The AP is reporting that two American priests were consecrated Thursday as Anglican bishops in Kenya.
Bill Atwood of Texas and William Murdoch of Massachusetts left the Episcopal Church — the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion — because it allows the ordination of gay priests.
“The gospel … must take precedence over culture,” said Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, one of 10 Anglican leaders or representatives who attended the ceremony in Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral. “Homosexual practice violates the order of life given by God in Holy Scripture.”
The spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has asked African archbishops not to consecrate U.S. priests to help avoid a schism. Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said there had been no direct communication with Williams over the Thursday’s ceremony.
Williams has no direct authority to force a compromise because each Anglican province is self-governing.
Archbishop Gomez is head of the Covenant Design Group named by Williams.
Read it all here
Andrew Carey – a leading evangelical and son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury has strong reservations about these extra-territorial consecrations:
To add to the Anglican chaos this week we have a further three consecrations of Americans to African provinces.
Bill Atwood, one of the new breed of independent shadowy Anglican fixers is to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Kenya on 30 August, together with the Rev Bill Murdoch, while the Rev John Guernsey receives the laying on of hands by the Archbishop of Uganda this weekend. According to my calculations when you add these three to the six Bishops of the Anglican Mission in America, and Bishop Martyn Minns who was consecrated by the Archbishop of Nigeria earlier this year, that makes 10 new bishops to serve disaffected conservative congregations in the Episcopal Church of the USA. In the meantime there continues to be talk about incursions by Nigeria onto English soil.
I’m not convinced about either the need for more mitres, or about the timing of all these consecrations.
Read his comments here