Posted on 11/26/2005 9:52:35 AM PST by sionnsar
From the Changing Attitude website;
The first General Meeting of the Changing Attitude Network in Nigeria is being held November 25 to 27. Over 1,000 delegates are expected to gather at the National Art Council in Abuja including 100 lesbian and 900 gay members of Anglican churches from every part of Nigeria. This will be the largest gathering of lesbian and gay people ever held in Nigeria and the first gathering of Anglican LGBT members...These are brave Anglicans. Being gay or lesbian is a criminal offense in Nigeria. In parts of the country, the sentence is death.
The General Meeting will also begin to plan how the group can make an input to the process of listening to lesbian and gay people to which the Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Revd Peter Akinola, committed himself with the other Primates in February 2005 and in the Windsor Report. In the longer term, the Meeting will think about the Lambeth Conference 2008 and the need to advise the bishops of the Anglican Church in Nigeria about lesbian and gay Christian experience.
The theme of the meeting is ‘Coming out of our closet’. Davis MacIyalla, convenor of the CA network in Nigeria, said “We want to use the meeting to encourage our members to go back and begin to tell their families about their sexuality. If we let our families know about our sexuality our parents will begin to influence their local churches. We also want our message about the place of lesbian and gay people in the Anglican Church to be carried to our bishops and other church leaders. One of our goals is to encourage some of the delegates to start new groups in their own location after the meeting"...
...Peter Akinola, leader of the 17.5 million-strong church in Nigeria, hit out at the recent election in America of the first openly gay bishop.Archbishop, these are not decadent North Americans wanting to sit down and talk with you. These are Nigerian Anglican Christians. These are the people God has placed under your pastoral care. Listen to them. Hear their stories. Open your heart to the possibility that they may just be bringing you a word from God. Such a thing may not seem possible to you, but with God, all things are possible.
"This is an attack on the Church of God - a Satanic attack on God's church," he told the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper.
"I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don't hear of such things."
"When we sit down globally as a communion, I am going to sit in a meeting with a man who is marrying a fellow man," he added. "I mean it's just not possible. I cannot see myself doing it."
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. What precisely is this "listening process" I read so much about?
Nigeria is the biggest obstacle in the way of the pro-homosexual crowd from taking over the Anglican Communion. Does anyone want to wager if the Changing Attitude Network is financed by American and British homosexual groups?
Kolokotronis, you don't ask questions of precision of Anglicans; I thought you knew that!
*\;-)
This "listening process" is a sham that the left snookered the right into. As long as you don't completely embrace the practicing-gay lifestyle, you aren't listening hard enough. What's in it for the orthodox, other than delaying the inevitable (in the hope that it's not inevitable?), I'm not sure.
My hope in all this is that the gays are listening also when Peter Akinola speaks the truth in love. It takes courage to get close to these particular misfits in Nigeria - it could get you killed. Listening builds trust - and in an atmosphere of trust you can tell the truth. Healing will only begin in the church if ALL sinners repent and turn to Christ. Is that not correct?
"Healing will only begin in the church if ALL sinners repent and turn to Christ. Is that not correct?"
The only way any of us can advance in theosis is to repent of our sins and thus open ourselves to grace. And grace allows us to repent more. Repentance is a form of dying to the self and we cannot become like God unless we die to the old man and become the new, which, on account of the Incarnation, we can indeed become.
Your point is well taken and made. +John Chrysostomos, in his Homily II on the Gospel of Matthew observed:
"And what is the profit," one may say, "when any one hears, but doeth not what is said?" No little will the profit be even from hearing. For he will go on to condemn himself, and to groan inwardly, and will come in time also to do the things that are spoken of. But he that doth not even know that he hath sinned, when will he cease from his negligence? when will he condemn himself?
Let us not therefore despise the hearing of the divine Scriptures. For this is of Satan's devising; not suffering us to see the treasure, lest we should gain the riches."
Excommunicate.
If gays and lesbians wish to talk to Peter Akinola about being threatened with death, etc., it would be well for him to listen, and oppose such.
But will they in turn listen to him tell them that the Bible and Church teaches that their course in homosexuality will lead to spiritual death, and that Christ offers them transformation that will lead to eternal life?
Does listening go both ways?
Ko, I know you weren't being facetious. I was, but only to make a point about how the Anglican "process" is being taken advantage of. The small text at the end of my response was at least a simple answer. But the subsequent part of your response says to me that you already understand the situation fully, and I confirm what you've said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.