Josiah Idowu-Fearon

Idowu-Fearon has announced that he is to resign at the end of his seven-year term, at the end of August 2022.

In 2015, as he was leaving Nigeria to assume his work as Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Idowu-Fearon reflected on his relations with Muslims in Nigeria: "I have spent the last 25 years as bishop [first of Sokoto, then Kaduna] trying to build bridges of understanding between two different communities. We are theologically and doctrinally different, and yet we've been able to work together."

Before leaving Nigeria in 2015 for London, UK, as Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Idowu-Fearon held several extra-ecclesiastical positions:

In April 2015, Idowu-Fearon was appointed as the seventh Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, in London, UK. He was commissioned into the role on 4 September 2015 by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Anglican Communion Office in London.

Idowu-Fearon in an interview for BBC on 9 August 2015 affirmed the Resolution 1.10 adopted by the Lambeth Conference in 1998. Reso 1.10 that stated, "in view of the teaching of Scripture we uphold faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in life-long union and believe that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage." Therefore, he opposes the pro-homosexuality position of some churches in the Anglican Communion. At the same time, he opposes the support for the criminalization of homosexuality by several African churches, like the Church of Nigeria. While he opposes sexually active same-sex relationships, he supports the ordination of homosexual clergy if they are celibate, including in celibate partnerships, and he stated that sexual orientation itself should not be a barrier to ordained ministry.

Idowu-Fearon was presented the Cross of St Augustine by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace in London on 20 June 2013. (The Cross of St Augustine award is presented to people who have given long and exceptionally distinguished service to the Anglican Communion.) Welby highlighted Idowu-Fearon's "pivotal role in advancing understanding between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria in an effort to stem the cycle of violence and misunderstanding" and his work in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

Idowu-Fearon attended the 2009 Georgetown University-sponsored conference "A Common Word Between Us and You: A Global Agenda for Change."

Idowu-Fearon was installed as a Six Preacher (a preaching priest) on 26 July 2007 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, and the Very Revd Robert Willis, the Dean of Canterbury. He previously taught at the cathedral's International Study Centre.

Idowu-Fearon served on the 2003–04 Lambeth Commission on Communion, "which considered worldwide Anglican unity in response to divisive debates on homosexuality". In 2004, he was selected as a panelist on "an October 2004 public discussion in London, sponsored by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life, dealing with issues affecting the Anglican Communion." In 2005, he was chosen as a member of the third "Building Bridges" seminar held at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

In 2002, Idowu-Fearon received masters and doctors degrees in Arabic and Islamic studies with special interest in Christian-Muslim relations from the University of Jordan.

In 2002, Idowu-Fearon was unanimously elected for a seven-year term as the first archbishop of the newly created Ecclesiastical province of Kaduna in Owerri. However, his "closeness to the Muslim community in Nigeria" resulted in his being not elected for a second term.

In 2000, two years after Josiah Idowu-Fearon became bishop of the Diocese of Kaduna, the city and state of Kaduna became "embroiled in communal violence." In the city, "churches, mosques, homes and businesses" were burnt, with 80,000 people were made homeless, and hundreds killed. "Our people are being shot, butchered and roasted", said Bishop Josiah. The violence was primarily "inter-religious" between Muslims and Christians. In this crisis, Bishop Josiah's knowledge of Islam and his years of reaching out to Muslims came into play. The Bishop and Imam Asafa, a local Muslim cleric, "called on people not just to tolerate each other, but to be prepared to rebuild together" and "announced plans for joint Muslim/Christian projects to rebuild the city".

Idowu-Fearon was unanimously elected the fourth Bishop of the Diocese of Kaduna in 1998. He remained in that position until he resigned to begin his work as Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council in 2015.

Beyond his diocese, Idowu-Fearon served as president of the Anglican Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON) and as a member of NIFCON's Management Group. He also served on the International Anglican Conversations on Human Sexuality appointed by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey following the 1998 Lambeth Conference of bishops.

In 1998, after passage of Lambeth Conference's Resolution 1.10, aimed in part at the Episcopal Church in the United States, Idowu-Fearon said "it has been very good to meet the bishops" of the Episcopal Church. "It is also essential to heal perceived divisions between different regions of the Communion," he said. "The South needs the North, and the North needs the South" and "we agreed to extend the right hand of fellowship to those in different cultures. We've got to listen to each other."

In 1993, Idowu-Fearon received a D.Min. from the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, CT, USA.

On 29 April 1990 at St Michael's Cathedral, Kaduna, Idowu-Fearon was consecrated as a bishop by Joseph Abiodun Adetiloye, Archbishop of Nigeria, to serve as the first Bishop of Sokoto (the ordinary of the Diocese of Sokoto), where he remained until 1998. During that time, he served as Warden at St Francis of Assisi Theological College in Wusasa and Provost of St. Michael's Cathedral in Kaduna.

After his consecration in 1990, Idowu-Fearon served as a founding member of the Compass Rose Society, as a founding member and one of the first three Presidents of the NIFCON (Network for Interfaith Concerns), as a member of a 13-Member Committee of the Archbishop of Canterbury that looked into the responses to Lambeth Resolution 1:10 of 1998, and on the Committee that produced the Windsor Commission Report of 2003.

Idowu-Fearon is noted as "a strong intellectual inquirer and student." He has "a higher education than most bishops, both within Africa and throughout the [Anglican Communion]." He groups his overseas undergraduate and graduate study as the four years in the United Kingdom (1976–1981) and the three years in the United States (1990–1993). His studies in Nigeria occurred before 1976 and in the 1980s.

In 1976, Idowu-Fearon went to St. John's College, University of Durham in the UK for an "Honours class in Theology" that included "in-depth course on Islamic Civilisation". He graduated with a Bachelors in Theology.

In 1971, Idowu-Fearon was ordained as a priest of the Anglican church and nineteen years later he was made a bishop.

From his ordination to the priesthood in 1971 to 1990 when he was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Idowu-Fearon worked as the General Secretary for the Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion for Nigeria, and concurrently held the post of Warden of St. Francis Theological College, Wusasa from 1981 to 1984, when he became the Provost of St. Michael's Cathedral.

Idowu-Fearon trained briefly as a soldier before he changed to theological training for the priesthood. He describes the change this way. "I came to Christ at the Nigeria Military School, Zaria in my second year (1964)" and two years later (1966) the Lord called "me to be a soldier in His Army." Idowu-Fearon was given a 'sympathetic' discharge by late General Hassan Katsina in Lagos so that he could begin training for the priesthood.

Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon (born 17 January 1949) is a Nigerian Anglican bishop. Since 2015, he has been Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council. He was previously the Bishop of Kaduna diocese and the Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna in the Church of Nigeria.

Josiah Idowu-Fearon was born in Kerinye, Kogi Statem on 17 January 1949.