The BBC reports that Nigeria to outlaw same-sex unions and illustrates the story with this picture. Update the picture has been changed to this one.
See also this earlier story which still uses the first picture (see George Conger’s comment below for why it is the wrong picture).
This is confirmed in a report from Nigeria in the Daily Champion previously found at FG moves to ban same-sex marriage which also says:
Besides, formation of association of homosexuals and lesbians as well as any form of protesting for rights recognition by the affected persons will be outlawed.
That web page has now changed so the full text of it is saved here, below the fold. Thanks to Tunde for providing the original link.
Update Voice of America reports that Anglican Church in Nigeria Welcomes Ban on Homosexuality thus:
…The spokesman for the Anglican church in Nigeria, Reverend Tunde Popoola, says the proposed ban is appropriate. The Anglican community in Nigeria has long waged a vigorous campaign against homosexuals, as Reverend Popoola explains.
“The Anglican church in Nigeria has been in the forefront of condemning the attitude because the church sees it as an aberration, in other words, we see it as against the norm. We see it as an abomination,” he said…
A VOA radio interview with Tunde Popoola can be heard here (Real Audio)
Updated Saturday – additional links
IRIN News NIGERIA: Government proposes law to ban same-sex marriage
Nigeria First via allAfrica.com ‘Gay Marriage Will Be Punished in Nigeria’
35 CommentsUpdated Friday 20 Jan
The Tablet has today published a report of the conference: Amid the cold, signs of a thaw, and the Church Times has Unity is symphonic, says Cardinal.
The BBC Sunday programme has kindly made available to Thinking Anglicans a transcript of part of the item linked here earlier.
0 CommentsChanging Attitude has today published a web page concerning Mr Davis MacIyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Network (Nigeria).
This page contains a number of photographs of Mr MacIyalla in earlier years at various church events, a photograph taken at the recent CAN meeting, and a detailed analysis of the many charges against Mr MacIyalla made by an official of the Church of Nigeria, including those contained in this press release.
49 CommentsThe BBC’s Sunday radio programme reported on an international conference on Christian Unity held at Ushaw College, Durham.
The BBC report:
Cardinal Walter Kasper on Ecumenism
Last week one of the Vatican’s top Cardinals came to Durham to host an international conference on Christian Unity. Was Cardinal Walter Kasper wasting his time?
Report by Christopher Landau.
Listen with Real Audio(9m 9s)
Those interviewed also include Bp Tom Wright and Canon Nicholas Sagovsky. But the interview with Cardinal Kasper is particularly worth hearing.
For more backgound on the conference, see the Ushaw College press releases, all in .rtf format:
Press Release, Brief Listing of Participants, Conference Rationale and Schedule.
Last week the Church Times carried a report on this, but it only reached the public web today. Other press reports, contemporaneous with this one, are here.
The CT report by Pat Ashworth was headlined ‘Nigerian allegations are false’.
Today’s paper contains nothing further on this.
6 CommentsIn the last issue of 2005, Pat Ashworth of the Church Times reported on this: Malango ‘closes case: Kunonga left to do as he likes’.
Some other recent news reports:
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
4 Jan Anglican parishioners puzzled over Kunonga trial decisions
5 Jan Church has no money for Kunonga retrial
Sokwanele
5 Jan Shameful silence on Nolbert Kunonga, Anglican Bishop of Harare
and this response from a reader on the Sokwanele blog, on 8 January.
Updated again Monday 9 January
Anglican gay group threatens legal action against Church of Nigeria appeared in Black Britain
Updated Thursday
Reports of the charges made against Changing Attitude by the Church of Nigeria are appearing in other places:
Church of England Newspaper George Conger Answers wanted on Nigerian gay charity
Ekklesia Nigerian church fraud warning includes allegation against gays
And the ACNS has republished one of the two Nigerian press releases here.
And in Nigeria:
Daily Independent Anglican Church disowns Nigerian gay activist
This Day Anglican Church Disowns Nigerian Gay-Activist
Vanguard Anglican Church disowns Nigerian gay-activist
But there is more information about this issue in the comments on this blog than in any of these reports so far.
Update
Changing Attitude has published a new press release today:
Statement by Changing Attitude (England) about allegations against Changing Attitude Network (Nigeria)
There has been a further development in the story about Changing Attitude Nigeria which has been chronicled in detail on TA previously.
First, the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) issued two press releases on 28 December, see PRESS RELEASE – DISCLAIMER– Davis Mac- Iyalla. This leads to a second release which is more general in character, but also contains specific reference to Mac-Iyalla. (The page is currently poorly formatted but remains legible. A copy of it has been republished by ACNS.)
Second, Changing Attitude issued a press release in response to the above, on 31 December, Changing Attitude Network Nigeria responds to criticism by the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion).
50 CommentsA range of essays from the Fall 2005 issue of Anglican Theological Review is now available from this page.
Several of these relate to the Windsor Report.
The Windsor Report: Communion, Structure, and Covenant by Ellen Wondra (this is an introduction to the set of articles, another copy is here)
A Note on the Role of North America in the Evolution of Anglicanism by Paul Marshall
After Dromantine by George Sumner
Authority, Unity, and Mission in the Windsor Report by Ian Douglas
Thoughts on the Windsor Report: What Went Wrong? by Paul F M Zahl
The Spiritual Context of the Windsor Report by Steven Charleston
“But It Shall Not Be So Among You”: Some Reflections Towards the Reception of the Windsor Report within ECUSA by A Katherine Grieb
Covenant, Contract, and Communion: Reflections on a Post-Windsor Anglicanism by Harold Lewis
Freedom and Covenant: The Miltonian Analogy Transfigured by Ephraim Radner
Restoring the Bonds of Affection by William R Carroll
The Windsor Report: Two Observations on Its Ecumenical Content by J. Robert Wright
The Windsor Report and Ecumenical Dialogue by Kevin Flynn
The Unopened Gift by Jeffrey Steenson
The recent Changing Attitude event in Abuja is now reported in the Sunday edition of the New York Times:
Nigerian Anglicans Seeing Gay Challenge to Orthodoxy by Lydia Polgreen. here’s an extract:
34 Comments…The Anglican debate has largely played out as one between traditional African values and what many people call the decadence of the West. As one Anglican, Chimae Ikegwuru of Port Harcourt, put it: “Homosexuality is a Western thing. In Nigeria we don’t condone it, we don’t tolerate it.”
Nigeria’s gay men and lesbians regularly face harassment and arrest, gay activists here say. The criminal code bans acts “against the order of nature,” and imposes sentences of up to 14 years for those convicted. In practice, gay men are often arrested and jailed until they can bribe their jailers to let them go. In areas of Nigeria that adhere to Islamic law, Shariah, the sentence for homosexual acts is death.
Yet homosexuality is relatively common, particularly in the military, which dominated the country’s politics for decades, said Dare Odumuye, founder of Nigeria’s first gay rights organization, Alliance Rights Nigeria. “It has always been in our culture in Nigeria,” he said.
Still, in a country riven by corruption and strife, and perpetually perched on the edge of chaos, deeply conservative religious beliefs and literal readings of not only the Bible but also the Koran offer certainty and stability otherwise unavailable.
“The Bible and the creeds don’t lend themselves to any variation over time,” said Oluranti Odubogun, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. “They don’t subject themselves to cultural changes. They are guidance given for human existence from age to age.” But that desire for certainty and absolutism has run up against another powerful force, the wider struggle for self-determination, particularly among young people in Africa…
The text of the Advent letter sent by Rowan Williams to all 38 primates of the Anglican Communion is published:
Text of the Advent Letter sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury [to Primates] and Moderators of the United Churches.
See also this ACNS press release: Dates for 2008 Lambeth Conference announced by Archbishop of Canterbury.
The earlier Church Times article by Tom Wright Why Dr Williams must stand firm was responding to the CT leader previously reported here.
15 CommentsUpdated Saturday
This week’s Church Times carries more detail of the story below. See Malawi 21 reject Bishop Mwenda by Pat Ashworth.
According to the Daily Times in Malawi, Anglicans reject bishop again:
The Anglican Diocese of Lake Malawi has rejected retired Bishop Leonard Mwenda of Lusaka, Zambia who was last month appointed interim head of the church in place of another rejected Bishop-elect Reverend Nicholas Paul Henderson.
The Court of Anglican bishops in Central Africa refused to confirm Henderson as bishop for Diocese of Lake Malawi on allegations that he was supportive of homosexuality.
But the clergy from the Lake Malawi Diocese meeting Friday last week disagreed with the church court’s decision to reject Henderson and complained that Mwenda was imposed on the Diocese.
More details in the article.
6 CommentsA lot more information about the rejection of Nicholas Henderson’s election is found today in a report by Pat Ashworth in the Church Times: Elected bishop is vetoed as ‘unsound’, for example:
The decision was not conveyed to Mr Henderson until he phoned the Provincial Secretary. He discovered that he had been rejected by a majority vote by the bishops of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, and Malawi. Five bishops are known to have supported Mr Henderson, who has had no contact with Archbishop Malango, despite repeated phone calls over five days.
The CEN has this report by George Conger: London vicar rebuffed as bishop in Central Africa.
32 CommentsTo all serving clergy
Civil Partnerships
As you will be aware, on 5th December 2005, the Civil Partnership Act came into force. As a result, two people of the same sex will be able to acquire a new legal status through registering a civil partnership. This will have very significant implications for their rights and responsibilities in respect of taxation, nationality, immigration, heritance, liability for maintenance and child support, tenancies, employment and pension benefits.
The Bishops recognise that there is a variety of views in the Church on the subject of civil partnerships. They also realise that there may be members within your congregations, or colleagues in ministry who may be considering entering into such partnerships now, or at some time in the future. This may raise pastoral issues for you which you would wish to discuss with your Bishop. This note is to confirm that, in every diocese, the Bishop is happy to make himself available to discuss any such pastoral issues should they arise.
It should be noted that the Act does not allow Church buildings to be used for registering civil partnerships and there is no authorised liturgy in the Scottish Episcopal Church for the blessing of such partnerships.
+Bruce
The Most Rev Bruce Cameron
Primus and Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney
Updated Monday
Changing Attitude has reported that: Changing Attitude Nigeria holds successful first General Meeting.
Some pictures are included (scroll down).
Several commenters on this site have questioned whether this event really occurred. Here are some Nigerian newspaper reports from the Vanguard which shed an interesting light on the matter:
Gays, lesbians unveil selves:
Ignore them—Archbishop Ademowo
Everybody must rise up against it —Rev. (Mrs) George
Update
Here is a detailed report of the event from the Nigerian Sun
Amazing Nigerian gays and lesbians hold extraordinary meeting
and an interview as well:
We are set to take Nigeria by storm, says leader of the gay and lesbian movement
Updated 12 December
The Bishops of the Church in Wales, at a recent meeting of the Bench of Bishops, agreed the following statement on Civil Partnerships:
In December 2005 the Civil Partnership Act comes into force. As a result, two people of the same sex will acquire a new legal status through registering a civil partnership. This will have very significant implications for their rights and responsibilities in respect of taxation, nationality and immigration, inheritance, liability for maintenance and child support, tenancies, employment and pension benefits. The Bishops of the Church in Wales cannot and would not wish to prevent what the law allows for Church members, both lay and clerical. The legislation leaves entirely open the nature of the commitment that members of a couple choose to make to each other when forming a civil partnership. It is not predicated on the intention to engage in a sexual relationship. The new legislation makes no change in the law in relation to marriage and the Government has stated that it has no intention of introducing same-sex ‘marriage’.
As a result, people in a variety of relationships will be able to register as civil partners. The Act does not allow church buildings to be used for registering civil partnerships, and the Bishops do not intend to produce an authorised public liturgy for such registrations.”
Copies of the statement have been distributed to members of the church’s Governing Body and to all clerics serving within the Church in Wales.
END 3rd December 2005
Update 12 December
Andrew Goddard has published a response to this statement here
14 CommentsPete Broadbent writes:
The news that the election of Nicholas Henderson as Bishop of Lake Malawi has been blocked by the Court of Confirmation is perhaps not surprising in the current climate of relations between the northern and southern parts of the Anglican Communion. Yet, as Nick’s bishop, I could have hoped that he might have been treated with more justice and with attention to what he actually believes, rather than what he is alleged to believe. We need to keep Nick in our prayers at this difficult time.
He was rejected on the grounds that he had previously been Chair of the Modern Churchpeoples’ Union, and was therefore seen to be a liberal in theological standpoint and in putative support for the liberalisation of the Church’s stance on gay relationships. Allegations were also made about his private life. All this despite Nick’s strong declarations that he accepts the faith revealed in the scriptures and set forth in the creeds, that he holds to the teaching of the Church on sexual ethics, and that there never has been any question about the standards of his moral conduct. Nick has become a victim of the warfare between African traditionalism and Western liberalism. I find it deeply sad that, as someone who would find myself more obviously on the traditionalist side of things, my letters in support of Nick and his orthodoxy were quite simply ignored by those responsible for confirming his election. In stark terms, my references as his bishop and Nick’s own affirmations of faith were not believed.
There are several obvious lessons to be learned from this sad case.
First, that guilt by association is alive and well and living in the Anglican Communion. As an evangelical, I’m well used to this particular phenomenon. Some free church evangelicals seek to dignify it by giving it a theological category of “secondary separation” – I can’t be in communion with you if you are in communion with someone who holds views that are perceived as heterodox. In this case, whatever Nick Henderson’s own views (which I would still want to describe as traditionally Anglican), the very fact that he had been an organiser of the MCU was enough to make him unacceptable, because there were some in that organisation who were seen to hold to a revisionist viewpoint.
Secondly, the danger of the power of the internet as a means both of instant communication and instant condemnation. Those who were opposed to Nick Henderson’s election were immediately in action once his election had been announced, spreading defamatory and untrue allegations about him all over the place. This included the release of private correspondence between the consecrating bishop and the consecrand – stuff which, even in the leaky Church of England, we would never consider as public property. And, because journalism these days can become a fundamentally lazy occupation (you google someone’s name, read the stories about them, and retread the material so that it becomes common currency), those allegations spread round the world, but can all be sourced back to one particular American website, which despite their lack of any personal knowledge of the priest they were defaming, was quite prepared to condemn him out of hand.
A third issue is the way in which nuance and complexity are being ignored in these debates. I do not want the Anglican Communion to become a place where a revisionist liberal theology becomes the norm. But equally I do not want to see a witch hunt against liberalism, which at its best (and in the liberality of the classic Church of England ethos) continues to make a huge contribution towards shaping our theology and ethos. The MCU as an organisation is not one I would want to join, but the fundamentally conservative liberalism espoused by many of its members needs to be assimilated and understood by evangelicals, charismatics, conservatives and traditionalists. To insist that membership or leadership of such an organisation should be a ground for blocking a duly elected bishop smacks of McCarthyism. That’s not to say that there should not be grounds for suggesting that a person’s views and teaching might make them a person not suitable to be a bishop – here in the UK we had our own debate about that in respect of an appointment to the see of Reading, and I was one of those who advocated that the appointment should not be made. Some will think that I am now being hypocritical. I would argue that there is a difference between views definitely held and taught by an individual and views held and taught by others within an organisation of which that individual is a member. What is more obviously at stake here is the capacity for us to hold debates about the teachings of scripture and the Church which are not starkly polarised into “Who is not for us is against us” positions. Those charged with deciding whether Nick’s election should be confirmed clearly saw him as part of the liberal Western enemy, despite his long association with, and care for, the clergy and people of Lake Malawi through a mission partnership with his parishes. Many Malawi clergy had visited us here, and I had the privilege of meeting some of them. But all those relationships counted for naught, because complexity is not on the map.
We have so much to lose if our relationships with the vibrant and growing churches of the South are soured or severed. I am deeply saddened at how Nick has been treated. I am saddened that the African bishops could not hear what was being said to them about the nature of his belief and practice and the suitability of his candidature for the calling to be a bishop in the Church of God. But we need to recognise the depths of suspicion about ECUSA, Canada, and now the Church of England that have brought us to this position. Indeed, we need to voice more clearly between ourselves the stark differences between our different theologies. While I am prepared to defend MCU, I would find it much harder to defend some of the positions taken (for example) by various sections of ECUSA on theology, ethics and pastoral practice. We need also to find ways – through personal contact, partnership in the gospel, and the Windsor Report framework – to mend these relationships.
Pete Broadbent
Bishop of Willesden & Acting Archdeacon of Northolt
For earlier reports see here, here, and here.
The Court of Confirmation met on Tuesday 29 November, and it did not confirm the election.
News reports:
Nation Online Bishop elect’s fate today (before the meeting)and Anglicans reject bishop-elect
Reuters Malawi Anglicans reject pro-gay UK bishop
BBC Malawi rejects ‘pro-gay’ bishop
Mail and Guardian Anglicans reject bishop for supporting gay rights
Associated Press via Jamaica! Malawi rejects pro-gay British bishop
Pat Ashworth reports in the Church Times today that A fourth Primate disowns ‘hectoring’ letter.
…The Archbishop of Burundi, the Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi, was one of three Primates listed among the 17 signatories as “Present but had to leave before the final draft was circulated”. He has also confirmed that he did not sign.
He responded in a message to the Church Times on Tuesday: “I have read Archbishop Akinola’s letter. Without going into details of the content, I would like to make it clear that I was not present when that letter was written, so I did not take part in its conception. It is sad what is going on.”…
Also, the Southern African province reports on how their representative was treated:
Further light was shed by the Primate of Southern Africa, the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane. In a message to the Church Times, he writes that he was represented at the meeting in Egypt, where the letter was drafted, by the Bishop of Pretoria, Dr Johannes Seoka.
Bishop Seoka had “found himself excluded from meetings, including those at which the letter was discussed – despite the presence, it appeared, of others who were neither Primates nor, indeed, from the Global South”, the Archbishop writes.
The full text of Abp Ndungane’s remarks is available this week only to CT subscribers. I will link to it here when it is available.
Meanwhile there is also an article in the CT by Bishop Tom Wright which is summarised in Pat Ashworth’s article but again the full text is for subscribers only, until next week now available here. Meanwhile an extract is available here.
But he also is strongly critical of the Global South letter:
17 CommentsThis kind of hectoring inevitably backfires, creating such distaste that people instinctively want to do the opposite of what is requested, or at least to declare loftily that one must do nothing at all rather than give in to such bullying.
Perhaps that is what some of these groups intend: to generate a situation where they can claim spurious justification for schism. Archbishop Akinola, and particularly his advisers and letter-drafters, need to be reminded of the Windsor report’s insistence on due process within an episcopal Communion.
Last week the Church Times carried an open letter to the bishops of the Global South from David Edwards. It is now on the web at Europe is not a barren desert.
30 Comments…the example of insensitivity or ignorance that I find most offensive is your description of Europe as a “spiritual desert”.
