From Anglican Mainstream via TitusOneNine:
February 23rd, 2009
On the penultimate day of the meeting between the world’s Anglican archbishops and senior bishops in Egypt from February 1-5, Archbishop Daniel Deng of the Episcopal Church of Sudan was asked whether he had changed his stance on Gene Robinson and the US Episcopal Church from his statement at the 2008 Lambeth Conference when he called on Gene Robinson to resign and the The Episcopal Church in the USA (TEC) to repent.
He replied:
"We are asking that within the primates meeting, and the situation on the statement remains the same. We have not deviated. What is needed is for churches in the Anglican world to wrestle with these issues so it comes to an end."
Sudan is larger than western Europe. Anglican involvement goes back into the middle of the nineteenth century as part of the drive to end slavery in Africa. The Episcopal Church of Sudan has 4 million members. The population of Southern Sudan is 12 million, of whom 6 million are Roman Catholic.
Currently Sudan is in an interim period following twenty-one years of civil war in which the Muslim dominated North of the country tried to impose its will on the mainly Christian and oil-rich South. A referendum will be held in 2011 for the South to decide whether to remain as part of the country or become totally independent. If they opt for independence, it is likely that the North will once more try to impose its will. An excellent account of this conflict is Emma’s War: Love, betrayal and death in the Sudan by Deborah Scroggins.
At the request of the Archbishops of Nigeria and of Uganda, a team from Anglican International Development for Relief and Change (www.interanglicanaid.org) visited Juba the capital of Southern Sudan at the beginning of December to discover their priorities for preparing the church and nation for 2011.
Their church is growing. One diocese had 10 congregations numbering a few thousand in 1983. Today it has 273 congregations with an estimated population of over 130,000 persons. The Sudanese bishops identified the following priorities: children’s education, micro-finance development and vocational training in hospitality and building trades. In one diocese all their churches were destroyed and congregations meet under trees. The Cathedral is under one of the bigger trees. On December 13 the Province launched a decade of evangelism.
So Archbishop Deng has every reason to seek good relations with all those who can assist his church and avoid upsetting potential donors. He himself had no transport till very recently when the government presented him with a Landcruiser. He has no salary neither do many of his bishops.
But the issue of the acceptance of homosexual practice as appropriate for a bishop is of the greatest importance to him. At the Lambeth Conference he told a press conference that some of his people were being killed by Muslims because they were identified as members of the Anglican church that condones homosexual practice.
Though he has estimated it has already cost his province $100,000 from The Episcopal Church in the USA, he continues fearlessly to call TEC to account by saying that there is no solution for the current crisis in the Anglican Communion till TEC repents and undoes what it did in making Gene Robinson a bishop.
He has given a clear public account of his position and accepts the challenge of discussion. His approach mirrors that taken by other primates from Tanzania, Rwanda, West Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Southern Cone. Transparency and accountability is a strength they share.
His courage gives the lie to the argument that same-sex relations is a secondary issue. The division of matters into primary and secondary issues is very fluid. The American church has no intention of turning the clock back. They continue to provide for same-sex blessings. The moratorium on this matter was always bound to fail since for TEC this is a first order issue. But TEC urges those who oppose them that this is a second order issue with legitimate diversity and no grounds for breaking communion. This division is not one of theology but of power and preference. Clearly for Archbishop Deng it is first order. That is why he spoke as he did at the Primates Meeting.
Chris Sugden in Evangelicals Now March 2009
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