Interview with Archbishop Badi: ‘We cannot break bread with bishops who betray the Bible’

Jul 31, 2022 by Andrew Symes

By Pat Ashworth, Church Times:

[…] Our conversation perfectly illustrates the impasse of that faces the Anglican Communion. I tell him that I have just come from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s press conference, where the language, passion, hope, and drive had been around reconciliation and the pressing needs of the world. Now I am hearing only the language of confrontation and division. How does he square that?

Reconciliation is based on the Bible, Archbishop Badi says, “on the Lord Jesus who came, shed his blood to bring us together. That togetherness cannot be a reality without repentance, and without returning to the authority of scripture. That’s what we seek and that’s what we are struggling with — to bring back the authority of the scriptures to the Communion…”

…Sexuality appears to be the line in the sand, the litmus test for the conservatives, I suggest, but how much is sexuality really the focus in his own ministry and the concerns of his flock? Are there not other issues of more importance to them?

The sin isn’t sexuality, he counters. “There are many other sins that are committed. But the authority of the Bible is what we are trying to correct. The Bible says from the beginning God created them, male and female, and gave them the mandate to go and produce.

“So if we are now saying ‘God was wrong. We have discovered the truth,’ then where is it written in the Bible? Being a Christian, you go according to what the Bible teaches.”

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