At the Center of a Schism

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Anglicanism's great achievement--and one of the reasons people outside the communion may care about its fate--is that since its 16th century origins as a kind of Roman Catholic and Protestant amalgam, it has often seemed like a mini-experiment in what a global Christian church might look like: one that managed to span the distance between incense-saturated Catholic-style rite and tongues-talking low-church Protestantism, that eschewed hyperdetailed doctrinal tests to maintain a looser Christian understanding, adjusted at regular meetings under the low-voltage, first- among-equals leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the reasons Akinola is both controversial and potentially important is that as the gay issue stretches this understanding past the pain threshold, he is a man unafraid to cut the cord--an uncompromising evangelizer of a sort, more familiar to Americans than to many Anglicans, who is willing to abandon communal solidarity unless it supports a "right" reading of Scripture.

His national and personal background may contribute to his fondness for bright lines staunchly defended. Nigeria is a country where boundless enthusiasm and resources coexist with harsh factionalism, not the least between Muslims in its north and Christians in its south. Akinola, born into the Yoruba tribe, itself divided by the two faiths, was shaped in a crucible of the religious strife that has by now taken thousands of lives on both sides. That experience, combined with his naturally combative and entrepreneurial nature, made him a fearless herald of Christ. Starting when he became a bishop in 1989, Akinola developed Nigeria's hewn-from-the-forest capital, Abuja, into a great Anglican center. Later, he habitually sent bishops to non-Christian areas to preach the Gospel. Muslims sometimes responded violently, but the church gained a presence in the north. Notes the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, a well-connected Episcopal rector who counts Akinola as a friend: "They give witness at great cost, and it obviously touches people," who become Anglicans. The denomination leaped to the forefront of Nigerian Christianity, and Akinola became a civic as well as a religious voice, denouncing the country's plagues of corruption and materialism and, in a brave stance that may have helped preserve Nigerian democracy, opposing current President Olusegun Obasanjo's bid for an extraconstitutional third term.

The size of Akinola's flock, which far outstrips England's in terms of Sunday attendance, has made him a natural leader to robust and conservative Anglican bodies throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia (known as the Global South). Long seen as Western Anglicanism's missionary stepchild, the South has eclipsed it in energy and size, and yearns for corresponding clout. One obstacle is money: funds from liberal Western churches support both the communion and many dioceses, perpetuating what southerners see as a kind of neocolonialism. Akinola announced in 2004 that he would reject money from churches he disagreed with, becoming the unfettered champion of the Global South majority.