Updated Sunday
The Lagos Guardian has a long article New primate, same steadiness in the Anglican Church of Nigeria
From March next year when he will lead the over 18 million Nigerian Anglicans, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh will bring strict conservatism of his military background and years of close collaboration with out-going Primate Peter Akinola to bear on the Church, write Hendrix Oliomogbe (Asaba), Lawrence Njoku (Enugu) and Wole Oyebade (Lagos)
GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!
The world should not expect any thing less from the in-coming head of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh who will assume office in March next year. Primate-elect Okoh will be an iron-cast conservative, given the constituency he is coming from: The military. Until 2001 when he retired from the Nigerian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Okoh has not known another profession since adolescence. He worked for about four years with his uncle in private business after leaving primary school at the age of 12 in 1964.
On the current issues tearing the worldwide Anglican Communion apart, Archbishop Okoh is on the same plane as the man he will succeed on March 25, 2010, the ultra-conservative Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola who literarily looked the worldwide Anglican Church eye-ball to eye-ball and proclaimed that the Church was wrong to have looked the other side on a vital issue of spirituality. Since 2003 when Archbishop Akinola took the stand against the dilution of the priesthood with confessed gays in the United States (U.S.) and homosexuality, the Communion has not been the same again.
The worldwide Anglican Communion should not expect any deviation from Archbishop Okoh. In fact, he has been one of the greatest and most fastidious supporters of Archbishop Akinola on the Nigerian Anglican Communion’s stand against the “sins” of the Episcopal Church of the North Americas on the matter of embrace of gays and homosexuality in the Church…
Sunday The Lagos Guardian has Our Faith In Okoh, By Anglican Priests.
“GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!”
I wish people would stop trying to define Christianity for the rest of us.
“Whatsoever you did for the least of these, my brothers, you did for me….” isn’t a very conservative POV, at least as conservatism is (unfortunately) defined in the western world, today.
“GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!” – Lagos Guardian – And this is why the Anglican Church of Nigeria – and most of the dissident conservative ex-TEC Epioscopalians in North America, have remained so far behind the leading edge of the Gospel. Really this accent on the endemic conservatism of the Global South Provinces sounds more like… Read more »
“GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism.”
…which is why Jesus gave us the New Commandment, “Be as strictly conservative w/ each other, as I have been strictly conservative w/ you.”
“The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!”
The second clause of the Gloria Patri is a biblical saying? Exactly what Bible are they using in Nigeria, anyway? Or is it in mine, too, and I’ve just missed it all these years?
I know that things can be lost in translations or where people are speaking in a language other than their first, but have you ever read anything so pompous (other than anything written by Tom Wright)?
“Until 2001 when he retired from the Nigerian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Okoh has not known another profession since adolescence. He worked for about four years with his uncle in private business after leaving primary school at the age of 12 in 1964.”
So – from Deacon to Priest to Bishop to Archbishop in 8 years? Or was he ordained during his military career? I may have missed those details in an earlier account of his se .. .election. Of course, Becket went from laity to Archbishop even more quickly…
I know that things can be lost in translations or where people are speaking in a language other than their first, but have you ever read anything so pompous (other than anything written by Tom Wright)?
Posted by: Merseymike on Monday, 21 September 2009 at 11:16pm BST
I must confess, I have not.
On reading through the Lagos article again, I saw the following and could hardly believe my eyes: “ARCHBISHOP BERNET OKORO Advised the new Primate “to rely heavily on the King of Glory to attain a better height than the present Primate because the Church belongs to God.” I’m aware that English is not the first language of ABP.Okoro, but what precisely does he mean here? Does he mean (a) that the new Primate OKOH should rely heavily on the King of Glory (Himself) to attain to a better height than Abp. Akinola?, or (b) that Archbishop Okoh should rely on… Read more »
“GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!”
I wish people would stop trying to define Christianity for the rest of us.
“Whatsoever you did for the least of these, my brothers, you did for me….” isn’t a very conservative POV, at least as conservatism is (unfortunately) defined in the western world, today.