Benjamin Twinamaani:How American Anglicans Think and Act: A Primer for the Global South

The following article is provided by The Rev. Canon Benjamin Twinamaani of Uganda, posted at Anglican Communion Institute.

    Comments & Responses

  1. Fr. Ben, where is JESUS in all this?  Can you also enlighten the American mind how African Anglicans think and Act? It appears like The Global South Vs North.  Heellp!!!!! Thank you Fr. Stephen

    Posted by  on  12/07  at  03:45 AM

  2. Dear Stephen,
    My envangelist brother, good to hear from you. Of course Jesus is in all of this (that part I refer to as Anglican Faith- the basic Gospel that says “there is justification for the sinner in the person and work of Jesus Christ") and for the most part, the rest of the church is focused on that daily- working on discipleship and challenging people to make decisions about leaving the pervasive idols of the culture I talk about (what ethicist Max Stackhouse called autonomous humanism). 

    My aim was to give us some “congnition” (new insight) on how some in the leadership in the North are able to use the elements of the legal base, the canonical base and the civil rights base to by-pass descipleship questions altogether (undermine Anglican Faith that calls us to theonomous humanism), and make them less urgent than they actually are (the way we feel that urgency in our ministry ethics).  And you and I know that in all our dicipleship days in high school in Uganda, almost all the materials we used and bibles we read were written by our bothers and sisters in the North.  The best example was the Decade of Evangelism.  We used the materials that were published by the Episcopal Church to the letter, and our province grew over that decade by nearly 1 million members. I came to the North only to discover that the very same people that had created and published those great resources that we used faithfully did not use them for the most part in their context- I understand there was a disagreement between two committes at the national church level and that was enough to stall the process.  Can you explain that?  It reall surprised me. And what I write about is part of the mystery to such questions.

    Benjamin

    Posted by Canon Anglican  on  12/07  at  07:48 AM

  3. As Canon Benjamin has so rightly pointed out here, other Provinces of the Church have initiated other instances of cultural convenience within their own communities - e.g. polygamous marriages within the Ugandan Church; ordination of a woman in Hong Kong before anyone else was accepting of such a procedure - all without great outcries from the rest of the Anglican Communion.

    Why was there no outcry from the other Provinces
    on these occasions?

    Perhaps, either:

    1. The lcoal Primate did not consider the matter important enough to bring it to the attention of the world-wide Communion, or

    2. It seemed right and proper to the local Primate, and his/her fellow Bishops, that this departure from extant Anglican tradition should be allowed without recourse to securing the agreement of the rest of the Communion (it being considered to be a Gospel imperative).

    In the case of the TEC’s departure from the same established tradition - in ordaining a Gay Bishop! However, this action has prompted a disproportionate reaction from almost every part of the Communion - except those in the Communion who saw the need to extend the Gospel message of God’s acceptance of everyone, straight or gay, as ministers of the redemptive grace of Christ in the Sacraments of His Church. 

    In his use of the ‘endocrine’ model’s influence in the Body of Christ, Canon Benjamin rightly says that ECUSA, although numerically ‘least among the brethren/sistren of our Communion, does exercise a special role of prophetic discernment -precisely because of its cultural and social claim to an unique leadership role in the world-wide mission of our Church.

    WE do need the ‘endocrine’ element to empower us in ongoing spiritual discernment, so that our Anglican Church can lead the way of empowerment of the ‘poor and marginalised’ of our world.

    Posted by  on  12/10  at  07:26 AM

  4. [Edited]

    Polygamous marriage has never been the reality for Christian Clergy in Africa and the ordination of Chinese woman was an emergency step, very like the North American Anglicans going under Global South bishops, as the present emergency requires.

    Posted by Alice C. Linsley  on  12/10  at  08:09 AM

  5. Alice -despite my response being expunged from this site, I have to insist that Canon Benjamin’s article did state that polygamous marriages have been celebrated and solemnised by Anglican clergy in Uganda - without protest from the official Church within or outside Uganda. Do read his article again, I urge you. I wouldn’t want you to misrepresent the reality of the situation.

    Posted by  on  12/29  at  05:11 PM
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