THE Bishop of Southern Malawi, Dr James Tengatenga, is highly educated, articulate, and - not least because of his chairmanship of the Anglican Consultative Council - an internationalist with an appreciation of global cultures. It therefore seemed a natural appointment when, in July, it was announced that he was to leave Malawi at the end of this year to take up the post of Dean of the William Jewett Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (News, 26 July).

"Natural" to most, but not to the some in the college, who questioned how a conservative African bishop could be appointed to such a senior position at a university whose "support of gay rights and members of the LGBTQ community is complete and unwavering". The President of the College, Professor Philip J. Hanlon, later referred to "concerns expressed by members of our community", without naming individuals or particular groups.

Two days after the appointment was announced, Dr Tengatenga responded to the debate that had been stirred up in the college by issuing a statement: "Let me state unequivocally and categorically that I consider all people equal regardless of their sexual orientation. The dignity of all should be honoured and respected.

"As is the case with many people, my ideas about homosexuality have evolved over time. I'm not ashamed to say that, but I also think I'm not alone. . . I support marriage equality and equal rights for everyone, and I look forward to working with everyone at Dartmouth - everyone. I believe that discrimination of any kind is sinful. When I say that I am committed to the human rights of all, I mean all."

THIS was not enough, however, to stop the criticism, and a month later, Professor Hanlon withdrew the invitation to Bishop Tengatenga, saying: "It has become clear to me that Dr Tengatenga's past comments about homosexuality and the uncertainty and controversy they created have compromised his ability to serve effectively as Dean of Tucker." He said that the college's "commitment to inclusion are too important to be mired in discord over this appointment" (News, 23 August).

Speaking from his home in Malawi last weekend, before travelling to a retreat in South Africa, Dr Tengatenga blamed a lack of cultural understanding for the controversy: "We have a tendency to believe that we have become a global village, but that globalisation ignores the fact that each context speaks with a particular accent."

Yet the bigger problem, he argued, is that the speed of change that is taking place in both Africa and the West "ensures that that the African remains behind.

"There was a time when we were all speaking modernity, and now we are supposedly speaking post-modernity. The African who has been working so hard to be able to be articulate in modernity suddenly finds himself left in the cold because the argument has changed into a post-modern argument."

Mr Tengatenga also criticised the "ideological and theological hegemony of the West" for adopting a "homogenising mono-linguistic hegemonic language".

He said: "You begin to wonder whether why what I am saying is not understood is not because it's not the right language, but because it is not expected of me to think that way.

"Is it simply a contextual misunderstanding, or is it a situation where 'There is no way an African can speak like that' because they know how Africans speak? 'If he's speaking like that, somebody else must have put him to it.'" 

THE episode mirrors the problems over the appointment of the Revd Dr Nicholas Henderson, Vicar of All Saints', Ealing, and of St Martin's, West Acton, in London, who was elected Bishop of Lake Malawi in July 2005. At the time he also chaired the Modern Churchpeople's Union (now called Modern Church). His election was overturned by the Court of Confirmation of the Province of Central Africa because he was deemed "not of sound faith" over his "advocacy of the gay and lesbian movement" (News, 2 November 2006).

"It is not fair to say that James Tengatenga should have stood up for gay rights and spoken out about them in the environment in which he was in," Dr Henderson said this week. "That would not be realistic, and it would have been counter-productive. It wouldn't have helped the gay cause one little bit because the matter needs to be approached far more sensitively vis-à-vis the conservative African environment.

"Tengatenga, by his own admission, has evolved on this. He has gone from making conservative noises while in Africa, which, frankly, he had little option but to make, to understanding and empathising with the position in liberal America."

Dr Henderson said that "gay activists in Southern Africa have essentially dropped the word 'gay'. The phrase used on the ground in Malawi is 'Human rights for all Malawians' because to speak about 'LGBTQ rights' would be to add fuel to the flames of opponents for whom gay rights are 'special rights', and therefore indefensible." 

CANON Alinafe Kalemba, Priest-in-Charge of Chirimba, was elected last month to succeed Dr Tengatenga as Bishop of Southern Malawi, whose resignation takes effect at the end of the year.

For Dr Tengatenga, the future is uncertain. A conservative in the West and a liberal in Africa, he is in an area where it is dangerous to hold the views that he has expressed publicly. Dr Henderson said: "There are good reasons to suppose that James Tengatenga, and his family in particular, could be in some kind of danger."

Dr Tengatenga said: "There is a lot of sympathy towards the way I have been treated; so, for the time being, one assumes things are what they are, but one does not know what happens when the sympathy in relation to the treatment goes."