++Orombi's Real Crisis

Bible-believing Christians in the west have long been accustomed with the media’s wicked bias against our noble self-piety, and these days few of us other than little David Virtue bothers getting worked up when some uppity journalist dares publish the truth, instead of just obediently repeating whatever their spiritual superiors tell them.

Sadly, however, an article in the Ugandan Daily Monitor shows this terrible first-world malaise is spreading to places once previously famous for the peaceful fruit that springs forth when Christian Purity and Orthodoxy is combined with an utterly ruthless militia.

Instead of blindly praising Archbishop Orombi as one of the Communion’s great minds, (as western conservatives know all African Christians recognize him to be), the writer dares to suggest the Primate and his lackeys are in fact guilty of cronyism and incompetence, and not beyond throwing a bit of malicious mud around if that’s what it takes to get one of their own appointed to a choice position.

Even worse, rather than recognizing that by ordering his Prelates to boycot Lambeth ++Orombi helped bring about an end to homosexuality, the article posits that the real reason might have been “a lack of intellectual nimbleness” among the Kenyan Bishops. Or instead perhaps “proof positive that African Anglican churches such as Uganda’s are institutionally predestined to produce bishops cast out of the same confessional iron, all of who think alike” and inherently undemocratic.

I know we’re currently all upset about documents proving a group of conservative and grumpy old men have acted like conservative and grumpy old men, and been busy playing politics (a process which always includes sending sending plenty of emails), but perhaps the real Anglican firestorm might actually be starting to burn in darkest Africa – and I fear the cause of the problem is that terrible curse we call “education”. That's why we must never forget that our best defense against the destruction of what we have misrepresented as "Christianity" is not politic constructs (not even ones that involve lots of first-class air travel and luxurious "conferences"), but continuous vigilance to ensure everything possible is done to continue "dumbing-down" the congregations with whom we have been entrusted - something I fear little Primate Orombi might be neglecting.

You see, my dear sinners, as African Christians grow in maturity (and despite all our best efforts to patronize them, it will happen), some of them may well start asking the same the sort of questions as our own pesky Apostate Liberals. We can only rely on the uneducated masses to embrace literal and homophobic exegesis for so long, and if more people start challenging the right of their local church to embrace nepotism and corruption, and to make key decisions behind closed doors, without consultation, one can only expect the African church to be available for use as a one-dimensional role-model for a little while longer. And then what will we do?

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.