Benjamin Kwashi - Archbishop on the Front Line (Andrew Boyd Neither Bomb nor Bullet)

‘Why should the church be any less passionate than Islam? Why is the church not preaching the gospel of holiness, righteousness, and justice? The Muslims have their loudspeakers everywhere, waking people at 4am to pray. Meanwhile, the Christians are sleeping! What’s stopping us from praying? What’s keeping us from our devotional life to God? Before a Muslim can lead a mosque, he must be able to recite at least sixty chapters of the Koran. But we Christians are ordaining people who cannot recite a single chapter of the Bible. We should learn from them.’

So writes Nigerian Archbishop Ben Kwashi quoted in Andrew Boyd’s biography that reads autobiographically to capture the passion of a great contemporary servant of God currently General Secretary of GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference). It was my privilege to work with him briefly during the 1998 Lambeth Conference when hundreds gathered to hear him speak at an evangelistic service outside Holy Trinity, Tottenham presided over by the then Bishop of Edmonton,  Brian Masters. As Bishop Brian’s Missioner I was well aware of how Nigerian Anglicans vitalise the Diocese of London and Bishop Ben gave us sight of the spiritual leadership behind this. ‘Neither Bomb nor Bullet’ filled out the picture for me. ‘The aim of this, my story, is to ignite a passion within each of us to wake up and do something, instead of merely believing and hoping that someone else will get around to it and we will all be OK. Look around: we are not OK. Everybody must rise up to play his own unique and special part, if this world is to change.’ 

Bishop Ben and his wife Gloria have suffered. They keep in their living room a mock coffin containing the ashes of their house burned down by extremist Muslims in 1987. ‘They remind me and my children that every day that I live is a bonus. I am living on extra time’. As Archbishop of Jos Ben presides over part of central Nigeria which has a perilous autonomy between the Muslim north and Christian south. A native he was brought up with Muslims for whom he retains great respect despite his conviction their faith in God is incomplete. Every morning he accepts the Muslim call to prayer as invitation to keep his own quiet time following a discipline encouraged by the  Church Missionary Society evangelists who built on the foundation of first African Bishop, Nigerian Samuel Crowther (1809-1891). ‘This same gospel that we preach today in Nigeria was brought to us by missionaries from the United Kingdom at their own cost. For this, I am forever indebted to Britain. I will never forget what these Englishmen did for us. I am the third generation to benefit from them. The English I now speak and write, my father taught me, because Christian missionaries had taught him. Because of them, I can today communicate and preach the gospel.’

The Archbishop has survived three assassination attempts and his wife, Gloria, suffered an assault tantamount to rape. His story of how brutal persecution has driven him again and again to his knees with the necessity for him to live in forgiveness is profoundly moving. Islamic terrorists have made Nigeria a war zone making him, as the book’s subtitle states, ‘The Archbishop on the Front Line’. The kidnapping of hundreds of Christian schoolgirls is one incident that reached world media but ongoing attacks turning churches into fortresses get less coverage. The Bishop writes of a tragic scenario where he conducts more funerals than weddings and baptisms put together. Neither bomb nor bullet is to deter, he writes, ‘Christians never get desperate - they just get determined. Get determined to lay hold of God and lay hold of his promises, and to never settle for less.’

Andrew Boyd’s presentation of Ben Kwashi thrills with such determination illustrated in courageous leadership within the tumult which is Nigeria as well as that within his beloved Anglican Church. I warmed to his description of how churches grow assisted by Christian confidence and humility among priests and people. His and Gloria’s gifts in evangelism are coupled to sympathetic hearts evidenced in their extended family of orphans. ‘If I had only a single life lesson to pass on to others, the most important lesson of my life would be to pick one child, who would never ordinarily have had an opportunity in life, and struggle through bringing up that child for God. That life is God-given, and nobody can tell what their future will be. It is a great privilege to have an opportunity to be a blessing to another person’s life’. 

What of GAFCON and Anglican divisions? Bishop Ben writes of the humiliation African Bishops felt at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. They arrived expecting a celebration of the Decade of Evangelism only to find themselves leading a struggle against rewriting marriage to suit same-sex physical relations. GAFCON is the consequence of this. I found both Ben Kwashi’s youthful reluctance to sever his Anglican roots when he came to full Christian conversion and his respect for Archbishop Justin Welby encouraging. This is a Bishop whose sense of the Church and track record in reconciling Christians and Muslims might help steer Anglicanism towards its best future. 

The book has counsel for Christians in the UK calling us ‘to get on our knees to pray. And then get up, courageously, ready to live the gospel and preach it by our lives and by all that we do… As you reach out to Jesus in faith, he will come into your heart and live with you, and you with him. As you place your faith, belief and trust in him, he will respond.’ So be it!

Andrew Boyd  Neither Bomb nor Bullet   Benjamin Kwashi - Archbishop on the Front Line

Monarch Books 2019 £10.19 ASIN: B07MVMPD5 336pp

Canon John Twisleton    January 2020