Anglican Mainstream

George Conger,  Church of England Newspaper

Government leaders in Nigeria have chastised Archbishop Nicholas Okoh and the Church of Nigeria over the consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. The Governor of the Rivers State in the Niger Delta this week told the Archbishop that the consecration of a lesbian bishop by the Anglican Communion diminished the moral authority of the Church in Africa and weakened its spiritual and social witness.

Enthroned as Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Communion’s largest province earlier this year, Archbishop Okoh has begun a tour of the national Church, meeting with Diocesan leaders and local officials. During the Archbishop’s meeting in Port Harcount with government officials a spokesman for Governor Rotimi Amaechi said the Glasspool consecration was a symbol of western moral decadence.

The governor told the new Archbishop, “Primate, you have a lot in your hands; the times are not good and the challenges are daunting.” By adopting the standards of the world and turning a blind eye to “moral laxity” the church was in danger of losing its prophetic voice, he said.

Archbishop Okoh has taken a high profile since assuming office as leader of the country’s largest Protestant denomination. At his diocesan synod last month, the Archbishop attacked the country’s culture of corruption, saying Nigeria was committing “suicide by instalment.”

Speaking with reporters after his meeting with the governor, Archbishop Okoh urged President Goodluck Jonathan to press on with his predecessor’s plans for ending the guerrilla insurgency in the Nigerian Delta. He encouraged President Jonathan, a native of the region to offer amnesty to the militants under the programme initiated by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

“A Niger Delta son is now in charge and it is proper that he implements the amnesty programme to a logical conclusion,” he said on May 31.

He urged all Anglicans to participate in the 2011 General Elections. The country’s elections must be “free and fair,” he said, “otherwise we will make ourselves an object of ridicule to the rest of the world.”

Nigeria was “lagging behind in many things,” he said, but in “the area of democracy, we should be seen to be enthroning a credible government at local, state and federal levels,” he said.

Last week the Archbishop told the church leaders in Lagos that Nigeria must protect its fledgling democracy from both internal and external foes. The push by some agencies of the United Nations to normalise homosexuality was an affront to Nigerian democracy, he told church leaders at Christ Church Cathedral on Lagos Island.

“If the UN has made itself an agent for the propagation of homosexuality globally, then it is time for us to pull out of the organisation,” he said, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

“This is because the UN has no right to determine for or impose moral standards on us (Nigeria). Let us stand firm and refuse to be bought over by the West,’’ he said.

The gay agenda being forced upon Africa was un-Biblical and un-African, he said, and was a sign of a fallen world’s rebellion against God.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.