Senior Church of England Clergyman Sent to Kenya to Resolve Gay Dispute

A leading Church of England clergyman has been sent from Sudan to Kenya in an attempt to defuse the row between the Bishop of Chelmsford and the Archbishop of Kenya. Rev David Peak, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for International Development, has been assigned to travel to Kenya, after the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev John Gladwin’s trip ended abruptly, reported the Church of England newspaper.

|TOP|Controversy has surrounded Bishop Gladwin’s journey to Kenya, after Archbishop Nzimbi refused to continue with the schedule of Bishop Gladwin’s trip when he found out about the Bishop of Chelmsford’s role as a patron of the ‘Changing Attitude’ group.

Changing Attitude is committed to changing the core teachings on Scriptures of the Anglican Church, which rejects homosexuality, into a new morality that would welcome practising homosexuality within the Church.

Bishop Gladwin has told that he was “greatly surprised and saddened” by the events which saw him barred from preaching a sermon in Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral.

The Windsor Report’s proposals for a Covenant to keep the Anglican Communion together have now become the focus in efforts to resolve the Church’s crisis over homosexuality.

|AD|However, according to an Anglican working party investigating the plans, it could take up to nine years before such a covenant could come into effect, and the final result may be a two-tier Communion.

The working party, however, clearly indicates that the Covenant itself cannot solve the current predicament of the Communion, but that it could go on to help the Communion overcome future problems.

“In principle ... the Covenant could identify where legitimate differences of view over matters even as important as, for example, the ordination of women could be recognised. In doing so, it could indicate how such ‘agreement to disagree’ on other issues might be reached and what processes might be used to foster trust and unity during periods of extended or sensitive discernment,” the working party says.

The group stated, “It will not do to say ‘There is one Anglican Covenant for this group and another Anglican Covenant for that group’. For the Covenant concept to work there comes a point at which Provinces and Churches will have to say about the Covenant that they will ‘take it or leave it’.”

The working party included two legal experts, Professor Norman Doe, and Canon John Rees, the evangelical theologian Dr Andrew Goddard and Canon Robert Paterson, a theologian from the Church in Wales.

The proposals face strong opposition, particularly among liberals in the West. However, hope for the Covenant is seen from the Global South, which expressed its support during a 2005 meeting in Egypt of Anglican Leaders.