

On March 7, the Nigerian House of Bishops stated that in light of the Primates’ Dar es Salaam communiqué it would “defer the request for additional Episcopal elections for CANA until our meeting in September 2007.”  The rejection by the US House of Bishops of the Primates pastoral scheme for US traditionalists prompted last week’s election.

On Sept 15 Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda issued a statement endorsing the elections.  The rejection by the US bishops of the “Pastoral Scheme presented to them unanimously by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the subsequent rejection by TEC’s Executive Council” was “evidence of this desperate need to care for, support, and encourage orthodox Anglicans and Episcopalians in America,” he said.

The election of four more bishops will not divide the conservative movement in North America he said.  The “renewal of Anglicanism in America” will come through a unity “based in the Word of God” and “demonstrated through its Bishops who work together cooperatively and collaboratively for increased mission in America.”

The Church of Nigeria has urged Archbishop Rowan Williams to postpone the 2008 Lambeth Conference, writing that a meeting of bishops that comes before a resolution of the Anglican Communion’s wars over doctrine and disciple would hasten its destruction.

In a letter released on Sept 13 following a meeting of the church’s Standing Committee and House of Bishops, the Nigerian Church warned that the “pressures of the present situation” made holding Lambeth 2008 unwise.

Dr. Williams’ desire to have the Lambeth Conference be a “place for fellowship and prayer and an exploration of our shared mission and ministry” could not be achieved in the current climate.

The Nigerian bishops detailed the campaign of abuse and slander mounted against them and decried the “spate of hostility in the UK” against those holding traditional moral views.

“How can we as bishops in the Church of God gather for a Lambeth Conference when there is such a high level of distrust, dislike and disdain for one another?” they said.

With “relationships are so sorely strained and our life together so broken” such that the bishops could not share the Eucharist with one another, gathering next summer in Canterbury “would be a mockery and bring dishonour” to God.

The Nigerian Church lauded Dr. Williams’ plans for an Anglican Covenant and suggested the Communion first hear out the Episcopal Church’s plea for special treatment on issues of human sexuality.  They called for a special meeting of the Primates to deal with the American question and asked that work begin toward a Communion-wide consensus on the “application of the Windsor Process.”

They also asked that Dr. Williams “set in motion an agreed process to finalize the Anglican Covenant Proposal and set a timetable for its ratification by individual provinces.”  Once these processes were in place, they argued, a productive Lambeth Conference could be held.

Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and the diocese of Sydney have warned Dr. Williams they might abstain from attending the conference set for next July at the University of Kent at Canterbury.  The Anglican Church of Kenya’s Primate, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi last week said his church would give their decision on attending Lambeth in December.

The Nigerian’s call for a postponement of Lambeth echoes suggestions made last year by then Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, who urged Dr. Williams to postpone Lambeth until the current tensions were abated.  The world wars had caused gaps of 12 and 18 years to pass between Lambeth Conferences, and a delay at this time would serve to dissipate the tensions and distrust that had arisen within the church, he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s denunciation of the Bishop of Uyo for demonizing homosexuals is unfounded and relies upon an unsubstantiated news report, the Church of Nigeria reports.

Coming two weeks before his meeting with the American bishops in New Orleans, where he hopes to be able to salvage that Church’s position within the Anglican Communion, Dr. Williams’ comments come as an ‘own goal’ in his relations with the Global South, and may have materially weakened his ability to hold the Communion together.

On Sept 7, the Anglican Consultative Council’s press office released a statement saying Dr. Williams had expressed “deep shock” at remarks made by the Bishop of Uyo, the Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama.

A Sept 2 United Press International (UPI) report based on a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) story, quoted Bishop Orama as having said “Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man.”

Such comments were “unacceptable and profoundly shocking on the lips of any Christian,” Dr. Williams said, and added that that “primates, along with all other official bodies in the Anglican Communion, have consistently called for an end to homophobia, violence and hatred.”

The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola had been asked for an explanation of the remarks, the statement said.

However, a spokesman for the Church of Nigeria, Archdeacon Akintunde Popoola told The Church of England Newspaper the story was false.

The Bishop of Uyo “denied making such a statement,” the Province’s spokesman said.

While the Bishop’s address to his diocesan synod did speak to the issue of human sexuality dividing the Communion, the Church of Nigeria’s position on these issues, and the creation of CANA-the Nigerian church’s missionary district in the United States, “he did not say that [homosexuals] are to be hated, not that they are insane nor unfit to live.”

The NAN reporter has “apologized for the misrepresentation and promised a retraction” Archdeacon Popoola said.

On Sept 7 UPI removed the story from its website.

A spokesman for Lambeth Palace on Sept 8 told CEN it was unaware that UPI had removed the story. He noted that while Dr. Williams’ condemnation of such anti-homosexual sentiments stood, his censure of the Nigerian bishop had been conditional upon confirmation of the facts from Archbishop Akinola.

The Rev Canon David Anderson at the ACN Council meeting in Texas on July 31, 2007.

The Rev. Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, is one of four new bishops that the Anglican Church of Nigeria announced it is adding to the roster of CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

The Rev. Roger Ames, rector of St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Akron, Ohio, is another American elected by the Nigerian House of Bishops on Sept. 12. The other two bishops-elect are Nigerian priests serving expatriate African congregations in the United States, the Ven. Amos Fagbamiye and the Rev. Canon Nathan Kanu.

Plans call for the four to be consecrated in the United States either in late November or the first week of December, according to Fr. Ames, who said that he has been informed that a number of Global South primates will participate in the consecration.

The new bishops will join the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, missionary bishop of CANA, and the Rt. Rev. David Bena, the retired suffragan Bishop of Albany, in the oversight of Nigeria’s American congregations.

In an interview with The Living Church, Fr. Ames said all of the parish leadership and the congregation of St. Luke’s left The Episcopal Church about two years ago for the Diocese of Bolivia in the Province of the Southern Cone, but because the Diocese of Ohio has not to date included the departure in its parochial report filings with the national church, he and the congregation continue officially to be designated members in good standing of The Episcopal Church.

Fr. Ames said there are currently about 50 former Episcopal congregations affiliated with the Diocese of Bolivia. These are in the process of being transferred to CANA by mutual agreement of Bishop Minns and the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons, Bishop of Bolivia. According to a press release published on CANA’s website, the convocation now has 60 congregations and 80 clergy in 20 states.

The election of the four will increase the number of African-sponsored missionary bishops in the United States to 17: six from Nigeria, two from Uganda, two from Kenya, and seven from Rwanda.

Published in The Living Church.

The Church of Nigeria has initiated an ecumenical dialogue with a leading African Independent Church (AIC) that the participants hope can lead to eventual reunion.

Founded in 1901 following the secession of some native members of CMS missions in southern Nigeria, the African Church of Nigeria is one of the largest African initiated churches in the country.

The Anglican Church in Nigeria and the African Church share a common understanding of Scripture, the sacraments, the church calendar, and the African Church as an Anglican influenced liturgy and clerical structure. However differences remain on understandings of marriage, the burial of the dead, and the status and authority of clergy.

A spokesman for the Church of Nigeria noted several obstacles to reunion had been overcome in recent years. “Ecumenism is being pursued now that most of the reasons for division are no longer there,” Archdeacon AkinTunde Popoola told The Church of England Newspaper.

“Anglican churches now allow the use of native musical instruments” in worship services, while the African Church no longer permits polygamy among its clergy, he said.

In 1981 AICs constituted 15 percent of the total Christian population in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Council of Churches reports. Current estimates place the number of AIC adherents at over 83 million spread over 10,000 congregations.

AICs historically represented a “place to feel at home” for African Christians, Canon John Pobee noted. In the early years of the Twentieth century when many of the AICs had their start, “Western missionaries were largely negative about African culture and Africans were alienated from the gospel dressed up in European garb,” he said.

They are a response to the “verbal and cerebral mode which puts Western Christianity beyond the reach of people’s comprehension and experience. Instead, the AICs offer a celebrative religion, making considerable use of symbols, music and dance. Thus they represent cultural renaissance in reaction to the cultural imperialism of the mission work of the historic churches,” Canon Pobee wrote.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has denounced as unchristian a statement demonizing gays and lesbians that was allegedly made by a Nigerian bishop and published by United Press International (UPI).

In a statement released by the Anglican Consultative Council’s press office on Sept. 7, Archbishop Williams expressed “deep shock” at remarks made by the Bishop of Uyo, the Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama. The Nigerian bishop has denied making the remarks attributed to him.

A Sept. 2 report widely circulated by UPI the same weekend that three former Episcopal priests were consecrated Anglican bishops for the United States was based on a News Agency of Nigeria article in which Bishop Orama was quoted in part saying: “Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man.”

Archbishop Williams said that such comments were “unacceptable and profoundly shocking on the lips of any Christian” noting that the “primates, along with all other official bodies in the Anglican Communion, have consistently called for an end to homophobia, violence and hatred.” The statement noted that Archbishop Williams has asked the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, for an explanation.

A spokesman for the Church of Nigeria, Archdeacon Akintunde Popoola, told The Living Church the quote attributed to the bishop was false.

The Bishop of Uyo “denied making such a statement,” Canon Popoola said. While the bishop’s address to his diocesan synod did speak to the issue of human sexuality dividing the Communion, and the Church of Nigeria’s position on these issues, “he did not say that [gays and lesbians] are to be hated, nor that they are insane or unfit to live.”

The News Agency of Nigeria reporter has “apologized for the misrepresentation and promised a retraction,” Archdeacon Popoola told TLC.

Published in The Living Church.

The Church of Nigeria has condemned religious syncretism, calling upon its members to put the Gospel ahead of culture.

In his Aug 21 pastoral letter, Archbishop Peter Akinola warned Nigeria’s fast growing Anglican Church not to emulate the decadent social practices of the West, and to put its faith first in Christ.

The Church has also spoken out strongly against enculturation of pagan tribal rituals into the life of the Church. Speaking to the 27^th synod of the Diocese on the Niger on Aug 20, the Rt. Rev. Ken Okeke condemned the shaving of the heads of widows in “honour of their dead” as being foreign to the Christian faith.

The ritual shaving of the heads of widows amongst some tribal groups in the Niger Delta is akin to the one-time Hindu practice of shaving widows as a symbol of renunciation of the world and of any ideas of remarriage.

Bishop Okeke condemned the practice as an “idolatrous vice” and “completely unchristian” and included the custom amongst a list of sinful behaviours including dishonesty, false religion, indiscipline, a lukewarm faith, and failing to forgive.

Christians are to show they have caught a glimpse of God’s heart by manifesting a loving and caring attitude in their everyday lives, the bishop told his diocese according to a report published by the Church of Nigeria News.

The Church of Nigeria has denounced as racist and demeaning suggestions that Archbishop Peter Akinola’s Aug 20 pastoral letter was ghost written by his American bishop, the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns.

The charges of American manipulation of African Archbishops were “another attempt to divert attention” away from the root causes of the crisis of faith and order in the Anglican Communion, it said.

On Aug 24 the Church Times reported “computer tracking software suggests” the pastoral was “extensively edited and revised over a four-day period” by Bishop Minns. The article stated there were “about 600 insertions made by Bishop Minns, including whole new sections amounting to two-thirds of the final text. There is also a sprinkling of minor amendments made by Canon Chris Sugden of the conservative group Anglican Mainstream.”

The Rev. Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude charged the Church Times report confirmed his suspicions that American conservatives, not African bishops were driving the Global South’s calls for discipline of the US church.

The Church Times report “demonstrates that the most extreme demands being made of the Anglican Communion by the secessionists originate not with Archbishop Akinola in Nigeria but from Bishop Minns and other extreme conservatives associated with CANA.”

“The conservatives who have been driving the Global South agenda have tried to present themselves as orthodox in contrast to what they claim is TEC’s heterodoxy. In their campaign to defeat those of us who support the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Anglican Communion, they are prepared to use methods which we believe to be abusive, dishonest and fail to embody Christian values,” Mr. Coward said.

The Church of Nigeria’s director of communications Archdeacon Akintunde Popoola responded that it was “very insulting and racist to infer that the Primate of All Nigeria is being dictated to.”

Archdeacon Popoola stated work on the pastoral letter began in Abuja on Aug 6, as staffers gathered research for the letter. A first draft was read by Archbishop Akinola on Aug 9, but no corrections were made at that time.

Archbishop Akinola then traveled to the United States, and working in the offices of Bishop Minns, completed the letter. The charge that Bishop Minns wrote the letter was nonsensical, Archdeacon Popoola said.

“I fail to see any issue if amendments are then made on Bp. Minns’ computer” by Archbishop Akinola. “Apart from the fact that they were together during the period of the amendment, the Archbishop like many effective leaders who spend little time glued to a desk often phones me and other staffs to write certain things. Such remain his idea and anyone who knows Abp. Peter Akinola knows you can not make him say what he does not mean,” he said.

Bishop Minns told The Church of England Newspaper he served in a secretarial capacity as Archbishop Akinola’s amanuensis, and did not write the pastoral as claimed by the Church Times.

On Aug 20 CEN received a copy of Archbishop Akinola’s pastoral from the Church of Nigeria written using Microsoft word. A revised copy of the pastoral was sent out later that day. In its report on the pastoral the CEN noted that Archbishop Akinola was visiting his parishes in Northern Virginia at the time of the document’s release.

Using the Microsoft word feature “Track Changes”, changes to the original draft document as claimed by the Church Times can be observed, including the name of the registered user of the software used to edit the document.

While Bishop Minns is named as the registered owner of the software, there is no evidence that he was the author of the document—merely that it was typed on a machine whose copy of Microsoft Word was registered in his name.

Comment at Thinking Anglicans or Titusonenine

The former Bishop of Akure, the Rt Rev. Emmanuel Gbonigi has called for Nigeria’s war on government corruption to be extended to civil servants.
Teachers, police and customs officers should be investigated and punished for graft and corruption, as well as government ministers and politicians, he said in speeches in Lagos and in articles published in the Nigerian press.

“If a poor man driven by hunger steals 500 Naira (£2) the full weight of the law is applied on him. He is lucky if he is jailed. Sometimes, they are killed secretly by the police and their corpses dumped somewhere,” he said.

In contrast, former government ministers convicted of graft are often unpunished, and are seldom even charged, he said.

The machinery of State has “always been controlled and monopolized by the rich and powerful in our society, to the benign neglect of the ordinary Nigerians for whom abject poverty is a constant companion,” he said.

Rich and poor live in “worlds apart” in two “different economic and social hemispheres” with the wealthy able to pervert the state to their own ends.

The Nigerian Police, he said, “the nation’s personification of “law and order” has been commercialized to serve the private benefit of the elite class. Rich and powerful private citizens now hire our Police as personal security guards; and yet the nation is crying wolf for shortage of law enforcement personnel.”

The retired bishop also chastised religious leaders also, saying many accepted donations from illicit sources. “God says I won’t accept it because you stole it. If the church knows, no matter how much is involved, it should not be taken,” he said at St. Savior’s Cathedral in Lagos on Aug 11.

Without honest government, democracy becomes a “cruel hoax” he wrote on Aug 24. The message was clear, “the masses can go to hell once the rich and powerful are taken care of,” he charged.

The end is nigh for the Anglican Communion’s divisions over doctrine and discipline, the Primate of Nigeria Archbishop Peter Akinola has written in an Aug 20 pastoral letter, saying the decisions taken in the next few weeks will shape the future course of the Communion.

“All journeys must end someday” the Nigerian church leader said in a letter entitled “A Most Agonizing Journey” that summarized the history of the Anglican Communion’s sex wars.

“These past ten years of distraction have been agonizing and the cost has been enormous. The time and financial resources spent on endless meetings whose statements and warnings have been consistently ignored is a tragic loss of resources that should have been used otherwise,” the letter, released during Archbishop Akinola’s visit to the Nigerian parishes of Northern Virginia said.

However the “journey is coming to an end and the moment of decision is almost upon us,” he noted. Archbishop Akinola stated the Nigerian Church would compromise no further and would not chase after a mirage of unity and abandon sound doctrine.

“We want unity but not at the cost of relegating Christ to the position of another ‘wise teacher’ who can be obeyed or disobeyed,” he said, adding that the Nigerian Church “earnestly desire the healing of our beloved Communion but not at the cost of re-writing the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend.”

The head of the Communion’s largest church laid out an eight-point list of non-negotiable conditions that require “an unequivocal acceptance.”

The Church must conform to the “authority and supremacy of Scripture”; the “doctrine of the Trinity”; “the person, work and resurrection of Jesus the Christ”; “the acknowledgement of Jesus as Divine and the One and only means of salvation”; “the Biblical teaching on sin, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation by the Holy Spirit through Christ”; “the sanctity of marriage”; “teaching about morality that is rooted and grounded in the Biblical Revelation”; and the “Apostolic Ministry.”

A Communion that does not hold to these beliefs would not contain the Anglican Church of Nigeria the letter suggested.

The US House of Bishops has been asked to respond to the Primates requests to clarify its stance on the Windsor Report and gay bishops and blessings by Sept 30. Failure to give an adequate response may prompt the discipline of the American Church by the Primates—of if no discipline is forthcoming, then it is likely a number of Provinces would withdraw from the Communion in some fashion.

Accusations made by the head of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) that the Church of Nigeria was a puppet of the Archbishop of Sydney are false and demeaning, a spokesman for the diocese has said.

“No one guides and advises Archbishop Akinola what to do except the Lord of the Bible,” the Archbishop of Sydney’s media officer Margaret Rodgers said in a statement given to The Church of England Newspaper.

In an Aug 3 press release, the Rev Richard Kirker, chief executive of the LGCM responded to a report published by this paper that the Church of Nigeria was considering appointing a flying bishop for Britain, by stating it would be “perfectly consistent” for Archbishop Peter Akinola to appoint a bishop for British Anglicans who might “find comfort under his brazenly homophobic creed.”

“It has been clear for some time that under the guidance of Peter Jensen (the Archbishop of Sydney) the Nigerian Church has been distancing itself from the Church of England and particularly the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” Mr. Kirker charged.

Sydney responded that the LGCM chief’s statement “appears to be akin to the ‘chicken dinner’ slurs that were used by some liberal churchmen in their attempt to offset the biblical understandings of African bishops at the time of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.”

At the 1998 conference American liberals charged the African bishops had succumbed to the blandishments of conservatives to support the condemnation of homosexuality after having been offered a free chicken dinner.

The suggestion the Nigerian leader acted under instruction from the Archbishop of Sydney was “patently untrue and it has no basis in fact. It is deeply shameful for it has at its base an inherent racism that fails to acknowledge the Biblical commitment and insights of this particular African Primate.”

The Primate of Nigeria is a “Christian leader greatly admired in the Diocese of Sydney. His commitment to the authority of the Holy Scripture in the life and understanding of the individual Christian, and in the communal structure and mission of his own province and of the Anglican Communion worldwide, is a shining example to Anglican Church leaders both nationally and internationally,” the Sydney statement said.

A one time resident of the West African country the LGCM leader is a longtime critic of the Nigerian church’s stance on homosexuality. During the 1998 Conference the Bishop of Enugu, the Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma sought to cast out the spirit of homosexuality from Mr. Kirker. The impromptu exorcism filmed by the BBC, failed, apparently, to take.

“While Archbishop Akinola spreads his brand of religion to England the main concern of LGCM remains that the Church of England does not respond to this schism by increasing its own institutional homophobia – competing with him for the prize of who can be nastiest to gays!” Mr. Kirker said.

Armed bandits ransacked the home of the Bishop of Jos, Nigeria last week for the second time in 18 months. The attack on the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Kwashi underscores the Nigeria’s rising tide of criminal and sectarian violence that threatens to destabilize the nation.

On July 24 at 2:15 in the morning a gang invaded Bishopscourt, subduing two guards and locking four servants in a room.

The gang, armed with knives and guns, seized Bishop Kwashi and his son Rinji, and frog marched them into the courtyard. The gang debated killing them, and told the bishop he was going to die. Changing their minds, they beat the bishop’s son and ransacked the home, stealing a computer, mobile phones, jewelry and cash.

“I have seen a miracle”, Bishop Kwashi told Anglican Mainstream in the UK via telephone.

“Join me in thanking God that my life has been spared again. This is the second time in 18 months that an attempt has been made on my life.”

The bishop said he was concerned for his wife. “This is now the second time that Gloria has seen all this. It is worse for her. Please pray for her.”

Last year Mrs Kwashi described the first assault on her family to participants at the New Wineskins Conference on Global Missions in the United States.

In February 2006 a gang invaded her home in the dead of night while her husband was out of town. “The house was well fortified, but they smashed down the door,” she said.

“We were helpless. They came into the house with guns,” Mrs Kwashi recalled. They demanded to know where Bishop Kwashi was saying they were there to kill him.

“They dragged me into our bedroom. They pushed me onto the bed and said ‘you will die silently.’ We won’t waste a bullet on you’.”
Mrs. Kwashi prayed for protection as the gang beat her, and unable to find the bishop, they left her alive, though bloodied and temporarily blinded.

“I couldn’t walk. But suddenly I felt wind and power coming into me. I was bleeding from head to toe profusely, but I was able to walk three miles to get help,” she said, praising God for her deliverance from death.

A frequent visitor to the UK, on July 9 Bishop Kwashi visited General Synod, addressing an Anglican Mainstream meeting on the topic of an “African Perspective” on the Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury installed Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Kaduna, Nigeria, as a Six Preacher at Canterbury Cathedral on July 26.

Created by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer as a new foundation to replace the suppressed Cathedral priory, the Six preachers are appointed to staggered five year renewable terms to preach at the Cathedral.

Archbishop Idowu-Fearon replaces Canon John Polkinghorne who retired earlier this year.

Originally trained as a soldier, Archbishop Idowu-Fearon was ordained in 1970, and was consecrated Bishop of Sokoto in 1990 and translated to Kaduna in 1997. He earned a BA from Durham University in 1980, a Masters degree in Islamic Studies from Birmingham University and a doctorate in Islamics from Hartford Seminary in 1993.

“We have already come to know Archbishop Josiah as a friend from his time spent teaching in our International Study Centre to the Canterbury Scholars course” the Dean of Canterbury, Robert Willis said.

His appointment, “one of the first from the wider Anglican Communion enhances the concept of the teaching ministry at Canterbury Cathedral that was so firmly laid down by Cranmer at the time of the Reformation,” Dean Willis said.

“Being a Six Preacher will give me a sense of belonging to the community at Canterbury Cathedral,” Archbishop Idowu-Fearon said. “I hope that this recognition will help me to be an ambassador for Christ, not just within the Anglican Communion, but to my Muslim neighbors.”

Church leaders in West Africa have called for a suppression of violent religious cults and warned Anglicans not to succumb to their lure.

The Nigerian Bishop of Egbu Emmanuel Iheagwam warned members of his diocese on Saturday of the evils of religious cults and secret societies. Some “profess to be Christians and yet go to the shrines of lesser deities to swear or take oaths of allegiance to individuals or political parties” Bishop Iheagwam said.

Those who sought to mix their Christian faith with cultic activities or who dabbled in witchcraft or sorcery were denying Christ, he said. “I charge every one of us to declare for God and only God through Jesus Christ our Lord”, the Bisho