By IPS Correspondents
BLANTYRE, Aug 12 2003 (IPS)

The Anglican Church in Central Africa is threatening to cut ties with America over a decision by the church in the United States to confirm a gay bishop.

Archbishop Bernard Malango, head of the Anglican Church in Central Africa, has warned that if the U.S. congregation insists on keeping the gay cleric, Canon Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who was anointed on Aug. 5, the 500-year-old global communion would split.

Malango is the head of 600,000-strong Anglican Church in Malawi, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. More than half of all Anglicans live in Africa. “We cannot support the appointment because it does not go hand-in-hand with our traditions,” he said.

The majority of congregations in Central Africa, except a few in Zimbabwe, have voted against supporting Robinson, Malango said.

What was disturbing, he said, was the fact that some African churches which have refused to support the appointment of Robinson have lost financial support from their rich partners in the United States.

“The Anglican Church in Rwanda has been denied a grant of 100, 000 U.S. dollars for not supporting the election of Robinson, but we can’t really sell our Lord with pieces of silver, can we?” asked Malango.

The Anglican Church in Malawi, Malango said, would not be affected by threats of aid freeze because it had not benefited much from the church in America for a long time.

A crisis meeting, involving all the African churches, will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, next month to resolve the crisis.

Some 38.6 million Anglicans live in Africa where homosexuality is largely regarded as a taboo.

Namibia’s President Sam Nujoma and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe have been some of the most vocal critics of gay practices on the continent. Mugabe has described gays and lesbians as being “worst than pigs and dogs”.

On the African continent, only South Africa has changed its legislation in favour of gays and lesbians. In June, when the church was split over the possible appointment of a gay bishop in Britain – Cannon Jeffrey John – and over the approval of same-sex marriages by an Anglican diocese in Canada, South Africa’s Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane urged his church to openly discuss homosexuality.

Former South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he did not see the ‘fuss’ over the gay debate, but urged gays and lesbians, seeking high offices in the church, to remain celibate.

That will not be possible. Robinson, a divorced father of two, has been in a gay relationship for 14 years.

The problems in the Anglican Church stem from a 1998 resolution passed by the last Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops held in Britain.

The resolution, in principle, accepted gay worshippers as full members of the church, but ruled that homosexuality was incompatible with the scriptures.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans last week summoned church leaders to London for a meeting in mid-October to discuss problems surrounding the appointments of gay clergy.

The biggest threat will come from Nigeria, where Archbishop Peter Akinola, leader of 17.5 million strong Anglican Church in this powerful West African nation, has accused the churches in Europe, Canada and America of using “their wealth to intimidate the financially weak churches in Africa”.

Akinola is a leading opponent of the appointment of gay people in the top positions in the church.

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