Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria kept up his high profile attacks on the Episcopal Church, saying the leadership of the U.S. branch of the Worldwide Anglican Communion was "insulting and condescending" to the church at large. Akinola is a defender of traditional Christianity and a leader of the Anglican Communion's "Global South," churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America that now account for half of the world's Anglican church membership.
Akinola ignored a plea from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and an earlier one from the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori. He carried out a ceremony in which Bishop Martyn Minns, an Episcopalian, was installed as head of a new Nigerian-based church branch designed as a refuge for orthodox American believers. Apparently he didn't find this snub to be "insulting and condescending." The conservative American Anglican Council called the development "a high point in North American Anglicanism."
The 2.4 million-member Episcopal Church has been splintered since 2003, when it consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican church history. Some congregations have already placed themselves under the jurisdiction of conservative bishops in Africa and elsewhere. The Episcopal Church has said that only 45 out of more than 7,400 congregations have voted to break away.
I don't know how anyone in their right mind can look at Nigeria and think there is anything in any way that makes their way of life better than ours. If people want to live in a country where people are stoned to death for violating their interpretation of the Bible, I say move. Please. And hope you don't run afoul of some African's strict interpretation of the Bible.
*
Thursday, May 17, 2007
If Nigeria Is So Great — Move!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The problem with this line of reasoning is that she was sentenced to death (it was later rescinded) by a shari'a court - in other words, a Muslim religious court, and those courts have also made life difficult for Christians in Nigeria. No defense of Akinola here, but one can't fairly use the Lawal case as an example of what's wrong with his approach.
Post a Comment