By Agaju Madugba
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
By Agaju Madugba
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.
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.

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/07/idowu-fearon-the-muslim-bishop-moves-to-canterbury/
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