The 50 most influential figures in the Anglican Church: 10-1
From Telegraph.co.uk
With the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican communion’s landmark summit, beginning next week, The Sunday Telegraph has compiled the Lambeth Power List, a countdown of the most influential figures in the worldwide Church.
Have your say: Who should be on the list?
10. John Sentamu - Archbishop of York
Yorkshireman of the Year in 2007, the Ugandan-born John Sentamu has become immensely popular in Britain - his adopted country after being forced into exile following incurring the wrath of dictator Idi Amin.
A high court judge in the country, he was locked up for 90 days and beaten before he escaped to England, where he read theology and trained for ministry in the Church of England.
His enthusiastic brand of learned and muscular Christianity quickly brought him to notice. He was appointed Bishop of Stepney in 1996 and at that time served as advisor to the Stephen Lawrence Judicial Enquiry, he later chaired the Damilola Taylor review.
In 2002 he was appointed Bishop of Birmingham and in 2005 became Archbishop of York.
In an interview before his enthronement he gained the affection of the British public by calling for a rediscovery of pride in their cultural identity, warning against multiculturalism. He has also become well known for his symbolic protests.
In 2006 he pitched a tent in York Minster and fasted in solidarity with those suffering from the Middle East Conflict. In a BBC interview with Andrew Marr, he cut up his dog collar as a symbol for the way President Mugabe is stripping Zimbabweans of their identity. He also campaigned for the release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston.
He is a loyal supporter and friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury and widely tipped as a potential successor.
9. Michael Nazir-Ali - Bishop of Rochester
Michael Nazir-Ali has become one of the most prominent church figures in Britain with his championing of traditional Christianity.
He came to Britain in 1986 after receiving death threats in his native Pakistan, but his stand on issues such as immigration and Islam has seen his life threatened in this country as well.
Despite facing vitriolic criticism from liberal quarters, he is widely admired for speaking up for British values that much of the public are concerned are under threat.
He was the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion in the Raiwind diocese being made a consultant to the 1988 Lambeth Conference by Archbishop Robert Runcie.
Subsequently he became head of the Church of England’s influential Church Mission Society.
He was appointed England’s first Asian diocesan bishop of Rochester in 1994 and was touted as a likely successor to Lord Carey, as Archbishop of Canterbury.
He has become increasingly unhappy with the liberal drift of the Church of England and Anglican Communion and is one of the few English bishops who has refused to attend the Lambeth Conference, a decision made because of the Anglican Church’s failure to discipline the Episcopal Church of the USA.
He was a keynote speaker at the recent Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem.
8. Peter Jensen - Archbishop of Sydney
Consecrated Archbishop of Sydney in 2001, Peter Jensen is a forceful spokesman for evangelical Christianity in Australia and beyond.
He called upon all churches in his archdiocese to aim to reach ten per cent of their communities by 2012.
As a result of this initiative more than 60 new congregations were started between 2002 and 2005 seeing a thirty per cent increase in candidates for Anglican ministry.
He has become an increasingly influential ally to the conservative African churches of Anglicanism despite the fact that he is only a regional Archbishop rather than Primate of the Australian Church.
He became the public face of the recent Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem and shortly afterwards travelled across to England to rouse up evangelical clergy in support. "Sexual immorality leads you outside the Kingdom of God, just as does greed. It is not a second-order issue," he told them.
7. Greg Venables - South American primate
Despite heading a small province, he has become one of the most articulate proponents of the Anglican communion’s conservative wing, bridging the cultural divide between west and ‘global south’.
Originally a missionary from England, he presides over minority Anglican dioceses in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay.
He has provided alternative episcopal oversight to parishes in the US and Canada, and has recently taken the Diocese of San Joaquin under his wing.
He is in negotiations with the Diocese of Pittsburgh which looks certain to depart The Episcopal Church later this year.
He intends to attend the Lambeth Conference, despite the fact that many of his African allies are boycotting it.
He says of the split in the Anglican Communion that the division is near to final.
"Dialogue is the one thing that is lacking. I don’t thing we are going to change people’s minds but I think it would be wrong for us to get to a point where we acknowledge a division and try to organise it without being together and talking about it."
6. Desmond Tutu - Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
His courageous stand against apartheid gained him unprecedented support for the better part of three decades.
It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the infrastructure and closer links within the Anglican Communion grew precisely to support him as he personally risked life and limb in the struggle.
He later earned even greater kudos when he headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which became the litmus test for effective mediation work between divided factions.
In retirement he became a champion of the cause of gays and lesbians comparing their liberation to the struggle against apartheid.
5. Henry Orombi - Archbishop of Uganda
Leader-in-waiting for millions of Anglicans in sub-saharan Africa as Archbishop Akinola gets closer to retirement. Archbishop Orombi represents a younger generation of evangelical leaders in the Anglican Church presiding over growth and commitment to mission and social work.
The Anglican Church in Uganda has been at the forefront of halting the country’s HIV/Aids pandemic and has experienced significant growth in the number of churchgoers.
Ugandan’s opposition to homosexual practice is defended in terms of its history.
Archbishop Orombi is one of the few Anglican leaders to unequivocally condemn violence against homosexuals, but recently said he didn’t wear his dog collar when he is in countries where there are supporters of homosexuals.
He described "these people" as "dangerous".
4. Gene Robinson - Bishop of New Hampshire
He is the most divisive figure in the Anglican world, whose appointment as bishop five years ago engulfed the Anglican communion in a bitter conflict that shows no signs of abating.
The openly gay cleric is controversially being given a platform at St Mary’s Putney where revolutionaries plotted to change the English constitution during the civil war.
His sermon marks the launch of a radical agenda that the liberals hope will help to rewrite Anglican policy over the coming weeks as hundreds of bishops prepare to head to Canterbury to discuss resolving the current crisis.
Bishop Robinson, who “married” Mark Andrew, his partner of nearly 20 years, believes that the gay clergy in the Church of England are unable to lead fulfilled lives because they are being forced to lie about their sexuality.
3. Peter Akinola - Archbishop of Nigeria
Peter Akinola represents for many commentators an epochal shift in the centre of gravity for Christianity from western dominance to what is now commonly known as the ‘Global South’.
With 18 million committed churchgoers, the Church of Nigeria dwarfs any other in the Anglican Communion. After his election as Archbishop in 2000 he outlined a clear programme of evangelism, social work and self-sufficiency in the sectarian and troubled country.
At first he appeared to have a close relationship to the American Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, but that changed in 2003 when the General Convention ratified the election of Gene Robinson to New Hampshire.
Since then he has upset the American Church by intervening in its affairs with the creation of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America that he brought under his leadership.
In 2006 he was named as one of Time magazines leaders of the year, but since then his stock has fallen.
He failed to be re-elected as Chairman of the 37 million-strong Christian Association of Nigeria, and has attracted criticism for inciting violence in the Cartoon riots.
His defenders argue that he was doing no more than voice the frustration a leader of a Christian community whose members are routinely attacked in some parts of the country.
However his support for draconian anti-gay legislation has made him a favourite bete-noire for liberal anger. He has also referred to homosexuals as an ‘abomination’.
One of the key leaders of the Gafcon movement, the Church of Nigeria was a trailblazer for removing the link to Canterbury from their constitution.
He is believed to be behind Gafcon’s own revision of the office of the Archbishop, as merely an ‘historic’ one rather than an instrument or focus of unity in the worldwide church.
It seems now that after Akinola’s frequent gaffes other leaders are taking over the leadership of the Communion’s conservatives but as leader of 18 million of the continents Anglicans, Archbishop Akinola remains one of the most influential Anglican leaders - for better and for worse.
2. Katherine Jefferts Schori - Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the US
A former oceanographer and pilot, Katharine Jefferts Schori came from nowhere to become Presiding Bishop in 2006. Despite being bishop of one of the smallest dioceses, Nevada, she was projected to the primacy on a wave of pushing the frontiers of American Anglicanism, rather than through a long, demonstrable record as a bishop.
She doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to God - that would be to "put God in an awfully small box" and also said: "To believe there is only one way of reading the Bible is hubris.”
She is influential because she represents an Episcopal Church which has increasingly hardened its stance towards the Anglican Communion.
As the leader of the American Church, she has used very precise language to walk a thin line between flouting the requests of the Anglican Communion and doing just enough to garner the support of other parts of the liberal Church.
Schori has concentrated on relationships with Canada, the central American dioceses, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa and, Europe which some say points towards an Episcopalian Communion in future, if the Anglican Communion falls apart.
Has pursued a strategy of litigation in the US in cases where conservative congregations and dioceses are keen to pursue a negotiated settlement on property questions. Believes that parish property is held in trust for The Episcopal Church and is happy to spend millions in the courts to pursue that policy.
1. Rowan Williams - Archbishop of Canterbury
A Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford by the age of 36, he was made Bishop of Monmouth five years later and was received with almost universal acclaim when he became Archbishop of Canterbury.
Churchgoers and the media were excited at the prospect of a highly-gifted theologian and academic in charge of the Church of England.
The only objections came from some evangelicals who were wary of his liberal past. As Archbishop of Wales he had ordained a practising homosexual, and Oxford argued that gay relationships could be accepted by the Church.
However, he moved to meet these concerns by promising to abide by the majority teaching of the Church.
Those who hoped he would lead the Church of England in a more liberal direction have found instead he has tried to back a middle path through the Anglican Communion’s travails.
Only months into office, he asked his friend Jeffrey John to withdraw from becoming Bishop of Reading amid great controversy and he commissioned the Windsor Report which largely placed the blame for division on the North Americans ‘walking apart’ from the rest of the Communion.
While many liberals have attacked him, the conservatives in the communion are also becoming increasingly critical, believing that he has not done enough to discipline the liberal American Church, which consecrated Gene Robinson.
He also became embroiled in a controversy this year over his remarks on the role of sharia law in Britain, later apologising for any “unclarity” that provoked the uproar.
This Lambeth Conference could define how the Archbishop is remembered.
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July 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
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