Let's call it what it is: Blackmail

From The Living Church, 1/9/07

Nigerian Primate: Consensus on Sexuality Necessary Before Lambeth
Conference
1/29/2007

The issue of homosexuality and the Anglican Communion must be
resolved before the 2008 Lambeth Conference, if the Church of Nigeria
is to participate, according to Archbishop Peter Akinola.

In a Jan. 14 interview with the Guardian newspaper of Lagos,
Archbishop Akinola, the primate of the Communion’s largest province,
said sending more than 100 Nigerian bishops to Lambeth would not be
an act of prudent stewardship, if the conference was simply going to
be an expensive episcopal jamboree.

“A Lambeth Conference that will not be able to guide the church in a
way that the church will embrace” and “comply” is “not worth
attending,” the archbishop said. The Church of Nigeria would be a
“bad steward, to use God’s resources and waste it on jamboree. God
will hold me responsible and accountable for spending money in that
way.”

The Lambeth Conference “does not legislate” nor can it tell “any
diocese or province” what to do, Archbishop Akinola said. However,
“as a result of the fellowship, praying together, studying the word
of God together,” the bishops at Lambeth come to a “consensus of
opinion, which we now commend to the provinces for further actions.”

No decision as to whether the Nigerian bishops would attend Lambeth
has yet been reached, Archbishop Akinola told the Guardian.

“We are hoping that after the primates’ meeting in Tanzania next
month, we will have a clearer vision of what we have. If the Lambeth
Conference is worth attending, we must put this problem behind us,”
he said."


My response:

It breaks my heart to read this. First of all, let's call it what it is: blackmail. Pure and simple, nothing else but blackmail. Akinola has played his hand and we see that he wants the image and likeness of the Anglican Communion to be the one he has selected for it. He has clearly revealed that he believes he is the one who should be saying what does and what does not happ;en at Lambeth, '08. Clearly he believes that his agenda is more important than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is the one who issues the invitations to Lambeth. And unless the ABC and the rest of the Anglican Communion hop to the tune of Akinola's choosing, then he feels it won't be worth his while to attend.

I say: good riddance, don't attend, Akinola, because Lambeth doesn't need you and the the Anglican Communion doesn't need you.

Has it really to this pass that who does what with whom in bed is more important than feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, providing for those who
cannot provide for themselves, etc?

I don't see how anyone who bears the name "Christian" could allow
themselves to be swept up into such a distortion of the Good News of
Jesus Christ. The great enemy must be dancing with glee that he has
so successfully distracted so many from attending to that which the
Bible speaks of more than any other subject: our duty to the poor, the
needy, the hungry, the sick, the infirm.

I call the following a threat:

> The issue of homosexuality and the Anglican Communion must be
> resolved before the 2008 Lambeth Conference, if the Church of Nigeria
> is to participate, according to Archbishop Peter Akinola.>

The source of this threat is evil. It is past time for this sort of
thing to be labelled for the evil that it is. Look at the fruits of
the spirit in those who dissent against The Episcopal Church: schism,
hatred, discrimmination, false witness, theft and now this elevation
of something to which the Bible hardly speaks above those issues the
Bible itself names as the most important. Evil at work.

Repent and be saved. Ask forgiveness of the Lord and share with us in
the breaking of the bread, prayers, fellowship and the teachings of
the apostles.