Visiting Bishop From Kenya Stirs Furor : Religion: The Episcopalian prelate was forbidden to criticize homosexuality at a Walnut Creek church. He then issued a ‘judgmental’ press release.

An ecclesiastical flap erupted Tuesday between a California bishop and a visiting prelate from Kenya who was denied an opportunity to criticize homosexuality from the pulpit.

The Rt. Rev. William Swing, Episcopal Church bishop for Northern California, chastised Anglican Bishop Alexander Muge of Kenya on Tuesday for issuing “judgmental” press releases after the African prelate was refused permission to speak against homosexual behavior at a Walnut Creek church.

The incident began last week when Muge told the church’s rector that “homosexuals and lesbians have taken over the (Episcopal) Church leadership” in the United States, accounting for the denomination’s membership decline.

Muge said he was “shocked” when the Rev. Gary Ost, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, promptly said that Muge would not be allowed to deliver a scheduled talk that night if anti-homosexuality was his topic.

“I insisted that the spirit of the Lord was leading me to speak on Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Muge in a press release. Muge, bishop of Eldoret Diocese in Kenya, also said the rector and a woman parishioner told him that they were Christians as well as homosexuals and that they had the support of Bishop Swing. Ost could not be reached for comment.

Bishop Swing said in a telephone interview Tuesday from San Francisco that Episcopal congregations such as St. Luke’s are within church law “to hire and continue with a priest who is a homosexual Christian.”

Saying it was “strange” that the visiting bishop did not contact him before creating a stir, Swing added that the controversy raised questions about the responsibility a bishop has “in keeping confidential, personal information volunteered to him by a priest.”

Swing said he would “never go into another bishop’s diocese, bypass the local bishop, and hold a press conference that was judgmental.” The Times and other news media were alerted to Muge’s statements and his press conference Monday in Concord by associates of the Episcopal Synod of America, an ultraconservative body within the denomination.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Swing said, “I suspect that poor Bishop Muge is naively being used by some background group that is trying to exploit his moral bias in matters of human sexuality to further their own cause.” Asked if he was referring to the Episcopal Synod, Swing said, “That’s a possibility.”

Muge’s travels through the state are being coordinated by African Team Ministries, an interdenominational agency based in Pasadena. Keith Jesson, president of the agency, said the Kenyan bishop kept speaking engagements last weekend in Claremont and Orange and was in Palm Springs for church meetings Tuesday and today.

“All this was totally unexpected; he has been preaching on evangelism,” Jesson said. “I advised Bishop Muge not to do anything until he spoke to Bishop Swing.”

Swing said the Episcopal Church, which still espouses the virtue of “sexual intimacy inside marriage only,” nevertheless is struggling with questions of how best to minister to gay and lesbian Christians and what stances it should adopt.

Muge, in his press statement, said many U.S. Christians are faithful to the Gospel “despite rampant secularization” but that future American missionaries to Africa should be screened for their beliefs. “We are not being judgmental as such. . . . Sin should be rebuked by any and all means,” he said.