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Philip Jenkins, in his groundbreaking The Next Christendom, wrote that a "global perspective should make us think carefully before asserting 'what Christians believe' or 'how the church is changing.' All too often [such statements] refer only to what that ever-shrinking remnant of Western Christians and Catholics believe. Such assertions are outrageous today. … The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning."

In the Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian body in the world with more than 70 million adherents, there is no better representative of that shift than Nigerian Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola.

To grasp his importance as a leader of global Anglicanism, consider Holy Communion. For most Anglicans, Communion (or the Holy Eucharist) is the center of weekly worship. The Book of Common Prayer recognizes Communion and baptism as the two primary Christian sacraments. Like millions of other Christians, Akinola (pronounced Ah-key-ola) and other conservative Anglican leaders consider Communion an outward and visible sign of God's redemption of the world. They also believe it should be a sign of Christian unity, grounded in agreement on important doctrines.

Akinola, like most other Global South bishops, believes the Episcopal Church has harmed the Anglican Communion's unity by approving Gene Robinson, who lives in a long-term homosexual partnership, as its ninth bishop of New Hampshire. They express similar concerns about the Anglican Church of Canada, led by Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, which has affirmed the "integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships."

When the highest-ranking bishops (called primates) met in October 2003, the issue of celebrating Communion came up immediately. That meeting occurred between the time of Robinson's approval by the Episcopal Church's legislative body, General Convention, and his consecration as a bishop by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and nearly 50 other bishops. In 2003, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told the primates they would begin their meeting with Communion. Some primates, including Akinola, said the Communion would suggest a spiritual unity that had been broken by the Episcopal Church's actions. Either the meeting would begin with Communion, Williams responded, or the meeting would not proceed. The Global South primates joined in the service.

The ground had shifted, however, by the time the primates convened again, this last February in Ireland. Before that meeting, Akinola and other Global South primates wrote Williams to say they would not receive Communion with Griswold and Hutchison. When Williams suggested an alternative that still required all the primates partaking together, Akinola didn't budge, emphasizing that "unity of doctrine preceded unity of worship," according to a report in The Church of England Newspaper. Press reports say about a dozen primates abstained from the daily Eucharist.

Reaction was swift among some Episcopalians. The Rev. Stephen Gerth, rector of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Times Square, saw Akinola's initiative as a threat to the tolerant spirit of Anglicanism. "I've been under the impression that in our day excommunication was a Roman Catholic answer to difficult questions, not an Anglican one," Gerth wrote on St. Mary's online Angelus newsletter. "I can't help wondering whether Rowan Williams really wants to be held hostage by Peter Akinola and his friends over this issue. Does he really want the Anglican Communion to solve its problems by excommunication? Is Canterbury still in England or did it move?"

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July 2005, Vol. 49, No. 7