Riazat Butt, the Guardian’s religion reporter, has been writing about Gafcon, the meeting of conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem. Ostensibly this movement is all about African bishops bemoaning the moral laxity of US and UK Anglicans, and offering them an alternative free from the blight of homosexuality. Apparently, the American conservatives (dominionists, even) who are actually behind the whole thing are now trying to keep the Africans in their place:
In the fateful press conference – regarding torture – Akinola said that what was permissible in one culture was not permissible in another, without realising that same-sex unions have become the norm in western society and should therefore be accommodated in the same way that discriminatory legislation and treatment of homosexuals are par for the course in some African countries.
If the white bishops can turn a blind eye to polygamy and persecution then surely the courtesy should be returned.
Hypocrisy seems to be thriving in the Southern Cone…
UPDATE: Ruth Gledhill of the Times has posted an analysis of Gafcon which portrays this event as far-reaching:
Organisers believe the Jerusalem gathering is the most significant event in Anglicanism in their lifetimes and will lead to a new “movement” that will herald a “new reformation”.The movement could be akin to the Anglo-Catholic and evangelical revivals that revived a moribund Church of England in the 19th century. It will possess its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges, and eventually its own structures, but will be constructed entirely within the legal constraints of existing Anglican institutions.
And she says of the participants in Gafcon:
The majority do not want a split. They want their Church back. They appear to have decided that the best way to achieve this is not to start another one but to remain within the one they have got, and reform it from within.
Well, maybe. I don’t see how a split can be avoided: I reckon that the only thing still to be decided is who will play the part of the Judean Popular People’s Front. But the reactionaries really have to make their move now: all of the trends suggest that twenty years from now there will be no constituency for homophobia.