Jim Naughton the Communications Director for the Diocese of Washington has published Archbishop Eames Speaks at Cathedral, VTS which contains an account of the questions asked at the public lectures, as well as from an interview with Eames. One quote:
During an interview at the college, Eames expressed concern over the role that wealthy conservative donors in the United States were playing in the current controversy. He said he was “quite certain” that many church leaders in the developing world had been offered financial inducements to distance themselves from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
“I think it is happening, I just don’t think it is moral,” Eames said. “Is it the might of finance that will influence a theological outlook, and then that outlook come to dominate he Communion?
“It raises a serious question for me: what is the real nature of their faith and their Anglicanism? It is certainly different from mine.”
Conservative leaders have said they are simply trying to help poor provinces that cannot in good conscience accept financial support from provinces that differ with them on the issue of homosexuality.
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, on the American TV network PBS has its Anglican Communion Update which also contains an interview with Eames. More detail of the interview with Kim Lawton is on this page.
For years, wealthy ECUSA churches like Trinity Wall Street bankroll churches in developing countries (and dare I say even the Communion) with no eyeballs raised. Some ‘poor churches’ feel it is immoral to collect money from those they do not agree with. Those that agree with the position of the poor are coming to their aid and some guys feel that is not moral. Before such statements are made, Leaders should consider what the poor are receiving and what they are missing. Which is greater? PS. Did we hear it took a $10m carefully organised package to lure a key… Read more »
Hello Tunde, I think you raise a fair point which I would love to see debated. But let me restrict my response to your PS, where I think a few facts might help clear up what I think is an unfair insinuation. If you are referring to the $10 million grant from President Bush’s PEPFAR program that was awarded to a partnership of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, Fresh Ministries of Jacksonville, FL and the Diocese of Washington, I think you are giving us a little too much credit. We didn’t, indeed, couldn’t “arrange” this grant. We competed for… Read more »
Love the ideas raised by Abp Akinola’s director of communications! In future I shall always think of him and his primate sitting round wiggling their eyeballs at each other in despair at the enormities committed by lesser Anglicans. Hope Tunde’s thinking is clearer than his syntax!