According to Box Turtle Bulletin in This Anglican Bishop Wants You To Rot In Jail:
Archbishop Peter Akinola, retired Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria, has enthusiastically endorsed Nigeria’s anti-gay bill which would impose criminal penalties on same-sex unions and LGBT gatherings. Akinola told Nigeria’s Guardian that the Nigerian government should reject warnings from Britain and the United States that efforts to deny basic human rights to LGBT people would have international implications…
Here is the original article in the Nigerian Guardian Akinola, Others Urge Support For Anti-Gay Marriage Bill
Akinola, who described the bill as “a new orientation towards transformation and reformation of Nigeria from its moral decadence into a new platform of sound morality,” said President Jonathan would be going against God’s will for Nigeria if he refused to sign the controversial bill into law.
He stated that Nigeria needs such law to preserve the nation’s sacred moral heritage for national development.
The former Primate of Church of Nigeria, who described homosexuality as an aberration, said it was repugnant to the word of God and African beliefs. “Same-sex marriage is against natural order of creation; it is against the laws of our religions, and it is against our African custom and traditions,” he said.
Responding to international protests that the bill would limit the rights of homosexuals in Nigeria, Akinola said human rights have limits by the operative society.
“Can you say you have right to marry anybody you want and because of your right, you now go and marry your mother or sister or daughter in the name of human right? For example, in this community, everybody has the right to own a car, but this community says that you drive your car on the right lane. Can you now say because it is your right to own a car, you must drive on the left, while every other person drives on the right?” he asked.
The full text of this bill, as passed by the Nigerian Senate, can be found here.
It now passes to the Nigerian House of Representatives, where this week’s statements from the US President and US Secretary of State, were not well received.
If anyone says that this is a predictable “backlash” (to President Obama and Secretary Clinton—and earlier, PM Cameron), I will respond w/ the words of that son of Africa, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr: “The arc is long, but the universe bends towards justice.”
It is no backlash. This is par for the course.
Of course this is the “orthodox” Primate who signed up to the Dromantine anathema.
This just goes to show that ‘retired’ Archbishops of the Anglican Communion can still exercise an authority in the Church – beyond their retirement. Just look at Archbishop Kolini (AMiA) in America. And don’t forget ex-Archbishop Carey in the U.K.
And as for former Bishops, what’s Nazir-Ali up to at the moment? Has ACNA retained him as an advocate for joining up with the A.C.?
The paroxysm of homophobia coincides with an increasingly radical acceptance of homosexuality, with all its rights and relationships, just as heterosexuality is accepted, throughout the non-African and non-Islamic world. Installed in permanent backlash mode, the fundamentalists can make life miserable for a lot of people yet.
“Akinola supports Nigerian anti-Same-Sex Marriage Bill” Now there’s a surprise!
/sarcasm off/
I do not know enough of Africa to know how much of this is fuelled by a bitter,and to me anyhow, understandable resentment of colonisation, especially cultural colonisation. Of course this is a misplaced view – there are gay people everywhere- but does that in part explain the bitterness?
>>Can you now say because it is your right to own a car, you must drive on the left, while every other person drives on the right?” he asked.
Was he talking to small kids or what? Absolutely boring. I expect high intellectual reasoning from Anglican clergymen. Scriptures, Tradition and Reason, all three are equally important. Reason is common sense.
Alas, the sort of thing that when it hits the news, drives young people away in droves. Though it may rejoice some conservatives, this tears the Body of Christ.
And your evidence for that is… Where? There seems to be no shortage of young people in Nigerian churches.
@ CP36: unfortunately Akinola does not subscribe to the model referenced in your posting, i.e., the three-legged stool of Scripture, tradition and reason: Akinola believes in Sola Scruptura. He and his have said they believe the Archbishop of Canterbury to be un-Anglican because he does not read the Bible like an early 20th Century fundamentalist. Strange, huh?
Meanwhile I’m sick to death of all that “homosexuality isun-African” krapola. Akinola went to VTS. How the devil did he graduate? Wherever he was ordained his pre-ordination examination evidently was of a caliber consistent with the curruculum of a so-called bible college.
>>Alas, the sort of thing that when it hits the news, drives young people away in droves.
Agree. Most church leaders are living in history. Information Technology has caused secular governments to listen to the will of the people in many parts of the world. What makes clergymen think they can still rule over church members? What is so great about Conservatives? If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
It seems (from virtueonline) that Akinola is not the only retired Archbishop of the Anglican Communion to interfere with local goverment.
Although advertised, under his headline ‘U.K. Government under fire from former Archbishop of Canterbury’, the actual thread giving the information is not immediately available on his site; but David Virtue seems to think that former Archbishop George Carey is trying to interfere with the U.K. Government’s upcoming policy to enable Same-sex marriage.
As a private citizen that might be OK. But why is he still using his ex-primatial authority to make his point. His Lordship needs to retire properly.
“And your evidence for that is… Where?”
Among the dozens of young people I meet through my professional work who are repelled by a seemingly sex-obsessed church and revolted by precisely the sort of news quoted above. Many of my young friends would not enter a church if paid, and virtually all think it a collection of reactionary stuffed shirts.
I wonder if the young people of Nigeria who attend a church do so for perhaps other reasons than its support of homophobic hysteria?
In response to Rosemary, I don’t think it’s so much that the homophobia is driven by anti-colonialism as that dressing up homophobia in anti-colonial rhetoric legitimizes it.
I will say it again: I am sick unto death of the rubbish that comes from Akinola’s keyboard that is supposed to pass for theology and social critique. And I am equally sick of the tricks officials of the Communion – including +Rowan Cantuar – are pulling to accommodate Akinola’s type of anti-scientific, anti-intellectual, hate-filled rhetoric.
If my stridency in this posting offends some, so be it: I am dead-dog weary of bible-college-style blathering bigots questioning my relationship with Jesus.
Tradition developed before the Scriptures were written. Scriptures contains a record of that Tradition. Reason is necessary for interpreting the Scriptures and Tradition. No two people will see exactly the same information in the Scriptures. Sola Scriptura is not supported by the Scriptures itself. Not everything in the Bible is equally important. When a man makes himself an authority on Scriptures he deceives himself. There is much we don’t understand and we are still discovering new things about God. Sola Scriptura is to put God into a box. God is not bound by the Scriptures. It is what the Spirit… Read more »
“I wonder if the young people of Nigeria who attend a church do so for perhaps other reasons than its support of homophobic hysteria?”
Numbers of people, regardless of the reason for attendance, is no great guarantor of holiness or sanity of message. However, it is also telling that decent people feel an instinctive revulsion for the message of right-wing Christianity.
Again, I say look at the *quality* of the Christians in a church, not the *quantity*.
“Akinola went to VTS. How the devil did he graduate?”
Akinola is famous for his manipulation of “white guilt,” and there’s more than enough of that to go around in the U. S. It seems to work quite well on certain ABC’s, as well.