Anyone hoping that Anglicans can heal the worldwide rift over an openly gay bishop in America's Episcopal Church would be disheartened after a talk with Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola.
Primate of the Church of Nigeria, the most prominent name in a burgeoning movement of African, Asian and Latin American Anglican leaders, Akinola speaks in a booming, angry voice about the future of the global Anglican Communion, with its 77 million faithful.
``All that was built before us is crumbling before our very eyes,'' Akinola said recently in an interview with The Associated Press in All Saints' Church, which he helped build two decades ago in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.
A silver cross dangling on his belly beneath a black suit, Akinola said he ``saw the end of the road'' coming Nov. 2 when Gene Robinson became the first openly gay bishop consecrated in a branch of Anglicanism (Robinson was made Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire).
``We are prepared to live by what God says, not what you say,'' Akinola said of liberals within Anglican ranks. ``As long as they continue to say homosexuality is right, then it cannot continue.''
Already a key Anglican leader opposed to gay priests and bishops, the 60-year-old Akinola has -- since Robinson's elevation -- become an even more important traditionalist spokesman.
He has pledged to boycott any Anglican meetings attended by representatives of the Episcopal Church.
More dramatically, he and other clerics in other so-called ``global South'' churches with similar views on homosexuality are considering a ``realignment'' of world Anglicanism, he said. That might include dropping Anglican references and symbols.
The separate Anglican body threatened by Akinola would include many of the fastest-growing congregations -- Nigeria has 17.5 million members, triple its 1970s total and more than in any Anglican church body outside England.
The break would leave behind declining and aging North American dioceses, perhaps with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the mother Church of England caught in the middle and torn over what to do.
Akinola's Anglicans would maintain ties with the conservative minority in the Episcopal Church that opposes gay clergy.
``I am thankful to the few Americans who refuse to be party to this evil. With them, we will worship together in communion, in God's kingdom,'' Akinola said.
Like other traditionalists, Akinola sees homosexual behavior as a nonnegotiable issue. It ``is what God calls sin. They call us intolerant. We call it sinful, they call us conservative,'' he said.
The archbishop has angered liberals with remarks comparing homosexuality to animal behavior -- ``even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don't hear of such things.''
Opponents say such remarks show that Akinola is a bigot, while Akinola -- in turn -- accuses liberals of trying to force values on Africans in a way that he compares to the ``slavery'' of centuries past.
``We in Africa are always on the receiving end,'' he said. ``We have had human slavery, political slavery, economic slavery and now religious slavery. We in the church are saying no. We are prepared to live by what God says, not what you say. Man shall not sleep with man, woman shall not sleep with woman.''
In Africa, where many churches have retained the Bible-based conservatism of missionaries who introduced Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries, Akinola's views on homosexuality are the rule.
In his native Nigeria, where Islam has spread to half the country's 126 million people, Akinola has talked passionately of converting more Christians to hold the line against the competing faith, and has been an outspoken opponent of Muslim Shariah law implemented in recent years by a dozen northern states.
Some religious academics regard Akinola -- recently appointed chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, with more than 37 million believers -- as becoming even more important in world Anglicanism than Archbishop Williams.
``Four or five of the most powerful Africans have said very much Akinola's line,'' said Philip Jenkins, a religion and history professor at Penn State University.
Yet not everyone in Africa agrees with Akinola.
Southern African Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, social activist and liberal-leaning successor to Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has played down the homosexuality rift and accused anti-gay forces of ``arrogance'' by attempting to ``divert us from the major life and death issues in the world.''
``People are going hungry across the world ... HIV/AIDS is a global emergency,'' Ndungane said in a recent statement. ``These are major urgent issues which should be priority for the church and we must not lose our focus.''
Ndungane rejected the possibility of churches in southern Africa ``breaking communion'' with the Episcopal Church, as the Nigerians and other Africans have done.
Akinola insists he is ``not looking to create a personal legacy'' with his anti-gay clergy stance. Instead, he says his main goals before retiring are to ensure the Church of Nigeria is ``well-endowed materially, spiritually, numerically.''
An ethnic Yoruba from southwestern Nigeria, Akinola abandoned a chain of cabinetmaking shops and postal agencies in the country's Muslim-dominated north to ``follow the calling of the church'' in 1968.
These days, Akinola boasts of creating a diocese in Abuja, ``from nothing on the ground. No church, no land, no money.'' Two decades ago, parishioners worshipped ``under trees, others in classrooms,'' while today there is a cathedral and several parish churches.
Nigerians still regard him as a ``big man'' who, traveling in a chauffeur-driven, bulletproof Mercedes, rubs shoulders with the rich and powerful.
For instance, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a longtime friend who hails from Akinola's hometown of Abeokuta, sent a three-man delegation to congratulate him for being elected leader of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella group uniting the nation's 60 million Christians.
During a recent meeting with foreign journalists, church employees greeted Akinola with a combination of affection and obeisance. They chuckled, and kneeled to the archbishop, who laughingly referred to them as ``you bushmen.'' In one case, Akinola rapped his knuckles on the bowed head of one man who apologized for forgetting a set of master keys to the church.
Akinola described his new responsibilities with African Anglican provinces and Nigerian churches as ``joyful burdens.''
In this time of division, they include the job of seeking new sources of funding independent of rich Western churches that traditionally have been a mainstay for poorer African counterparts.
``They are trying to make my God a liar. That I will not accept. If that's the case, then better to be poor and loyal to God than to have all the money in the world,'' Akinola said.
``If we are faithful to God, we can meet all our needs.''