Posted on 05/11/2007 11:59:16 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Nigerian Anglican Installs U.S. Bishop
May 6, 2007 - 8:34am
WOODBRIDGE, Va. (AP) - A powerful Anglican leader from Nigeria installed a bishop Saturday to lead the conservative U.S. parish network he created, despite a last-minute plea from the head of the Anglican Communion that he cancel his visit.
Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria was already in the United States when a spokesman for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams revealed Friday that Williams had tried to intercede. The installation ceremony, held at a nondenominational chapel, went ahead as planned.
Bishop Martyn Minns, a former Episcopal clergyman, was given full leadership of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, which Akinola started last December as an alternative to the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church.
Episcopalians form the U.S. wing of the 77 million-member global Anglican Communion, a fellowship of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England.
The communion is on the verge of splitting up because of differences over Scripture, including whether the Bible bars gay relationships. The theological rift broke wide open in 2003 when Episcopalians consecrated their first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
Days before the installation, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori had urged the Nigerian leader not to visit the U.S. She said it would violate the Anglican tradition that national church leaders, called primates, only minister to churches within their own provinces.
Akinola responded by saying that "the usual protocol and permissions are no longer applicable" because of what he called the "unbiblical agenda" of the U.S. church.
As the communion's spiritual leader, Williams does not have the direct authority to stop Akinola or force a compromise. As part of a plan to prevent schism, Anglican primates collectively have given the U.S. denomination until Sept. 30 to step back from its support of gays or risk losing its full membership in the fellowship.
The Anglican church is not a church. It is a cult, quite harmless if you ignore it.
This from the National Review :
I kid you not. The female head of a church with a practicing homosexual bishop planning to “marry” his lover, a church that could accept into seminary the adulterous homosexual governor of New Jersey, a church that embraces splitting open babies’ skulls and vacuuming their brains out, is complaining about violating ancient customs? Wow.
The Episcopal Church is becoming a cult; the Anglican Communion is not.
Here’s more from the Washington Post :
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 6, 2007; Page A01
A powerful Nigerian Anglican archbishop defied top church leaders yesterday by coming to Northern Virginia and installing as one of his bishops a local minister who recently broke with the U.S. church after accusing it of being too liberal.
The festive ceremony thrilled those who believe the U.S. church has become too permissive but highlighted divisions that threaten to crack the Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Peter J. Akinola leads a movement that, among other things, believes the Bible is unequivocally opposed to homosexuality and divorced clergy. Hundreds turned out to watch him install Martyn Minns as “missionary bishop” for an outpost that he created for America.
The worshipers, who have left the U.S. wing — the Episcopal Church — applauded and waved their hands in prayer as bishops from Canada, England, the United States, Nigeria and Uganda sat on the stage in white-and-red robes.
The installation, held at a 3,500-seat Christian event center next to the Potomac Mills, was high-profile fuel for the debate in the 70 million-member Anglican Communion over the proper reading of Scripture on homosexuality and other issues. The questions have not only roiled the Episcopal Church but also divided other denominations worldwide over the past decade.
“Our name is now synonymous with discontent,” Minns said from a stage lined with large purple-and-yellow banners reading “CANA” — for his mission, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. “It is a disaster, but it’s not the end of the story. God wants to transform this into a celebration, and CANA is a gift.”
Episcopal Church leaders maintain that Minns and his ideological peers are trying to oversimplify Jesus’s teachings in a complex world.
In the days before yesterday’s service, Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the entire communion, and Katharine Jefferts-Schori, head of the U.S. church, asked Akinola not to oversee Minns’s installation.
The church leaders said Akinola’s appearance would exacerbate tensions. However, the communion is not hierarchical, and leaders do not have the power to make demands or punish.
Minns, longtime rector of the prominent Truro Church in Fairfax City, became a global figure in December when he led 11 Virginia churches out of the Episcopal Church; all placed themselves under the leadership of Akinola. They included some of the largest Episcopal congregations in the country.
The Nigerian church, the largest in the Anglican family, is booming in membership — unlike the U.S. church. Akinola has emerged in the past few years as one of the most prominent conservative Anglican leaders, but even his loyalists sometimes have concerns about him. Many Episcopalians noted last year that he supported a Nigerian bill that would jail gay men and lesbians who gathered or touched in public. The bill disappeared in the activity surrounding Nigeria’s recent presidential election.
Yesterday’s installation seemed to elevate a minister already on the rise. Since being picked last year to be a bishop of Nigeria, Minns has sat in the Nigerian House of Bishops, and he is one of a small number of advisers to leaders of growing branches in the developing world. His new group has 34 congregations, up from a dozen in November, including Truro and The Falls Church, as well as congregations in Texas, California and Colorado. A February meeting of communion leaders put forward the possibility of an alternative U.S. structure for conservative parishes.
The irony is this — Westerners used to go to Africa to preach the gospel and teach them to obey the Bible... now the Africans are coming to the Western world to teach them obey the Bible.
“The Anglican church is not a church. It is a cult,”
Perhaps you could explain what you mean?
‘The Anglican church is not a church. It is a cult, quite harmless if you ignore it.’
An interesting perspective on the religion of the people who founded America. . . . .
OK. We'll note that you are on the side of the pro-homosexual liberals.
It is not a split that they fear, it is the blazing light of day. For all it’s bluster, evil cannot bare being called Evil. It would be the absolute best thing for this to produce a single church...that follows the word. Let those who want homosexual church leaders expalain it to God in the afterlife.
“The Anglican church is not a church. It is a cult, quite harmless if you ignore it.”
Sounds like you know what your talking about.
“It has departed from what it originally used to profess to believe.”
I don’t mean to quibble, but that seems an overstatement of the case. The Anglican churches I represent are in the middle of the battle to restore the church to its scriptural calling and have placed everything on the line because of their stand. The Anglican church has not apostacized, but a sect within the church has.
““The Anglican church is not a church. It is a cult,”
“Perhaps you could explain what you mean?”
I too would like to know if he has the slightest idea what he is talking about. He does indeed, owe us an explanation.
There is precedent for this is the history of the Church in the dark ages when Roman-trained missionaries like St Patrick were sent into what was then heathen Ireland; not too long afterwards Irish monks were teaching and converting people all over central Europe.
‘There is precedent for this is the history of the Church in the dark ages when Roman-trained missionaries like St Patrick were sent into what was then heathen Ireland; not too long afterwards Irish monks were teaching and converting people all over central Europe.’
Indeed, look at the muslims - the newly converted are always the most bothersome! :)
The liberals think they’re in the catbird seat with all the money and all the property. But if there’s a schism, they may be left with the fuzzy end of the lollipop - and they’re scared by that.
As I recall, the Anglican Church received its start as a result of a schism/reformation movement. Seems like wailing about a modern version of those events would closely border on hypocrisy.
Also rather ironic that Archbishop Akinola did this with the “Defender of the Faith” (Fidei defensor) Queen Elizabeth, only 20 miles away at the time.
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