Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Primate, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) address to Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) on July 23rd, 2010

I bring you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Church of Nigeria [Anglican Communion].

It is a privilege and joy for me to be with you at this fourth annual CANA Council.

CANA is an important mission of The Church of Nigeria and we take seriously our responsibility to Anglicans in North America who are no longer in a position to find a spiritual home in The Episcopal Church. The relationship between the Church of Nigeria and CANA is a reminder of how God's Church is a worldwide body and we in the Church of Nigeria are blessed to have CANA as part of our church family.

Our main thrust as a Church continues to be the proclamation of the gospel, the 'faith once for all entrusted to the saints' [Jude 3]. The Great Commission must be pursued vigorously, in spite of deliberate obstacles being erected by some States and Cultures against the spread of the Gospel. Evangelism is a mandate and a responsibility of any Christian community. This is not only the verbalizing of the Gospel, but includes also a crucial aspect of teaching and discipling those who have come to profess the faith.

That is our great calling, a calling we share with Christian brothers and sisters around the world: to bring people to faith in Christ, so that their lives can be transformed and, in turn, transform our communities.

The Good News, which is proclaimed in the Gospel, is the most powerful tool any person can carry. The early missionaries arrived in Nigeria by sea in the nineteenth century. When that Good News came to my nation, it transformed our people and our society. The missionaries came to Nigeria and they brought the Lord's teachings of love and salvation. They brought Bibles and they widened our understanding of what was right and wrong in God's eyes.

What these missionaries did was difficult. They looked at us and told us we needed to change – to transform our lives and our civilization.

I give you two examples of this: First, we had a tradition that believed giving birth to twins was a bad omen – a sign of evil. This superstition led parents to kill the twin children in order to avoid the evil it was believed they would bring. Second, there was a tradition that when a great king died, his servants would be buried with him. It was believed that the rich and powerful would need their servants even in death.

The missionaries taught us that these rituals were wrong. They opened the eyes of our nation to the transforming light of Christ. By doing so, we were transformed by the Holy Spirit. This transformation is a continuing experience. Like those missionaries, we are all called by Christ to do what is right – not what is easy.

Please continue to be in prayer for Nigeria. As Nigeria prepares to celebrate her 50th anniversary of independence, there is a great deal for my country to celebrate. We have a nation to call our own. We have survived a three year bloody civil war. Democracy has been restored after a prolonged military rule. Our country has made remarkable progress in contributing to world peace through her peace-­keeping operations.

However, we continue to face many challenges: Crime is at an all time high. Poverty continues to be a major concern for a nation that has been blessed by God with vast natural resources. We are confronted by the challenges of religious / ethnic intolerance and violence between Christian and Muslim communities, especially in Nigeria's north which has caused much unnecessary suffering and loss of life. We are trying to make Christians responses to these serious challenges. We need your prayers.

We are prayerfully preparing for a general election with Mr. President, His Excellency Dr. Goodluck Jonathan determined to get it right -­ one man, one vote. And he has promised both local and international communities that the people's vote will count to determine the nation's crucial choices of who becomes what.

We ask for your prayers for his personal safety and success in the management of the political programmes of our country. As a Church we know that we are on Christ's path, guided by his hand his Word. We give thanks to God for the growth of the Church of Nigeria. Our vision statement challenges us to be bible based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self-­supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a Church that epitomizes the genuine Love of Christ. I commend this vision to you at this Council as you seek ways to be the 'Church in the World.'

As I look at the West, I see great nations with wonderful histories and the power to do so much good. There are many leaders in the West who propose policies with the goal of enhancing society's so-­called prosperity and well-­being, but they do not allow Christ to be present in these measures. If we do not give Christ the authority to transform our actions and our society, then the good of the West will be short-­lived?

Your first president, George Washington, said wisely, “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” Here in the USA, as in my country, there is corruption. The world economic meltdown which is hardly over, was partly a fruit of this fact. I wish to observe that humankind's rebellion against God's absolute authority to order our lives for the highest good is clearly continuing here, and those bold enough to differ are being persecuted.

Scripture is the key to keeping Christ present in our actions. We must uphold Scripture. We must live according to its authority, and spread the Word through faithful preaching and teaching in our churches. We must avoid selective preaching.

We must avoid dressing sin in a new garment of words in order to neutralize its offensiveness before those we pastor, thus hindering their chances of repentance. I see this as an attempt to escape the focus of a TV camera.

This is the greatest challenge you face, my brothers and sisters. The Western world has become afraid or is unwilling to acknowledge that there is right and wrong – that there is good and evil.

The Western Church led the world toward Christ for almost 2,000 years. But now it has cast aside its leadership and finds itself leaving Christ's path and following its own road. The West, Nations and Church, are disinheriting their Christian inheritance. Perhaps this is the easiest road to take. But it is certainly not the right road.

This is the challenge faced in the Anglican Communion where the revisionist agenda has weakened a church, which for generations has been at the forefront of global evangelization and mission.

Given the speed with which we alter time-­honored theological positions some of our ecumenical friends now doubt our reliability, and suspect our fellowship. We are all vulnerable to temptation and sin, but Christ calls us to stand shoulder to shoulder and faithfully declare that 'there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved' [Acts 4:12].

We are Christians. We must affirm our faith and identity, while we make allowance for others to affirm theirs as part of the grace for a plural society. We must, as orthodox Anglicans, uphold and continue to defend the biblical understanding of the family and its moral implications. The clear intention of Scripture is that marriage is a monogamous, lifelong, covenantal relationship between one man and one woman. All other sexual relationships are a sad reflection of our brokenness,  self-­centredness  and continuing rebellion against the expressed will of the Almighty God for which we need repentance.

Let there be a change. As Americans you occupy the lofty height of the world's civilization and material glory. But as a prophet, let me humbly encourage you to remind yourselves of the rise, the reign and the fall of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, the Roman Empire. It will do you good, to avoid certain pitfalls, as you struggle to retain your enviable position as the world's number one nation.

Like those missionaries who came to my nation many years ago, who preached the gospel in Nigeria, I now appeal to you in North America to declare the full gospel of Christ. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.' [Matthew 28:19, 20]. May the Living Lord Jesus Christ bless you and empower you all to faithfully proclaim the gospel of truth. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free [John 8:32].

+Nicholas, Abuja.