What does the future of the Anglican church look like?
According to this report it’s black. Very black.
While the English Anglicans have been closing churches at a frightening rate, the Nigerians have been planting them.
At a recent meeting let by Archbishop Peter Akinola, they created 18 new dioceses and elected 20 new bishops to serve in them. All the money for this expansion is already in the bank. Members of the Church of Nigeria and their friends have given it all because they have a passion to share the Gospel.
The 17 missionary dioceses they created last year have already planted more than 300 congregations and nobody seems surprised.
At the same meeting the Archbishop announced the Province had enough funds to cover it’s running costs and asked the dioceses not to send in any more money. Instead they should use the funds to plant more churches and create more dioceses!
Naturally, none of this news has made the headlines of the Western press. None of this will impress the church leaders, academics, bloggers and commentators in the developed world who are embarrassed the Archbishop’s unswerving commitment to a biblical faith.
Unfortunately for them, this is the form of Christianity championed by the world’s poor.
That’s why the future of the Anglican church is black.
2 Comments
I posted a news item about this in an Anglican newsgroup, and one American and one English Anglican replied that they found it scary, and like the Taliban. They seemed to be dead scared of evangelism.
Steve
If I am reading you rightly, to equate these African Christians with the Taliban says a lot more about your two readers than they realise.