Citing inclusion of LGBT clerics, Anglican bishops in Africa to shun Lambeth Conference

May 30, 2019 by Jill

from RNS:

As disputes over homosexuality continue to stir within the worldwide Anglican Communion, conservative African bishops say they will boycott a decennial gathering of top clerics next summer unless what the Africans consider godly order is restored.

After delaying the Lambeth Conference, normally held once a decade, for two years, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the global leader of Anglicanism, has invited all active bishops and their spouses to the United Kingdom in July and August of 2020 — except the spouses of bishops who are in same-sex unions.

But the African bishops object to the invitation of bishops in the communion who are in same-sex unions. Those bishops’ presence, the Africans say, constitutes an endorsement of homosexuality, which they reject as contrary to the Scriptures.

Anglican Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit speaks in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 19, 2016. RNS photo by Fredrick Nzwili

“I will not be at the Lambeth Conference for those reasons. Others are also boycotting,” Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit of Kenya told Religion News Service in an interview. “God’s plan of marriage is between a man and woman for procreation. Homosexuality is a sin before God.”

Read here