KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano.
It doesn’t take the gift of prophesy to see that the National Assembly will not pass all the bills currently before its two chambers. It follows therefore that the assembly would be under tremendous pressure from interested parties to give priorities to bill that directly impinges upon their interests.
Incidentally such interests would include the Executive Arm. That explains President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent trenchant call on the lawmakers to pass the Oil & Gas Bill that’s been before both houses for a while. The President has let it be known that unless the bill was passed before certain investment decisions were taken, the nation would lose money in the billions.
One such interest party is this column and the bill of interest coincidentally also originated from the Executive Branch. Rated as possibly one of the most important executive bills presented by Obasanjo’s government, in the opinion of this column, it is currently snailing its way through both legislative houses. To give it its full title, it is: “A bill [executive] for an Act to make provisions for the prohibition of sexual relationship between persons of the same sex, celebration of marriage by them and for other matters connected therewith.”
Otherwise known as the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill, 2006, this writer sees the proposed law as Obasanjo’s one and only “Blow for Righteousness”; the one law that has enduring, even eternal values. It is therefore one law that all who profess Christianity, all who believe in a society built and nurtured on the expressed will of God must rise to see passed.
To understand the importance of this bill, permit me to contextualize its drafting and timing. Towards the end of 2004, the Nigerian media severally reported that a group of homosexuals held its annual general meeting or a gay dinner or both somewhere in the city of Abuja. The body cynically styled itself, Changing Attitudes in Nigeria in order to appropriate the acronym CAN, which is widely recognized as that of Christian Association of Nigeria. The group, to all intent and purposes, by this action sought to bring the subject of gay rights on the front burner in Nigeria and hopefully wrest the same kind of recognition/concession their brothers and sisters have received in some parts of Europe, the United States of America, Canada and even South Africa.
It was and possibly still is quite tempting to many to dismiss that public show of deviance as the feeble action of a warp-minded minority and get on with our lives. Indeed I have reason to believe that a majority of the church in Nigeria did just that! Thank God that not all did. Thank God that there were some children and servants of God, in and around the seat of power, sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to recognize it for what it was - the first shot in a battle for the soul of Christianity in Nigeria in particular, and through it, the soul of our nation. Most critical of all, it was and still is an international onslaught on what is now widely recognized as the bastion, the bulwark against gay ascendancy, Nigeria.
To appreciate this damning dimension to the issue, we must do a bit of retrospection and highlight the activities of Nigeria through certain Nigerians.
Some readers may know that on November 1, 2003, the international gay movement struck its deadliest blow yet with the installation of Gene Robinson, an openly gay cleric as the Episcopal Church of United States of America (ECUSA) Bishop of New Hampshire. It was a well-attended ceremony with at least 3,000 persons and 54 bishops in attendance. Gene had separated from Isabella, his wife with whom he had two daughters, in 1986 upon concluding that he was gay, and had been partnering with a certain Mark Andrew.
Although KINGDOMPeople magazine reported at the time that “within the USA, protests against the consecration were, however massive…with some churches within New Hampshire severing relationship with ECUSA,” easily the most powerful voice of dissent came from Most Rev Peter Jasper Akinola, Primate and Metropolitan Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). In a statement issued on behalf of the 50million-strong Global South, a body of Anglican Churches in the Africa, Asia and Latin America immediately after the so-called consecration, Akinola not only condemned it, he said it had created a state of impaired communion within the worldwide Anglican family.
Akinola, who is also current President of Christian Association of Nigeria, has not relented since then. At every level he has had the privilege of serving; he has been a loud, forceful voice against this vice. He has been leading a determined resistance against those who, in the garb of liberalism and relativism, have sought not only to rationalize homosexuality as an orientation or preference to which human rights apply, but also go the giant step further of installing themselves in position of influence and leadership in the church of Jesus Christ.
In the Church of Nigeria for example, Akinola and his team have taken very creative steps to ensure that the Nigerian church’s freedom of choice in its relationship with other parts of the Anglican Communion is not impaired by any legal encumbrance.
A statement after the Church’s General Synod in 2004 was unequivocal. The triennial Synod of the church, the statement announced, “amended the language of our constitution so that those who are bent on creating a new religion in which anything goes, and have thereby chosen to walk a different path, may do so without us…”
Explaining the standpoint of the church, the statement continued, “the Church of Nigeria is evangelical and its adherence to the holy scripture is paramount and non-negotiable…In matters of faith and practice, the holy scripture provides sufficient warrant for what is considered right and what is judged to be wrong and the word of God cannot be compromised…If we say we are bound together by the same common faith and this faith says a man shall marry a woman and some people come out to say that a man can marry a man and a woman is free to marry a woman, it means we no longer share common faith…”
I have been this copious in quoting from that statement because I believe, until the contrary is proven, it represents the unspoken position of the rest of the Church in Nigeria irrespective of the denominational identity we may carry. This is not to deny that there are Christian individuals who have succumbed to the satanic lie that they are created with a gay orientation. It is simply stating that we are not at that abyss where church leadership is in gay hands. I have privately, even publicly in a mini-book, agonized about the silence of the rest of the church on this critical issue wondering if the rest of us see it as an Anglican problem when all evidence around us scream that it certainly is not.
But, I digress. The issue of church unity is a matter for another day. The point being made here is this. Akinola has become the man the international gay movement loves to hate. Check the internet; he is one of the most vilified clergy men in the world today with epithets such as “dumb as a bag of rock”, “pompous ass”, “superstitious primitive”, and “another 419 scam from Nigeria.”
For the avoidance of any doubts, this is not a public relations exercise for Akinola who was last year recognized by TIME magazine as one of the world’s “Top 100 Men Shaping the World” and listed among 21 “Leaders & Revolutionaries”, the “people with the clout and power to change our world.” And I am not Anglican, either. I am by the grace of God, a Spirit-filled, tongue-talking Pentecostal and a pastor with Christ Chapel International Churches. But I am also a Spirit-led One-Church activist, who, partly because of his calling to kingdom-wide enterprise, including publishing, has made it his duty to be interested in what goes on in the Church of God by whatsoever name it is called.
I do know therefore that Nigeria has become so critical to the gay movement precisely because it is the core of the resistance to its growth. The strategy is simple enough: take the general’s home turf and thereby remove his moral high ground to pontificate. That is why the executive anti-homosexual bill is proactive and timely.
But as I am sure we all know a bill is not a law until it has been passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly. Mercifully the House of Representatives has held a public hearing on it and the Senate has taken an interesting, eye-opening first look at it. It is unclear, as I write this, whether they will tow the line of the lower house. Even if they do, as The Independent recently reminded the nation in an Editorial, public hearings have not always translated to laws. And we are already counting down days to the end of this tenure.
That is why all Kingdom-minded Nigerians must rise in defence of this “blow for righteousness” and safeguard of our public morality. Believe it or not, the tardiness we are seeing, though a seeming characteristic of our law-making process, may be the result of subtle, underground resistance from the enemy camp to which foreign funding is always available. Also, you never know the “sexual preferences” of some of our legislators; after all, didn’t late coupist Gideon Orkar alert the nation of the presence of homosexuality in high places during the dark days of military rule? So, Senator Tokunbo Ogunbanjo who pointedly told his colleagues that he saw nothing wrong in same-sex intimacy may not be alone! By the way I hope those who elected him are listening!
We must move NOW. Every one of us must leave our representatives in no doubt where we stand. And we must all rise up in prayer to ensure that this first body blow is delivered without further delay. Christian Association of Nigeria, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and all such Christian bodies must rise; unite with all who wish Nigeria well to push this bill through now!
Of course it would be sheer naiveté to believe that the law will put an end to the practice, but believe me, in these days of the Civil Partnership Act in England which licensed superstar singer Elton John to have a one-million pound celebrity “wedding” with David Furnish, his male “spouse”; recognition of this vice by law in some states of the USA including California and; the recent Supreme Court-ordered amendment to the South African constitution redefining marriage to accommodate same sex liaisons, it would be a giant first step forward.
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