The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Henry Ndukuba, has released without warning a statement accusing the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), another GAFCON province, of departing from the authority of Scripture.
‘The deadly ‘virus’ of homosexuality has infiltrated the ACNA’ he alleged, and this had ‘serious implications’ for Archbishop Foley Beach’s leadership of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference, made up of orthodox believers unhappy with Anglicanism’s liberal sexual trajectory).
But a careful reading of the Nigerian statement shows that it is based on a misunderstanding of an internal debate in the ACNA about the pastoral care of people who are same-sex attracted. A Pastoral Statement by the ACNA bishops addressing sexuality and identity released in January recommended that the term ‘gay Christian’ unhelpfully elevated sexual orientation into an identity and commended the phrase ‘Christians who experience same sex attraction’ instead.
