At the end of this item on the Church of Nigeria’s opposition to same-sex marriage come these refreshing words from Bishop Josiah Fearon, who used to be an archbishop before Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Primate of Nigeria, busted him over his desire to remain part of the Anglican Communion:
“For us in Kaduna State, we realised that to live peacefully, we need to understand the religion of each other and so, we are convinced that the best way to promote peace and encourage it, is to know the well-being of your neighbour and the well-being of your neighbour is dictated by what he or she believes in.
The well-being of the Muslim is dictated by Islam and so, we are concentrating on the Christians learning about Islam”.
Hats off to Bishop Fearon, and while we are on the subject, the Kaduna state includes the town of Yelwa, site of intense religious violence in 2004–violence that culminated in the iincreasingly well-known massacre. It’s worth noting that despite highly suggestive evidence, neither Rowan Williams, nor any of the GAFCON primates has evinced any interest in finding out what Akinola knew about the massacre, or what his involvement might have been.
As our moral values are regularly called into question by these folks–It seems we are captives of our decadent culture and can no longer distinguish the evil inherent in the Bishop of New Hampshire’s sleeping with a man.–we’d be interested in knowing how many dead bodies it takes to merit their attention.