NYT: Inviting Africa’s Anglicans to Gather Under a Bigger Tent
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: February 10, 2007
BISHOPSCOURT, South Africa

IN times of turmoil, Njongonkulu Ndungane, the Anglican archbishop for southern Africa, has a favorite spot: a wooden seat that encircles a massive fruit tree in his garden at the foot of Table Mountain. He calls it his thinking bench.

Perhaps never before has he had so much use for it. The global Anglican Communion, of which his province is the oldest African member, is teetering on the brink of schism over the issue of homosexuality. A global meeting of church leaders in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in mid-February is shaping up as perhaps the biggest confrontation yet between branches that condone gay clergy and same-sex unions, and those that reject them as violations of Scripture.

Archbishop Ndungane (pronounced un-dun-GAN-ee), who succeeded Archbishop Desmond Tutu just over a decade ago as the leader of southern Africa’s four million Anglicans, is pleading for acceptance. In Archbishop Tutu’s mold, he argues for a broad-tented church in which believers of various stripes live in harmony. the rest