'Changing Attitude' Organization Spins All Africa Anglican Bishops Conference in Entebbe

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.com
Sept. 2, 2010

Was it a successful, anti-gay African Bishops Conference in Entebbe, asks Colin Coward of Changing Attitude, the Church of England's unofficial gay activist organization?

"The bishops who gathered in Entebbe last week think they represent the majority, the true Christians, for whom homosexuality is the most evil abomination imaginable. I do not belong to such a group. If their interpretation of Jesus' teaching leads them to this conclusion, then why should they not leave and form an exclusive church that is cleansed of the evil they imagine?"

VOL: Actually, the 400 some bishops from 12 African nations who met in Entebbe DO represent the majority of Anglicans in the Communion. A conservative estimate is that 80% of all Anglicans are Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic - the majority being Evangelical.

Secondly, two provinces - Nigeria and Uganda - alone make up over 33 million active church-going Anglicans. (Nigeria has approximately 23 million and Uganda has 10.2 million). Other combined African provinces like Rwanda, Kenya, Congo and West Africa add about another 10 million. So what about "majority" does Coward not understand? The Church of England has about one million practicing Anglicans, TEC has 680,000 and the ACoC has about 300,000.

Coward is right. He does not belong to such a group because he doesn't have the same gospel as they do and because they think his behavior is unbiblical, unsanitary and with no precedent in church history. As far as leaving and forming an "exclusive church", the truth is that the African primates (archbishops) will never sit down again with US Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. When Rowan Williams next calls the Primates Council, perhaps Coward will have his answer. A minority of primates represents only 20% of the Anglican Communion. What about schism doesn't he understand?

Talking about "evil" cleansing, the African bishops made it clear that homosexual sin is an abomination. Based on what I heard this week in Entebbe, they also think there are all kinds of evils in Africa that include the other six deadly sins (greed was mentioned several times), as well as environmental pollution, the unacceptable death of babies, malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Furthermore, in all the lectures and plenary sessions held NOT a single one concerned itself with homosexuality in Africa or anywhere else for that matter. Not one. It was only raised at press conferences by African media looking for a headline or two. (See statements below from the "Ugandan Monitor" and "New Vision".)

When the issue was raised at press conferences, the archbishops answered honestly and frankly. Why shouldn't they? They are seeing the sexual wasteland in America and Europe that sodomy is causing and want none of it. Furthermore, Coward forgets that it was US Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori herself who apologized for introducing the West's Culture Wars into Africa. How quickly he forgets.

Coward harps on about human rights for homosexuals, but that is not the issue. It is about moral behavior that is contrary to God's revealed will. It is not a "right" to sodomize another human being especially if they should happen to have the HIV/AIDS virus loose in their bodies.

"We are saying homosexuality is not compatible with the word of God. We are saying that this culture of other people is against the traditional belief of marriage held by the Anglican Communion," said Ugandan Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi.

He is right and he has the support of Lambeth Resolution 1:10 and the Windsor Report as well as the Dromantine and Dar es Salaam communiqués. The Lambeth resolution has been flouted and scorned by TEC bishops, time and time again.

The Archbishop of the Province of Indian Ocean, Ian Ernest commented that the teachings of homosexuality are irrelevant to the needs of Africans and are demographically unrepresentative.

Coward responded, "If he had said irrelevant to the needs of some Africans, he would have been more accurate. But he didn't. He ignored the millions of Africans who identify confidently as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. He ignored their families and friends and congregations. He ignored the effect his dishonesty has on the integrity of individual bishops, congregations, Primates (including those Primates who are gay) and on the integrity of the whole Communion."

VOL: This is spin of the highest order. There are not millions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons in Africa. That is a total fiction. Actually, there is no known absolute figure of how many homosexuals there are in Africa. (Not even Wikipedia can gestimate). Gays say 10% of the world is gay. The figure is closer to 2 percent. What IS true according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is that homosexual men having anal sex in the US have a 50 times higher rate of AIDS than straight people.

Coward says that the Archbishop's views do not represent those of other Provinces, Primates, bishops and churches, or the mind of the Anglican Communion.

False. All African provinces, but two (Southern Africa and Central Africa) hold the same views as those of Orombi, (Uganda) Okoh (Nigeria) and Kolini (Rwanda) on homosexual behavior. The only reason Southern Africa goes along with the US is because of the millions of dollars TEC has poured into this province to keep it TEC friendly.

The "ongoing listening and discernment" process brokered into Resolution Lambeth 1:10 was designed as a pastoral procedure to provide help for gays caught in the vortex of same sex attractions. It was NOT deigned "to listen to the experience of homosexual persons" in order to accept their behaviors. They have twisted this resolution for over a decade. The primary thrust of 1:10 was to say clearly and unequivocally that "in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage." Pansexualists have hated that clause and have done everything possible to kill it.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria said homosexuality is a result of some people engaged in making their culture to be superior to the biblical teachings, "Homosexuality is not a new phenomenon in the society, but the only trouble is that the issues dividing us now are very difficult to handle. They are threatening the unity of the church because they disobey the authority of the scriptures. It is two sided; while some people want to be obedient to their culture to determine the content of the church, others say no and it must be the guidance of the Bible."

Coward: It's something of a breakthrough that Nicholas Okoh accepts that homosexuality is not a new phenomenon in society. But he claims that it is we who are threatening the unity of the church, obeying culture rather than scripture. He forgets that the change in attitudes to the slave trade happened in part because people challenged assumptions about scripture from the perspective of culture.

VOL: There is nothing new in what Okoh said or Peter Akinola before him. The truth is homosexual practice is uncommon in Africa because societies are still rural, agrarian and tribal where boys grow up with their fathers working in the fields and they bond. In the broken down world of the West where one out of every two marriages fail, millions of young men are growing up without fathers. As reparative therapist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi observes, "If fathers are not there to hug their sons, someone else will."

On Wednesday, the "Daily Monitor" reported that the Prime Minister, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi had commended African bishops for rejecting the practice of homosexuality in the church. "I thank the church in Africa for being exemplary by not accepting homosexuality... they see that it is not acceptable in the society where they serve." He added, "We should not persecute them, but I think it is wrong and we cannot recognise them because it is wrong like ordaining a gay bishop."

The Anti-homosexuality Bill may or may not be dead, and it may or may not be passed into law. Politicians like the Anglican President and Prime Minister of Uganda, however, are on the same page. That was made clear by the remarks of the president. I heard him personally say so. There has never been open persecution of gays in either Nigeria or Uganda despite efforts by Coward and Changing Attitude to spin that there is. More lies and fiction have been written about this than most anything else. Female genital mutilation affects tens of millions of women, but few speak up for them. Just a whiff of alleged persecution of gays causes Rowan Williams to issue a statement condemning homophobia.

The bishops are simply propounding their own prejudice, says Coward. Rubbish. It is not about prejudice. It is about a behavior that not one Scripture upholds, is alien in the life of Africans and has deadly consequences. Advocacy of pansexuality is also rapidly killing the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada.

Coward also said, "I pray to God that enough people will hold to the positives in the Windsor Report, which others in the Communion are determined to deny in an attempt to exterminate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from their consciousness, their Provinces and their culture."

False. Nobody wants to "exterminate lesbians, gays" etc, that's the great lie. The African Anglican churches want them to repent of their behavior and turn back to God. We who are orthodox in faith and morals in the West want the same thing.

That is why, at the end of the day, the Anglican Communion is broken and will not be put back together again. The communion is de facto lost. It will not be saved by a Covenant, any more than it was saved by the Windsor Report or the multiple communiqués from one primates meeting to the next. It is over. The orthodox Primates will never again sit down in the same room with Jefferts Schori. That day is done. The Global South will simply go its own way, crossing boundaries when called upon and leave Williams to wallow in Rowanspeak with the liberals saving no one and nothing.

The future belongs to the Global South, not to the Global North. For those of us who have witnessed it firsthand, it is a glorious and spiritually rich sight to behold.

END