Last week the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion Office, the Most Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, was interviewed by The Church of Ireland Gazette. The interview is available in audio format here.
Among the topics, influence on African Anglican leaders by conservative groups that have broken away from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada.
THE importance that African church leaders attach to the question of same-sex relationships is the result of interference by conservatives in the United States, the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, has said.
… Idowu-Fearon said that Anglican leaders in Africa seemed “to be so much taken in” by the issue, not because of concerns about the impact on relations with Muslims, but as a result of “very strong minority conservatives” in the US.
“The very strong minority conservatives, not in the UK but in America, they have found a footing amongst some of the leaders in Africa,” he said. “They are the ones that sort of pumped this thing into the leaders, and the leaders decided to make it an African thing. It is not an African thing. There are homosexuals everywhere — even in my diocese.”
Prior to his appointment as Secretary-General in 2015, Idowu-Fearon had served as the Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna in the Church of Nigeria.
More from the Church Times report concerning Idowu-Fearon’s view of GAFCON:
He had also told Dr Peter Jensen, its general secretary, that GAFCON was “not a movement of the Holy Spirit, because it is divisive”.
Elsewhere in the interview he described Anglican leaders in Africa as “despotic” and “ineffective.”
“Church leaders in Africa generally do not see themselves as leading the way Christ leads his Church. Rather, the African Church leader sees himself – mainly ‘himself’ – in the light of the traditional rulers, those with absolute authority.”