Archbishop Peter Akinola - A Man Whose Season at Lambeth Should Not Come

Thinking Anglicans provides us with a column by Stephen Bates:
...last week our old friend Archbishop Akinola waded into the inter-religious violence in Nigeria with all the abandon of a man waving a lighted match near a pool of petrol, threatening Muslims that they did not have a monopoly of violence. Who knows what the effect, but shortly afterwards Christian mobs in Onitsha started hacking people to death with machetes. The only people I can find who condoned the Archbishop’s remarks were on American blogsites. Even his fellow bishop Cyril Okorocha thought he was being inflammatory...

From the Catholic Information Service for Africa:
...Media reports say suspected mobs of Christians armed with machetes and guns roamed the streets of the mainly Christian city of Onitsha, in the south-east, killing at least 40 people in retaliation for Muslim violence in the north.The revenge killings came a day after the country's leading Anglican primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, warned Muslims that they did not have a "monopoly on violence." He said churches "may no longer be able to contain our restive youths should this ugly trend continue"...

Abp. Akinola's statement is dated February 21. Here is a segment of a report regarding the violence in Nigeria that appeared in the New York Times February 24:
ONITSHA, Nigeria - Dozens of charred, smoldering bodies littered the streets of this bustling commercial capital Thursday after three days of rioting in which Christian mobs wielding machetes, clubs and knives set upon their Muslim neighbors.Rioters have killed scores of people here, mostly Muslims, after burning their homes, businesses and mosques in the worst violence yet linked to the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper...The main thoroughfare leading into the city across the Niger River was covered in carrion - the bodies of Muslim Hausas trying to flee rampaging bands of youths, witnesses said. Many of the victims appeared to have been beaten to death; most of the bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned......At the central mosque, rioters burned the building and hacked down trees.Someone wrote in chalk on a charred wall: "Jesus is Lord. As from today know more Muhammad."

Stephen Bates concludes his article with this thought: All I know is that if Rowan Williams bans the bishop of New Hampshire but extends invitations to men such as Akinola, Malango and Kunonga, Anglicanism will have ceased to be a communion worthy of the name. It will be, to coin a phrase, spiritually dead.

Stephen Bates is a columnist with the Guardian. You can read his complete article at this link:
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/001585.html#more