Pro-gay vicar of Putney made an African canon
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph.co.uk
It’s unusual for an English cleric to be made a canon of a cathedral in the diocese of Sefwi-Wiawso in Ghana.
But even more unlikely when the vicar happens to be a militant pro-gay campaigner, whose views are anathema to the majority of African churches.
The picture of Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney, being installed as an honorary canon by Ghanian and Nigerian priests will appal Peter Akinola, the Nigerian archbishop.
This is the vicar that invited the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson to preach in his church on the eve of the Lambeth conference.
Archbishop Akinola has described gays as lower than dogs.
The archbishop, and all clergy in his province, boycotted the Lambeth Conference in protest at the presence of American bishops involved in the consecration of Bishop Robinson.
Therefore it’s safe to assume that he won’t be running down the streets of Abuja overjoyed at the thought of the arch-liberal Fraser being honoured by a neighbouring country’s Church.
His feelings towards whoever his Nigerian priests were at the ceremony in Ghana will be no warmer.
However, Bishop Abraham Kobina Ackah of Sefwi-Wiawso is to be congratulated.
He’s taken a brave stand in making the vicar of Putney a canon of his cathedral and in doing so is refusing to allow the issue of homosexuality to continue to be a source of division.
So Fraser’s support for gay clergy may be unpalatable for many African clergy – and some English ones for that matter – but do his views on one subject render him unacceptable as a priest?
Obviously not in Bishop Abraham’s mind.
They might not see eye to eye over their reading of the Bible, but the gay debate is far from the only issue on which they would differ. And yet there is far more that they would share in common.
By making the appointment, Bishop Abraham has sent out a message to his colleagues and held out a hand of friendship from the African church to the more liberal Church of England.
There are more pressing issues for Africa than those that have got Archbishop Akinola so wound up.
Writing about his trip, Fraser makes that pretty clear:
"The dynamic Bishop Abraham has not been paid for eighteen months, nor have any of his Ghanaian clergy.
"This is church in the raw, lived day by day. My job, as their new canon, is to try and explain all this to those of us whose challenges as a church are so very different. Please pray with me for the people of Sefwi-Wiawso."
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