One of the hottest stories on the New York Times yesterday was an account describing the coronation of two US Anglican Bishops in Nairobi's All Saints Cathedral.
The Head of the Anglican Church of Kenya, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, joined the train of African Anglican primates consecrating new bishops in the breakaway orthodox stream of the US Episcopalian Church.
In the Nairobi ceremony, the primate who was joined by 10 other heads of national churches in elevated two priests who will be charged with the headship of 30 US congregations. Nzimbi's action is the latest in a flurry set off by Nigerian primate Peter Akinola in May against the wishes of the Church's supposed head the Archbishop of Canterbury. Akinola and Nzimbi are part of movement in the Church that takes a reading of scripture that rejects homosexuality as sin and that even when tolerating it in wider society, refuses to accept the consecration of gay priests as bishops. | ‘maintaining the Church's discipline, guarding her faith and promoting her mission. Archbishop Nzimbi's charge to new Bishops | That it is odd that African Churches are now marshaled in defence of this discrimination goes without saying. These Churches many of which are no more than the odd one-hundred years old, are now brazenly standing up to defend the Church against what they see as its adulteration by overly liberal ideas on what is permissible and what is not. This stand is made all the more infuriating for the mother Church in England, by the fact that although it's head the Archbishop of Canterbury- Rowan Williams - is the nominal head of the Church, his authority is diminished by the plain fact that over half of the world's 77 million Anglicans live in Africa and hold strident, rejectionist views on homosexuality. You can almost feel the tectonic shift in the direction of the Church's power as Nzimbi charges his new subordinates with ‘maintaining the Church's discipline, guarding her faith and promoting her mission.' The Archbishop of Canterbury and much of the Church of England continue to hold the view that a misreading of scripture is responsible for the rejection of homosexuality in the Church, even though they themselves were not party to the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson by the US church. In an emotional appeal to the African primates, Robinson is quoted this week analogizing his rejection and that of other gays and lesbians, by the African Church with the attitude of ‘ American slavers and racists' who he says latched on to scripture to justify the inhuman treatment and discrimination of others. The controversy seems set to continue, with American conservatives in groups like Ekklesia- headed by one of the Bishops enthroned in Nairobi- working hard to market the breakaway traditional congregations and the global church looking intent on further liberalizing- the second in order of precedence in the English Church is a black Ugandan, and the American Church is headed by a woman.
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It burdens my heart with great sadness that instead of preaching unity we are watching the splitting up of God's Church. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. Some will say that it is just another development in the history of the Church. At one time the Anglicans and Catholics were one. There was even talk of them coming together again, but after these recent events one can forget that too.
Is it not amazing that even as all over the world religions are preaching love, unity and tolerance, if two men like each other it blows apart the congregation.....maajabu