Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 26, 1990                   TAG: 9005260126
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VISITING BISHOP'S REBUFF STIRS BROAD REPERCUSSIONS

The incident rippled through the U.S. Episcopal Church, stirring ruffled feelings, indications of partisan manipulation, criticisms, explanations and a flury of cross-country diplomacy.

"It was the total shock of my life for anything like this in our communion," says Anglican Bishop Alexander Muge of Kenya, whose tour was almost derailed by the affair.

"I believe I am the first bishop of the worldwide Anglican communion to have been denied the right to preach by a priest."

The affairs loosed a string of press releases in this country and abroad, including some by dissidents in the Episcopal Church, one of 28 national branches of the 70 million-member Anglican communion.

Echoes also were present of cultural differences between American-European bishops, occupied with such justice issues as women's ordination and homosexual rights, and Third World stress on evangelism, morals and combatting poverty.

"Some significant cultural gaps were involved," says James Solheim, the Episcopal Church's information officer.

Bishop William E. Swing of San Francisco said he suspected that Muge was "used by some background group that is trying to exploit his moral bias in matters of human sexuality to further their own cause."

Noting that the U.S. church has been struggling with the homosexual issue, he said:

"For Bishop Muge to fly in here, and in a few days and with an extremely limited participation in this family problem, to pronounce his conclusion, is a marginal contribution at best."

Nevertheless, he added, such voices "deserve to be heard. Something of God's truth might just be contained in their words."

The Rev. Titus Oates of Fort Worth, Texas, executive officer of the Anglican Synod of America, a dissenting bloc in the Episcopal Church, which accuses it of doctrinal-moral laxity and wrongly ordaining women, said:

"The incident in California is but a further demonstration of the rejection of the Bible as the word of God."

Oates added, the pastor, the Rev. Gary Ost, became furious, citing his own homosexuality, and barred Muge from the pulpit at his insistence on preaching against homosexual practice.

Ost, an acknowledged homosexual, had "no comment" about the episode, his secretary said.

Muge, in a telephone interview, said, "We do not feel we should be censored in what we preach. I cannot compromise the Gospel."

At one point he was so upset by the affair that he considered abandoning his tour and resigning from African Team Ministries, which is gathering funds for a major well-drilling project by Anglicans and Presbyterians in Kenya.

However, talks with team officials and a series of telephone conferences with officials at Episcopal headquarters in New York averted the rupture.

"I don't blame the bishop for being angry at what he saw as an insult and what he sees as immorality," said Margaret Larom of the church's World Mission department.

"We need the word of Christians from Africa. . . . At the same time he ought to be sensitive to our cultural situation and respect his brother bishop."