Bernard Nzimbi, head of the Anglican Church in Kenya, entrenched his anti-gay position by consecrating Anglican clerics Bill Atwood and Bill Murdoch as bishops last Thursday in Kenya. Atwood and Murdoch, from the United States, oppose gay unions, which have been authorised by certain Anglican dioceses in North America.
Nzimbi insisted in an interview with news agencies that the consecration would not widen the rift between the Anglican Church in North America and African Anglicans who oppose gay unions.
“Since the talk about gay marriage started, many congregations in America have been looking for oversight from overseas,” he said.
“We are not invading other people’s territory as such but preaching the gospel the way it was brought to us, the way it is written,” said Nzimbi, who has spoken out strongly against admitting homosexuals to the clergy.
The consecration of gay bishops has split the almost 80-million-strong Anglican Church. This week’s consecration of two conservative American clerics in Nairobi will be followed by next week’s consecration of John Guernsey by Uganda’s Henry Orombi.
The church has been torn between liberals who advocate a broad interpretation of the Bible and conservatives who interpret its narrative literally. Liberal elements of the church in the US and Canada accuse African Anglicans of providing succour to conservatives.
Almost 3,4-million Kenyans are Anglicans, while about 15-million Nigerians are Anglicans. The consecration ceremony on Thursday was attended by bishops from the West Indies, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Rwanda and Nigeria.
Phumi Mtethwa, of the Lesbians and Gays Equality Project, condemned the “export of hate and exclusion” from the US, saying the consecration of conservative North American clerics on African soil is an attack on freedom of sexual orientation.
An Anglican bishop in Zimbabwe, who asked not to be identified, said homosexuality is a “sin” and urged gay and lesbian people to “repent”. Pressed for comment, the right reverend of the Anglican Church in Lusaka, Derek Kamukwamba, said the church was engaged in “dialogue” to come up with a position on the issue.
He then described American Anglicans, who ordained Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in 2003, as “stubborn and arrogant”. Kamukwamba said stubbornness was “pushing people like Nzimbi” to consecrate anti-gay bishops. “We will not receive any gay priest in Zambia,” he pointed out.
Bernard Malango, the Anglican bishop for Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Botswana, described the consecration of Robinson as bringing “darkness, disappointment, sadness and grief” to the parishioners in his province.
Trevor Mwamba, the Anglican bishop of Botswana, when asked whether more US clerics would be coming to Southern Africa to be consecrated, said, “I hope not”.
Mwamba recalled the positions reached at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, which recognised that there are people “who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation”. This conference decreed that the church commit itself to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons”.
While it rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”, it called “on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals”.
The conference, though, could not “advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordain those involved in same-gender unions”.
The 2004 decision by a diocese in the US to authorise the blessing of same-sex relationships gave rise to the Windsor Commission, which recommended that “bishops … stop interfering in provinces and dioceses other than their own”.
Mwamba described the decisions by Nzimba and others to consecrate clergymen from the US as “highly regrettable” as it violated the “ancient principle of provincial autonomy by intervening in dioceses and provinces other than their own”.
Mwamba likened such actions to “pouring fuel on a fire” and called for “space to cool down”. He urged African bishops to “be careful they are not dragged into fighting proxy wars” and said they should focus on “playing a reconciliatory” role in the church.