This uncommonly friendly article, At the Center of a Schism, about Archbishop Akinola and the coming primates’ meeting seems to have passed largely unnoticed. While waiting for a physical therapy appointment, I picked up the February 19 Time Magazine and got a pleasant surprise.
Time Magazine on-line, 2/8/2008, 2/19 print edtion, By David van Biema
The most Rev. Peter Akinola of Nigeria was in New York City late in January making one of his increasingly frequent forays into what he once would have considered enemy territory. Only journalists from religious publications were invited to cover the occasion, at Manhattan’s swank Metropolitan Club—which probably suited the Archbishop, who has become wary of the mainstream press since a December New York Times story that advisers feel wrongly portrayed him as a homophobe. But a friend of the Nigerian primate’s told TIME that Akinola received a standing ovation. ...
Some observers argue that, like many conservatives in the church, Akinola is motivated less by a desire for schism (or even any distaste for homosexuality per se) than by a sorrowful conviction that Robinson’s ordination in the U.S., along with support in other provinces for gay unions, is the last straw in a series of offenses indicating a massive Western disregard for the authority of the Bible. They say he is not so much trying to blow up the communion as force it, by negotiation and a certain degree of brinkmanship, to rein itself in. ...
The size of Akinola’s flock, which far outstrips England’s in terms of Sunday attendance, has made him a natural leader to robust and conservative Anglican bodies throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia (known as the Global South). ...
Not perfect, but deserves reading. Read it all.
3 Comments •
Anyone know anything about David van Biema?