Scandal in the Global South

Jeff Walton
September 09, 2009

Over the past decade, orthodox Anglicans in North America have come to rely upon fellow believers in the Global South. They’ve been both a connection to the broader Anglican Communion, and a forceful voice to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of revisionism.

But traditionalists aren’t the only ones with overseas allies. Just days ago, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town (South Africa) passed a resolution affirming same-sex partnerships. Long a revisionist foothold in Africa, the Cape Town Diocese is a fellow traveler with the Episcopal Church (TEC) in its views on Universalist theology, radical politics and now alternative human sexuality.

Just as in North America, the Anglican Church in Southern Africa has its own wild personalities, insistent upon spreading their own reinvented gospel under the guise of “liberation” and “justice.” But that justice apparently doesn’t extend to personal responsibility: this week the former primate of the Southern African Province, Njongonkulu Ndungane, filed for divorce from his wife of over 20 years. At the conclusion of his primacy, Ndungane departed for a 10-day retreat and never returned home. In August, his wife finally sued for maintenance. During the intervening two years, Mrs. Vokwana-Ndungane says that she only heard from her husband once, and then only briefly.

Now that his wife has sued for maintenance, Ndungane has suddenly become responsive: by filing for divorce! Justice and equality are well and good for other people, but when it comes to sharing a bishop’s pension, Ndungane is discarding TEC’s borrowed inclusive language in favor of its unilateralism.

Ndungane is just one example of what happens when traditional biblical beliefs are abandoned: morality becomes flexible, and leaders who are supposed to be above reproach become untrustworthy.

Fortunately, orthodox believers in the Southern African province are banding together to form a new “Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans” within the church. Convened by the orthodox Bishop of Port Elizabeth, the Rt. Revd. Bethlehem Nopece, the fellowship met for the first time this week. The fellowship will seek to lift a standard of biblical orthodoxy and faithfulness in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

You can read my report on the Cape Town resolution as well as TEC’s overseas allies by clicking here.

Anglican Action will continue to monitor and report on the battles between revisionists and orthodox believers in overseas provinces, believing that the battle within the Episcopal Church is only part of a much larger war for the future of Anglicanism. Will Anglicanism continue to be a vibrant evangelistic force for transformation, or will it conform to the prevailing wisdom of this world?

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