wfn.org | [ENS] Kenyas churches called to unite and resist Western

["Mika Larson" <mini_mika@earthlink.net>]

influences

8/19/2003 

Kenya's churches called to unite and resist Western influences

by Fredrick Nzwili
Ecumenical News International 
ENI-03-0424 

[ENS] Nairobi, 19 August (ENI)--The controversy in the worldwide
Anglican Communion over homosexuality has led to a call for Kenya's
Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican churches to merge to better resist
"Western" influences. 

The call came from retired Kenyan Anglican bishop John Mahiaini, who
said that by joining forces churches in his country could resist the
influence of what he called Western lifestyles, such as the election of
gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. 

"The idea is important following the election of the gay bishop, Gene
Robinson, in the USA," Mahiaini told journalists on 10 August. 

The Anglican Communion is deeply divided after the election of Robinson
as a bishop in the US state of New Hampshire and the appointment of
Jeffrey John, an openly gay priest, as bishop of Reading in England. 

John withdrew from his appointment for the sake of "the unity of the
Church" but Robinson's election was confirmed on 5 August by the general
convention of the US Episcopal Church. 

Anglican leaders in Kenya and elsewhere have condemned Robinson's
election and also a church blessing for a same-sex union in an Anglican
diocese in western Canada whose bishop had approved a liturgy for such a
blessing. Kenyan Methodists and Presbyterians have supported the stance
of the country's Anglican leadership. 

Still, former South African Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu visiting
Kenya last week for an international conference, said being gay cannot
bar one from being ordained as a bishop. 

"Our position in South Africa is that sexual orientation is not a
significant bar for anyone to be a priest or a Christian, provided the
ordained gay person remains celibate," Tutu told journalists on his
arrival in Nairobi. The Federation of Churches in Kenya, an umbrella for
independent churches, however, said Tutu's remarks in Nairobi "flout
biblical principles". 

Support for attempts to unite the three Kenyan denominations came from
the Rev. Zablon Nthamburi, former presiding bishop of the Methodist
Church of Kenya. 

"We had been talking for some time, but this time we have resumed
seriously to unite the three to become one," he said. 

Kenya's Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists have cooperated since
1955 in training ministers at St Paul's United Theological College in
Limuru, near Nairobi. 

"We are only separated by ideological and historical reasons, but we use
the same Bible and hymn books," said the Rev. Gerishon Kirika of the
Presbyterian Church of East Africa. 

But attempts to promote church union in East Africa in the early part of
the 20th century and again in the late 1950s floundered over issues such
as the role of bishops, ordination, and the sacraments. [448 words]