The Times Interviews ++Akinola

Details of an interesting interview of Primate Peter Akinola by Ruth Gledhill of the Times may be found here and here. Reading both would definitely be worth your time.

Two things stand out to me. First, Gledhill states that in the Nigerian church ++Akinola “is almost a liberal. Those longing for his retirement, thinking that suddenly every African Primate will be sharing communion again with our bishops in the West, should be careful what they pray for.”

Second, ++Akinola says he’s not interested in leading a breakaway church. In ++Akinola’s words:

Look, that has never been on my mind. This is something the media are making. You see we have the scripture. We have our traditions. We have our Lambeth Conference resolution. We have the Primates communique. We have not broken the law. It is your churches breaking the law. You are the ones breaking rules not we. You are the ones who are doing what we said should not be done, with impunity. You are the ones breaking the law. We are saying you cannot sweep it under the carpet. You can't. Maybe in the past, but not any more. We have aged. We have aged. That is the point So we are not breaking away from anybody. We remain Anglicans. We are Anglian church. We will die Anglicans. We aint going nowhere, as Americans would say. We aint going nowhere. But to gather as Anglicans with all these people, we must get it right.

That’s an interesting statement. And it’s difficult to make portents from it. But I suggest that perhaps there won’t be a new communion formed with trumpets blowing. Instead, an evolving ad hoc working together of orthodox Anglicans may be more likely. We’ll see.