BREAKING: Church of Nigeria Questions “Justification” for Lambeth ’08. Proposes Alternative Meeting.

This could be very important, and I haven’t seen it on the major Anglican blogs yet. So I want to get this communiqué from the Church of Nigeria out to you.

The statement questions “the moral justification” for holding Lambeth ’08 under current circumstances in the Anglican Communion. And it seems to propose an alternative meeting.

[The Nigerian episcopal Synod] believes strongly that the moral justification for the proposed Lambeth Conference of 2008 is questionable in view of the fact that by promoting teachings and practices that are alien and inimical to the historic formularies of the Church, the Bishops of ECUSA, Canada and parts of Britain have abandoned the Biblical faith of our fathers.

Synod underlines the need for maintaining the age-long tradition of a ten-yearly Conference of Bishops in the Anglican Communion for discussing issues affecting the Church. It therefore calls on the leadership of the Global South and Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) to do everything necessary to put in place a Conference of all Anglican Bishops to hold in 2008 should all efforts to get the apostles of ‘revisionist agenda’ to repent and retrace their steps fail.

I’m a bit surprised by such a statement coming so soon. Perhaps ++Akinola is convinced all or most revisionist bishops will be invited to Lambeth and therefore wants no part of it. Or maybe it’s a warning shot across the bow.

I’ll defer further comment for now.

Here’s an earlier statement from the Nigerian House of Bishops.