TEM Condemns ++Akinola's Views
Calls on Archbishop to Cease Destructive Behavior
The Church in Nigeria under the leadership of The Rt. Rev. Peter Akinola proclaimed on September 14-15:"The Church affirms our commitment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality since it is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible, Quran and the basic African traditional values."We now learn from a Reuters release dated September 20 that Archbishop Akinola plans at an upcoming meeting of conservative Anglican bishops to make his position on homosexuality central to what he calls an Anglican Covenant to which all Anglican churches must subscribe. He states that "who ever subscribes to this covenant must abide by it and those who are unable to subscribe to it will walk out."
The archbishop's outrageous and inhumane characterization is, of course, in contradiction to the Lambeth Conference resolution in 1998 calling for pastoral care for homosexuals and in utter disregard of the Anglican position iterated in the Windsor Report that there should be a listening process involving homosexuals throughout the Anglican Communion. We note that his intention to proscribe the ordination of homosexuals in such an institutional way has been articulated without any worldwide consultation. The lack of such consultation in the matter of the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson has been used by the Archbishop as a point of attack on the American and Canadian churches.
The Episcopal Majority rejects and condemns the archbishop's views. We call on him to cease his destructive behavior and his followers to reject his leadership.
We are further dismayed that the archbishop and his followers are short-circuiting the process now underway to formulate an Anglican Covenant as a means of adjudicating our present difficulties. It is apparent that the archbishop thinks that he can, ahead of time, dictate the terms of whatever finished project emerges. That one man should seem in such an imperious way to command, if not coerce, an entire Communion is astonishing and, we believe, completely unacceptable.
We are further appalled that the conservative or evangelical groups in America have remained silent in the face of the archbishop's outrageous statements and provocative actions. Do they wish as well to demean human life in the search for political power?
posted by Toewalker at 9/22/2006 03:03:00 PM
5 Comments:
Um, no. The Anglican Covenant was the idea of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and has the support of the ACC. The Kigali communique says that the Global South is working with the Instruments of Unity. So, in fact, this indicates that the Global South is working with the Archbishop on the Covenant. And the Camp Allen statement says that a number of Episcopal bishops are now as well.
I'm afraid, Anon, that I must disagree. First, the Kigali statement says that the Global South Steering Committee has been working on a covenant draft for over a year. As Canterbury has only recently appointed a primate to lead a covenant process, the Steering Committee has clearly been working separately from Canterbury, much less the ACC.
The Texas statement says those bishops endorse a covenant process. That appears to relate to the process from Canterbury, and not that from the Global South primates. I can't imagine how they could as a group endorse the Global South covenant process and still call themselves "Windsor-compliant," as the Windsor process for reception is clearly unacceptable to the Global South Steering Comittee.
I know you are used to the TEC model of act first and to hell with consultation, but the Global South has not shown itself inclined to behave quite that way.
:-0
Allen, are you sh***ing us???
[I pray to God that I'm "orthodox"---but that doesn't make it any easier to put up w/ these insufferable posters (on our site)---who "know" they are!]
The global south bishops keep showing themselves to be more and more ridiculous. It's almost funny how ignorant and biased they come off.
Lewis is right that the covenant process has been around a long time. And in my original post, I did not mean to suggest that the GS bishops were not working on what they would like to see in it. I only meant that they have said they are still willing to work with the ABC and instruments of unity on it. Because I think that they would not say that if they did not think it would include what they believe is important, I suspect that means that the ABC is still working with them. Given that Drexel Gomez is in charge of it, I think that is likely to be the case. When Canadian Phil in other posts suggests that the Kigali statement is not as much of a problem as it might have been (for the communion), I think he is referring to this indication that, so far, the GS is still working with the ABC on the covenant, and the Canterbury process is still the process being worked. At the same time, if all of this is true (and I am speculating, like the rest of us), this would indicate that chances are that ECUSA is not going to like what the covenant asks them to do, may well not join, and will thus depart the communion. Time will tell.
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