Letter: Church of Africa

Sir: So Trevor Phillips had only heard of two African bishops until this year's Lambeth Conference (Comment, 10 August). He needs a little education on the blood and thunder religion of Africa that is throwing up bishops who bear a not unhealthy resemblance to John the Baptist, and who certainly speak in no more forthright terms than his, when faced by the soft effetism of much Western belief.

African Christians are rightly outraged when the very faith that the white missionaries struggled to bring them is then stood on its head and degutted of its power and moral fibre. No wonder the Africans at Lambeth turned on a pusillanimous liberalism that is rapidly emptying many of the churches in this country as well as in the USA. It is no small insult, when members of your flock and your own colleagues have died in defence of the biblical faith and ethic, only to be told that these doctrines need not have been believed after all.

Trevor Phillips dismisses the Africans as being part of the colonial and neocolonial establishment. No, it is liberalism that is on its way out. Lambeth showed in no uncertain manner where the centre of Anglican belief lies.

Prebendary RICHARD BEWES

Rector, All Souls, Langham Place

London W1