Welby goes to war over ‘anti-gay’ bishop plot by traditionalists after historic marriage vote in Scotland

Jun 11, 2017 by Jill

by Jonathan Petre, Mail on Sunday:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has hit out at traditionalists who are planting a ‘missionary’ bishop in the UK after last week’s historic vote by Scottish Anglicans to approve gay marriage.

The rebuke from Justin Welby is his latest attempt to avert a damaging permanent split in the worldwide Anglican Communion over homosexuality.

As this newspaper revealed earlier this year, conservative archbishops, led by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, are to consecrate Canon Andy Lines at a meeting in America this month after warning that Western churches are abandoning biblical teaching on the issue.

These archbishops say the new missionary bishop would support disaffected Anglicans who quit in protest at the Scottish Episcopal Church’s decision on Thursday to become the first Anglican body in the UK to allow same-sex marriage in its churches.

But Canon Lines, a former British Army tank commander and father-of-three from Surrey, will also minister to traditionalist parishes that break away from the Church of England.

Now, in a confidential letter to fellow Anglican leaders, seen by The Mail on Sunday, Archbishop Welby has warned the African archbishops against creating ‘disturbance and discords’ by intervening in Britain. He accused them bluntly of a ‘cross-border’ intervention’ that would ‘carry no weight in the Church of England’.

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