Thinking Anglicans

Sunday Tribune interviews Archbishop Akinola

There is a lengthy interview with Archbishop Peter Akinola in the Sunday Tribune, a Nigerian newspaper.

Read it all here.

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Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
15 years ago

“glued to this whole perversion”? Where are Minns & Sugden when he needs them?

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

“… how pro-homosexual Europeans are buying over weak churches in Africa to keep quiet, GAFCON and how God rescued one of his bishops from a lion.”

Proportion in all things ;=)

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

A few comments: The Archbishop said: “In America and England, they are using money to buy silence. They are using money to buy compromise. They have always done it and they are still doing it and they will not stop doing it.” Ho, ho… “The church just decided that I should serve my tenure fully. There is no extension of anything and there is no second term anywhere, they just asked me to serve my 10 years tenure and complete it.” Haven’t we heard this several times over from other Third world political figures? “Again, we have never said that… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Continuation: “The task before us now is, how do we deepen the faith, how do we get these new converts and even the old ones to take their faith more seriously, how do we relate faith to daily life? That, for us now, is the current issue. We call that Discipleship. We are going to focus more, now, on teaching and preaching in such a way that people are led to deeper things of God so that their faith can sustain them in time of difficulties. That they can see that God is sufficient in all things at all times,… Read more »

Giles Fraser
Giles Fraser
15 years ago

What a sycophantic interview. Don’t they have proper journalists in Nigeria?

dodgey_vicar
dodgey_vicar
15 years ago

“glued to this whole perversion”

His grace is almost as offensive as ever, except has he changed from denying the existence of homosexuals in Africa? He is part-way to recognising them as human beings.

Any chance he will sit down and listen to them, or share communion?

Charlotte
Charlotte
15 years ago

Goran (sorry I can’t do the umlaut), you nailed it. Archbishop Akinola is parroting the American extremist right-wing propaganda typical of this season. We in the US are inundated with it at this time of the year. See, for example, the screed at the “Conservative-Insurgent” blog (“In God We Trust,” “I stand with Israel”): http://www.conservative-insurgent.blog-city.com/christmas.htm Or see: John Gibson’s “The War on Christmas” at http://www.conservativebookclub.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6824 — “Secularists are bent on imposing upon us a neutered, secular winter holiday that throws out every trace of Christianity from the public observance of Christmas. It’s all necessary, they tell us, to avoid offending… Read more »

Pluralist
15 years ago

Where’s the question on communal violence?

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

Yes, Christians in America are so marginalized and shunted aside that they are the only religious group to have their holiday declared a national one, by law.

I don’t recall Passover or Ramadan or Halloween being so legally honored.

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Dear Charlotte,

To us it is not an Umlaut!

But do cut and paste – I often do ;=)

Merseymike
15 years ago

Read that to the average English person and they would think the author to be a deluded religious extremist

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
15 years ago

“Yes, Christians in America are so marginalized and shunted aside that they are the only religious group to have their holiday declared a national one, by law.”

And the Post Office prints religious and non-religious stamps for Christmas cards

I don’t recall Passover or Ramadan or Halloween being so legally honored.

Ah! But Halloween has become a major adult drinking holiday, as has St. Patrick’s Day.

Leonel
Leonel
15 years ago

Goran, I take exception with your comment.

>>>Haven’t we heard this several times over from other Third world political figures? <<<

What size of delusion do you wear, may I ask? Or what world do you actually live in -since you don’t live in ‘the third world’- where politicians are not as full of *** as Akinola obviously is? (in his case, add superstition to the mix).

Leonel
Leonel
15 years ago

Goran, I take exception with another comment you’ve made:

>>> Sounds very much like it was in Europe a thousand years ago… <<<<<

Or Europe in the present time, you could say. True, they’re not called ‘nomads’ there, but immigrants.

Look at your eye in a mirror, Goran. It’s a plank.

Nom de Plume
Nom de Plume
15 years ago

“Sycophantic” indeed, Giles. Also poorly edited. Loved the line about what “Dr Williams Rowan” had to say at “Lambert 2008” (sic and double sic). Of course, one might ask how Akinola knows what was said at Lambert 2008, given that he didn’t go and recalled the one bishop from Nigeria who might have told him. Also interesting to read that the Church of Nigeria is sovereign. I happen to agree with that, if he means the same thing as autonomous, but it is curious that Akinola feels the need to defend the autonomy of his own Church whilst vigourously attacking… Read more »

BillyD
15 years ago

“Or Europe in the present time, you could say. True, they’re not called ‘nomads’ there, but immigrants.”

Not all of them. The Roma were born there, although they don’t seem to be treated much better for that. There are places in Europe where Roma have been denied citizenship (or, as in the Czech Republic, stripped of it).

RobinD
RobinD
15 years ago

Cynthia and Pat, For what it’s worth, there HAS been an Eid stamp issued – I just recently came across my notes from the year of issuance. It was originally issued just before the 9/11/01 attacks, and as a result, there was massive pressure from certain quarters to boycott it, if not to force the Post Office to withdraw it completely. Our womens’ interfaith group, formed in response to the attacks, tried to provide some education to counterbalance this pressure. I’ve not heard of a US-issued Passover stamp, but the Eid stamp has been reissued several times at current postage… Read more »

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
15 years ago

Depress the “Alt” key, Charlotte, and while doing so type “148” on the number pad to the right-hand side of your keyboard. This will place an “ö” in your text when you raise your finger from the Alt key after typing the number. Other ASCII code accented letters are to be found in that same numeric area – “130” gives “é”, for example.

Charlotte
Charlotte
15 years ago

Ho Ho Ho, Nom.

Dover Books has a lovely selection of Victorian design non-religious e-cards at http://dovercards.com/Holidays/Holidays.html

Very suitable for sending to Archbishop Akinola.

There’s even one where Santa is wishing everyone a “Merry Xmas.” The “X” in “Xmas” drives right-wingers nuts; they think it’s the Mark of the Beast, or something.

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Lionel wrote: “Göran, I take exception with your comment. >>>Haven’t we heard this several times over from other Third world political figures? >> Sounds very much like it was in Europe a thousand years ago… <<<<< Or Europe in the present time, you could say. True, they’re not called ‘nomads’ there, but im-migrants. Look at your eye in a mirror, Göran. It’s a plank.“ But, surely, immigrants often have o t h e r religions (or none), putting them wholly outside any American “Culture wars” or discussion of the separation of State and Church (e.g. “Christmas”)? On the very contrary… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Charlotte wrote: “There’s even one where Santa is wishing everyone a “Merry Xmas”. The “X” in “Xmas” drives right-wingers nuts; they think it’s the Mark of the Beast, or something.”

Funny you say this, for here the Calvinist Free church people (much into “financing” and computors) use the “X” quite freequently as a mark of their appurtenance…

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Lionel wrote: “Göran, I take exception with your comment. >>>Haven’t we heard this several times over from other Third world political figures? <<< What size of delusion do you wear, may I ask? Or what world do you actually live in – since you don’t live in ‘the third world’ – where politicians are not as full of *** as Akinola obvi-ously is? (in his case, add superstition to the mix).” Well, well… if you stress Politicians rather than Third world, should be getting it right. Didn’t we just have one in Pakistan? who tried to hold on to whatever…outliving… Read more »

Richard
Richard
15 years ago

“There’s even one where Santa is wishing everyone a “Merry Xmas.” The “X” in “Xmas” drives right-wingers nuts; they think it’s the Mark of the Beast, or something.”

I love that reaction – they clearly don’t know their Greek!

(I dont like the use of ‘Xmas’ myself – not least because it seems to be said ‘Ex-muss’ – but another argument against the loonies is to say that it brings the Cross (X) into Christmas…)

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

I adore your links, Charlotte!

Funny that American politicoes has such a hang up on Socialism and Communism n o w, about a system they never lived under… almost 20 years after the Fall of the Wall!

But I suppose it’s just Propaganda.

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

Pluralist asked: “Where’s the question on communal violence?” Where indeed… Violence is the key to understanding the pre Modern. I distinctly remember Spain 33 years ago. The corrida was still a big thing, though it had been opposed by the Church in most other places around the Mediterranean in its early centuries, as 2nd Com-mandment; CULT, and was extinguished elsewhere. Nowadays, with the introduction of Democracy and Civil Rights, it’s “el foot”; football. Euro-pean, of course. All this is about the General Level of Violence in Society. 10 years ago, when I went back to Madrid for the first time,… Read more »

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

“GAFCON is a gospel movement” Does this have the same connotatioins in Nigeria? For me, this phrasing sounds incredibly fundamentalist. “Anglicans who are orthodox and bible-believing Anglicans have a place in our Communion” But all of us who read the Necronomicon at Black Mass every Sunday will drive them out! “people who suffer from this problem can always come to the church for counseling” First, I don’t suffer from homosexuality, I suffer from the effects of bigots like +Akinola. Second, “counseling”? I can imagine the counseling a poor gay kid would get from him! So, I guess his position is… Read more »

Revd L Roberts
Revd L Roberts
15 years ago

Merry XmaS TO ALL AND SEASONS GREETINGS

IT REALLY GETS SOME FOLKS sENDING IT NOW !!

Nom de Plume
Nom de Plume
15 years ago

Love your link, Charlotte. I personally lean toward the one wishing a happy Yuletide, Yule of course having been a pre-Christian pagan feast. I wonder how that would be received in Abuja?

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“We are planning, by the grace of God, to meet with him and see how we can bridge bridges between where they stand, and where we stand within the Communion. This is because our aim is not to break the communion. Our aim is to work together and reform the Communion and ensure that Anglicans who are orthodox and bible-believing Anglicans have a place in our Communion.” – His Grace, the Archbishop of Nigeria. – So, this is the Declaration of a ‘New, Reformed Communion’, into which Abp. Akinola is inviting all of us to participate – but only if… Read more »

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