Commentary: Torn-again Anglican Church

WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- The copyright for the most marvelous pun on the woes of worldwide Anglicanism doubtless belongs the Australian newspaper, The Age. It recently labeled that denomination set for schism a "torn-again Church."

Actually, on the eve of the Episcopal Church's fateful General Convention, which will begin Wednesday in Minneapolis, little more than gallows humor seems appropriate. For it is hard to see how the haughty "Me, Me, Me Christianity" of North American and European Anglicans can be reconciled with the faithfulness of their African and Asian brethren in the trenches.

It is not inconceivable that in the end Anglicans - and perhaps Lutherans and other Protestants as well - will experience a catastrophe analogous to the splits in the medieval Catholic church that produced altogether 35 antipopes.

As David Virtue, editor and publisher of a feisty orthodox Anglican online service, recently mused, his co-religionists may well wind up with an anti-Canterbury before long. And where will the latter be located? Most likely in Lagos, Nigeria, the country with the world's largest number of Anglicans - 17.5 million.

If anyone had suggested 50 years ago that any historical denomination would break up over the insistence of a tiny minority that active homosexuals be consecrated priests and bishops and same-sex couples be wedded, you would have called for the paddy wagon to cart that person off to the nearest insane asylum.

What makes this whole conflict so infuriating is that North American and European church leaders don't give a damn about what their spiritual bankruptcy does to Africa, where orthodox Christianity is thriving in an often perilously hostile Muslim environment. Africa would "go Islam" if the Western Anglican Church accepted homosexuality, one senior Nigerian cleric recently wrote.

The same holds of course true for other denominations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is in full communion with the Episcopalians, is expected to approve same-sex unions and the ordination of homosexuals within the next two years. On Sunday, the ELCA's presiding bishop, Mark S. Hanson, a liberal, was elected President of the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva.

He may well wind up presiding over a split similar to that in the Anglican Communion, for his Federation's burgeoning African members take as dim a view of North American and European heresies in sexual matters as do their Anglican brethren. There are huge and ever-growing Lutheran populations in nations such as Tanzania, a former German colony, and they, too, are orthodox.

The day may not be far off when these churches throw up leaders as gutsy and powerful as Nigeria's Anglican primate, Peter Akinola. Archbishop Akinola is currently in the United States awaiting the outcome of the Minneapolis Convention, where Canon V. Gene Robison is expected to have his election to the New Hampshire bishopric approved.

Akinola, supported by other African, Asian and Australian prelates, has made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of playing the Most Reverend Nice-Guy anymore. To Akinola's orthodox Christian worldview, the militancy of homosexual activists within the Western churches is no longer something you can deal with by appealing to tolerance. As he said before leaving Lagos, "I personally think this is... a satanic attack on God's church because I think ... having sex with another man is so unscriptural."

There is no wiggle room left. Already Akinola and the other 10 archbishops and 81 bishops of Nigeria have severed communion with the Diocese of New Westminster (Vancouver) in Canada because it approved of the blessing of same-sex unions. Being a man of intellectual honesty, Akinola knows that his "Here I stand" attitude has its price.

He accused churches in Europe and North America of having long used their wealth to intimidate their African sisters so much that they closed their eyes to their shenanigans. Akinola called this neo-imperialism. So he set an example other denominations in Africa are bound to follow:

In an encyclical, Akinola called on Nigerian Anglicans to contribute to an endowment fund, which will allow financially weak African churches to remain faithful and not be intimidated by the theologically corrupt denominations in America and Europe.

It appears, though, that contributions even from these two continents are beginning to flow into this fund because there is no shortage of Christians in America and Europe who firmly believe in an African, Asian and South American kairos - or God-given moment in history - for the tormented Church of Christ.