First, Martyn Minns has responded to last weekend’s Washington Post article by Bishop John Chane. His response is in a Word document on his own parish website, but an html copy can be seen here. As you would expect, he is strongly critical of Bishop Chane.
Second, Andrew Carey has interviewed the Archbishop of Kaduna, Josiah Idowu-Fearon about the violence in Nigeria, in this week’s Church of England Newspaper, Why should a cartoon bring us to civil war? His views are very interesting.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting the good Archbishop and hearing him speak several times. His views are always very interesting.
Do you, Simon, or does anyone here know why he wasn’t made Primate in the last go-around? There were rumors of skullduggery, but since there are always rumors of skullduggery in Nigeria, I don’t know whether to believe them.
Minns’ piece continues a pattern of more irrelevant (not to mention pathetic) *comparisons*: “Oh, Sharia law is Nigeria is so much worse/why doesn’t +Chane speak out against Saudi treatment of Christians?” Because +Chane and +PJA both *claim* to be Anglicans, ergo +Chane may appeal to a common authority, and (properly) rebuke a brother bishop? Hello? If this is the best that the critics can come up with… [Was highly amused that on the Minns page, one T19 commenter had an HTML code for “the usual suspects in the blogosphere”: yup, the commenter was listing my favorite sites—for RELIABLE Anglican news!—here… Read more »
Near the end of the article Archbishop of Kaduna, Josiah Idowu Fearon, contemplates the role of religious leaders he says: “This has been bothering me. Where have we failed? What do we teach our followers? How do we live our lives as Christians and Muslims?” He argues that Christians and Muslims must now move from understanding to appreciating each other’s spirituality. As an evangelical he is aware that might lead to accusations of syncretism or weakness, but he firmly believes that such a step does not involve swapping one’s own convictions for the other’s. “I’m ashamed of being a Nigerian,”… Read more »
It seems the clouds are gathering over poor Nigeria!
Martyn notes that laws against ‘unnatural acts’ are still on the books in Virginia. This is despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Texas case. That they are still on the books does not speak so much to abiding concern about homosexual sex as it does ignorant homophobia and the reluctance of the General Assembly to remove hateful laws from the books. It was a Virginia law forbidding ‘mixed marriages’ that was finally struck down in the late 1960s. The same General Ass is busy as we speak crafting a most hateful anti-gay marriage amendments to the state constitution. I… Read more »