Trinity Episcopal Church, Highland Park

Message to Episcopalians

Chicago is latest stop on 20--city tour of the US

Davis Mac-Iyalla remembers when being gay did not bar him from serving his church.

Now in exile, the Nigerian minister embodies a growing debate among Episcopalians.

By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune religion reporter
Published June 4, 2007

Many conservative Anglicans would agree with Nigerian lay minister Davis Mac-Iyalla that the summer of 2003 -- when the Episcopal Church approved the first openly gay bishop -- left a gaping hole and wrenching pain in their hearts. But not for the same reasons.

For Mac-Iyalla, that summer was when the Anglican Church of Nigeria, in which he was born, baptized and became faithful turned its back on him because he is gay.

"God created me a gay man and put me in the womb of my mother. I was born into the church, baptized and sang in the choir," Mac-Iyalla told parishioners Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park. "Now, the church rises against me when I speak who I am. The church is supposed to be a house of joy, a house of peace. It has become a place of fire."

As the worldwide Anglican Communion of 77 million faithful spirals toward schism over issues of homosexuality, the leading Nigerian voice has been that of Archbishop Peter Akinola, who believes tolerating gays and lesbians violates Scripture. Akinola and other conservatives in the global communion have severed ties with the U.S. church. Last month, against the wishes of U.S. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Akinola consecrated a new bishop to oversee conservative dissidents on American soil.

As the founder of Changing Attitudes Nigeria, part of a larger network that challenges the church's conservative stance, Mac-Iyalla adds a Nigerian point of view that so far has been silent. On Sunday, he launched the Chicago leg of a 20-city U.S. tour that includes addressing the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, the American arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion. He will speak Monday night at All Saints Church in the Ravenswood neighborhood and return to Trinity on Tuesday night.

"God has quickened people like me to tell the truth," he told the Highland Park congregation. "The church needs to hear the truth."

Telling the truth in the last few years has not been easy for Mac-Iyalla, who currently lives in exile in the West African nation of Togo, where he regularly receives death threats. He recalls how until mid-2003 being gay did not bar him from serving in the church.

Although the criminal code of the largely Christian southern part of Nigeria has imposed sentences of up to 14 years for those convicted of homosexual acts, Mac-Iyalla said that was rarely enforced. Now, men are often arrested for no reason besides being gay, he said. In the Muslim North, Shariah law imposes a death sentence for homosexual acts.

People knew that Mac-Iyalla, who came out to himself at age 14, didn't date women, he said. But they didn't make it an issue. Two events in June 2003 caused that to change, he said.

In the U.S., the Episcopal Church approved the first openly gay man to serve as New Hampshire's bishop. That and the Canadian church's decision to bless same-sex unions sparked outrage from Asian, Latin American and African Anglican leaders, led largely by Akinola.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Mac-Iyalla's mentor, Bishop I Ugede of Otukpo, died, leaving Mac-Iyalla to fend for himself in an increasingly hostile environment.

Mac-Iyalla, who in June 2003 was the principal of St. John's Anglican Secondary School, was ousted the next month for being gay, he said.

The Nigerian church tells a different story. It says he does not belong to any of Nigeria's 10,000 or so parishes.

"He claims he was sacked and victimized for his homosexuality and uses that guise to further defraud unsuspecting foreigners," said Rev. Akin Tunde Popoola, the Nigerian church's director of communications on the national church's Web site. "Anyone relating to Davis [David] Mac-Iyalla does so at his or her own risk."

Such warnings have not stopped Americans from wanting to hear what Mac-Iyalla has to say. He has been invited to 55 churches in 20 cities, including Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and New York. After addressing the national church's Executive Council, he will travel to the United Kingdom for another tour in July.

Sandra McPhee of Evanston heads the International Concerns Committee of the Executive Council, the elected body that conducts church business between triennial conventions. She said the council invited Mac-Iyalla as part of the Anglican Communion's Listening Process, a commitment to listen to the experience of gays and lesbians endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. She said sufficient research was done by the council to validate Mac-Iyalla's background.

"Gays and lesbians in Africa have not been heard from," she said. "It gives us an opportunity to step into the shoes of someone seen as the other. Minds and hearts are changed by getting to know each other."

Josh Thomas, an Episcopalian from northwest Indiana who coordinated the U.S. tour, said he wanted Mac-Iyalla to expand the conversation among Episcopalians beyond theology and politics to include human rights. He said conservative American churches that have aligned themselves with Akinola should be held accountable for condoning what he supports.

He hopes Mac-Iyalla seeks asylum for his own safety.

Mac-Iyalla disagreed. He insists that Akinola does not own his church and he will not be chased out of his country or his church for long.

"He's working for the split and disunity," Mac-Iyalla said, referring to Akinola. "I'm speaking for unity, oneness and equality."