Updated Tuesday morning
Chicago Tribune Anti-gay Anglican archbishop speaks in Wheaton
Chicago Sun-Times ‘God wants unity’ but doesn’t get it
Northwest Herald Critic of Episcopal support for gay clergy speaks in Wheaton
Associated Press Nigerian archbishop, foe of gay clergy, visits church gathering
Update
The Chicago Tribune also has a video report linked from this page.
Episcopal News Service has David Skidmore Followers, protestors greet Akinola at Wheaton chapel.
“”Fornication is fornication. Adultery is adultery. … These are the areas of primary evangelism,” Akinola said.”
Gee and here I thought Jesus had said the greatest principle was to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. THAT was the area of primary evangelism.
Curious what some people think is central. I don’t disagree that fornication is a bad thing, and likewise adultery. I’m not convinced that either issue applies here.
But to say that these things are “central” seems a trifle much.
Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked gets far more ink in both Old and New Testaments. The death and resurrection of Jesus seems to have been more imortant to Paul than either fornication or adultery.
What is this heretical gospel Brother Akinola preaches?
Since Akinola has said he is afraid of protesters and “pamphleteers,” we picketed him. As the organizer, I consider this a historic first.
I would be very surprised if this is the last such demonstration. Gay people in Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa deserve all the support we can give them.
On Sunday in Wheaton, Illinois, we were their Episcopal Church at work.
Seems clear enough so far to me. Policing people’s sex lives trumps any and all other forms of paying attention to your neighbor, enough so that policing at least is equal to the other forms, if not in most instances more important than those other ways of paying attention to your neighbor. The current notion that this policing either is a pre-requisite to, or even completely exhausts, the force and meaning of our gospel message is far from a foregone conclusion to me, but then I am already defined as an Outsider because I am an alternative follower of Jesus… Read more »
Akinola’s version of seeker-sensitive evangelism:
“”If someone claims to love God and is living his life in sin, call it, tell him, so that he can grow in obedience. … Call him a liar and do it,” Akinola said.”
Now let’s see, I’m sure there’s something in that big thick book, the um, er, whatchamacallit, Bible, that says something like, “let who who is without sin cast the first stone…” Liar, sinner, whatever.
Maybe that page is missing from his copy.
This guy makes Jerry Falwell look like a raving liberal (well, technically a dead raving liberal, but you know…)
I see a woman in deacon’s garb applauding. Does she not realize how limited, marginalized, or denied are women’s ministries in much of the Global South? In applauding the exclusion of glbt Christians, she is also applauding her own marginalization. How very sad.
All this from personnel of the same nation that sends all those fine “business opportunities” via SPAM email. I have the feeling that those parishes which connect with Nigeria and the other Global South jurisdictions will deeply regret their decisions once they discover all the strings that have been attached with their committments.
And a government which is corrupt through and through – and strongly supported by the Nigerian church.
This is not directly a comment on the Akinola articles, but I found it through a link on political blogger Andrew Sullivan’s site (and Sullivan is gay and of British birth), and I felt it was relevant to the ongoing discussion here: “[W]e have to recognize that the moral landscape has changed. People who have been through the upheaval have to find forms that allow for long-term loving relations between equal partners who will in many cases also want to become parents and bring up their children in love and security. But these can’t be simply identical to the codes… Read more »
So, Cynthia…what is your logic?
Do you not want the lady deacon to think about her theological positions rather than to make an alliance with others merely on the basis of “a common enemy”?
“[W]e have to recognize that the moral landscape has changed. “ I have problems with this argument. Like my Evangelical brethren, I believe God does not change. Like them, I would say that it is immaterial whether or not society’s moral landscape has changed. Indeed, I do not trust society to set any kind of moral landscape. I am gay. Society once thought it quite moral to bundle me up and put me a the bottom of the stake while they burned the heretics, people like me being too evil to stand up to die. It doesn’t matter that society… Read more »
“Do you not want the lady deacon to think about her theological positions rather than to make an alliance with others merely on the basis of “a common enemy”?” I for one would want her to consider the fact that she is a deacon by the same kind of Scriptural interpretation she now opposes for homosexuals. She needn’t slam in the face of others the door that was opened for her. I would want her to admit that many of those with whom she has made common cause would happily remove the collar from her neck, and will if they… Read more »
Ford – pls have a read of ST Paul when he talks about false teachers and the importance of not letting them infect the church…..read what he says and you will see that he does tell Christians to judge the teaching they hear and he does not teach that all who call themselves “fellow Christians” are than…..does he?? No – he is very clear – avoid false teaching and false teachers………you have made up your own views that we are to respect and accomodate those who are subverting the teaching of the church but I shall stick with ST Paul… Read more »
NP,
My comments to you about judgement concern your judgement of others and your apparent idea that you as an individual have the right and ability to judge the correctness of doctrine. That’s all.