Giles Fraser: Take Death Threats Seriously

The Rev. Giles Fraser, “team rector” of Putney in Greater London and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, exhorts readers of The Church Times to take seriously the death threats recently received by Changing Attitude, an Anglican LGBT organization in England, Nigeria, Togo and elsewhere.

Dr. Fraser writes:

I get my fair share of hate mail writing this column. But I don’t get half the nastiness received by the Revd Colin Coward, the UK director of Changing Attitude. Here is a sample: “Evil homosexual promoter, we gave your Nigerian homosexual representative and his followers long time to repent but he underrated us. Come and save them if you can.” Then there was the equally charming: “You will loose ur life for what u re doing go and write todays date u have few days to live.”

And again: “WE HAVE NOT STARTED AND YOU ARE PANICKING, HOMOSEXUAL PROMOTERS. WAIT AND SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALL YOUR AGENT IN NIGERIA SOON, ONE BY ONE.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has rightly commented: “The threats recently made against the leaders of Changing Attitude are disgraceful.” But I do not think we as a Church are taking all this nastiness seriously enough. It is not at all impossible to imagine that the hatred coursing through the veins of the Anglican Communion could soon result in somebody’s death.

It’s interesting to me, in a macabre way, that Davis Mac-Iyalla, director of Changing Attitude-Nigeria, is twice described as Fr. Coward’s “agent” or “representative.” Apparently the Nigerian thugs think an African man is incapable of coming to his own conclusion that Gay people have and are entitled to human rights, and must therefore be an “agent” of a (superior) White man in Great Britain.

But this belief may bolster Nigerian thug ideology that homosexuality is a White, Western import, as if words for Gay people didn’t already exist in native Nigerian tribal languages (”bowo!”) before English Victorian missionaries ever arrived.

Dr. Fraser continues:

There will be those who say that the Church of Nigeria cannot be held responsible for a few bad eggs. This would be true, if the Church did not describe homosexuality as “devilish and satanic. It comes directly from the pit of hell. It is an idea sponsored by Satan himself and being executed by his followers and adherents who have infiltrated the Church. The blood and power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth will flush them out with disgrace and great pains.”

Language matters. The history of human violence suggests that if you can persuade people to describe others as “cockroaches” or “rats”, or “unclean” or “evil”, then those thus described are not far from harm. And the Bible tells of a God who is for ever by their side.

Since the most recent attacks on Davis Mac-Iyalla and his colleague in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, a schismatic American website called Stand Firm in Faith has taken up its favorite Gay-bashing cudgel to deny that any such attacks occurred; demanding proof (police reports, physicians’ statements—so reliable in Africa) not only of the attacks themselves, but also that if any such assaults did occur, that the victims can prove that Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola is directly and personally responsible.

Without a smoking gun, Viagraville shouts, who can prove that anyone got shot? Forget the victim over there on the floor bleeding to death; where’s the proof he was shot?

It’s a Trojan Horse demand, exactly like this one out of the corrupt, murderous government of Zimbabwe, where the entire world knows that president Robert Mugabe is doing everything he can to steal yet another election (aided by another renegade Anglican bishop). From today’s New York Times (”Signs of Attacks on Zimbabwe Opposition”)”

Senior officials in Mr. Mugabe’s party have denied that it has organized attacks on the opposition. The justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, who lost his own parliamentary seat in the elections, has suggested it is the opposition that has fomented violence, and he challenged those accusing the party to come forward with proof.

I mean, Mugabe (who blames all Zimbabwe’s troubles on Gay people) ran TV commercials this year promising violence to his opponents: “If you want to live, vote for me.” (Background: Frontline on PBS.)

Stand Firm, of course, has no presence in Africa and no way to know whether Mac-Iyalla was targeted in an assassination attempt or not; this hasn’t prevented them from loudly denying that it occurred. “Proof proof proof! Show us proof!” If they actually got proof, they’d change the subject or find a way to denounce the proof. They don’t care about the truth; they care about their ideology, their income and their power. Everything, including God, is subservient to those goals.

Their problem is, with a few thousand other ex-Episcopalians in the U.S., that they’ve hitched their wagon to Akinola, a Nigerian huckster they barely know. One day they will pay a heavy price for this. The blood on their hands won’t go away, no matter how much they wash.

I caution Mr. Akinola: If anything further happens to Mac-Iyalla, your short life will become a living hell.

As to our pals at Viagratown: enjoy it while it lasts, kids, ’cause it won’t last long.

These are not threats; they are simply predictions. Real Christians don’t arm themselves, but trust God to carry out the justice human beings are incapable of.

We’ve seen thugs like these before. We grow plenty of our own here in America. Thomas Blanton:

Bobby Frank Cherry:

Archbishop Kwashi Promises Probe of Anti-Gay Violence, if…

Peter Akinola, Anglican Primate of Nigeria

From The Lead, part of Episcopal Café, an Episcopal Diocese of Washington website, posted by the Rev. Nick Knisely, Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, this afternoon:

Last week the Church of Nigeria was accused of being involved in some way on a series of assaults upon the leadership of the Changing Attitudes Nigeria organization. While some have questioned whether or not the assaults took place, today the Nigerian Church has responded by deploring any possibility that they might have been connected in any way, calling for an investigation if evidence points their way.

From a statement by the Nigerian Church’s Archbishop of Jos which has appeared on the provincial website:

“We are saddened and worried that some Churches and Christians now find these teachings and standards unacceptable. However, we will never seek to bring any person or persons to our way of thinking and believing by using violence, force, slander or blackmail: to do so would be to contradict the gospel which we proclaim. Should anyone bring a case against us in this respect we will most certainly investigate it and deal with it. I would have hoped that the accusations made concerning the attack on Mr. Davis Mac-Iyalla could have been properly presented in this manner, with evidence: it would then have been dealt with swiftly. This was not done, and it would be helpful to consider that there may indeed be other reasons why certain individuals felt they had a score to settle with Mr. Mac-Iyalla. All my attempts so far to discover the place or the nature of these attacks and threats have proved unsuccessful.

Simply to accuse the Anglican Church of being the perpetrator of a physical attack on the streets of a large city, does not make sense. If a Nigerian Bishop or church leader were mugged in England, would the Archbishop of Canterbury, or even the Church of England in general, be blamed for this? That the Archbishop of Canterbury, backed by a group of English bishops should – without evidence being presented – choose to accuse any other person(s) of resorting to violent crime and illegal acts, is in fact to resort to the unchristian bullying and behaviour which they so abhor.”

The statement by the Archbishop continues:

May I note that I was invited to speak at a fringe meeting of the Church of England Synod last year. Mr. Mac-Iyalla was present at this public meeting, and at the end of my paper he made comments to which I responded. This all took place without there being any feeling of aggression, or any indication that the Church of Nigeria is homophobic or violent.

The full statement from the Church of Nigeria can be read here.

—

What follows is my comment, which also appears on The Lead:

It is significant that this comes in the name of the Archbishop of Jos, Benjamin Kwashi, who has been something of a centrist on these issues.

He is correct in noting his friendly and respectful encounter last year with Davis Mac-Iyalla during General Synod. Davis considered this to be of some significance, since shortly before this the Church of Nigeria had publicly questioned whether Davis even exists.

They labeled him a con man, denied that he was Anglican (”we can find no record of him on our rolls”) and various other claims that appeared to be part of a smear campaign - all because he has the audacity to say that he is Gay, Nigerian and Anglican.

Archbishop Kwashi knows full well why the Nigerian Church has been accused in this latest matter. Therefore the significance of his statement is not his defense of his church, which is to be expected, but his promise that evidence of Anglican involvement in anti-Gay violence will be investigated.

For that I thank him as a brother.

—

Finally, I note this description of Nigeria published in The Edge, an alternative newspaper in Boston, published April 17. I believe it to be accurate:

Nigeria’s current leader is Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, whose April, 2007 election to a four-year term was characterized by a U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor report as “marred by massive fraud, vote rigging and political violence.”

That report also noted “government officials at all levels” committing abuses, including “politically motivated killings by security forces, arbitrary arrest and prolonged pretrial detention” as well as “restrictions on speech, press, assembly, religion and movement.” Homosexuality, illegal under federal law, is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The Anglican Church, headed by Peter Akinola, is the leading religious power in southern Nigeria. Akinola was turned out as president of the Christian Association of Nigeria last year for being too close to the Government. Akinola, the leading proponent of schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church, remains as Primate and Archbishop of Abuja.++

Canterbury Denounces Nigerian Violence

My my my; one post on this tiny blog and Anglican Land goes nuts. Our pal Greggy at Viagraville pops more pills; Fr. Jake stops the world; even the Archbishop of Canterbury weighs in. Why? Because of an e-mail Davis Mac-Iyalla sent me a week ago, describing how the leader of the Gay Anglican group Changing Attitude in Port Harcourt, Nigeria was assaulted at Davis’s sister’s funeral over Easter.

I posted the e-mailed press release as I received it, without comment. It speaks for itself as a statement of Changing Attitude-Nigeria. Do I know it to be true? No. Do I know it to be false? No. What I know is that it is a statement made by the only openly-Gay activist in Nigeria, my friend Mr. Mac-Iyalla, who is a prominent layman in the Anglican Church.

Considering how aggressively homohating Nigeria is, goaded on by its politically ambitious Archbishop-Primate who has advocated jailing Gay people for 14 years for the horrific crime of having lunch together, it seems right to me to give Mac-Iyalla a web forum in which to speak.

He gets to be responsible for what he says.

And yes, I’ve known him to exaggerate a time or two—but far less than Peter Akinola, the bloodsucking Archbishop of Abuja.

When Davis says that a Gay leader got beaten up at his sister’s funeral, I think he’s probably right. Greggy doesn’t seem to realize this, but Gay people really don’t have a need to make up persecution stories; they happen quite enough in normal life. It’s hard for us to imagine more of them. We have no need to invent when the examples are all around us.

The good news is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, denounced the violence:

In response to reports of violence and threats towards Christians involved in the debate on human sexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury has given the following statement:

“The threats recently made against the leaders of Changing Attitudes are disgraceful. The Anglican Communion has repeatedly, through the Lambeth Conference and the statements from its Primates’ Meetings, unequivocally condemned violence and the threat of violence against gay and lesbian people. I hope that this latest round of unchristian bullying will likewise be universally condemned.”

I am often critical of Archbishop Rowan, but in this case he deserves a little bow. Here is the point Greggy doesn’t seem to get: the Rev. Colin Coward is not a Nigerian, but a priest of the Church of England and a man with a reputation for reasoned, moderate truth-telling. I highly doubt Rowan would have issued this statement based on Davis Mac-Iyalla’s claims alone; Rowan was moved to act because of death threats received by Colin Coward thousands of miles away.

Get-Hard Greggy can “call out” Mac-Iyalla all he wants, demanding photographs, police reports (in Nigeria? oh, those would be reliable), hospital records—as if proof would satisfy; it wouldn’t, Greggy’d just change the subject. After all, it’s an activist site; he doesn’t deal in truth, but ideology.

Imagine that; someone actively trying to kill off the Episcopal Church for the sake of his own homophobic masturbation.

The ambition involved is quite breathtaking. But when he “calls out” Colin Coward, he’s facing someone well-known in the Church of England; hated by the right, not entirely endorsed by the left, but respected even in Canterbury.

Mind you, Colin and I have fought a time or two; but I believe he tells the truth.

I have no reason to doubt Mac-Iyalla’s claims, or Fr. Coward’s. And I know Davis better than anyone else in America. I know his weaknesses, flaws and sins; I traveled and lived with him for two months and believe me, the results were not that pretty.

But I also never caught him in a lie about the Anglican Church of Nigeria. I believe he speaks a prophetic truth about Peter Akinola, a con man who will one day embarrass every innocent in his breakaway American churches.

They’re the ones I feel for, really; they’ve let homophobia and Bible-thumping lead them into schism—a lot worse sin than sucking dick.

I mean, God’s already seen this stuff; he knows what goes on. And like all those liberals Greggy’s so distraught over, I think God’s a lot more concerned with warmongering in Iraq than who does what with a penis.

Wars kill people, and you should have seen the teeth-gnashing on GetHard when William F. Buckley died! They thought he was a saint, when he was just a TV performer with a gimmick—a guy who underpaid college students to search out polysyllabic words no one had ever heard of, which he could then introduce on his little-watched debate show on PBS.

He reminds me of the song from “Gypsy,” “You Gotta Have a Gimmick!” Buckley had one, all right, leaving the morons in Mississippi going ga-ga over the brilliant talk of the snake-oil salesman. “He has to be smart, he says words we never heard of!”

Gee whillikers. And he advocated every war in U.S. history, especially Vietnam and Iraq.

This brings me back to Fr. Jake, the world-stopper, with a cool cartoon of a snake-oil salesman. (Clue: snakes aren’t greasy.)

When I passed on Davis’s (and Colin’s) press release to Jake, I didn’t comment, I just served as a conduit. Like Greggy, I’m doubtful about the formal English attributed to the attackers. I doubt someone had a tape recorder on the scene. I doubt these were the exact words that were said; they’re way too neat—unless the so-called thugs were highly educated Anglicans, who may well have spoken this way. Nigerians are more English than the English are, though they also garble the language continually.

But I don’t doubt that the attack occurred, or that all such attacks are encouraged by Peter Akinola and the Anglican Church of Nigeria. No doubt he’s slick enough to stay several steps removed, but the man advocates violence—which is why several thousand Americans are going to one day feel betrayed.

Let them march on Greggy’s website in Mississippi.++

Gay Man Attacked at Mac-Iyalla Funeral

Some of the young men of Changing Attitude Nigeria

(press release e-mailed by Davis Mac-Iyalla, director of Changing Attitude Nigeria)

Changing Attitude Nigeria leader narrowly escapes death

Changing Attitude calls on the Primate and bishops of the Church of Nigeria to
condemn attacks on homosexuals

A shocking story of mob violence has emerged which almost culminated in the
death of one of the leaders of the Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN) group in
Port Harcourt. The violent attack occurred in the context of the funeral
ceremony being held for the sister of Davis Mac-Iyalla, attended by six
members of the Port Harcourt group on Thursday, 20 March 2008.

The CAN Port Harcourt leader who was the subject of the attack said:
“I am in total shock and living in fear while feeling the pains I suffered in
the hands of a mob group that attacked me at the Service of Songs for Davis’s
late sister. While hymn singing was going on a muscular man walked up to me
and asked me for a word outside the compound.

“The next thing I saw was a mob group who were there to attack me. They
started slapping and punching me, kicked me on the ground and spat on me. I
have never known fear like I knew when they were brutalizing me. I thought
they were going to kill me there and then. While beating me they were
shouting: ‘You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your
notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?’ Those who attacked me
were well informed about us so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of
our Anglican church have hands in this attack.”

Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitude England, said:
“The attack on one of the CAN leaders in Port Harcourt is a terrifying
indictment of the attitude of the Church of Nigeria to LGBT people. Violence
against LGBT people has been encouraged by Archbishop Peter Akinola and the
leaders of the Church of Nigeria. They have attacked the presence of LGBTs in
church and society, and supported a bill which would reinforce prejudice
against LGBT people.

“Changing Attitude calls on the Church of Nigeria to denounce violence against
LGBT people. We challenge the leaders of the global south coalition to repent
of their un-Biblical views which fuel prejudice against LGBT people in our
Communion.”

Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, learning of the
attack, said: “Please hold the Port Harcourt group in your prayers as we seek God’s guidance on this ugly and sad period of testing in our life.”

The thugs who attacked the Port Harcourt leader told him: “We will not rest
until we silence you and any who join you to pollute the land with the
abominable act of homosexuality. You are perverts who go around corrupting and
inducting young people into our evil society. We will kill you and it will be
a favour to the country. Nigeria will not contain you or any other person that
practices homosexuality.”

Nzimbi Fiddles While Kenya Burns

Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi leading an anti-Gay forum in Rochester, Minnesota one year ago this week. He claims the Kenyan Church is growing madly, but this talk attracted all of 40 souls.

It’s been a month now since the elections in Kenya, and so far the violence is unabated. This is a particular tragedy felt all over Africa and all over the Anglican Communion. Lives are being lost and hopes are being dashed all over the continent, because up to now Kenya has been a particularly bright spot. It is a large and prosperous country which successfully moved from one-party rule to democracy. Now it appears the government has stolen the election, leading at first to mass street protests, then a government crackdown, and finally violence, which has degenerated into tribal hatred. And somewhere near the middle of it all stands the Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, heretofore best known as a Gay-hating wedge-driver splitting the Episcopal Church in America.

He should have stuck to his own knitting. He should have concentrated on his own country instead of conducting border raids in the United States.

But the same can be said of many Anglican Archbishops in Africa. They’ve been so busy conducting anti-Gay campaigns in the West they’ve neglected their own countries and their own churches.

But wait, it gets worse. Several weeks before the late December elections, Nzimbi was appointed the head of a special religious peace commission to hold the country together through the electoral process—to bless it, if you will. Here’s how the Anglican Church of Kenya’s website described it:

Religious organizations in Kenya have launched a peace campaign to ensure a peaceful and secure process as the December 2007 general elections approach.

The campaign whose slogan is “Chagua Amani Zuia Noma” (Choose Peace Avoid Chaos) was launched recently by President Mwai Kibaki at a colorful ceremony at the Kenyatta Conference Centre grounds.

The Chairman of the inter-religious forum, The Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi had this to say during the launch:

It is my great pleasure to welcome all of us to this grand occasion. Today, we join hands with the rest of the world to celebrate peace and remind ourselves of the immense negative effects of conflict and violence.

Your Excellency, Ladies and gentlemen, peace is so important in our lives that we should not allow the transient activity of holding elections leave us beholding each other as enemies. We are one nation: Our differences in language, race, religion and economic power are just a flavour that makes living together interesting and worthwhile.

The “Excellency” he refers to is, of course, President Mwai Kibaki, the one who stole the election from opposition leader Raila Odinga.

So there was Nzimbi in September, receiving his “peace coronation” from the current President in the absence of the opposition leader. They must have all felt pretty good about what they were doing that day, ensuring peace and all.

Here’s what Kenya looked like yesterday.

Of course, since the riots broke out, Archbishop Nzimbi and his peace commission are nowhere to be found. They sided with the status quo back in September and now have no credibility at all with the average Kenyan.

So the Anglican Church is ducking undercover to save its skin. Other international friends have had to go to Kenya to faciliate negotiations, including former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. As the violence gets worse, the peace prospects dim.

Interestingly, the next news story on the Kenyan Anglican website carries these two worthies: schismatic American priests Bill Atwood and Bill Murdoch, who were recently ordained Bishops of Anti-Gayville by Nzimbi:

Don’t these White guys just look precious in their lace and finery? This stuff would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

The one thing they all have in common—Nzimbi, Kibaki, Atwood, Murdoch and their American enablers—is that they really don’t care who gets hurt, as long as they get their way.

As we’ve seen over and over in nation and after nation, fake religious leaders define morality in personal, sexual terms to enable governments to act immorally, thus enriching those in power. We see it in America, in Nigeria, in Kenya, in Europe, in Central and South America, in Russia, in the Middle East; we see it everywhere.

How long, oh Lord, how long?

Pray for Kenya. Pray for the Church.++

Ugandan Bishop Pops Off—on Christmas!

There is no end to Gay bashing in Africa, but now an Anglican bishop has sunk to a new low: using his Christmas sermon as the occasion.

The New Vision, “Uganda’s Leading Website,” reports this:

THE Government should not yield to pressure and legalise homosexuality and lesbianism, the Bishop of Bukedi Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Nicodemus Okille, has appealed.

The bishop, who was delivering his Christmas sermon at St. Peter’s Church of Uganda Tororo on Tuesday, said the acts violate both the biblical teachings on marriage and African culture.

Okille criticised the advocates of gay rights, saying they had no place in the Kingdom of God.

Some Bible preaching, huh?

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “God hates fags. Gay sex is unafrican. Give lots of money to the Anglican Church.”

Using Christmas Day to deliver this hateful sermon is beneath the Christian religion—but it helps fill Archbishop Henry Orombi’s coffers.

Nigerian Witchhunts: Pentecostal Violence against Children

As if there weren’t enough to be depressed about, the British newspaper The Guardian reports about the scapegoating of children in Nigeria:

Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities.

Do read the article; yes, it’s depressing, but it’s an invaluable firsthand account for anyone who wants to understand Africa, its churches and worldwide fundamentalism. Here is the Pentecostal church at work—taught Biblical literalism by American and Scottish missionaries, the article claims—not the Anglican Church of Nigeria, which prefers to scapegoat Gay, Lesbian and Trans people instead. Archbishop Peter Akinola doesn’t advocate gouging Gay eyes out or throwing acid in their faces (although Davis Mac-Iyalla’s been threatened with the latter), he wants to jail Gay people for 14 years instead.

With all that is screwed up about Nigeria, you’d think Akinola would speak out against the abuse of children. But you’d be wrong. Since Anglicanism has to compete with Pentecostalism (and by many reports, is losing that competition), you’d think he’d compare and contrast these two versions of “Christianity.” But again you’d be wrong.

Beware the next time you hear some right-wing American Christian tell you to support missionary work. Chances are, the missionaries are just teaching Pentecostal-style hucksterism: how to get rich by stealing and committing violence in the name of God.

Lord, have mercy. Defenseless children!++

Kolini Tries Bait & Switch in Rwanda: “No Mingling” with Gays

Here’s the news from The New Times in Kigali, as aggregated by AllAfrica.com:

Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini has called on churches in the East African region to fight against homosexuality for the good of the society.

The leader of the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda insisted that Anglican churches in East Africa will not mingle with the homosexuals in the affairs of the church for the good of the community.

“We are reformed Anglicans who want to adhere to the original creeds of the Bible, and that’s why our church has decided to ignore the 2008 Lambeth Conference because it has not done much to fight homosexuality in the communion,” he said on Sunday.

Other than being another blanket condemnation of Gay people to advance his position in domestic and Church politics, it’s hard to interpret Kolini’s exact meaning. If he actually did say the words “the original creeds of the Bible,” it’s an incoherent statement; the Bible doesn’t contain any creeds.

The “no mingling” bit is equally confusing. Remember, English is not the native language of Archbishop Kolini or the news reporter, Grace Mugabe. The meaning and use of words changes from place to place. If you thought Biblical interpretation was difficult, try parsing the English spoken in Africa.

Suffice it for now that Kolini has felt the need to demonize Gay people, so ignore the plausible distraction and keep your eye on what he’s really up to. You can bet it’s really about politics.++

Nigeria & Shariah: Cool Out

There’s an interesting report today about Nigeria in The New York Times. It debunks the notion, constantly repeated by Anglican schismatics, that Archbishop Peter Akinola has to promote draconian anti-Gay laws to compete with the Muslims.

Shariah hasn’t worked out too well. One guy got his hand amputated for stealing a cow, but otherwise, the politicians turned out to be politicians.

The shift reflects the fact that religious law did not transform society. Indeed, some of the most ardent Shariah-promoting politicians now find themselves under investigation for embezzling millions of dollars. Many early proponents of Shariah feel duped by politicians who rode its popular wave but failed to live by its tenets, enriching themselves and neglecting to improve the lives of ordinary people.

For the past two years, U.S. Episcopalians have been treated to the amazing spectacle of White Southerners trying to place themselves under the jurisdiction of Black African archbishops, in a bid to segregate Gay people. Schism is now a cottage industry, complete with coffee mugs, T-shirts and cheap mousepads, as well as multi-million-dollar lawsuits.

The frenzy has even reached usually-placid Canada, where last week a retired bishop defected to Chile and became a Southern Conehead.

Loyal Episcopalians have tried pointing out to the dearly departed that they’re hitching their buggies to horses they don’t know; that the cure is worse than the disease. But the fever continues unabated.

In 2006 Akinola tried to get a law passed in Nigeria that would make it illegal for LGBT people to go to a meeting, visit a website or have lunch together. His proposed penalty: 14 years in prison.

It was so ridiculous that even George Bush’s State Department protested.

When Episcopalians publicized this outrageous proposal, the newbie “Anglicans” replied that Akinola’s program was much more humane than the Islamic fundamentalists to the north, with whom he was said to compete for hearts and minds, because under Shariah the punishment for Gay sex is death.

But Shariah doesn’t criminalize lunch, and any government that wants to outlaw “sodomy” soon finds the Gross Domestic Product plumeting to zero. There’s too much sex going on to possibly root it all out. You’d have to deputize half the population, and even then most people will look the other way.

So now the “Anglicans” are stuck. They’ve hitched their wagons to an archbishop who’s an international joke. Akinola tried to prohibit freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of thought. They knew exactly what they were getting into, and they went with him anyway.

Their plunge over the cliff will be long and hard, so look away and don’t watch.

Meanwhile it’s interesting that the four U.S. dioceses considering secession (out of 110) have suddenly taken up with the Chilean Coneheads, not Akinola. His sun has set.

Still, it’s a long way from Falls Church to Buenos Aires, and the archbishop there is fruitcake. Sooner or later the Virginians will run out of places to hide. Not secession nor nullification nor segregation are sufficient to keep them safe from Gay people on their knees.++

Kleptocracy: Government by Thieves

Episcopal Café has a wonderful tribute today to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, written by Dr. Howard Anderson, warden of the Cathedral College at the National Cathedral in Washington, which recently presented him with a prize. Tutu stayed for a week and Anderson got to spend a lot of time with him. The article brings some good insight into Tutu’s spirituality and manner of life.

Anderson goes on to compare the Little Giant of South Africa with another African Archbishop, Peter Akinola:

When I read Archbishop Akinola, and for that matter, people like Bishop Duncan, I see a model of a God I do not recognize. A God who would ask God’s people not to emulate compassion, or combat injustice, oppression and evil, but rather, to judge those who fall outside of what can only be called a modern version of purity codes. It is an Old Testament God of wrath, of judgment, of tribe and clan that emerges.

Anderson also tells the truth about something most secessionist Episcopalians don’t know or try to deny: that Akinola’s claims of massive, exponential growth in the Nigerian Church are dubious at best.

While the intimidating presence of men of power like Archbishop Akinola thunder, Anglicans by the thousand in Nigeria leave the Church to find the “Good News” being lived out and preached in Pentecostal and other churches. Nigerian friends of mine tell of visits home in formerly Anglican areas that are now predominantly Pentecostal, for those churches are trying to meet the needs of the people, not to find new ways to condemn others.

But then Anderson goes off track, in my opinion. He makes a prediction about the future:

I think the Akinolas will soon give way to a less power hungry, more egalitarian leader, and with that, a polity which is more democratic, where clergy and laity, not just primates and bishops, discern God’s will for the Church. We must be patient. And even as men like Archbishop Akinola castigate us, reject our way of being Anglican Christian, we must pray for them. I must be patient like Archbishop Tutu told me to be.

It’s the “soon give way” that caught my eye. I posted this reply:

I wish I could share Dr. Anderson’s unabashed optimism about the post-Akinola generation of Church leaders. Nigeria is a kleptocracy. Corruption is rampant and institutionalized. Akinola serves this system, as do certain other very vocal African bishops. Gay-bashing also serves this system by providing scapegoats.

South Africa is a special case. Many people there, especially Mandela and Tutu, heard God’s call to serve justice and the people. God calls in Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe too, but fewer people seem to be listening, except for the Gay people.

The good news is there are LGBT voices being heard in Uganda, thanks in part to Integrity; and in Nigeria, in large part due to Changing Attitude (Davis Mac-Iyalla and Colin Coward). I have talked by phone with two or three other young Gay men in Francophone Africa, though I’m unaware of any LGBT voices raised in Zimbabwe, which is so far down the tubes it’s entirely lawless.

What seems important to me as a Gay American Episcopalian is that we take a few steps on behalf of our African sisters and brothers. First, pray for them, knowing that God hears their cries and weeps with them. Second, do what we can to publicize the voices of LGBT Africans and help to tell their stories about actual conditions in their countries. Third, we should continue to press government and Church officials to respond to abuses of power directed at LGBT Africans to further the kleptocracy. There is no excuse for the worldwide Anglican Communion to participate in demonizing our people.

Fourth, LGBT Americans need to take a much more international view of LGBT issues. People are being murdered all over the world for being Gay. Skinhead thugs beat LGBT people in Russia with the cooperation of Putin’s police. Saudi Arabia and Iran cheerfully execute our people.

In short we need our own foreign policy, independent of Washington, London and Brussels. We need our own diplomats, as well as armies of organizers. As human rights are slowly won here in the West, our focus must shift to organizations such as the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

We are citizens of the world, skeptics of our own rulers; it’s not like we don’t have kleptocrats here. When U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (D-New Orleans) wanted to make some cold hard cash (discovered in his freezer), where did he go? To Nigeria, the capital of kleptocracy.

So we know what’s happening here and elsewhere. As we extend our gains in the U.S. and Western Europe, it’s time to expand our movement to the whole world.

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Matthew 25:40