Africa to Control its Own Lambeth '08 Agenda Says Global South Head

|PIC1|The Anglican Church of Kenya head, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, who leads four million Kenyan Evangelical Anglicans, and who is the leader of the Global South, has said that the next Lambeth 2008 will not be controlled by the Anglican Consultative Council, according to Virtue Online.

Archbishop Nzimbi recently returned to Nairobi from a meeting of East African Primates in Tanzania, where it was agreed that procedures for Lambeth 2008 would be flexible for everybody, therefore allowing more contributions from participants being able to join talks in their native tongues.

In particular, in an interview with Virtue Online, the Kenyan head refused to rule out the possibility that Africans would hold their own Lambeth 2008 entirely separate from the worldwide Anglican Communion meeting scheduled.

It seems that the tear in the fabric of the Communion has aroused suspicions across the worldwide Anglican Churches, and due to the recent actions of the Episcopal Church in America’s General Convention in Columbus, Ohio and its failure to obey the demands of the Windsor Report, the African Anglican Churches have grown weary of attempts to keep a divided Communion together.

“We are waiting to see, and when all the CAPA bishops meet in October in Kilgali, Rwanda, one of the things we want to look at is 'the road to Lambeth'. We will demand that we (the Global South bishops) be considered participating in the agenda of Lambeth 2008. We will also discuss challenges that we have in the world today including HIV/AIDS,” said the Archbishop.

|QUOTE|Speaking directly of the current predicament of the Anglican Communion the Global South head said, “It makes me even more worried about the routes our brothers are taking. The Windsor Report asked the American church to regret, but that word is not in the Bible; it is repentance that should have been asked for - turning to God. This is what we expected to see... putting things in their right way. We wanted them to come out and openly say that intentional acts of marriage are between a man and a woman; teachings supported by Jesus.

“The convention decided to take its own route and not to abide by the Anglican Communion resolution 1:10 and repeated calls by the Primates. By going their own way they pose a danger of splitting the Anglican Communion,” according to Virtue Online.

|TOP|Also addressing the newly-elected head of the Episcopal Church in the USA, which is a woman, Archbishop Nzimbi said to Virtue, “We need to be sensitive to the feelings of the other primates, especially those who don't believe in women's ordination. At the same time I am convinced that the real issue is what does she believe in?

“For some of us it is about the consecration of women priests, but this particular concern is with her teaching. If she says people of the same sex can marry, we would worry about what that means for our future together.”

The full interview with Archbishop Nzimbi can be read by visiting: www.virtueonline.org