Source: BBC News, Telegraph (London), Ekklesia
Conservative Anglican leaders have opened talks in Jerusalem on the future of the Church by criticizing its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, BBC News reports.

The Archbishops of Nigeria and Uganda attacked his failure to discipline the US Episcopal Church for consecrating an openly gay bishop in 2003.

At a press conference Sunday, the two archbishops also attempted to downplay or even justify anti-gay violence in their countries.

About 300 bishops are meeting to discuss the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion, amid fears of a split.

Many attending the Jerusalem talks have threatened to boycott a major July meeting of Anglican bishops in England.

According to The Telegraph, a London newspaper that is an unabashed cheerleader for the church's conservative critics, several of the conservatives have told the breakaway Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem that the worldwide Communion has been "broken." The conservatives blame the rift on liberals in America who consecrated the first openly gay bishop in 2003.

Many of them say liberals are rewriting the Bible to fit modern trends.

Archbishop Henri Orombi of Uganda was among those who called on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to take a stronger stance.

"We have been on fire for quite a while, and he just cannot leave us burning and delay. At what time will you salvage us?" he asked.

"Supposing another part of the communion begins to do something which is contrary to the word of God, how is it going to stand up and say no to that? That's my challenge."

"The Communion is in a state of brokenness," said the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, at the opening of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), which brings together conservative Anglican leaders, many from developing countries.

One of the most powerful figures in the conservative movement,  Akinola said there would be an "unavoidable realignment" of Anglicanism's power base from Canterbury to the developing "Global South" nations of Africa, Asia and South America.

He said, "We want one thing and one thing only - to restore communion and fellowship. It has failed. We are asking this conference to think about this and come up with something we can do. That is what we want."

In a booklet published ahead of the conference, Archbishop Akinola - who leads one of the largest churches in Anglicanism with 17 million members - had written: "There is no longer any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion."

But in his speech on Sunday Akinola claimed Gafcon would not lead to a separate movement outside Anglicanism, the Telegraph reports.

But another Nigerian bishop, Emmanuel Chukwuma, on Monday described the American Episcopal church as "apostates", or heretics, for their approach to homosexuality, BBC reports.

The meeting of conservative bishops is a signal to other Anglicans that the conservatives are willing to give up their links with Canterbury if that is what it takes to return to what they consider to be the Biblical values of the first Christians, BBC's religious affairs correspondent reports from the meeting.

The BBC's Robert Piggot says the Gafcon delegates are drawing up "what amounts to a blueprint for an alternative Anglican Communion."

But a final statement about the state of the communion is unlikely to come from the Jerusalem meeting because the Bishop of Jerusalem, Suheil Salman Dawani, had asked the organizers not to meet in the city if they were planning to announce a schism.

Dawani said many other traditionalists like himself would resist the conference's approach to the crisis.

"We don't agree with what happens in the Episcopal Church but this doesn't divide us. Unity is at the heart of the gospel of Christ," Bishop Dawani said.

According to the Telegraph, however, the bishops in Jerusalem are expected to discuss ways to form a new organization within Anglicanism for those opposed to homosexuality, rather than announcing a full-scale schism.

Gafcon leaders want the structure of Anglicanism better to reflect the influence of the Global South countries.

It's a structure that's likely to be hostile to gay men and lesbians.

At a press conference Sunday, Akinola and Orombi declined to condemn violence against lesbian and gay men and women when asked to comment on reported incidents by a gay rights advocate, Ekklesia reports.

Iain Baxter of the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) asked the archbishops how they reconciled their faith with their support for jailing lesbian and gay people, which had led to cases of rape and torture, and why they'd refused to speak out against the incidents.

Akinola responded that he was unaware of any such incidents anywhere in Africa.

When given the example of a lesbian women from Uganda who had applied for asylum in the UK after being jailed, raped in the police station, and marched for two miles naked through the streets of Uganda, Archbishop Akinola said, "If the practice (homosexuality) is now found to be in our society it is of service to be against it."

He continued that those who are "responsible for law and order" will attempt to prevent "wholesale importation of foreign practices and traditions, that are not consistent with native standards, native way of life."

Orombi said it was "not possible" for the church to speak "favorably" for gay men or lesbians.

"The church's practice is to preach, to proclaim" he said, "so that people who find themselves in a position where they go away from the word of God, the same word of God can bring them back to life. And that is in Uganda as already Archbishop Akinola is saying."

Both archbishops suggested reports of anti-gay violence in their countries are exaggerated by Western media.

Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jenson, intervened in an attempt to soften the comments of the African bishops. "Can I add to that," he said, "because I think it needs to be said, on behalf of these brothers, if not by themselves, any violence against any person, is in Christian terms wrong."

Full article: Bishops criticise Anglican leader | BBC News
Archbishops fail to condemn violence against lesbians and gays | Ekklesia
Gafcon: Hardline Anglicans to split church over homosexual clergy | Telegraph (London)