Holy Smoke: Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, is setting himself up as an alternative Archbishop of Canterbury
Posted on June 27, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog
He will deny it, of course, but it looks to me as if Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, is setting himself up as an alternative Archbishop of Canterbury. The man is famously ambitious, and he has Gafcon in Jerusalem eating out of the palm of his hand.
As Martin Beckford reports, Gafcon is constructing a powerful orthodox evangelical lobby within the Anglican Communion, to dictate terms to it from within rather than outside its structures. And who will be its unofficial head? Step (or rather leap) forward Nazir-Ali, who is boycotting Lambeth.
The Pakistani-born bishop’s speech to Gafcon last night was received with rapturous applause. And no wonder. He knew exactly which button to press. Gay activists have threatened his life, he revealed, segueing quickly into the widely reported threats he’s also received from militant Islamists.
Virtue Online has a long account of the speech here. Until now, I’ve regarded Gafcon as a bit of a sideshow - but look at the facts: 300 Anglican bishops addressed by the only C of E prelate who has acquired a popular following back home, by attacking the anti-British, anti-Christian agenda of multiculturalists and Islamists.
I think we can guess Rowan Williams’s response to this: the usual contemplative despair. Personally, I’m more interested in the private reaction of the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who hates seeing the headlines wrested from him in this way. I reckon that, even as we speak, he’s taking abseiling lessons in order to grab them back before Lambeth.
alternative Archbishop
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
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