The primacy of “global mission and evangelism” has been threatened by tensions in the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Nigeria said in an address July 23 while in Virginia. He called on Anglicans to both proclaim “the full gospel of Christ” and “continue to defend the family.”

Speaking at the annual council of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, July 22–24 in Herndon, Va., Archbishop Nicholas Okoh urged CANA members to “declare that there is no one else” besides Jesus Christ to redeem people.

“The main thrust [of Christian mission] continues to be the proclamation of the gospel, the faith once delivered to all the saints,” he said. To that end, CANA serves as “an important mission of the Church of Nigeria.”

In a Christian Post interview July 20, Archbishop Okoh said that the Church of Nigeria founded CANA to keep the Anglican Communion from dividing.

The archbishop also called on Anglicans to affirm monogamous heterosexual marriage as the normative context for human sexuality. “All other sexual relationships are a sad measurement of our brokenness, self-centeredness, and rebellion” against God, he said.

He spoke of humankind’s continuing “rebellion against God’s absolute authority,” with one result being the persecution of those who oppose such rebellion.

“The Western world has become afraid [of saying] that there is right and wrong,” he said, and has “disinherited its Christian inheritance.”

By contrast, missionaries bringing the gospel and the Scriptures to Nigeria “widened [Nigerians’] understanding of what is right and wrong in God’s eyes” and influenced them to abandon practices incompatible with the Christian faith.

To counter these trends, the archbishop exhorted his listeners to hold to Scripture and “avoid selective preaching” that bypasses these issues. “We are called by Christ to do what is right, not what is easy,” he said.

The archbishop asked members of CANA to pray for his province’s responses to challenges facing Nigeria, including crime, poverty, ethnic and religious intolerance, and volatile Christian-Muslim relationships.

In his pastoral call [PDF] to the council, CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns expanded on Okoh’s major themes. Minns said that “all hell was let loose” by Episcopalians’ liberal beliefs on “the unique role of Jesus Christ as the only savior” and their disregarding “the delicate balance of relationship between men and women.”

Minns echoed a statement by the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, that the Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.”

The missionary bishop also expressed concerns over “inroads made by TEC leadership and their associates” into the Global South. He suggested that CANA members and like-minded Anglicans should pursue a “global Gospel mandate” through alliances of those who share common theological confessions, such as the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON).

Okoh’s visit to the council was also pastoral in nature. Okoh met with CANA clergy earlier during the council. The Ven. Felix Anyasor, Archdeacon of the Diocese of Okigwe, told The Living Church that the archbishop said clergy “have to be obedient” to God, should consider their ministries as privileges given to them by God, and should guard against pride.

Okoh also was present for the closing Eucharist, during which bishops ordained three U.S. Army Chaplains to the priesthood. Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America, who preached the sermon, told The Living Church that 120 chaplains are affiliated with the ACNA.

While Duncan called that number stunning, he also said he was not surprised that military chaplains would find the ACNA’s faith amenable to their beliefs. Both CANA and the ACNA, he said, are “trying to stabilize the [Anglican] Communion over the things we always believed.”

During an earlier discussion of CANA’s relationship with the ACNA, Minns described CANA members as having the equivalent of a “dual passport” that keeps them in both groups. The council held a service celebrating, and passed two resolutions recognizing, two new ACNA dioceses, both of which include CANA congregations.

Ralph Webb, in Herndon