SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Religion And Human Relations

CONTRIBUTORS:

Nnadi, S. Chukwudi
Chiegboka A. B. C.

ABSTRACT:

Religion and its ethical imperatives have always withstood the dynamics of the ever changing social norms that go with each successive generation in human history. The resultant tension occasionally evolves into attempts to modify hitherto rigid and unquestioned norms in the interplay of religion and ethics. Some religious doctrines are consequently assumed to be out of touch with modern social, anthropological and psychological realities. This assumption has led to serious problems in the Anglican Church, and this research sets out to inquire into the causes and the effects of the problems that have been created. Using the qualitative method of research, primary and secondary sources of data were collected and analyzed, from the culture area and the historical method approach, and effort was made to trace the origins and the motivating factors of the modern sexual revolution that is now recommending beliefs and practices that were once taboos in the ‘decent’ past of the Church’s life. The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) was in the forefront of the fight among the ranks of those rooting for the biblical orthodox teachings of the Church on sexual ethics, and played a key role in marshalling other Provinces of the Communion to confront the revisionist agenda of some prominent Anglican provinces in the Western world regarding homosexuality. Consequently, it became necessary for the Anglican Church in Nigeria to strengthen her teaching ministry among her members, and to make legislative adjustments in her Canon law and the ordinal, as counter-measures to protect her age-long orthodox theological inheritance. Secondly, Nigerian Anglicanism made concerted effort to shield orthodox Anglicans in America, Canada and Britain from the pressure mounted by those canvassing for acceptance of sexual aberrations, by starting off missions, and ordaining and consecrating conforming clergy and bishops in these areas, supervised from Nigeria. This implies Africans taking the gospel back to the Western world–a clear reversal of the missionary tide. In the face of the determined efforts of the revisionists and the undeniable progress they have so far recorded, the study recommends that the Anglican Church should continue to be wholly Bible-based and not give room to any unbiblical interpretation or reinterpretation of the Bible to suit any modern trend of thinking, or choice of behaviour. Other Church denominations should also rise up against Western revisionism which is gradually gaining grounds across the continents. African ethical heterosexual morality which is supported by the Bible is worth defending, in order to keep the Christian religion pure from avoidable corruption steadily spreading from the Western world.