When will they ever learn?

History is repeating itself as the Anglican Central African Province House of Bishops under the 'guidance' of acting Dean Albert Chama of Northern Zambia, continues to force its programme of preferred candidates on the Dioceses of of Lake Malawi and Upper Shire. Meeting at the end of this month the Bishops will attempt to impose Henry M'baya on Lake Malawi and Alinafe Kalemba, Dean of Leonard Kamungu Theological College, Zomba on Upper Shire.

Both of these candidates are unpopular and both dioceses have already democratically indicated that they do not want imposed candidates. In the case of Lake Malawi the people have long since have voted overwhelmingly for the Rev'd Nicholas Henderson who was then declared to be of 'unsound faith' in a ridiculous decision by a contrived Court of Confirmation two years ago.

Subsequently, Bishop Chama sought to force new elections on Lake Malawi but courageously the people stopped these by appealing to a Civil Court, as reported by us in earlier releases. The House of Bishops' case is so weak that they have now had to resort to hiring professional lawyers at great and wasteful expense to try and assert that synodical procedures have been followed when they manifestly have not.

ANGLICAN-INFORMATION observes the scandal that precious church monies should be wasted by the bishops in attempting to prop up their foolish decision to force new elections when proper synodical procedures had already been agreed.

Herein is the problem, as the chosen successor (following the sacking of the Bishop of Botswana) to former Archbishop Bernard Malango, Bishop Chama, who is amusingly nicknamed in Malawi 'Son of Malango', has like his 'father', failed to understand the conciliar nature of Anglican episcopacy, which has as its basis the concept of 'Bishop in Synod'. Thus correct synodical procedures have constantly been flouted as Chama, following in Malango's footsteps has sought to crush any opposition and impose his own agenda. Ironically, this is exactly the style of Chama’s old friend Nolbert Kunonga former bishop of Harare, Zimbabwe, who despite the overwhelming wish of the people and clergy to rejoin the Province under the leadership of Bishop Sebastian Bakare, is holding out (literally) in St Mary's Cathedral and encouraging violence and intimidation in order to cling to power.

What is deeply sad is that the rest of the House of Bishops, embedded in a culture of deference and fearful of standing up, have allowed Chama to orchestrate such a mess in Malawi and to trample over correct procedures. In this respect we have been asked to publish the letter below from all the Archdeacons of Upper Shire Diocese protesting in a very reasonable way against the actions of Chama and the bishops.