Consecration in Kenya widens a religious rift

NAIROBI - Delivering a blistering rebuke to the Episcopal Church for its support of gay and lesbian rights, spiritual leaders representing tens of millions of Anglican Christians from around the world gathered here yesterday to consecrate two conservative American priests as bishops despite the opposition of the US church.

As female worshipers ululated with joy, the archbishop of Kenya, Benjamin M. P. Nzimbi, declared that the two new bishops, William L. Murdoch of Massachusetts and Will G. Atwood III of Texas, would return to the United States to serve as missionaries to a nation that Nzimbi said is losing the Christian faith it once exported to Africa.

The five-hour consecration service, held in a simple stone cathedral on the outskirts of downtown Nairobi, brought an end to any remaining comity between conservatives and liberals in the global Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the US province.

Throughout the worship service, speakers repeatedly criticized the Episcopal Church, which is among the most liberal of American denominations; at one point, a letter was read suggesting the American church has been "misled by the devil." Although the critics generally say they believe the Episcopal Church has lost its way on a variety of theological matters, the issue they cite most often is homosexuality.

"It is a division of opinion between those of us who firmly believe that homosexual practice violates the order of life given by God, and those who seek, by various means, to justify what Scripture does not," said Archbishop Drexel W. Gomez of the West Indies, the main preacher at yesterday's service. In his sermon, Gomez accused the Episcopal Church of "aggressive revisionist theology" and said the idea that homosexuality is permissible for Christians is "a lie."

"[The apostle] Paul singles out homosexuality in the Gospel for special attention, because he regards it as providing a particularly graphic image of the way in which human fallenness distorts God's created order," Gomez said. "We believe that faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ prevents us from compromising the truth so clearly revealed in Holy Scripture."

Although a rift in Anglicanism had been evolving for some time, it became a full-out controversy threatening to split the denomination when the Episcopal Church decided in 2003 to approve the election of an openly gay priest, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Despite a call last summer by the Episcopal Church's own general convention for a moratorium on further consecration of gay bishops, this week the Diocese of Chicago named a lesbian priest among the five candidates for election to be its new bishop. The Episcopal Church has also acknowledged that many of its dioceses are allowing priests to bless same-sex relationships, and in eastern Massachusetts the bishop, M. Thomas Shaw, has been an outspoken advocate of legalizing same-sex marriage.

In brief remarks to the congregation in Nairobi yesterday, Atwood, who heads an international group of conservative Anglicans, alluded to the gay issue, saying, "All are welcome at the cross, but we come not to stay as we are; we come to be changed, to become more like Jesus. There is a competing message that seeks to replace the Gospel, but it's a superficial one, an innovation that denies sin by attempting to redefine it, and it robs people of the forgiveness that Jesus died to bring."

Murdoch, whose brother is a gay Episcopal priest in West Roxbury, offered a more general expression of gratitude to the Kenyan church as a model of enthusiasm and growth, saying, "Who could tell us better the mission is urgent?"

Consecration in Kenya widens a religious rift
Boston Globe, United States