Africa's Top Anglican Warns U.S. Church

The spokesman for bishops who claim leadership of a majority of the world's Anglican Christians denounced the gay-rights policies of America's Episcopal Church on Saturday, following a two-day caucus in Atlanta with U.S. conservatives.

Archbishop Peter Akinola said the future of true Anglicanism in the United States lies with conservative minority opposition groups within the Episcopal Church who oppose gay marriage and the church's approval of an openly gay bishop. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion.

Akinola also said in a telephone interview that unless conditions change, he will not attend meetings alongside the leader of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, or attend the 2008 meeting of the world's Anglican bishops if the U.S. hierarchy participates.

Akinola leads Nigeria's Anglican church, with its 17.5 million members, and the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, a continent that includes half the world's 77 million Anglicans. He is also spokesman for "Global South" archbishops who have severed normal ties with the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal Church spokesman Daniel England said Saturday that Griswold understands that Akinola has strong feelings on the issue.

"I'm sure the presiding bishop will be disappointed if the archbishop cannot join him at the communion table," he said.

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town has criticized Akinola's strong stand against the U.S. church. But the archbishops announced jointly March 29 that they agree with the stand against gay clergy and blessing of same-sex couples taken by the world's bishops at their 1998 meeting.

The dispute over the American church's acceptance of gay activity became a major world issue when it approved an openly homosexual bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Akinola underscored his support of the conservative minority over the weekend when he met in Atlanta with leaders from the two main U.S. organizations that oppose toleration of homosexual activity: the American Anglican Council and the recently formed Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.

Akinola said the Episcopal Church "is trying to redefine Christianity and rewrite Scripture, and we have no right to do that. The historic faith of the church is what we stand by, and there is no going back."

In the archbishop's view, although those who favor liberal policies on homosexuality have a clear operating majority in the U.S. church, he strongly backs the minority and its new network.

"It's either repent and come back to the fold, or give up on the Anglican family," he said.

"If he's waiting on the network to replace the Episcopal Church, I think he's in for a long wait," he said.

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Anglicanism and Catholicism are dead in the Western World.

I'm not so sure. In their home churches perhaps, though I can really only speak from experience to Anglicanism & ECUSA. It's not my impression that the Catholic church, even in America, is in the sad state of affairs that ECUSA, CofE, and the Canadian Anglican church are in.

OTOH, all doesn't seem well there, if based only observation that the growth in our APCK parish seems to be recently coming in part from former Catholics -- not counting the Catholic-Protestant marriages that find common ground here.

Episcopal Church spokesman Daniel England said Saturday that Griswold understands that Akinola has strong feelings on the issue. "I'm sure the presiding bishop will be disappointed if the archbishop cannot join him at the communion table," he said.

This is clearly Griswold's take on the issue -- like Bill Clinton, it sounds like he's saying, "we'll just have to win." And this comment is a confident prediction that Frank and his elves will win.

Frank's confident assertion (through Mr. England) betrays a certainty that the recent letter to Eames was enough to win the day.

Here, I think, is yet another example of the revisionists' political tin ear. This smarmy little comment will be seen as a smack across the chops, not only of Abp. Akinola, but also the Eames commission, to the effect of, "they won't do anything meaningful."

I believe that Rowan Williams may really be beginning to understand the scope of his problem now, and is looking for a way to deal with the ECUSA and Canada that preserves the identity of those churches, while at the same time satisfying the orthodox provinces of the Communion.

There's one way to do that: to deal with the people in those churches who are causing the problems -- people like Ingham, Griswold, Robinson, and the rest.

Also, however, I believe we might well see some action taken against the AMiA, as they, too have been agents of schism in the church -- if nothing else, it will be a sop to the liberal side of the church.

seriously doubt they'll hit AMIA as that would be taken as a deliberate attack on Abp Yong and the other conservative Primates who back AMIA. In fact any such attack would almost guarantee further open resistance from the Global South Anglicans.

Maybe so, but if the Communion is to survive, I think they've got to establish discipline for anything that jeopardizes the unity of the Communion. The AMiA's underlying point -- defense of orthodoxy -- is basically correct. The AMiA's tactics, however, are still a violation of some of the fundamental groundrules of the Communion, and thereby represent a significant danger to it.

Further, if the Communion (in the name of the ABC) is to take the step I expect, and attempt to exert more direct influence over the individual provinces, then it very clearly has to come down hard on those who would, without the blessings of the newly empowered Communion, attempt to intrude into another province.

I don't think that the AMiA Primates will be handled the same way as Griswold will.

Griswold will probably be excluded from voice, vote, and attendance, along with his supporters. As such, I think his position as Presiding Bishop becomes untenable: he will have to step down, and his place will be taken by a person who is acceptable to the rest of the Communion. (Probably much more liberal than we'd like, but not actively apostate.) I don't know how that will rattle down to the pro-Robinson bishops, but I believe it will.

Yong, et al., won't be denied voice and vote. I predict that they will be asked to withdraw their sponsorship of the AMiA, and will probably do so. At the same time, I think they will be able to drive home a "compromise" that provides truly Adequate Episcopal Oversight to the orthodox within the ECUSA and Canada. THAT, I think, is how the apostate bishops will be handled. The "acceptable" Presiding Bishop will agree to the plan, and the apostates will have to follow along. This puts them in an untenable position, as their dioceses will quickly be emptied of their biggest and healthiest congregations. The acceptance of Adequate Episcopal Oversight also preserves the properties of the orthodox congregations, BTW.

Yeah, I've made it sound easy, and I know it won't be. But I think that's where the Eames Commission is probably going to end up. All of the Primates have staked the future of the Communion on this report -- if the Primates then ignore the report, the Communion is done. Even Griswold will be forced to accept its validity. If he does, I think he probably ends up attempting to break the ECUSA away from the Communion (which again makes his position untenable, this time probably even in the U.S. courts).

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