Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe who went to Africa to cover the recent consecrations has filed this further lengthy report giving a lot of background to recent events: African Anglicans try to transform US church.
7 CommentsUpdated again Friday
Not enough bishops in America it seems: Anglican Mainstream reports that the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda has just elected three more. Original announcement on AMiA site is here.
Rwanda elects three further Bishops for the USA
A Communiqué FROM THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS OF THE PROVINCE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF RWANDA
The House of Bishops of the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda (PEER) met in Kigali, Rwanda on the 4th day of September 2007. Acknowledging the significant growth of the missionary outreach initiated by PEER in the USA, the House of Bishops considered nominations for additional missionary Bishops to further the work of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). The House of Bishops elected three bishops and appointed them to serve in PEER’s missionary jurisdiction in North America committed to extending God’s kingdom. The bishops-elect are the Rev. Terrell Glenn, the Rev. Philip Jones and the Rev. John Miller. The date for the consecrations has been set for the 26th day of January in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2008 following the Anglican Mission’s Winter Conference (January 23 – 26, 2008) in Dallas, Texas.
Provincial Secretary
PROVINCE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF RWANDA
In the AM comment and listing of all the “American Bishops from other jurisdictions”, there is still no mention of the Southern Cone and Bishop Bill Cox.
Update
George Conger has some additional information at Religious Intelligence in Rwanda appoints more bishops for USA.
Almost half of the Church of Rwanda’s bishops will be former priests of the American Episcopal Church by the year’s end, the church announced today.
Three more American bishops will be added to the roster of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), the Church of Rwanda announced on Sept 5; increasing the size of the Rwanda House of Bishops to 16: seven missionary American bishops and nine Rwandan diocesan bishops…
Read his article for some biographical information about the candidates.
Updated Friday
Episcopal News Service has this: RWANDA: Three former Episcopal priests elected missionary bishops for North America.
Updated Thursday
The Bishop of Uyo, which is in south-eastern Nigeria, has said something that is causing a stir:
Cleric condemns homosexuals, lesbians
Sept. 2 (UPI) — Uyo, Sept. 2, 2007 (NAN) The Anglican Bishop of Uyo, Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama, has condemned the activities of homosexuals and lesbians, and described those engaged in them as “insane people”. “It is scaring that any one should be involved in a thing like that and I want to say that they will not escape the wrath of God,” he said. Orama told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) today in Uyo, that the practice, which has worsened over the years, was “unbiblical and against God’s purpose for creating man”. Homosexuals – 2 “Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man,” the Bishop said. He noted that the Anglican Church in Nigeria had continued to lead the fight against the practice especially in the US where it led the opposition to same sex marriages. “The aim of such fight is to provide a safe place for those who want to remain faithful Anglicans and Biblical Christians,” he explained.(NAN) NS/IFY/ETS
Changing Attitude has issued this: Davis Mac-Iyalla challenges Bishop Orama’s attack on lesbian and gay people.
Fr Jake has commented here: Bp. Orama: “Insane, Satanic Gays Not Fit to Live”.
Update
This story has resulted in unusually strong editorial opinions from two conservative American Anglican blogs:
titusonenine Kendall Harmon: A Statement to be Condemned without Reservation and
Stand Firm Greg Griffith Unfit for the Episcopacy?
48 CommentsThe Episcopal Majority has published a paper by the Revd Canon Robert J Brooks which is titled Who Can Expel the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion?
Lisa Fox writes in the Preamble there:
Much virtual and real ink has been spilled about what the Episcopal Church’s constitution does or does not allow. Canon Brooks shifts the focus to the Anglican Consultative Council [ACC], which has a written constitution, unanimously adopted by the provinces of the Anglican Communion. Given that the proposed new structures have Communion-wide ramifications, it makes sense to consider what the constitution of the ACC does and does not allow.
Canon Brooks concludes that only the ACC can expel the Episcopal Church, and it would require a constitutional amendment ratified by the General Synods of two-thirds of the provinces. In other words, 26 of the synods in Anglican Communion provinces would have to vote to expel the Episcopal Church.
This article has been linked to elsewhere and comments about it from a conservative perspective can be read here and from a liberal perspective here.
46 CommentsThe BBC Radio 4 evening rush hour news programme, named PM, carried a major item on this at 5.30 pm tonight. Christopher Landau reports and includes an interview with Bishop Guernsey among others.
Go here, and go forward 31 minutes or so. This link will last only for a week. The item lasts about 7 minutes.
The American National Public Radio also has coverage. Go here. For American conservative criticism of it, go here.
31 CommentsUpdated again Monday evening
Mail and Guardian Africa welcomes US gay-bashers
Sunday Nation Split in Anglican faith now inevitable
Jamaica Gleaner Behind the gay issue. This lengthy article reflects an interview with Chris Sugden who was recently in Jamaica.
Update Sunday afternoon
First reports of the Ugandan consecration:
Reuters Uganda consecrates U.S. conservative as bishop
BBC Uganda church to anoint US bishop
And the BBC Sunday programme has an item. Christopher Landau is in Uganda. Initial URL is this one, and go forward 32.5 minutes. Better URL tomorrow. Or you can download the podcast.
NEW URL: Listen (3m 54s) and the BBC blurb reads:
Anglican Uganda disagreement
White Anglican archbishops used to travel to Africa to consecrate black bishops. Last week, however, white American Anglicans have gone to Uganda to be consecrated by black Archbishops before returning to lead their congregations in the States.Does this mark another step in the disintegration of the Anglican Communion? Or is it a welcome diversity of approach for a strife-torn organisation consumed with disagreements about homosexuality and episcopal oversight? Christopher Landau was on the line from Mbarara in the West Ankole Diocese of Uganda.
Updated again Sunday evening
New Vision Gay row: Uganda consecrates American bishop
Daily Monitor Orombi consecrates anti-gay US bishop
And, reverting to the Kenyan consecrations:
Nation Kenya Anglicans and Episcopal Church pull apart over gay issue
The full text of Archbishop Drexel Gomez’s sermon in Nairobi is available here.
Monday evening
Episcopal News Service has UGANDA: Archbishop consecrates former Episcopal priest as bishop
A letter appeared in last week’s paper edition of the Church Times and is now on the web: Wycliffe Hall: doing very nicely, thank you by Richard Turnbull.
39 CommentsThe Church Times followed up on the 18 August report in the Independent Wikipedia and the art of censorship by publishing a short item last week, now on the web, authored by me, Jefferts Schori in the dark on Wikipedia edit.
Episcopal News Service picked this up and published Presiding Bishop unaware of Wikipedia edit; allegations discredited.
6 CommentsThe church’s preference for commitment over numbers has made it increasingly irrelevant, says David Self in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column.
Thursday’s Guardian carried this article by John Cornwell The importance of doubt which discusses Richard Dawkins.
The simple life is the way to tackle climate change says Mary Grey in the Credo column of The Times.
Christopher Howse writes about Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith in the Daily Telegraph.
Giles Fraser’s Church Times column is headed A real faith leads deep into the desert.
6 CommentsThe original Word document that was at the centre of this story last week was published on the web five days ago. The publication of this original file does not seem to have attracted much notice.
Go here and scroll down to find it. If you have the software to read an MS Word file, you can see the Martyn Minns and Chris Sugden entries for yourself.
Update
George Conger has written about this story for the Church of England Newspaper under the heading Archbishop Rebuffs Claim of Re-Written Pastoral Letter.
Ruth Gledhill has more on her blog about this: Speculation over whether Atwood et al to come to Lambeth
The Times had this report from Rob Crilly in Nairobi US congregations defect to Africa as schism over gay priests widens
Andrew Carey has published his CEN column, Anglican chaos.
Anglican Mainstream reports English General Synod members send congratulations on African consecrations. Those listed include the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali.
At Fulcrum Graham Kings expresses his reservations, see this discussion thread.
And the Associated Press reports US priests getting ordained in Kenya say American church has lost its way
Both sides of the argument say the issue goes deeper than simple acceptance of homosexuality. Liberal Anglicans say the Bible’s message of tolerance means there should be a place for everyone in church, but conservatives say that is bending the word of God to fit fashion.
“American males who are homosexually active have a life span that is three decades shorter than the norm,” Atwood said Wednesday. “How can a church say, ‘You are precious, we care about you, we love you, we want the best for you and now we want to bless behaviors that cause you to die three decades early’?”
See here for comment on the source of this claim.
Episcopal News Service has KENYA: Two former Episcopal priests consecrated as bishops for North America
The BBC’s Alex Kirby has written Kenya consecration deepens Anglican rift.
..So when one bishop (in this case Dr Nzimbi) acts in a way that undercuts the authority of another bishop, it is the clearest possible way of emphasising the church’s disunity.
What Dr Nzimbi is saying, in effect, is that he knows better than the US bishops about the pastoral needs of their people.
The two new bishops promised to “serve the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, to serve clergy and congregations in North America under the Kenyan jurisdiction”.
It is a formula which ignores the fact that none of the Anglican Communion’s member churches has any international interests of its own.
All are – in theory – united in working for the interests of the Communion itself.
And the claim that there are North American Anglicans “under the Kenyan jurisdiction” is breathtaking in the way it opens the door to ecclesiastical anarchy.
No doubt Dr Nzimbi believes the consecrations are in the best interests of Kenyan Anglicans, and of their fellow believers elsewhere in Africa.
In fact they look very unlikely to be anything of the sort…
Boston Globe Consecration in Kenya widens a religious rift
Voice of America Kenya’s Anglican Church Ordains American Bishops
Church Times Archbishop of Kenya consecrates bishops to work in US
34 CommentsUpdated Friday
William Atwood and William Murdoch were today ordained bishops by Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi (and, one assumes, at least two other bishops).
Ruth Gledhill in The Times US priests become Kenyan bishops in gay protest
BBC US Anglicans join Kenyan Church
Reuters Kenya consecrates conservative U.S. clerics as bishops
The New York Times reprints the Reuters article but with different pictures.
USA Today also reprints the Reuters article with another selction of pcitures.
Update
Global South Anglican has this picture of the consecration with many of the participating archbishops and bishops identified.
The Living Church Foundation in Bishops Atwood, Murdoch Consecrated in Kenya names several of those present.
As reported previously, the Province of Uganda will consecrate one American bishop on Sunday 2 September.
In addition to the links from that report, here is the full text of a letter from Archbishop Orombi to the Rectors, Clergy, and Lay Leaders of Ugandan Churches in America. A biography of John Guernsey is available here. A further report in the Church of England Newspaper is available here.
A second bishop will also serve: see this further press release about Bishop Andrew Fairfield.
83 CommentsUpdated Tuesday
The consecration of two American bishops by the Anglican Church of Kenya is scheduled for next Thursday. The latest Kenyan press reports on this:
The Nation Anglicans plan to send clergy to America.
East African Standard Nzimbi to Consecrate Two American Priests
And from America:
Reuters Africans woo conservative U.S. Anglicans in gay row
As previously reported, the official press statement of the ACK Provincial Synod in June said:
TWO BISHOPS FOR NORTH AMERICA
The ACK Province now provides Episcopal oversight to several dozen congregations in the USA through a number of Kenyan Bishops. By a unanimous vote of the Provincial Synod of the Anglican Church of Kenya endorsed the selection of The Revd Canon Bill Atwood as Suffragan Bishop of All Saints Cathedral Diocese (Nairobi) to serve the international interests of the ACK including taking responsibility for care for the congregations and clergy in the USA under Kenyan jurisdiction. The Synod also unanimously approved the consecration of The Revd Bill Murdoch as Suffragan Bishop of All Saints’ Cathedral Diocese to work with Revd Bill Atwood in providing that oversight and Episcopal care. Consecrations are scheduled for August 30th in Nairobi. They will collaborate with others in the Common Cause network, chaired by The Rt. Revd Robert Duncan (Pittsburgh) to provide Orthodox Episcopal care and oversight, strategically uniting a broad conservative coalition that shares historic Anglican faith and practice. (end)
Here is the earlier (15 June) report from the Church Times Archbishop of Kenya to consecrate US bishop. And from the Church of England Newspaper there was Mixed Reaction to Atwood Appointment.
And here is Bill Atwood’s CV as a Word document (from the Kenyan website). Or, the Anglican Communion Network has this version.
More about William Murdoch:
Diocese, Congregation Announce Amicable Separation in Massachusetts from the Living Church. And the Anglican Communion Network has this short biography.
Update
Another Reuters article Africa gives refuge to rebel U.S. Anglicans
63 Comments…Benjamin Nzimbi told Reuters on Monday he would consecrate dissident U.S. clerics Bill Atwood and Bill Murdoch as bishops on Thursday at a ceremony in Nairobi. Uganda’s Henry Orombi is due to consecrate John Guernsey next week.
“Since the talk about gay marriage started, many congregations in America have been looking for oversight from overseas,” Nzimbi said.
In Africa, gay relationships are denounced as immoral and are outlawed in many countries.
The 77 million-strong Anglican Church has been split since 2003 when its 2.4 million member U.S. branch consecrated Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop.
The move enraged conservative Anglicans, who accuse the Episcopal church of flouting Biblical commandments. Nzimbi said Kenya had been approached by more then 30 congregations from across the United States asking for leadership since then.
“REPENTANCE IS KEY”
Liberals, who support a looser interpretation of scripture, say the African clergy are violating church rules by creating conservative outposts in the United States and deepening a crisis that threatens to split the Anglican communion — a worldwide federation of 38 churches.
“We are not invading other people’s territory as such but preaching the gospel, the way it was brought to us, the way it is written,” Nzimbi said.
And he said the only way to bridge the schism was for the liberal churches to repent: “The way we can have one understanding is through repentance, that is the key word.”
Rachel Boulding reports it in the Church Times headlined Be united and let Jesus smile again, begs Dr Tutu and Matthew Davies reports it in Episcopal News Service under Tutu urges full Lambeth participation.
91 CommentsTHE ARCHBISHOP Emeritus of Cape Town, Dr Desmond Tutu, has made an emotional appeal to the Primates of the Anglican Communion to accept one another, and agree to disagree.
In the open letter sent last week to his successor as Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, he asks all the Primates to put aside their differences in order to deal with the world’s troubles.
He describes how, on a recent retreat: “I felt under considerable divine pressure to address this appeal to you and your fellow Primates.” Referring to Luke 15 and its parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal son, he writes: “We are most like this God and God’s Son when we are welcoming and inclusive. It is almost a defining characteristic of God to draw together, to unite. . . Sin, on the contrary, always divides. It is centrifugal by nature. It alienates, separates, like apartheid.”
After referring to unity and fellowship as “a gift from God”, he writes of the “bewildering diversity” of God’s creation: “None is self-sufficient, but all are made for interdependence, each making up what is lacking in the other. In a world where difference has led to alienation and even bloody conflict, the Church is God’s agent to demonstrate that unity in diversity is in fact the law of life.”
Dr Tutu admits: “I am not telling you anything new.” He continues: “Our Communion has always been characterised by its comprehensiveness, its inclusiveness, its catholicity
. . . We have been known to embrace within this one family those whose views were almost diametrically opposed. We said: ‘I disagree with you but we belong together.’”
He then addresses the Archbishop of Canterbury directly: “Please invite [to the Lambeth Conference] ALL those in Episcopal orders who are not retired, even those irregularly consecrated or actively gay; please, now I appeal to you all, do not excommunicate one another seemingly so easily. Be welcoming and inclusive of one another. Commune with one another and with our Lord, sacramentally and in other ways.”
Dr Tutu ends dramatically: “Our Lord is weeping to see our Communion tearing itself apart on the issue of human sexuality, when the world for which he died is ravaged by poverty, disease, war and corruption. We are one of God’s agents to deal with these scourges. God has no one but us. Please, I beg you all in our Lord’s name, agree to disagree, argue, debate; disagree, but do all this as members of one family. Accept one another as God accepts us, however we are, in Christ.
“Wipe the tears from our Lord’s eyes; put the smile back on God’s face. I beg you all on bended knee.”
In The Times Stephen Plant asks How can there can be forgiveness without remorse?
Glynn Cardy writes in the Guardian about the model of the church as a ship in Face to Faith.
The surprise of thatched churches is discussed in the Daily Telegraph by Christopher Howse.
A double dose of Giles Fraser:
The bishops really need to talk from last week’s Church Times and this week When the US Right was not so religious.
And another article from last week’s Church Times: Robin Gill writes about the state of the Anglican Communion: Keeping it in the family.
This week’s Tablet has an interview by Theo Hobson of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas. Read An eye for the other.
21 CommentsUpdated Friday afternoon
The Church Times has a report by Pat Ashworth headed Software suggests Minns rewrote Akinola’s letter.
A BISHOP in the United States has been revealed as the principal author of a seminal letter to the Church of Nigeria from its Archbishop, the Most Revd Peter Akinola, which was published on Sunday.
The letter includes a suggestion that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s status as a focus of unity is “highly questionable”. It also refers to a “moment of decision” for the Anglican Communion, which is on the “brink of destruction”.
The document, “A Most Agonising Journey towards Lambeth 2008”, appears to express to Nigerian synods the personal anguish of Archbishop Akinola over his attendance at the Lambeth Conference.
But computer tracking software suggests that the letter was extensively edited and revised over a four-day period by the Rt Revd Martyn Minns, who was consecrated last year by Archbishop Akinola to lead the secessionist Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) (News, 11 August 2006). Bishop Minns, along with the Rt Revd Gene Robinson, has not been invited to Lambeth (News, 25 May).
Close examination of the document, tracing the authorship, editing history, and timing of changes, reveals about 600 insertions made by Bishop Minns, including whole new sections amounting to two-thirds of the final text. There is also a sprinkling of minor amendments made by Canon Chris Sugden of the conservative group Anglican Mainstream…
This picture and its caption seems an appropriate summary.
Tunde Popoola has published a press release on the official Church of Nigeria website: PRESS RELEASE– Re: Church Times on Abp. Akinola’s letter (and the same material also appears in the comments below).
139 CommentsIt is very insulting and racist to infer that the Primate of All Nigeria is being dictated to. Is this in continuation of the ‘jamming’ of people opposing the agenda?
I would have believed the ‘computer software’ story were it not for the allegation of ‘minor amendments’ by the Canon Chris Sugden who had nothing to do with the document.
Abp. Akinola informed his senior staff and the Episcopal Secretary the need to highlight efforts at maintaining unity and the intransigence of the revisionists so that the Nigerian community is left in no doubt about who is ‘walking apart’
Along with his PA in Abuja, work started on the gathering of materials and relevant documents on 6th August, 2007. We used in addition to existing statements and my internet searches, Nigerian Episcopal meeting documents and TECUSA resolutions supplied respectively by our Episcopal Secretary, the Rt. Rev. Friday Imaekhia and a CANA priest, the Rev. Canon David Anderson. The draft of the statement was ready for correction by the primate on 9th August, 2007 who was however unable to correct it as he was about to travel.
Abp. Akinola was in the US and Bahamas between 10th and 22nd August 2007. I sent the draft to him through the Rt. Rev Minns with a request for assistance in getting some online references which I could not easily locate.
I fail to see any issue if amendments are then made on Bp. Minns’ computer. Apart from the fact that they were together during the period of the amendment, the Archbishop like many effective leaders who spend little time glued to a desk often phones me and other staffs to write certain things. Such remain his idea and anyone who knows Abp. Peter Akinola knows you can not make him say what he does not mean.
The publication doubting authenticity is another attempt to divert attention away from the carefully researched document which shows that the revisionists are directly responsible for problems confronting the Communion. Instead of chasing shadows, concerned Anglicans should consider the indisputable scenario highlighted in the document and pray for ways to save our beleaguered Communion.
Updated
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has published a document with this title. It is described thus:
Archbishop Peter Akinola writes to Nigerian Synods on the Journey towards Lambeth 2008
You can read the original copy here.
There were a number of formatting problems with that copy and so I have made another copy here. This copy now includes the paragraphs that were previously omitted by mistake from the original. For convenience of those who read the earlier version, I have placed the additions in italics.
279 CommentsUpdated Wednesday
Changing Attitude has two further reports
This update on the Nigerian situation: Further news about the arrest of 18 gay men in Bauchi, Nigeria
This report on Uganda: Kampala Homosexuals Speak Out. The original of this is on allAfrica here.
Wednesday
And a further report: CAN members witness court appearance in Bauchi.
In the Church Times Andrew Linzey writes about animal cruelty in First hit the pets, then the people.
And last week, in the Church Times Harriet Baber wrote about gun control in How to survive in a violent world.
Andrew Clitherow writes the Guardian’s Face to Faith column about the cul-de-sac of formal religion.
Luis Rodriguez writes in The Times that We must work to discover the meaning of suffering.
9 Comments