African Anglican Leaders Unhappy Over Windsor Report

by Jim Brown
October 29, 2004

(AgapePress) - African Anglican bishops are rejecting last week's Lambeth Commission report addressing divisions in the Worldwide Anglican Communion over the decision of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) to appoint and consecrate an openly homosexual bishop.

Bishops from parishes all over Africa are attending a conference hosted by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who contends, "The Western world is embroiled in a new religion, which we cannot associate ourselves with." He says the African Anglican church leaders will discuss building their own seminaries to train priests in a biblical theology that is consistent with African culture.

Akinola says he chose to return to Nigeria to host other African bishops instead of remaining in London to discuss the Lambeth Commission's report on reconciling the differences and divisions that have resulted among Anglicans because of the ECUSA's actions. "My absence, of course, may be interpreted to represent my displeasure with the Windsor report," he notes, adding, "To some extent, that would be correct."

Akinola says he plans to ignore the report, which the bishops with whom he is meeting unanimously reject. "Personally, from the point of view of our position in Africa and Nigeria in particular," he says, "we're unhappy with the report."

The Nigerian archbishop recently visited the United States, where he offered alternative oversight to American Episcopalians who have been alienated by the ECUSA's consecration of New Hampshire's Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the denomination's first openly homosexual bishop. Akinola points out that, although homosexuality may be condoned by the ECUSA's leaders, men cohabitating with men is taboo in African culture as well as condemned in scripture.