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ABUJA:Nigerian Anglican leader lauds Bush for stand on same-sex marriages
By Obed Minchakpu
Abuja, (11/11/200) ENI--The senior Nigerian Anglican Archbishop, Peter Akinola, has commended US President George W. Bush for standing against same-sex marriages during his campaign for re-election.
Akinola's message, which focussed on the perceived value stance of Bush in campaigning for the 2 November elections in the United States, contrasted with remarks by the Anglican primate, or senior bishop, in South Africa, Njongonkulu Ndungane, about the policies espoused by the US president.
"True security is found not in military strength, but in ensuring every person has access to the essentials of a fully human life," Ndungane, the archbishop of Cape Town, said in New York the day after the US elections. "This is the sort of security spending the world needs most."
Dr Akinola in a letter dated 3 November, told Bush that, "As a Church, we have watched with interest throughout the electioneering campaign, your declared opposition to same-sex union and admirable courage in upholding firmly the timeless values of the historic faith of the church, and rejecting the new religion that is unbiblical and unnatural which some sections of church leadership are trying to impose on the world."
The Nigerian church leader's comments come amid controversy in the worldwide Anglican Communion about the consecration of an openly gay man in the United States and the approval of a rite for blessing same-sex unions in a Canadian Anglican diocese.
Akinola and some other bishops have been strongly critical of these developments.
In his letter to Bush, Akinola said, "These people, who were called, trained and ordained to proclaim the wholesome truth of the word of God which alone can break the power of sin have, for their own personal, shallow and narrow-minded interest betrayed their calling and succumbed instead to the pressure of the sexually misguided adventurists championing an unjust and sinful cause."
Bush's victory, he said, had "put to shame the revisionists and their agenda in the Church of Christ, and particularly in the Episcopal [Anglican] Church of the United States of America."
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