Archbishop Peter Akinola has given an interview to The Guardian newspaper in Nigeria, which portrays him as “a lone voice in the crusade against the attempt to re-write the scripture by some Anglicans in Europe and South America, with the admission of people who practise homosexuals as priests and even bishops in the church.” Readers accustomed to seeing Akinola playing to a Western audience through the filter of Martyn Minns, will find these unfiltered remarks, playing to a Nigerian audience, enlightening. This one in particular:
We cannot say that we are in a communion and allow whatever they say to just go like that. Let me also say this: that in our human existence in this world, there was a time Africans were slaves; but we came out of it. But what again followed? Political slavery, under colonial administration. Somehow, we came out of it. Then economic slavery: World Bank, IMF would tell you what to do with your money and your own resources. Now, it is spiritual slavery and we have to resist this. They had us as human slaves, political slaves and economic slaves. They want to come for spiritual slaves. Now we won’t accept it.
Episcope has pointed out that the archbishop seems not to have an especially firm grip on certain facts.