'You put revisionists to shame'
2004-11-05 13:49
Lagos - Africa's leading Anglican bishop congratulated United States President George W Bush on his re-election on Friday and said his victory put to shame the liberal American churches which promote same-sex unions.
Nigeria's Archbishop Peter Akinola of Abuja, the Primate of the world's largest Anglican congregation and chairman of the Council of African Provinces of Africa, said US Episcopalians should learn from the poll result.
"By your victory at the polls, you have put to shame the revisionists and their agenda in the Church of Christ, and particularly in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America," Akinola said, in an open letter to Bush.
"I hope that by your election victory, these ordained men and women will feel rebuked and be forced to repent of this grievous sin of repudiating the word of God, and to seek genuine restoration," he added.
Akinola has become the most outspoken critic within the Anglican church of moves in some north American and British dioceses to tolerate gay priests and bishops and to conduct marriage-like blessings of same-sex partnerships.
The issue has threatened to split the worldwide Anglican communion.
Last week, Akinola hosted a conference of 300 African bishops in Lagos at which they discussed setting up their own network of theological colleges on the continent to promote a conservative interpretation of Biblical teaching.
Bush won Tuesday's election partly due to the support of America's large Evangelical Christian community which backed his opposition to same-sex unions.
"We have watched with interest throughout the electioneering campaign your declared opposition to same sex union and admirable courage in upholding firmly the timeless values of the historic faith of the Church," Akinola wrote.
He praised Bush for "rejecting the new religion that is unbiblical and unnatural" and accused liberal clerics of succumbing to pressure from "sexually misguided adventurists championing an unjust and sinful cause."