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The vote by the US Episcopal Church to approve openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire will pose greater difficulty for Muslim evangelism, according to a statement by Mouneer Anis, Anglican bishop of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Anis wrote in a communiqué that Christians in his diocese “feel profoundly let down” and they “cannot comprehend a decision to elect as bishop a man who has forsaken his wife and the vows he made to her in order to live in a sexual relationship with another man outside the bonds of his marriage.”

He wrote that the decision unquestionably will damage interfaith relations with Muslims and negatively impact relations with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, which continue to hold fast to the apostolic faith and teachings from the first century. “We will definitely be seen by them now as heretical,” Anis wrote.

Christians whom Anis represents view the decision as disrespectful to the majority of Anglican Communion members and the church worldwide. “The Communion now faces a crisis over what holds us together and indeed whether we can remain together if we hold not merely diverse but contradictory views of the Scripture and what it teaches,” he wrote. “In these difficult days, we wish to make it clear that we support those dioceses and parishes who remain committed to the wider Anglican Communion and its teaching. We stand in unity with other bishops around the world in promising our fullest moral and pastoral support for them. We call upon all in the Communion at this time of distress to prayer.”

Bishops around the world, including those in Southeast Asia, Australia and several African countries, have also issued statements against the vote. “We know that the USA as a country was founded on the Scriptures,” the Archbishop of Kenya said in a statement. “We are praying for a return to those values.”

David Gitari, a retired Kenyan Anglican archbishop, said that while Kenyan clergy also oppose the vote approving the gay bishop as unbiblical, he advises against severing links with the US Episcopal Church, as many in Kenya have already done. “There are many things to tackle, including evangelism and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” the African Church Information Service reported. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has called an October emergency meeting of Anglican bishops worldwide about the US church’s vote, but Gitari says the meeting will have no impact on the African church. Homosexual priests “had been rejected a long time ago and should not resurface again,” he said.

In the United States, 55 churches have broken ties to the US Episcopal Church and become Anglican missionary outreaches to the US under the leadership of the Anglican Archbishops of Rwanda and Southeast Asia as the Anglican Mission in America. The mission was established three years ago in response to the crisis of faith and leadership that exists within the Episcopal Church, the mission stated.