Have a look beneath the Read More sign below. If what is happening in the Province of Central Africa–where people are being denied the bishops that they have elected and having other candidates forced upon them–were happening in the Episcopal Church, how many emergency meetings of the Primates would have been convened? How many border crossings justified? How many stories about imminent schism written?
Would the Episcopal Church be justified in sending a bishop to Africa to rescue these folks, or is that only acceptable when the dissenters are white Western conservatives?
On the eve of the important decennial Lambeth Conference of worldwide Anglican Communion bishops, and at a significant major pre-Lambeth Conference Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana has delivered an important lecture.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union held in Hertfordshire, England, Mwamba addressed an international gathering of the Anglican Communion’s oldest and highly respected Theological Society. Chaired by the Archbishop of Wales in an address Bishop Mwamba said: ‘The debate over homosexuality is diverting attention away from the real challenges that the Church faces in Africa.’ He went on, ‘I dismiss the doomsday predictions of those who glimpse the break-up of the Anglican Communion at a drop of a hat.’
This latter would include previous Archbishop of the Central African Province the now retired and discredited Bernard Malango. Malango spent much of his final period as Archbishop charging round the world proclaiming schism, denouncing the Archbishop of Canterbury and infamously absolving his friend former Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga from serious legal allegations regarding 41 charges including incitement to murder.
It was the now excommunicated Kunonga, and Malango who were prime movers in November 2005 in declaring the election (by overwhelming majority) of the Rev’d Nicholas Henderson as Bishop of Lake Malawi to be unapproved on the grounds that Henderson was of ‘demonstrable unsound faith’ because, as an academic, he had once been a member of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union. This bizarre accusation was made all the more strange by the fact that Bishop James Tengatenga of South Malawi was and still is an International Editor of ‘Modern Believing’ the respected quarterly journal of the MCU.
Tengatenga interviewed by the Malawi Nation newspaper on 6th July said he had been planning to go to the Lambeth Conference for the past five years and as a member of the Lambeth Planning Group he said that he, ‘did not believe in boycotts but dialogue and contact’ – a reference to the recent schismatic Jerusalem GAFCON Conference.
Of demonstrable unsound faith? – Presumably, by the standards set by the House of Bishops of the Central African Province in November 2005 both Mwamba and Tengatenga should join Henderson in being declared of ‘demonstrable unsound faith’? Acting provincial dean Albert Chama, who is, at least for some, of ‘demonstrable uncertain faith’ by his willing attendance at the Lambeth Conference and his apparent complicity in the actions and associations of Bishops Mwamba and Tengatenga has yet to speak on the matter.
ANGLICAN-INFORMATION asks: Now that the truth is out in the open, why was Henderson condemned in a Luddite fashion in 2005, effectively for being an academic, for what Mwamba and Tengatenga are openly associated with? It is not surprising that the priests and the people of the Diocese of Lake Malawi and latterly the Diocese of Upper Shire, Malawi are in open revolt for justice against the machinations of their episcopal oversight. The people are ‘demonstrably not of unsound faith’ and cannot be fooled.
The quicker the nonsense of the duplicity of the Bishops’ Court of Confirmation in 2005 is overturned the quicker some semblance of peace and order will return to at least part of the Central African Province. Perhaps, whilst discussing at Lambeth what to do about dissident Nolbert Kunonga and Zimbabwe someone will knock a few Central African episcopal heads together to get some sense into them?