The Untamed Tongue

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Exodus 20:16 NIV

“Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness.” Exodus 23:1 NIV

“Do not go about spreading slander among your people.” Leviticus 19:16 NIV

“…but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:8 NIV

On Thursday May 3, 2007 the Falls Church News-Press published, “Anything But Straight: Nigeria’s Frequent Flyer,” a venomous diatribe by Wayne Bensen against Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, who with four other African Anglican bishops will be visiting the United States and consecrating Martyn Minns as a missionary bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). As soon as Archbishop Akinola announced his visit to the United States, gay activists and liberals in the Episcopal Church and outside the denomination launched a campaign to prevent the Archbishop Akinola’s entry into the country and to turn American public opinion against Nigeria’s Primate. As a leader of the global South Anglican opposition to the Episcopal Church’s radical innovations in theology and morality, an outspoken critic of the Episcopal Church’s liberalism and moral relativism, and a champion of biblical Anglicanism, Archbishop Akinola has become the object of violent hatred on the part of the gay activist – liberal alliance in the Episcopal Church. At the recent House of Bishops meeting the intensity and viciousness of the ill will and animosity that the liberal bishops harbored toward Archbishop Akinola and other global South Anglican leaders shocked their more conservative colleagues. The spiteful tone that marks Bensen’s article typifies what is being posted on a number of liberal leaning web logs and web sites. It is an electronic form of the hurtful, malicious gossip that can do so much damage in a church, community, or office with its innuendoes, false accusations, distortions, and lies.

One of the most astounding statements that Bensen makes in the article in that Archbishop Akinola and the four African bishops who are accompanying him are “apostates”. An apostate is a person who is guilty of apostasy, of abandoning his religion. What Bensen does is set himself up as the judge of what the religion of Archbishop Akinola and his colleagues should be and how they should practice it. Having repeatedly accused Archbishop Akinola of not practicing how he himself believes that the archbishop should practice his religion, he declares that the archbishop has fallen away from his religion. For good measure, Bensen also declares the archbishop’s colleagues to be apostate, apparently because they have chosen to accompany the archbishop instead of staying home and minding their own business, as he asserts that the archbishop should be doing.

If one adopts Bensen’s tangled logic, those who do support the Episcopal Church liberal wing’s current agenda for their denomination and the Anglican Communion are guilty of abandoning the Christian faith! Those who do not give priority to what the liberal wing insists is important are apostates! This is an example of what liberal Canadian Bishop Peter Ingham urged liberals to do – to take the label of “orthodox” away from conservatives and claim it for themselves. is accusing of “apostasy” those who are faithful to a long accepted understanding of the Christian faith. The liberals not only seek to redefine what it means to be an Anglican, they are also seeking to redefine what it means to be a Christian!

However, if any one group has abandoned the core beliefs of the Christian faith, it is the Episcopal Church’s liberal wing. The 2003 General Convention failed to adopt a resolution affirming these core beliefs. The 2006 General Convention refused to consider a resolution affirming the doctrine of salvation by Christ alone. The same convention elected a new Presiding Bishop who publicly rejects this doctrine. Implicitly or explicitly most liberal Episcopalians believe in universalism. The liberal “open communion” movement in the Episcopal Church has as its primary goal the admission of all people to the Eucharistic meal irrespective of whether they believe in Jesus Christ or are baptized – a radical innovation from a biblical Anglican perspective. If Bensen is an Episcopalian, supports the actions of the 2003 and 2006 General Conventions and subscribes to these or similar views, he himself is apostate. He is certainly not in a position to declare to be an “apostate” a leading African Anglican who is known for his commitment to the core Christian beliefs that the Episcopal Church and its liberal bishops have abandoned. Indeed, it was Archbishop Akinola’s commitment to these beliefs and his concern for the spiritual well being of Nigerian ex-patriots in the United States that moved him to launch CANA as a missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of Nigeria to North America.

The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori maintains that those who are dissatisfied with the current direction of the Episcopal Church comprise a tiny minority of Episcopalians - less than 1% of the denomination. Presiding Bishop Schori has reiterated this point in a number of public statements. Indeed this assertion is a widely used liberal talking point. One must wonder then why the outcry in liberal quarters over Archbishop Akinola’s consecration of Bishop Minns. If the number of Episcopalians who are dissatisfied with the Episcopal Church’s current direction is, as the Presiding Bishop says, so tiny, their departure should have no discernable impact upon the denomination. Bishop Minn’s consecration should cause no injury to the Episcopal Church. Large numbers of clergy and congregations are not going to defect from the Episcopal Church and migrate to CANA.

Of course, Presiding Bishop Schori and the Episcopal Church’s liberal wing may not believe their own propaganda. Dissatisfaction with the current direction of the Episcopal Church may be more wide spread than they wish to admit. They may have chosen to play down the extent of opposition to Episcopal Church’s current direction, fearing that they may loose the critical mass and momentum needed to keeping the denomination moving in that direction. They may view with the alarm the potential of CANA to unite orthodox Anglican bodies in the United States, to aggressively challenge the Episcopal Church’ highly dubious claim that its brand of liberalism represent true Anglicanism, and to become a serious rival to the Episcopal Church.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31 NIV) is what Jesus taught his disciples. Liberal Episcopalians went ahead with the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson despite the concerns of Anglicans around the world. Having set this precedence, should they be surprised if orthodox Anglicans do not pay any attention to their concerns.