There are around 20 million Anglicans in Nigeria and in late September their leaders took a courageous stand against corruption in their own country, politically correct pressure from Western governments, and ‘revisionist theologies’ in the Anglican Communion.
The Standing Committee of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, which included 147 Bishops, 152 clergymen and 68 lay leaders, met at St David’s Cathedral in Ondo State from 21–25 September and issued a communique. It calls on the Nigerian Federal Government to resist politically correct pressure from Western governments to embrace same sex marriage. It also urges all Christians to ‘exercise simple faith and obedience to God for victory by living lives characterised by honesty, truth and integrity’ and on the church to ‘uphold the holiness and righteousness of the living God’.
Why this is brave
This is a very courageous statement, for two reasons. First, Nigerian Anglican leaders are facing up to the corruption that is endemic in their own nation, hindering its moral, social, political and economic progress. They are thus speaking God’s truth to powerful vested interests.
Secondly, they are holding up themselves and their fellow Nigerian Anglican Christians to public scrutiny for any hint of corrupt practices. They are thus bracing themselves to practise what they preach and to uphold a spiritual culture of repentance where there is financial malpractice.
The communique, which condemns ‘revi-sionist theologies’ and calls for renewed commitment to the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as they faithfully reflect biblical truth, is also highly significant in the run-up to the meeting of Anglican Communion archbishops in January. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has convened this meeting to renegotiate Provincial relationships within the Anglican Communion, which have come under enormous strain because of false teaching in Western Anglican Provinces.
The communique concluded: ‘The outward peace the world seeks can only come when men obediently embrace the inward peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ… In all circumstances, therefore, let us as Christians and as a nation, in obedience and faith look up to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.’
Spiritually and morally, this is a weighty intervention by the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
