Cast out: Faith of a gay Nigerian priest

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0:52I was born at Lagos State. I'm the fourth and the last in my family. At the age of four, that's when I started having this feeling, you know, of going closer to boys than girls. For this Nigerian priest, that moment of realization defined his life. Nigeria is one of the most religious countries in the world. Christian churches are full and faith shapes daily life. So when some Christians find their faith colliding with their sexual identity, they can find their lives torn apart. Homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria, a legacy inherited from the penal code set up over 100 years ago under British colonial rule.

1:37Even today, same-sex relationships can carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison and in some parts of the country even harsher punishments can apply. In many of the country's Christian churches, homosexuality is still preached as a sin. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Emily Buchanan and for this episode of Heart and Soul I've been in Nigeria speaking to a former Anglican cleric who's tried to stay true both to his faith and his homosexual identity and has paid a high price, rejected by both his family and his church. He says despite all this, he never stopped believing in God.

2:19To protect him, we've called him Apia, and his words are spoken by an actor. I love guys very, very well. I started watching porn at a young age. I was around 11, 12, and I started having friends outside. Some of what Apia told me about his early years we've removed from this programme because it involves sexual abuse when he was a child. As he grew up, it became harder to hide his attraction to other men from his family. My mum found out I was watching porn. She asked who gave me the cassette. Then it was on VCR. I told her I had bought it myself. It became a serious issue in the house. His family summoned him to a meeting.

3:07The next day, my mum and my dad gathered my siblings and I. That's when my mum told everyone that she had found me watching porn.

3:16Emily Buchanan:And it wasn't just any porn, this is homosexual porn? Homosexual porn, yes. So they know that homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria? Yeah, they are aware. Presumably they felt it was very sinful? Very, very. My dad being a church person. Your father's a church person? Yes. Being a church person, my mum, the same thing. So they see it as a sin. Even demonic, like someone who's been possessed. My dad became angry with me. So then my dad was like, OK, I'm no longer his son again. Your father disowned you? Yes. He disowned me. That his son can't behave like that. For Appiah's parents, his sexuality was not something they could accept as part of his identity.

4:10They saw it as a sign he was possessed by demons. It was my mum who spoke to her friend and said, confiding in her about my issue. Her friend told her that there was a spiritual church they could take me to. So my mum and her friend took me there.

4:31When we arrived, I was asked to come inside. And as soon as I did, the man started shouting, saying an evil spirit was holding me too strongly.

4:41Emily Buchanan:So just describe what happened. You went to the church and the priest there started to try and, what, exorcise you? Yeah, he was beating me. Beating you? Yeah, with a cane. That is an evil spirit. they would pray the homosexual out of me. And that, after that, I would start coming closer to God. I did not see it as an evil spirit. I told them this is how I was born. My mum said she couldn't have given birth to a gay man. At 16, he left home. That was how I left the house, because my dad had already disowned me. My siblings did the same thing. At that age, your father has disowned you, your mother disowns you, and you're thrown out of the house.

5:24Emily Buchanan:and you go and live with your friends. And do you change at all? I mean, did this exorcism make any difference to you? No, it did not. Because the friend I went to stay with is also a homosexual. And what was your relationship with your faith at that point? I was still at the Anglican church. I take prayers very, very seriously as an Anglican member. I was also a good chorister.

5:55At 7am I am already in church. I take Bible study because I don't see me being a gay or something or someone who is demonic.

6:08This is where Appiah's story becomes more complicated as his strong Christian identity clashed irrevocably with his sexuality. In Nigeria, the Bible is often cited to condemn same-sex relationships. Passages in Leviticus and the writings of St. Paul are frequently used to support that view. However, for Appiah, there's no contradiction between being Christian and being homosexual. He recognizes that the Bible is often quoted, but he points to passages in the New Testament that emphasize love above all else. For example, where Jesus teaches, love your neighbor as yourself. In the scripture, Jeremiah 1 verse 5, he said, I chose you before I gave you life and before you were born.

6:54He has selected us. So God really selected me personally. My sexuality actually can stop me from doing things for God. So despite what he'd been through, he chose not only to continue to worship as a Christian, but to train to become an Anglican priest. It was at the peak of the coronavirus when I became a cat-kissed. I was given a local church to manage.

7:21Emily Buchanan:And did the church know the church that gave you that appointment? Did they know you were gay? At the time, no. But there were a few reverends and reverend canons that knew about my sexuality. But the bishops and the rest, they didn't know. After that came theological college, where he was surprised to find he was not alone. I eventually enrolled into theological school. what I saw at theological school is something different. So really, tell us. I thought I was the only gay man there, so I just kept it within myself. But what I saw there, we started having this click. I was like, what? I was shocked.

8:08Emily Buchanan:So you're saying when you went there, there were a lot of gays there? Yes, not only one or two, but a lot. And a lot of them will have graduated and will now be priests in the Anglican Church all over Nigeria. And a lot of them will be now hiding or wondering whether to leave the church, I suppose. Some left. Some are still there fighting with their sexuality. And why do you think there were so many gay people in the theological college? Everybody loves Christ.

8:41Everyone wants to preach the gospel to the nation. But one hindrance is just the gay part of it. Those who don't want others to know are hiding.

8:49Emily Buchanan:And so at what point, I mean, you started to actually go up the church? I mean, you were then qualified? You became a pastor? After theological school, yes. I was called into ministry as a reverend full-time. How did that feel at that point, knowing the church's attitude to homosexuality? I was so excited. But there's something that they do every year. The chancellors and bishops, they would ask us to pick up our Bible and swear an oath, raising our right hand and take an oath to not engage in homosexuality. But for me, I don't join them. So I step outside because I cannot take an oath to rededicate my life, that I won't engage in homosexuality when I know fully well I am into it.

9:35I don't preach against it and I don't like seeing pastors preaching against it. I told my friends that I would sign the papers, but I would not take the oath. So the other priests who see themselves as more worthy started watching me.

9:48Emily Buchanan:So are these more the senior people in the church or just different people? Senior people in the church, the Venerables. The Venerables, they started looking at you as not being properly Christian. Yes. Because as far as they're concerned, you're going against the Bible, against Scripture. Yes. For clergy like Appiah, the church's opposition to homosexuality has affected him in deeply personal ways. As a young priest, he was expected to conform. And so what started to happen then to you? I mean, you're in your church, you're running the church, you're a pastor in the church, people are coming to you for advice, you're administering the various sacraments.

10:34Emily Buchanan:What happened after that? We were asked to go and marry because you can't be a reverend without having a wife, so we do not fall into sin. Oh, so they wanted you to marry a woman? Yes, so I won't fall into sin. Right, so what did you say to them? I said I will, but within myself, I had no intention to marry. Some of the venerables watching us then reported us to the bishop. So is there some opposition around in the church, in the community, saying, look, this person isn't a proper priest? No, I had no opposition from the community I was serving. The opposition was from the priests themselves. So what do they do then?

11:21Emily Buchanan:They're getting worried. You're there, you're not getting married. not looking to them like you're following biblical teaching, what happens after that? They finally found out because I had an affair with a children's teacher. With a student teacher. But how did they find out that you were having an affair? Someone reported it. Somebody noticed you were having an affair with a student teacher and they reported you to the Venerable. The senior priest didn't ask us, never confirmed anything with us. What he did was to report directly to the bishop. The panel was set. There were 12 persons in the panel.

12:04There were four in the room, invited and questioned.

12:07Emily Buchanan:So just describe what happened. You were called in front of this panel, 12 people, and what did they say to you? They first asked if it was true that we are homosexuals. We said yes. than they said if we knew we were gay, why did we venture into becoming priests? I told them personally my sexuality was not affecting the church in any way. Because your church, where you were presiding, the congregation knew you were gay? No, they didn't. Right, but they still liked you as a pastor? Yes, very much. The church was growing. So you were successful? I had promised myself never to let my sexuality affect my work with the church.

12:50They went around the congregation asking people, asking church members and the children as well.

12:56Emily Buchanan:They literally went around the congregation to see if you'd slept with any of the members. Yes. Children as well. Yes. They found nothing, but the decision came. So after the panel, the resolution was given to the bishop and he asked us to leave the church. All four men were expelled from the Anglican Church, years of training, gone. So the panel decided that you were no longer suitable to be a pastor and you would have to completely leave the Anglican Communion? We were asked to leave the vicarage. I was no longer to call myself a priest in the Anglican Communion. You are listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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14:41Be smart. Get wise. Download the Wise app today. T's and C's apply. I'm Emily Buchanan and for Heart and Soul, I'm hearing the story of Apia, a homosexual Nigerian priest devoted to the Anglican Church who found himself torn between his faith and his sexual identity.

15:04Emily Buchanan:So when you said to the panel, look, I've got a growing church, the congregation are happy with me. I want to just keep working there and spreading the gospel and growing the Anglican church. What did they say? They said a homosexual cannot be a priest. And you'd done all this theological training. You'd been practicing as a priest. Everything had been going well. How did you feel about that? Very, very bad. I felt embarrassed. I felt everything about me and God has come to an end. I felt everything about me has finished. This isn't just a Nigerian story. Across the global Anglican communion, deep divisions have opened up over sexuality.

15:50Earlier this year, we attended the latest meeting of the Conservative Movement Global Anglican Futures Conference, or GAFCON. It's strongly represented in Africa and teaches that homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture. They firmly reject same-sex relationships amongst both congregations and clergy. We're in the business of seeking that each and every one in this room and the millions that are represented by this room around the world would stay salty, would keep our lamps lit because we're committed to the gospel and you're here because you're a gospel person and we're a gospel family in GAFCON and the world needs gospel families.

16:35That was GAFCON's General Secretary, the Right Reverend Paul Donison. He's sensitive to accusations the group is homophobic and he stressed it was also important to have pastoral responsibilities towards gay people. This was a stand set out at the once a decade Anglican communion meeting back in 1998 known as the Lambeth Conference which I remember well as crystallizing the clash of cultures over homosexuality. In 1998 the Anglican communion spoke with clarity on the definition of human sexuality in marriage. Lambeth 110 in 1998 said that this conference in view of the teaching of scripture upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.

17:29Calling our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all, irrespective of their sexual orientation. The two parts of Lambeth 110. Here's a definition of marriage, and then here's a call to compassionate ministry to those who struggle. But that ends by saying we cannot advise the legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions, nor ordaining those involved in same-gendered unions. In recent years, Gafcon has moved to reshape the Anglican communion itself, and at their gathering they voted to sever ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury, saying that the Mother Church has abandoned biblical teaching.

18:06We spoke to ordinary Anglicans in the pews and found they strongly agree with this stance. The issue of liberalism, relativism, adulteration of the truth, and then taking the church out of the Bible that we've seen in the global ways. And for me, it's a bit frightening because the Bible is inherent. The scriptures, reasoning and apostolic traditions, and in all of these, we've seen that based on apostolic tradition, there was no way we saw in the scripture where God and the early church fathers would end or sanctioned same-sex union. We have to defend the faith. People have lost their life in defense of this faith.

19:01I think the main role of church as Christians is that we must follow what the Bible says. The teachings of the Bible is what matters. So the way the Bible has tailored it for us, I believe is the way we should go. The Church of England, who is or should be our leader, may have somehow debated a bit from the teachers of the Bible. I don't support what's been done there. And I think they need to go back to the roots of how it was, or how the Bible teaches it.

19:34For us, it is not so much of a debate. We know that this is what God ordained for us in the very beginning as a man and woman. The confusion that is growing, even though it's creeping into our society also, you might not see it on the newspaper, but we know it's growing because families face these issues every day. For people who have these struggles, we don't stand to reject them. It's to find ways to encourage such ones, to pray with such ones, to seek counseling. So that whatever they may have doubled into, maybe in schools or somewhere else, or whatever it is they've been gifted, they can seek counseling, seek prayers, and be reconciled back to their family and also to God.

20:26if a person was falling into sin, you know, gently help them and restore them into the faith. For clergy like Appiah, this global struggle plays out in deeply personal ways.

20:43Although the institution had rejected him, he managed to find a new home for his Christian ministry.

20:51Emily Buchanan:In spite of everything you've been through, you've been rejected by your parents, you've been rejected by your church. What are you doing now with your faith? I did not leave the church. I joined the Keribum and Seraphim Church. What kind of church is that? A white garment church. White garment church. Okay, so you've joined another church. You're still very much a Christian. And are you a pastor in that church? Yes, but we don't use the term pastor. We use elder. So these elders have a hierarchy and pray and intercede for the congregation. I also enrolled myself with online ministry to help queer people and even clergymen.

21:38Within global Christianity, Appiah's experience is deeply contested. For many, scripture condemns his sexuality. For others, the biblical interpretation is evolving. Appiah has no doubt what his path is.