Black liberal archbishop enthroned in York

A couple of weeks ago a reader saw signs for hope when John Sentamu, a Ugandan native about to become the first black archbishop in the Church of England, defended the English nation and its traditions. I replied that it is fairly routine for an occasional well-disposed member of a racial minority to defend the majority culture, but that real progress would only occur when majority members defended the majority culture.

In fact, Sentamu turns out to be your standard leftist Anglican, with an African cultural overlay. At his enthronement as the Archbishop of York late last month, his message was the usual barely-Christian or non-Christian or anti-Christian folderol that seems to be de rigueur for all Anglican and Episcopal bishops. Pretending to address the malaise in the Church of England, he merely repeated the same liberal message that has produced the malaise.

Here are some excerpts from the AP story by Sue Leeman about Sentamu’s enthronement (italics added):

With drums beating time to a favorite African hymn, Uganda-born John Sentamu was enthroned Wednesday as the first black archbishop in the Church of England.

The drums resounded as Sentamu traveled by boat along the River Ouse from his official residence to the ceremony celebrating his becoming the 97th archbishop of York, the church’s second-highest cleric after the archbishop of Canterbury.

Inside York Minster, 20 dancers in leopard-print outfits, their heads covered in feathers of red, white and black, performed a dance of rejoicing and thanksgiving in front of a 3,500-strong congregation.

Clad in a bright blue and yellow cope and mitre, the 56-year-old Sentamu joined the drummers at one point in the ceremony.

In his sermon, Sentamu … encouraged outreach to the disadvantaged, and followers of other religions.

“I would urge people who are judgmental and moralizing as followers of the Prince of Peace, the friend of the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable [he left out “disenfranchised,” we’ll have to write to the Archishop of Canterbury about that]—I bid you, by the mercies of God, to go and find friends among them,” Sentamu said.

“Christians, go and find friends among Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics, atheists,” he continued. “Not for the purpose of converting them to your beliefs, but for friendship, understanding, listening, hearing.”

Sentamu … said in a newspaper interview he would be happy to ordain women as bishops if the Church of England changed its rules to allow them.

He also has been part of a committee attempting to mend an international rift in the church opened by the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church. He has urged more conservative African primates not to break with the Anglican Communion and called for reconciliation.

Sentamu moved to Britain in 1974 after clashing with the regime of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. In 2002 he became bishop of Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, and in June the government announced his appointment to York.

We’re always being told by happy-talk conservatives that supposedly “conservative” African Anglicans are the hope of the spiritually decaying Anglican Communion. Sentamu is a liberal African Anglican who only seems to be hastening its demise. Apart from his blackness and his use of African cultural motifs that are entirely alien to English Christian culture, an archbishop who makes “listening”-style outreach to non-Christians a major theme of his own enthronement sermon is obviously not concerned with advancing Anglican Christianity, he is concerned with advancing liberalism. But, of course, in England, as in America, there is practically no difference between the two.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2005 05:19 PM | Send