From The Church Times-
NIGERIA is “at risk of disintegration” after the recent attacks on Christians, the Archbishop of Canterbury said this week.
Dr Williams, speaking in an emergency debate in the General Synod on Wednesday, said that the situation in Nigeria was “not a few issues of interfaith conflict, but the threatened disintegration of a society”.
He described the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, which is linked to al-Qaeda, as “one of the most extreme organisations in the world . . . For societies to flourish, the Christian Church must be free to flourish and do what it is called to do.” He was not seeking special pleading for Christians, but was defending all minorities in Nigeria.
The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, said that the Synod was sending a message: “Anyone who touches Christians or other minorities in Nigeria — you touch us. And our arms are long.”
The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Justin Welby, has recently returned from Nigeria. In his view, the Church in the north of Nigeria was being “systematically and deliberately eliminated”.
He said that the emergency Synod motion called for the protection of all minorities, but Christians were bearing the brunt of the attacks. He said that the Bishop of Damaturu was in hiding, “his flock scattered, his churches destroyed”.
More here-
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=124211
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