February 15, 2007, Nigeria’s Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola met in Dar es Salam with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to discuss their differences over the denomination’s accommodation of the gay agenda. They were there for a worldwide Anglican primates meeting, a group riven by that issue since the 1990s. Lines were drawn, with Williams favoring the “progressives” and Akinola standing up for the faithful reading of Scripture on this issue. Acknowledging the impasse, Williams observed, “We shall see who blinks first.”
Neither Akinola nor a host of his fellow Global South primates blinked, but rather went on to rally around the position laid out in the 1998, decennial Lambeth Conference, wherein, by a vote of 389 to 190, the body declared that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture.” Nevertheless, in 2002, Canada’s Diocese of Westminster approved the blessing of same-sex marriage. Then, in 2003, Williams appointed avowed-but-celibate homosexual Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading (an appointment withdrawn under fire). That same year, practicing homosexual Gene Robinson was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire. The vast majority of Global South Primates were appalled at this behavior, with Archbishop Tutu of South Africa (“What’s all the fuss?”) being one of the few exceptions.
Abp. Akinola emerged as the leader of the opposition to the Global North’s blasé attitude toward these unbiblical developments, and, for his efforts, Time magazine deemed him twice (2006 and 2007) as one of the 100 people “whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world.” To honor this movement, Kairos Journal flew Akinola and three of his co-belligerent archbishops to New York for a 2005 evening of celebration, the others being Henry Orombi of Uganda, Gregory Venables of Argentina, and Datak Yong Ping Chung of Singapore, with introductions by J. I. Packer and Os Guinness. The vitality of their churches was underscored, for instance, by the fact that there were more Anglicans/Episcopalians worshipping on Sundays in Nigeria than in all of North America and Europe put together.
These Anglican developments point us to Philip Jenkins’s writing on The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity. And the story is told with encyclopedic care by Nigerian journalist, Gbenga Gbesan in Peter Akinola . . . Biblical Fidelity Against the Gay Agenda in the Global Anglican Communion. The Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach wrote the foreword, and his leadership titles (at ACNA and GAFCOM) reflected the growth of Akinola’s cause throughout, respectively, North America and the world.
Akinola and his kin have said, in effect, “Your missionaries brought us this Bible and said its teachings were essential to life. Now you tell us it’s unreliable. No, thank you.” This response stands, as evidenced by a 2023 letter to Williams’s successor, Justin Welby. When he approved the blessing of same-sex partnerships, Archbishops from the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches declared they no longer recognized him as “first among equals.”
And, so, the salutary uprising continues.