And you state:

"Archbishop Akinola supports a piece of Nigerian legislation that includes the possibility of five year's imprisonment for gay people..."

And your evidence of this is? A sentence in a statement from the standing committee?

You said: "Leaving the Episcopal Church does not require associating with those who endorse the violation of human rights."

No, but if I believed in guilt by association, I would point out that, apparently, being a Bishop of ECOW does require associating with those who endorse violation of human rights, i.e., the Ayatollah Khatami, and inviting them to your cathedral to speak.

And you criticize Minns for saying "However, the idea that he is looking to establish a ‘purified communion’ bankrolled by cabal of conservatives in the USA has no basis whatsoever and is surely the product of an overheated episcopal imagination."

I don't think he was saying that orthodox were not trying to set up a choice where ECUSA had to change or be left or kicked out of the communion. He was pointing out that the idea that it was a strategy funded by a small group of millionare Rushdoony disciples (a group secretly also including Hillary Clinton in the most overheated websites), as opposed to a broad movement, is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Which I think it is.

Guilt by association and conspiracy theories does not seem to me to be a good way to defend what ECUSA is doing, but have at it.

pd88,

"A sentence in a statement from the standing committee?" Well, yeah.

Why does it always seem as that the extreme conservative elements in this disagreement won't just come out and be very clear about their being a group of homophobic mysoginists who want to preserve thousands of years of patriarchy. And why do you always seem to want to tear down TEC - if you don't like it work within the polity to change it or join up with a church of your own liking, maybe the REC or the RCC to name a couple?

Hate the sin, love to throw the sinner in jail. Amen.

"A sentence in a statement from the standing committee?" Actually in two statements -- the Feb 2006 "Message to the Nation" (http://www.anglican-nig.org/PH2006message2nation.htm), and the Sep 2006 one (http://www.anglican-nig.org/communique_ibadan2006.htm).

And just what is the standing committee anyway? You seem to hope readers will believe your implication that they do not speak for ++Akinola. These "Message(s) to the Nation" are on ++Akinola letterhead, are signed by him, and contain the introduction:

"The Church of Nigeria met for the Standing Committee on Thursday 14th and 15th September, 2006, with the Most Revd. Peter J. Akinola DD, CON presiding."

Imagine that. It's as if -- oh, I dunno -- he was actually THERE or something!

"Human Sexuality. The Church affirms our commitment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality since it is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible, Quran and the basic African traditional values."

Hey, Akinola cites the Quran! How pluriform of him! Nice bit of eisegesis, to boot.

If you do ever find your credibility again, pendennis, do be sure to stop by and point a finger at our tin-foil hats again soon.

What part of "does not supporting jailing gays" do you not understand, Jim?

Tell me about your trip to Nigeria, of what you learned there and how it is in danger of becoming, as Bono said earlier this year, "another Iran." It is clear from your posts that you have absolutely no idea what is going on in Nigeria and how close that country is from becoming another Iran. That is certainly the intention of the Islamic militants who are seeking to overthrow the government and take over the country. We should be doing all we can as Christians to support the Anglican Church in Nigeria - as Bono exhorts us to do (remember the MDGs - or have we convinient forgotten them when they don't support our own political purposes?). Here is what Bono said earlier this year about Nigeria - he says it far more eloquently and clearly than I can:

“Nigeria is, as you know, home to 120 million Africans; it’s an oil-rich nation; it’s also another Iran in so many ways,” Bono said when asked why he was reaching out not only to the people in Nigeria, but also the government of Nigeria. “Every week, sharia law is introduced in a different village…There are Islamic extremist groups moving in to Nigeria every week, making progress. We must not let Nigeria go. Because the cost of letting Nigeria go, the cost of Nigeria falling into another civil war, with oil in play, is far, far, far more dangerous than the price of trying to encourage the fledgling, stumbling but serious people who are in power now…we can’t just walk away. To walk away would be irresponsible,” Bono said.

“I don’t believe that a laissez-faire approach to the problems of Africa will finally sort itself out,” Bono also said. “We cannot leave the people in their hour of need, let the government fall, let there be chaos. It’s very, very heavy. This position is understandable, but it is completely immoral.”

Bono 2006

I understand it just fine. It just isn't true.

Which is something you believe, but do not know.

By the way, while dwelling on one sentence in the standing committee communique that says the Archdiocese supports a law which does exactly what seems unclear, I see that you ignored another sentence in the standing committee communique:

"The NGO’s on HIV/AIDS: The unethical usage of funds meant for the HIV and AIDS patients must be viewed seriously so that those directly concerned must be seen to be the direct beneficiaries of the fund’s palliative measures."

Perhaps you do not oppose this, even coming from the hated Akinola, but one would think that it, as well as many other sentences, was an important part of the standing committee message - if one's point in complaining about the statement had any relation to caring about the suffering of Nigerians, as opposed to caring about what Americans think about Nigerians.

PD, I just don't think you've read the Political Spaghetti info. It's pretty definitive. I can't really engage you on this if you continue to argue that the earth is flat.

Definitive? He cites the same standing committee stuff discussed ad infinitum above, unless you are referring to his definitive citation to Jim Naughton, authortiative as that may be. Yes, people should go read them. I encourage people to make up their own minds, and not take my word or yours for what they mean. And they should go read the underlying Nigerian law, too, and not rely on a biologist's or an ECUSA PR person's explanation of it.

I'd also suggest that Rushdoony disciples are not secretly trying to take over the country, starting with ECUSA, but someone here would undoubtedly tell me I am ignoring the facts on that, too.

I see the balance a bit differently. On the one hand, Amnesy International, Human Rights Watch and the U. S. Department of State seem to think the meaning of the law is pretty clear. An anonymous blog commenter disagrees. This isn't a tough call for me.

Minns appears to be relying on the nuance that "sexual orientation" and "behavior" are two very different things. Clearly there is no Nigerian legislation on the table that criminalizes the former. But the range of "behavior" that the Nigerian legislation does criminalize (and yes, I have read it!) goes far beyond "sexual activity" to advocacy, assembly, and so on. This is why folks like Amnesty International and even the US State Department have argued against it.

I'm not sure which is more concerning here, though -- the Nigerian Archbishop's continued support for this legislation, or his American Agent's deliberate prevarication and misrepresentation, under the guise of "clarifying." Or the apparent thrall in which demonstrably intelligent people appear to be held, to the extent that they are living in an entirely different reality than the rest of us. I mean, hermeneutical niceties aside, but the Nigerian legislation is perfectly clear about what it says, and Akinola is perfectly clear in his support of it.

We have a saying in the part of the country I was born, for folks like Minns, who appear (or wish to appear) to be completely innocent: "Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth." In this case, I would say, "Butter wouldn't clarify!"

Let me also add that while I've never been to Nigeria, I do have a number of Nigerian members in my congregation. I've worked with two Nigerian priests, each for an extended period. We've started doing liturgies in Igbo as part of our regular parish worship schedule. All that being said, I'm still not in a position to speak with the clarity of people who know the situation better than I. And no one said it more clearly than a Nigerian member of my vestry a few months ago: "Akinola is such an embarrassment to us."

I think that rather sums it up.

pendennis88:

How dare you call me a "biologist"! Enough with the ad hominem attacks. (just kidding)

Isn't true?
Oh my, now that is just not Episcopalian. We are no longer interested in the truth because ++Frank Griswold told us it is all relative truth.. you have your truth and I have my truth.. everyone has their own truth. We all go to the same church and believe in entirely different things, for we are a thinking church. IT'S so wonderful to worship with people who all have their own truth. You never know what to say for fear it might offend someone. How Episcopal.

The earth isn't flat? Ye Gad! What will you tell us fundamentalists next?

Oh yes, read the State Department statement as well. They are "concerned by reports" of such legislation. Hey, by WMD standards, that's a slam dunk! How they omitted to say it is all Akinola's fault I'll never know.

pendennis88, that's kind of skirting the issue, isn't it? The matter at hand is not who wrote the legislation but who endorsed it.

The only religious leaders listed among the 100 most influential persons in the world for 2006 by Time magazine were the Pope and ?

Right! ++ Akinola.