For the immediate past Kaduna Diocesan Bishop
of Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, the
Most Rev. Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon, the time
of glory has come having just been appointed
Secretary General of the Anglican Communion
Worldwide, with headquarters at Lambeth, United
Kingdom.
The position makes him the second in command
after the Archbishop of Canterbury. Breaking a
record as the first African to hold the position,
Idowu-Fearon has had a number of other high
profile albeit controversial achievements in his
over half a century of dedicated service to the
development of the Anglican Church not only in
Nigeria but also across the world. He is expected
to serve for an initial renewable period of seven
years.
Most Rev. Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon
When at the height of the Kaduna religious riots
of 2000, Idowu-Fearon, against all odds,
established a centre for the study of Islam in his
Kaduna Diocese, a cross section of his flock
virtually demanded for his head, calling him all
manner of names including that of a Muslim
Bishop, infiltrating the Church of Christ.
That name tag has tended to accompany the
Bishop over these years for a man who actually
speaks Arabic apart from holding a Master’s
Degree in Islamic Theology.
The valedictory lecture and send-forth ceremony
for Idowu-Fearon and his wife, Amina, which held
Saturday at the Jakaranda Farms, on the
outskirts of Kaduna metropolis, attracted a
number of dignitaries from within and outside
Nigeria, Muslims and Christians alike.
Kaduna state Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i
was there, along with former Governor Ahmed
Mohammed Makarfi, Taraba state Governor,
Dairus Ishaku, a former Military Governor of Edo
state, Senator Tunde Ogbeha, and a former
Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma,
among several others.
The Cleric-Scholar and Passion for Islam
Born on January 17, 1949 at Gerinye in Kogi
state, Idowu-Fearon said he formally embraced
the Christian religion in 1964. Originally enrolled in
military school to train as a soldier, the passion
to be a priest apparently overwhelmed all other
aspirations and as Idowu-Fearon explained during
his valedictory speech.
“In my fourth year, it had become very clear that
the Lord was calling me to be a soldier in His
Army, to the extent that in spite of a direct entry
to the Nigerian Defence Academy, I was given a
sympathetic discharge by the late Gen. Hassan
Katsina, in Lagos.” The development, according to
him, “turned out to be the channel through which
the Lord saved me.”
Several years later and in the course of his
pastoral training across many institutions, Idowu-
Fearon said he developed a special interest for
Islam, more so, at a time in Nigeria when the
religious harmony that hitherto existed between
Christian and Muslim communities went sour.
At the Immanuel College, Ibadan, Idowu-Fearon
said he met a certain Dr. Stadey who introduced
him to what he described as the world of Islam,
and, as he put it, “my interest was aroused, I
pleaded with the Lord for a scholarship to do
some further studies in Islam and I felt the need
to carefully study how the Koran presents the
nature of Jesus Christ.” The quest later led to
Idowu-Fearon’s Master’s Degree programme in,
Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations, at
Birmingham University.
From then on, he delved further into Islam and
also studied the Arabic language in the process,
at the University of Jordan, Amman, and,
eventually turning the Bishop into a visiting
Islamic lecturer and Faculty member at both the
Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Canada,
and at the Canterbury International Centre, United
Kingdom.
Back home in Nigeria and applying his various
trainings to his primary assignment as Bishop in
Kaduna and Sokoto, Idowu-Fearon ran into
muddy waters as a number of his flock apparently
could not explain how and why a Bishop can be
“so close to Islam and Muslims.” This is aside
the fact that the Nigerian Anglican community
also has its fair share of divisions pertaining to
certain ideologies in the Christian religion and
Anglicanism in particular.
Perhaps, Voltaire’s philosophy may apply to
Idowu-Fearon as it is dangerous to be right in
matters on which the established authorities are
wrong. As a Theology student and researcher,
Idowu-Fearon is quite familiar with the concepts
of Monophyisitism and Nestorianism, a twin
Christology position that insists that Christ has
only one nature as opposed to the traditional
belief that Christ has two natures, one divine and
the other human.
Moreover, as a self-confessed disciple of Richard
Hooker who is believed to have laid the
theological foundation for understanding of the
church for Anglicans, Idowu-Fearon says he
shares the concepts of the mystical church which
is invisible and the visible church. For him,
membership of the visible church is determined,
among other things, the profession of the Lord
Jesus Christ while only God knows those who
belong or may eventually be part of the mystical
church.
Whatever the arguments, for Idowu-Fearon, “in
order to create and promote a culture of respect
for differences within our Communion, I encourage
our bishops in this part of the Communion to
cultivate the habit of understanding other
positions other than their own. Our bishops in
Nigeria within their diocese should promote robust
debates between the lay and ordained members
and such will get the bishop well-informed.”
Blackmail, Mischief, in God’s Name
After his consecration in 1990 and given what he
describes as his exposure and experiences which
were compounded by his “undue” knowledge of
Islam, Idowu-Fearon said his colleagues, fellow
bishops, did everything possible to frustrate him
in the course of his service. According to him, “my
being elected as Bishop of Sokoto was seen by
some in the then House of Bishops as a way of
humbling me but God used our time in Sokoto to
expose us to the international community.
And, when Kaduna Diocese was going to be
vacant, efforts were made to send me to be
bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf; this was to get me
out of the country. The form was filled and my
signature forged without my knowledge. In Cyprus
for an interfaith meeting, the Lord revealed it to
me through Australian missionaries who
volunteered to host me for the conference and the
plot was confirmed by the then Secretary General
of the Anglican Communion.
After my first five years as the first ecclesiastical
Archbishop of Kaduna province, again, the powers
that be felt that I was too close to the then
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Communion at
large, that I was promoting Western relativism
and that I was going to sell the province of
Nigeria to the West. Two bishops were specially
commissioned to sell me as a convert to Islam
and that Fearon is a Muslim, drinking tea with the
Sultan and that Fearon was promoting
homosexuality in Nigeria.”
The Road to Lambeth
Idowu-Fearon’s journey to Lambeth as Secretary
General at the Canterbury did not come on a
platter of gold. Although he applied for the
position, along with 31 others from various
countries, Idowu-Fearon believes that God made
it possible for him to use his undergraduate and
graduate studies in the United Kingdom to make
contacts that ultimately laid the foundation for his
nomination after beating three other candidates
who made the shortlist.
According to him, in the years after 1990,
opportunities started to open up for him in Britain
and the United States of America during which he
served on various commissions within the
Anglican Communion. Idowu-Fearon was a
founding member of the Canterbury’s Compass
Rose Council, a foundation member and one of
the first three presidents of the Network for
Interfaith Concerns.
He was also member of the 13-man committee of
the Archbishop of Canterbury that looked into the
responses to Lambeth Resolution 1; 10 of 1998
as well as member of the committee that
produced the Windsor Commission Report of
2003. According to Idowu-Fearon, “as I was
thinking and praying about taking an early
retirement in order to spend the rest of my active
life to build an army of well-informed and
articulate Christian leaders to constructively
engage their Muslim neighbours and build a
culture of respect and peaceful co-existence, the
Lord opened a new world of service to me.”
To Idowu-Fearon, a Toast -Senator Makarfi,
former Kaduna state Governor
We have become very close since 1999 when as
Governor of Kaduna state, I met with religious
leaders and Idowu-Fearon was one of them. You
are all witnesses to what we went through
especially between 2000 and 2002. He was a
reliable and dependable partner in the search for
lasting peace, harmony and tranquility in Kaduna
state and we have sustained that relationship
since then.
I have already told him that between London and
Nigeria is more or less between Abuja and Lagos.
He is committed to Nigeria and he wants peace
and tranquility for Nigeria. Physically he may not
be resident here but I believe his heart and spirit
will be here with us and he will continue to
contribute his quota towards our development. He
should continue to have faith in God and God that
has taken him this far will continue to protect him
and make him go even higher.
Rev. Dare Ajiboye, General Secretary, Bible
Society of Nigeria
This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our
eyes. It is our prayer that the Lord will give you
courage and wisdom like Joshua and Solomon of
old to lead the flock of God to an enviable height
and to the Promised Land. There is no doubt that
God has prepared and given you the ability to
serve His people in this new capacity and at this
point in time.
We encourage you to be more determined and
courageous in fighting the good fight of Faith. The
renewed task will no doubt further compound your
busy schedule but God who has chosen you will
give you the required strength, motivation and
good health to do it faithfully as unto Him.
Rev. Dr. Owe Boersma, Secretary, European
Liaison Committee, Association of Protestant
Churches and Missions, Germany
In the light of the excellent work which you have
been doing till today, bringing together people of
different faiths to live together in peace, even
against popular mistrust and ignorance, gives us
the confidence that the Anglican Community will
be glad to have a person with such skills and
experience.
Rev. Dr. Olav Fyskse Tveit, General Secretary,
World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland
Your exceptional record of devoted work on
Christian-Muslim relations is a specific gift you
bring to your new role. Developing the role of
churches as peace-builders and dialogue partners
in a time when religious-motivated violence is
causing devastation to so many is an urgent
demand for us all as faithful Christians. I pray
that your wisdom and experience will inform not
only the activities of the Anglican Communion in
this regard but the wider ecumenical family as
well.
Muslims and Christians must unite to fight
secularism, Idowu-Fearon says
Coming from the north, do you have some
members of your family who are Muslims?Yes, I
have some distant members of the family who are
Muslims and as a young man, some people tried
to initiate me into certain things, some of them
fetish, without the knowledge of my mother but I
came to Christ at the Nigerian Military School,
Zaria in my second year in 1964 and since then, I
decided to rely on Jesus Christ alone and no
other.
I once saw you clutching Dan Bown’s Davinci
Code. Some people believe that the book is a
direct attack on the Church of Christ. Do you
hold that view too?
The book is an attack on the church because
Davinci is totally against the fact that Jesus
Christ lived and died as we read it in the Bible.
That book must have been inspired by the Devil
and it is coming direct from the pit of Hell,
against the Gospel. And, that is why I consider
this fighting within the church as a waste of time.
Instead, we should come together and be aware
of the fact that secularism has become a religion
and it is very strong and some of the promoters
control most of the media. Christians ought to
come together, forget whether we are Roman
Catholic, Pentecostal and all others who worship
God, the Christian way and join hands with the
Muslims who are also fighting secularism. That is
my mission.
Do you not think that some of the issues you
raised in your valedictory speech may actually be
responsible for certain disagreements you have
with some of your colleagues. Issues as, the
visible and invisible church and the concepts of
Monophysitism and similar high-sounding words
which may not make meanings to an ordinary
member of the church?
You see, in the Anglican understanding and
Roman Catholics also have similar understanding
too and that is why the Roman Catholic is one
church. But the Anglican Church is a group of
churches, 38 different churches coming together
and that is why it is a communion. We don’t have
a centralized government or authority like the
Pope, for the Catholic Church.
That is the problem the Anglican Church is facing.
When we talk about the invisible church, it means
Heaven and only God decides who goes there and
you do not need to discipline anybody. From the
Bible, we believe that whoever believes in Jesus
Christ and takes him as the Lord and Saviour and
you are baptised, that person is a Christian and
belongs to the visible church.
In this visible church, you also have liars, thieves,
you have adulterers, cheats and you cannot
disown them and say that they are not members
of the church because all they need is a
confession to believing in Jesus Christ as
Saviour. The Bishops and other priests are there
to guide the visible church and teach them what
the Bible says.
But irrespective of going against certain
injunctions, you do not have the right to say that
they are not members of the visible church. If for
example somebody is a serial adulterer, you can
suspend him from the church for a while, to
correct him or her. In the invisible church, you do
not need bishops or priests because God alone
decides who become members. But we need the
visible church to remind us of the invisible church
because in the final analysis, everybody wants to
be in the invisible church.
On the issue of Monophysitism, I did not want to
go further because if I did, some people would
throw stones at me but there are some Christians
who still believe in Monophysitism. Members of
the Coptic Church are Monophysites, they believe
in one nature of Christ. But the orthodox position
is two natures of Christ, the human and divine,
not conjoined. In other words, Jesus is 100 per
cent divine and 100 per cent human but only God
knows how it is like that. Anglicans, Catholics,
Presbyterians, we believe in the two natures of
Christ.
Is the controversial Centre for Islamic Studies
which you established in the Diocese likely to
survive your exit?
Yes. In fact, I signed a contract this morning
(Monday), recruiting two Muslims and two
Christians who have Masters Degrees in Islamic
Studies, to teach at the centre and I will be
paying them from my pocket. They will continue
to run the certificate and diploma programmes
there. So, the centre will continue and we are
going to use the lower part of the new house
being built and I am putting up a full library there
and the chapel will serve as classrooms until I
retire.
No comments:
Post a Comment