TLC: A Second Betrayal
The Rev. Samson N. Gitau
09/02/2007

The leadership of The Episcopal Church seems intrigued as to why the Global South Anglican leadership has failed to buy into Western revisionism. The Episcopalians seem equally intrigued as to why the “poor” Global South church leaders, faced with multiple problems like HIV/AIDS, malaria and education, to name a few, refuse to take foreign aid, or even worse, why they have returned aid already received prior to the events of the infamous 2003 General Convention.

The apparent intrigue is coupled with the failure of the Global South leaders to embrace the popular Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) warmly embraced by Episcopal Church leadership. In short, why is the Episcopal social gospel falling on the rocky side of the Global South leadership soil?

To understand the Global South’s reaction and rejection of the no doubt attractive social gospel propagated by The Episcopal Church, one has to go back to the planting of the church in the Global South, especially in Africa. By the turn of the 20th century, Christianity was hardly known in most of Africa. However, that does not mean that Africans were not religious. In fact, in the words of a well-known African writer, before the missionaries came, “Africans were notoriously religious.” Every aspect of African life was permeated with religion. The only area that the Africans remained uninformed was the person of Jesus Christ and his role of redemption. the rest