The consecration by Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of the Kenya Anglican Church of two US bishops raises the temperature of the rancorous dispute over acceptance of gay and lesbian people as bishops dividing the two wings of the 70 million-strong Global Anglican Church:
But what Kenya's Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has done is not simply about homosexuality.
It goes to the heart of the way the Anglican Church sees itself.
Anglicans, like Catholic and Orthodox Christians, cherish the unity of their Church above almost everything else.
And the focus of unity is the bishop.
A very large part of the reason for having bishops at all is to give physical form to the Church's unity.
Symbolically, emotionally and in most of the ways that matter to believers, bishops are there to show that the Church remains united.
Heading for anarchy?
So when one bishop (in this case Dr Nzimbi) acts in a way that undercuts the authority of another bishop, it is the clearest possible way of emphasising the Church's disunity.
The Radical Fundamentalist Anglican Church in the West is using the Kenyan situation as a springboard towards creating a separate church within a church in the United States and beyond.
A Church with a capital 'C'
'C' as in Conservatism, Class discrimination, Cruelty .... you get the picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment