Archive for Global South

On Moderation and the Episcopal Church

Posted by: Jason | June 20th, 2007 · 10:55 AM

(image: epiphany)

I had a chance to sit down in private with a seasoned Episcopal priest this week. The objective of the conversation was to talk openly about some personal concerns I had in my own life. It had been some time since I had taken a moment to receive spiritual guidance.

Admittedly, I turned the conversation in the end to become a political probing. Through my own curiosity of the priest’s views, I wanted to ask his opinion on the beginnings of a recent schism within the American Episcopal Church. I began to ask him questions that related to particular subjects that we have covered from time to time on this website. He gave me some interesting information to think about.

On the split itself, as a leader within the sect that would remain the majority of the community of American Anglicans, he was adamant about his view that the church should remain solidified. Broadly put, the Episcopal Church has had a long tradition, said the priest, of featuring liberal and conservative voices in its ranks. Being that this point reflected the makeup of my own church specifically, to this point I agreed.

More >>>

Global South Powerplay

Posted by: Ion | May 7th, 2007 · 6:30 AM

Peter Akinola, Anglican leader of the conservative Global South movement, came to Virgina in open defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury to elevate firebrand American Martyn Minns as “missionary bishop,” a post Akinola created for American bishops.

It’s a bold move in the emerging Episcopal schism, but an unavoidable one. Rowan Williams dithering and ineffectual leadership has left a power vacuum that the vigorous and confident Akinola seems born to fill. Lately, Williams –who tends to sympathize with the liberals in the American Episcopal leadership– has grown more supportive of arch-liberal feminist Katharine Jefferts-Schori, leader of the American church.

Martyn Minns is both an inspired and obvious choice for Akinola’s powerplay to take greater global leadership. He’s long focused on Africa as the emerging future for Christian revival and the spectacular growth of the faith there is the only testament he needs to verify the wisdom of his focus. As the Anglican church continues to decay in the United Kingdom, it will become increasingly absurd for authority to be vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Akinola’s role is only just beginning.

Full Story>>>

A Funeral and a Future

Posted by: Ion | April 28th, 2007 · 8:56 PM

Ghana’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, George Kingsley Acquah, died from cancer in late March. The death was untimely. Acquah was only sixty-five and had only been in his position on the Court, since being appointed by president Kufuor in 2003. By all accounts Acquah was a respected and diligent legal mind in Ghanaian jurisprudence and his brief tenure saw a substantial streamlining of the judicial system.

But in reading over an account of his state funeral service, I was struck by this description of the eulogy, delivered by the Archbishop of West Africa:

[Archbishop Justice Akrofi] remarked that if every Christian would bring their Christian influence to bear on their secular professions like Justice Acquah did, the world would be a better place in which to live, since Christianity was not only about worship in the Church on Sundays.

He noted that when good men die their good work and deeds do not perish, but bad people perish with their deeds. “How will posterity remember you, would it be as one who has done the masters will or the opposite?” he queried mourners.
(The Statesman)

It’s an acute reminder of how confident Christianity remains in Africa. Even at a funeral, appeals to inject Christianity intentionally and directly into the secular institutions of government, would not pass without protest in most of the West. This is bold as well, given that Ghana is only 55% Christian. Just barely a majority, and yet Christianity there is full of fire and large ambitions for the continent.

More >>>

The Scale of Secularism in America

Posted by: Ion | April 7th, 2007 · 12:31 AM

Rasmussen has a revealing Easter poll finding:

Only 13% [of Americans] don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ and 14% don’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God.
(Rasmussen)

Yes that’s right, the secularist side in the cultural divide is just that small. Keep in mind too, that this figure would include all other non-Christian faiths from Jews to Hindus, in order to apprehend the truly tiny scale of the secularist movement.

However, the Christian majority doesn’t translate so well into predominant cultural influence. To say that the small sliver of the population which is secularist exercises a disproportionate influence over government, culture, law, media and education, would be a good candidate for understatement of the year.

For now, just keep the 13% figure handy in your mind next time you are petitioned by the press to regard Christianity as a kind of bizarre fringe phenomenon, which is unrepresentative of the views of the broader electorate. Those doing the petitioning, are themselves the true fringe.

Akinola in Dar es Salaam

Posted by: Ion | February 18th, 2007 · 2:34 AM

Rick Warren called him a lion against Western relativism and Eastern fundamentalism and the lion it seems, has elected to roar again into the yawning rift of the slow-motion Anglican schism:

The conservatives, led by the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, made their stand during the five-day primates’ meeting in Tanzania, which is trying to pull the Church back from the brink of schism.

The gesture will be seen as a warning to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

The seven, who included primates from Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, said they represented more than 20 million “faithful” Anglicans. They said: “We each take the celebration of the Holy Eucharist very seriously. This deliberate action is a poignant reminder of the brokenness of the Anglican Communion. It makes clear that the torn fabric of the Church has been torn further.

A significant statement of contrast, given there are only two and a half million Episcopalians (and falling), to speak for gay ordination.

Akinola, like most of the Global South Seven has a number of disagreeable beliefs (even for a rightwing Methodist like myself), however he is unquestionably the symbol and wellspring of a dawning new age and new geography for Christianity. As the rot of the church persists in Europe, it’s become unmistakably clear that the future of the faith will be fought along the central African faultline against Islam.

In such times and conflicts -which even now are the source of mounting violence and terror, desperate missionary work and fierce struggles for survival- who would have us prefer delicate Katharine Schori to the lion of Nigeria?