Bishop Quits Anglican Church to Fight Jihad

Something is seriously wrong in Christendom when a bishop must resign his position to defend Christians. Isn't that why they are called "shepherds?"

From Front Page Magazine
By Mark D. Tooley

Britain’s leading ecclesiastical critic of radical Islam is retiring early so as to help persecuted Christians suffering under Islamist regimes. Church of England Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester aroused jihadist death threats last year when he publicly warned about encroaching Islamism in Britain. Born in Pakistan and from a family that converted away from Islam, Nazir-Ali has championed Britain’s Christian roots and condemned multiculturalist accommodation towards anti-Western ideologies.

“Scourge of Church Liberals to Step Down,” declared one British newspaper about Nazir-Ali, whose family received police protection last year. Besides defending Britain’s traditional British culture against Islamists and multiculturalists, the Bishop of Rochester further irked his critics by siding with African and other Global South bishops against theologically and sexually liberalizing tendencies in Western churches. Last year he skipped the once a decade “Lambeth” gathering of the global Anglican Communion’s bishops, hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Instead, he attended an alternative gathering for hundreds of more adamantly orthodox Anglican bishops who convened in Jerusalem, at the invitation of the senior Anglican prelates of Nigeria and Kenya, among others.

Nazir-Ali was a candidate to become the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003 but was overlooked in favor of Rowan Williams, who fecklessly suggested last year that Britain accommodate some aspects of Islamic law. Only age 59, Nazir-Ali is young enough that he possibly could have been considered for the title when Williams presumably retires in 2014. But Nazir-Ali seems to have been called to a different vocation.

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