Amid ululations and applause punctuating colourful worship, Revd. Canon Will Atwood and Revd. William Murdoch were consecrated as Suffragan Bishops of the Church of Kenya in All Saint’s Cathedral, Nairobi, on Thursday August 30th. The following Sunday in an open air event in the grounds of St. Luke’s Cathedral, Mbarara and in the presence of the Prime Minister of Uganda, a huge crowd witnessed Revd John Guernsey being consecrated along with a Ugandan, Revd Dr. George Tibeesigwa, as Bishops of the Church of that nation.
The North Americans were commissioned to serve scores of parishes in the USA that have withdrawn from the Episcopal Church. But being people who love their Lord and their Anglican heritage, they have requested episcopal and pastoral support from Provinces overseas.
In a packed press conference in Nairobi before the service, Archbishop Nzimbi explained the background to these consecrations.
He noted the shift from the traditional understanding and interpretation of Scripture, particularly evident in the USA. This has resulted in a denial of the uniqueness of Christ, universalism in relation to salvation and views on homosexual practice that clash with the clear statements of Scripture. The Nairobi and Mbarara events were clearly an encouragement to laity and clergy who had come from the USA in support of their new bishops.
They were also reassured by the presence of Primates from the West Indies, the Indian Ocean, Central Africa, West Africa, Rwanda, the Southern Cone and Nigeria as well as bishops from the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil and England. It was clear evidence of the worldwide response to their desire to remain part of the Anglican Communion.
Greetings were carried to the new bishops from 31 members of the General Synod of the Church of England and also from the Group which challenged the church in this country with its “Covenant for the Church of England”. The significance of these events is massive. We are often given to understand that the Global South along with conservative Anglicans in the USA and Canada are unloving, hard line traditionalists, schismatic, resistant to change and lacking in compassion.
True, a large number has chosen to walk away from their national church. They were not prepared to see the church they love taken over, nor the Gospel they love distorted, by an intolerant liberal fringe that has moved away from mainstream Christian faith and without a message of hope even for the people they seek to serve.
Now these people of historic Anglican faith can remain within Anglican structures. Clearly these arrangements cannot be anything other than provisional or temporary, and this was understood by those participating. . So these consecrations were not an expression of a “Religious Rift” as Nairobi’s “Daily Nation” called it. Even less was it an anti-gay demonstration.
Talk was much more of a new approach to mission within our church. “I see a new reformation happening in the Anglican Communion”, declared Archbishop Nzimbi. “God is at work renewing it for mission. We want the Gospel to be preached as we have received it and to form churches grounded in God’s Word and relevant to today’s challenges”.
Bishop Bob Duncan (Pittsburgh), the Moderator of conservative Anglicans in the USA, saw this weekend as “a tremendous step forward in providing missionary leadership necessary to building a united renewed Anglicanism in North America”.
The presence of representatives of CANA (led by Bp. Martyn Minns) and AMiA (led by Bp. Charles Murphy), and other groups at these consecrations was testimony to that. It was indeed a courageous weekend.
This was the Anglican Communion as it should be and pointed the way forward to a new expression of Anglicanism in the USA, freed from the shackles of an inadequate and superficial culture-shaped theology, free to share Good News to a nation and a world starved of it.
–The Rt. Rev. Colin Bazley is former Bishop of Chile and Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone; this article appears on page 5 of the September 7, 2007, issue of the Church of England Newspaper
I like the use of the word ‘reformation’. 🙂