Anglican bishop John Chane says 'demonic' conservatives going in...

Tag : Documentary Bag

Bishop Chane is one of the 125 bishops from the Episcopal Churchattending the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of 650 Anglicanbishops from 38 provinces around the world in Canterbury.
About 230 bishops, mainly from the Global South provinces ofNigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, are boycotting the conferencebecause of the liberal direction of the Western church on sexualityand the Bible. More than 290 conservatives, including most of the230, attended the recent Global Anglican Future Conference, orGafcon, in Jerusalem which set up an alternative Fellowship ofConfessing Anglicans to rival the official structures of theAnglican Communion.
Bishop Chane was talking to a BBC2 documentary on Gafcon, Battle of the Bishops , to be broadcast soon.
Dr Peter Akinola, the Nigerian primate, who is among thoseboycotting Lambeth, told the BBC: "Gafcon is a rescue mission - itis our duty to rescue whatever is left of the church from error,from all those, whoever they are, who have chosen to mutilate, todistort and to even deny the Gospel and to preach somethingdifferent from what we know."
The Archbishop of Jos, in Nigeria, Benjamin Kwashi, another Lambethboycotter and a man tipped as a likely successor to Dr Akinola,criticised the last Lambeth conference, held ten years ago. Hesaid: "At Lambeth 98 we were looking for a place where we could cryour hearts out and pray and look for the support of the widerChurch who would bless us and pray for us. You don't need muchmoney, you just need some words of encouragement. Those things wereabsent.
"Respect is earned. When it is thrown away, gathering it can bedifficult. From the Mother Church of England, there is theassumption that therefore we can do anything and Africans willautomatically come with us, or respect us. I think that is aninsult.
"So now Gafcon is an alternative to that, where we can crytogether, look at our struggles, HIV and Aids problems, infantmortality, all those issues that dehumanise us as Africans. Thewider Anglican world, if you ask my opinion, don't want to listento us.'
BBC 2's This World: Battle of the Bishops is on July 21 at 7pm.