Anglican Church Tensions

by PRASHER, G. | Category: Focus | Apr 2007

Tensions persist within the Anglican Communion through varying attitudes to the ordination of homosexual clergy and formal blessing on gay partnerships. World-wide the Anglican Communion embraces 78 million members. Western World Anglicanism of course first developed from the original break with the Roman Catholic Church under England's 16th century Henry VIII. It now includes such groups as the United States Episcopalian Church and the Anglican Church in Canada. Nineteenth-century missionary effort led to wide expansion in Third-World areas such as Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia, sometimes referred to as 'the Global South'. This southern sector of Anglicanism has now overtaken the Western World sector in numerical growth, gaining wider involvement and fuller influence as a result.

Outstanding in leadership among the 'Global South' churches is the Primate of the Anglican churches in Nigeria, Bishop Peter Akinola. He was appointed to the Nigerian bishopric in 1989 and rapidly made his influence felt. He initiated expansion of the Anglican cause by sending bishops to preach the gospel in new areas. Sometimes there were violent reactions but a presence was secured for Anglicanism in Northern Nigeria. The new capital of Nigeria, Abuja, became an important Anglican centre. It is claimed that Akinola is now primate to twelve million Nigerian Anglicans. He is also head of an 'African Bishops' Group' with a claimed total flock of 44 million.

In December 2006 there was a spectacularly unorthodox move by 15 Episcopal Churches in Virginia, USA, to identify their parishes with Bishop Akinola's African archdiocese more than five-thousand miles away! This was largely due to dissatisfaction with the 2003 ordination as bishop of the openly gay Gene Robinson, which Akinola had denounced as, "a satanic attack on the church". He sees these issues as reflecting "a massive Western disregard for the authority of the Bible". He also dissociated himself in 2004 from a Conference that issued findings on Robinson's bishopric appointment without condemning it outright. Akinola commented that the findings were "far short of the prescription needed". He later helped to draft a document demanding that the US and other Anglican churches should 'voluntarily withdraw' from the Community's central governing body unless they expressed regret and declared a moratorium on gay ordinations or blessings.

On 14 February 2007 thirty-eight Anglican Primates met in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania for a five-day conference to give further consideration to these vexed issues. The presiding bishop of the Conference was Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the liberal American Episcopal Church, who is known to be a supporter of the ordination as clergymen of gays and lesbians. At a communion service in the course of the five-day proceedings seven senior primates, led by Bishop Peter Akinola, refused to receive the eucharist alongside Bishop Katharine Schori. They claimed that to do so would 'violate Bible teaching', a gesture which reflects the deeply divided attitudes within the Anglican leadership.

Strenuous efforts were made right until the last day of the Conference to avoid a complete breakdown of agreement between 'conservative' and 'liberal' viewpoints. Bishop Akinola's group struggled to influence the wording of the final communiqué from the Conference in their concern that scriptural truth as they understood it would not be compromised. As finally issued the communiqué represented a further attempt to avoid outright division of the World-wide Anglican Communion, as illustrated by some selected points from the communiqué:

The liberal American Episcopalian Church was given seven months to prove that it has fully reversed its pro-gay agenda or face expulsion.

It was called upon to state unequivocally that it will not consecrate more gay bishops or authorise same-sex blessings.

If they failed to meet these demands it would have 'consequences' for their 'full participation' in the Anglican Communion.

Conservative American Episcopalians to be organized in a new structure forming an 'enclave' within the American branch of Anglicanism. The intervention of African primates will discontinue.

The tensions within the Anglican Communion over homosexual issues derive partly from differing views about the authority of Scripture. For this consistently reveals God's condemnation of homosexual activity as sinful, and the ordination of gay clergy or blessing on gay unions would not therefore be countenanced. But, if the authority of Scripture is questioned, or other considerations are given greater weight, the whole subject is open to a wide variation of practice. The believer's safeguard lies in the attitude of the Psalmist when he wrote:

‘all Your precepts concerning all things I consider to be right;

I hate every false way’ (Ps.119:128).

PRASHER, G. | Apr 2007
Focus

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