by Herb Gunn

“We pray this morning for Samuel and Samuel,” a liturgical refrain that has been a part of Sunday morning worship in the Diocese of Michigan for as long as some can remember. Samuel Adedaye Abe and Olubayu Samuel Sowale are the bishops of Ekiti and Ilesa in the Anglican Province of Nigeria. For nearly 30 years, the Diocese of Michigan has held them in prayer—and they, us—in a companion relationship that has spanned the tenure of three Episcopal bishops, two of whom traveled to Nigeria.

Michigan Bishop Coleman McGehee went to Nigeria in 1984. With an eye toward rekindling the international relationships, Bishop Wendell Gibbs led a delegation to Ilesa and Ekiti in January 2003.

During the early years of the companionship, the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) in Michigan, a couple from All Saints’, Brooklyn, and the Venture in Mission program energized fund-raising efforts to provide water wells and hospital supplies for the two west African dioceses. Several ECW members also made the trip over the years.

Michelle Rougeau, member of the Church of Messiah, Detroit, served as a nurse in Nigeria for six months in 1983. Even 20 years later—and 15 years after she was murdered in her Detroit apartment—Rougeau was remembered in the villages of Nigeria as the princess of Ilesa.

Much love, many disappointments, some significant estrangement have marked the three-decade relationship between the Diocese of Michigan and the two in Nigeria. It is now time to formally and politely end the companion relationships.

For the most part, the relationships were declared dead by the Nigerian primate, Peter Akinola, the year following Bishop Gibbs’s two-week trip. In April 2004, the year after the election of the bishop of New Hampshire, the Nigerian archbishop, who was serving as chairman of the African primates, declared that African churches would no longer accept aid from the West.

The Record sought clarification and wrote Samuel and Samuel as well as Archbishop Akinola. In May of that year, Oluranti Odubogun, the general secretary of the Church of Nigeria, confirmed that the Church of Nigeria, on March 10-12, “decided that Church of Nigeria Dioceses in link with over liberal ECUSA Dioceses should relinquish such links forthwith.” No further or official communication has followed in four years.

“For every thing, there is a season,” writes the Old Testament author. It is time for the Diocese of Michigan to celebrate, to mourn and to end the official companion relationship with the dioceses of Samuel and Samuel.

Several appropriate actions should be considered. First, Bishop Gibbs should make every effort to engage the Nigerian church officials at the upcoming Lambeth conference in July. That won’t be easy; Archbishop Akinola has announced that his bishops will not attend.

Second, this fall, our Diocesan Convention should review and honor the relationship that began in hope in 1979 but has recently ceased to grow and nurture our two separate expressions of Anglicanism.

Third, the diocese should quietly renew an effort to help the people of a Nigerian village by allocating $2,000 that was raised for water wells but has been held in a reserve fund for 15 years.

As put forth elsewhere in this issue of The Record, there is renewed desire and energy to refocus our reach into the world beyond our diocesan boundaries. This diocese will be freer to explore a new companion relationship after the necessary closure with Ekiti and Ilesa.

“We pray today for Samuel and Samuel,” and for the people of Nigeria, and the bishops of the Anglican Communion who meet in Canterbury this summer.

Your COMMENTS (150 words or less)?

Your LETTER to the editor (50-350 words)

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 COMMENTS:

Tell me who Christ abandoned? Give me a list of peoples about whom the Lord “celebrated, mourned and then ended His formal relationship”? Who shall we lift highest in prayer and affection, in thought, word and deed? Our friends, with whom we most readily agree and with whom there is little dispute or animosity? Or those with whom we are separated and apart, where suspicion, doubt and rejection have grown?

The Lord I know seeks out the one lost sheep, even leaving the rest of flock unprotected to do so. He celebrates the return of the wayward son. He actively works in the lives of those who seek no relationship with Him, even without their acknowledgment. He never ends a relationship – formal or otherwise – not a single one.

Whether one agrees or not with the precipitous actions of ECUSA, or whether one agrees or not with the unilateral responses from the Province of Nigeria; it is abundantly clear that there are no winners in this current situation within the Anglican church. All sides have proven themselves equally capable of selfishness, intolerance, conceit and self-righteous indignation towards others. The only winner is that one who relishes hate; who is fed by mistrust, doubt and fear; the one who fills the vacuums left by people who abandon each other, like a cancer fills the space left by diseased tissue.

EDOMI has been given the blessing to fight this evil. Not the evil falsely perceived as the leadership of the Nigerian Church; but rather then evil which inclines our hearts against each other. If we abandon this part of the church, if we end the relationship in any manner, we have denied the blessing.

Phil Pierce
St. Stephen’s, Troy

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Sue Millar
St. Paul's, Lansing

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Alan Zimmerman
St. James, Birmingham

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Barry Lawler

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Why not wait until his retirement and discern the possibility of restoring these relationships. The Episcopal Church's approach to the southern dioceses during the Civil War should be taken - count them absent for a time and return to formal relations when it is safe for their bishops to do so.

The proposal you promulgate should be quashed and not brought to the floor of convention, but if it is, it should be soundly defeated! Instead you and whoever’s idea this really is should find a way to not only send the money already raised, but to find ways to continue the desperately needed support of our fellow Christians who had, undoubtedly, come to depend on our outreach to them. If ‘flying under the radar’ works for one thing, it will work in the future.

David A. Schafer
St. John’s Episcopal Church of Detroit

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So here we are, all dressed up for the ball, and no place to go. Yet we don't want to go alone - given the political temperament, a dissolution on our part carries a negative connotation, and goes against what many people feel is a commitment that should mirror the Almighty's: permanent, steadfast, and not prone to throw in the towel.

How about a compromise? Can EDOMI take on a second diocesan partner? Can we continue to try to link with our friends in Nigeria, yet open the door to a new partner who might be more open to shared ministry? What would a 'front burner, back burner' partnership look like? This would open new doors for ministry for many in the diocese, yet keep 'Samuel and Samuel' firmly in our hearts and prayers, and perhaps some day in our presence.

The Rev. Chris Yaw
St. David's, Southfield

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Jim Toy

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I suggest we create facts on the ground with Sunday School to Sunday School relationships, Women's groups, and Men's groups. We can sponsor specific projects (like the wells - for heaven's sake release the money). The point of the Gospel is to be reflections of God's love in the world. While our leadership struggles with the boundaries of whom we can love, we should reach out with all the love we have to each other.

Susan McGarry,
St. Aidan's Ann Arbor

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The Rev. Dr. Geoffrey T. Boyer, Rector
St. Philip's, Rochester

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Here we stand, in the doorway of Nigeria and we are not welcome at this point in time. It is presumptuous of us to look at Nigeria as the Lost Sheep. It isn't salvation they lack, but some basic necessities. We have offered that part of the Good News and we are not welcome. Perhaps it is time to move to a different town to see if our offerings would be welcome there. The hope is at some point, through continued prayer and God-filled people on both sides, we can once again embrace each other as complete brothers and sisters despite our disagreements.

Thank you for bringing up this topic. Journalism, at its best, marks points in history and raises questions that tick people off and get them talking. As one RC friend put it —"We are the itch the church has to scratch".

The Rev. Stacy Salles
St. Paul's
Romeo, MI

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