Friday 13 March 2009

Why aren't conservatives reporting the Nigerian church position paper?

Do the various organisations which are connected with the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) support in its entirety the position paper presented in the name of Archbishop Peter Akinola at the hearing on Wednesday?

None of their websites or blogs has reported the hearing or reproduced the paper. Anglican Mainstream as usual has a comprehensive range of reports with a focus on secular and religious news in North America and the UK but nothing on Nigeria. There’s nothing on CANA, VirtueOnline, T19 or Stand Firm.

Failure to report the hearing shows that these groups are only interested in what happens in the wealthy, primarily white, North American and European spheres of interest. Or is the position paper just too embarrassing to report?

Toby Forward comments on Thinking Anglicans: “The prose of this document bears very little similarity to the prose of other documents from this source.” There is a difference in linguistic style between the position paper and previous reports issued by Archbishop Akinola. That’s because previous reports were primarily written by Canon Chris Sugden or Bishop Martyn Minns.

I would like to know whether other Global South leaders, and in particular, Chris Sugden and Martyn Minns, agree with the content of the position paper and the attitudes expressed about LGBT Anglicans.

The position paper was written in Nigeria, not Truro or Oxford. This confirms something I have heard from other sources, that the Africans are distancing themselves from their North American and British colleagues. They are not supporting ACNA as the North Americans hoped they would.

Further divisions are opening between those who have formed alliances of convenience based around hostility to a single issue. Further conflict and fragmentation will occur. Left to his own devices, free from the moderating laptop of Chris Sugden and Martyn Minns, Archbishop Peter Akinola and his advisers will be freed to express their uncensored ideas, theology and ambition, as they have done this week.

4 comments:

  1. Why indeed? Are they perhaps embarrassed?

    An important development, if so!

    ReplyDelete
  2. No, Göran, they're always silent. Do you remember when we wrote that open letter to GAFCON, not a single conservative signed it, but some told me later that it was obvious that they deplored violence in general.

    Fact is - most don't really find it inappropriate at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is there a link to this paper?

    ReplyDelete