The Anglican Mission in the Americas has withdrawn from the pastoral oversight of the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda.
Yesterday there was an official Statement to the Clergy and Laity of the Anglican Mission.
As you may know, on December 5, in response to unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances, the Anglican Mission in the Americas withdrew from the pastoral oversight of the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda. In addition, Bishop Chuck Murphy resigned as Primatial Vicar and Bishops Murphy, Sandy Greene, Todd Hunter, TJ Johnston, Philip Jones, Doc Loomis, John Miller and Silas Ng, as well as retired Bishop John Rodgers, resigned from the House of Bishops of Rwanda.
During this interim period, the Anglican Mission is under the oversight of our founding Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini, Moses Tay and Yong Ping Chung until we have a new provincial home within the Anglican Communion. Bishop Murphy is meeting with these overseeing archbishops in London next week to discuss options for the best way forward…
Background documents, in PDF format, are all linked from this page.
And there is another news article today, Addressing Finances with Rwanda.
The AMiA was formally founded in 2000, six months after Bishops Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers were consecrated bishops by Archbishop of Rwanda, Emmanuel Kolini and Archbishop of Southeast Asia, Moses Tay, at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore. Its origins are in a conference held in South Carolina in 1997.
When the Anglican Church in North America was formed in 2009, the AMiA was a founding member, but subsequently in 2010 changed its status to Mission Partner.
Surely this unabashed bishop-shopping undermines any credible ecclesiological link to the Communion. Anglicanism is a chapter-based outfit: there are no “members-at-large.”
No doubt the new sponsors of Rwanda’s adopted baby in North America (AMiA) will be scrambling to gain Communion recognition through their new adoptive parents Archbishops Kolini, Tay and Chung, until such time as the Anglican Covenant can absorb them into a brand new Fellowship of Anglicans who do not want the LGBT community to be part of its company.
I’m not looking forward to that particular future.
Of the priorities of the erstwhile AMiA, joining the Communion is probably the lowest. First they will have to account for money flow. Then they will have to work out whether parishes are in Rwanda or are in +CHM — that is, is there an ‘AMiA’ at all and where? Third, there will be fractured relationships — Kolini and Ruchyana, Barnum and Murphy. What kind of an ecclesial entity is one without any communion link and maybe not wanting one? The whole thing is a mess and one could have seen this without a lot of trouble ten-twelve years ago.… Read more »
What’s it all about ? What does it all mean ?
Do these ministers lack mission-fields now or what ?
Apparently another factor was the canon law which was adopted by the Rwandan Anglican Church by an apostate Catholic priest. He simply copied the Roman catholic canons.
Don’t you love farce? / My fault I fear. /I thought that you’d want what I want. / Sorry, my dear. / But where are the clowns? / Quick, send in the clowns. /Don’t bother, they’re here.