African bishops loosen Western ties

By Jane Little
BBC religious affairs correspondent

Half the world's 77m Anglicans live in Africa and churches are growing

Anglican bishops in Africa have vowed to end theological training in the West at the end of their first meeting.

They also passed a resolution to set up their own institutions, consistent with African culture and theology.

The 300 senior bishops, who met in Lagos, Nigeria, stopped short of proclaiming a formal split in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality.

But the meeting was a decisive assertion of African leadership in the worldwide church.

The official theme of this conference was 'Africa comes of Age' - and that was borne out in the rhetoric and the resolutions.

Homosexuality battles

While they also focused on issues like poverty and justice, the rest of the Anglican world - which spans 164 countries - waited for a pronouncement on the recently published Windsor Report dealing with the battles over homosexuality.

The host of the meeting, Archbishop Peter Akinola, had already rejected the report as patronising, but the bishops set a more hopeful tone by suggesting there was a future for the global church.

There was a caveat though - and that will prove decisive.

We feel it would be dangerous for the future of our church to continue to send our own future leaders to those institutions Primate of Nigeria Peter Akinola

They want repentance from the North American churches which sparked the crisis by consecrating a gay bishop and approving same-sex blessings.

That is not going to be forthcoming because the more liberal churches do not think they have done anything wrong.

That is why African bishops see an urgent need to forge what they see as a righteous way forward.

They have spurned funding from America and Britain and now they want theological independence.

Decisive move

That, according to this meeting, means an end to the practise of sending clergy for advanced training in the US and Britain.

The Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, put it bluntly: "Now we have discovered that they have a new theology and a new religion we feel it would be dangerous for the future of our church to continue to send our own future leaders to those institutions."

This is a decisive move away from a colonial model of church towards one in which Africans see the roles reversed - that is, where the parent Church of England should learn from them.

Akinola said it was dangerous for African clergy to train in the West

The Ugandan Bishop, Henry Orimbi, noted that after 160 years of Anglicanism on the continent, "the church zeal and power is in the south".

It is hard to disagree. Half the world's 77 million Anglicans live in Africa and the churches there are growing.

Competition with Islam and Pentecostal churches also fuels a conservative outlook among Anglicans who feel they must not dilute the bible.

Many Anglicans in Africa see the decline in Western Christianity as the product of secular decadence and believe it is up to them to uphold the purity of the gospel.

The message of this meeting in Lagos appears to be that whether or not the Americans repent of their actions, African clergy will lead the way with a "pure" home-grown theology.

Global church leaders will have the chance to reflect on the African church contribution when they meet in February.