Anglican Mainstream

From Virtueonline

Presented by His Grace, The Most Rev Dr Daniel Deng Bul Yak

Your Graces and my fellow bishops of our beloved continent of Africa—on behalf of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, I would like to thank CAPA for organizing the All Africa Bishop’s Conference (AABC) and for the Church of the Province of Uganda for hosting this august Conference.

I bring greetings to you all from the Episcopal Church of the Sudan in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We were shocked to hear of the attacks that occurred in Kampala on 11th July 2010 on innocent people who were watching the World Cup finals. I would like to request His Grace, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, to convey our condolences to the bereaved families. We assure you of our prayers for quick recovery for those who were injured in these attacks.

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)

Thanksgiving: In Sudan, Christians have been carrying a heavy burden for over 50 years. But we give thanks to the Almighty God that He has safely brought us together here in Kampala. We rejoice in the hope he has given us in His son Jesus Christ. This hope gives us strength in the face of many dangers and difficulties we are now going through in Sudan. Also, we thank God for your prayers and support for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which was signed five years ago, but we are still asking for your continuing prayer and support as we approach the end of the six-year interim period.

The Peace Process: The peace process in Sudan has reached a critical point. In April [2010] we completed our first multi-party elections in 24 years, and we are now less than 4 months away from the referendum on southern Sudan self-determination and popular consultations for Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile. This is a crucial part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Unfortunately, there are aspects of the CPA that have not yet been implemented; this includes the demarcation of the 1st January 1956 borders and the full implementation of the Abyei protocol. We call on you to pray for this process and request you to urge your governments to support the full implementation of the CPA and to recognize and accept the outcome of the referendum.

Read here

By David W Virtue in Entebbe

In the heavily nuanced world of verbal gymnastics inhabited by Dr. Rowan Williams there lies a single truth: He is not on the same page with the vast majority of Anglicans in the Anglican Communion most notably in the Global South.

This was evident this past week when he made a guest appearance at the All Africa Conference of Bishops known as CAPA in Entebbe, Uganda.

In his address to some 400 Anglican bishops from a dozen African nations, Williams used his sermon to allude to the difficulties in the Communion, saying bishops have a "special responsibility to show the world the preciousness of those who are hated or neglected by others or by society at large".

Clergy need to listen to those they lead and serve, to find out what "their own hopes and needs and confusions are". They should not pick and choose to whom they minister, he added. "We must love and attend to their humanity in all its diversity. We cannot assume we always know better, that we always have the right answer to any specific question."

The subtext in Williams' words, especially when you see the word "diversity" is not merely those in poverty or with HIV/AIDS but also to homosexuals whom he believes met the criteria of "hated and neglected".

A deeper fiction could not be found. Williams has separated this out in his mind and, by his actions, his private views on the subject from what he must uphold as the church's received teaching. Never mind that no other single group in the world is winning the Culture Wars more decisively than those pressing the case for the full acceptance of homosexual practice. Anyone who dare opposes this behavior can find themselves losing jobs, businesses and going to jail.

Read here

From ACNS

The Archbishop delivered a sermon for Opening Eucharist at the 'Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa All Africa Bishops' Conference, Entebbe, Uganda

The full text of the sermon is below:

My dear brothers and sisters, first let me say a word of heartfelt thanks for the invitation to be part of this wonderful occasion to share fellowship with you, to learn from you. Archbishop Ian thank you and thanks to CAPA for the invitation, Archbishop Henry thank you for all you have done to welcome us all here in this jewel of Africa. I want also to bring the greetings and the prayers of your brothers and sisters of the Church of England many of whom will be praying alongside us in these days ahead and will look to see and hear the great things God will do in this assembly.

Now I apologise to those in this congregation who are not bishops because I want to speak this morning first of all about the ministry of the bishop because this is a conference for those on whom responsibilities have been laid for the leadership of the church. Our readings this morning fill out the nature of that responsibility.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Global South Anglican

By Petroc Trelawny, BBC News

The choice of the new Bishop has split the Anglican Church in Malawi.

[.....] Five years ago, an English priest chosen to lead the diocese was accused of being a liberal theologian of "unsound faith".

He was never allowed to take up the position.

The appointment of the conservative Bishop Kaulanda has been equally controversial and the subject of a legal injunction, with detractors claiming he is not qualified for the job.

This is more than just a local row. It comes in the wider context of a battle for the very future of the Anglican Church in Central Africa.

Should it lean in a more moderate, European direction or base itself on so-called "African values", where only men can be priests, scripture is interpreted rigidly, and homosexuality is condemned?

As the churchmen argue amongst themselves, Malawian Christians struggle with more practical issues.

On my way to Nkhotakota, I had stopped at Bandawe, a Presbyterian mission, where a dynamic young priest led a service more akin to a village meeting. Basic health care and subsistence farming were part of his sermon.

"We have to be practical," he told me. "Religion only really works if it encourages people to improve their lives."

Read here

The Bishop in Iran has quit the Anglican Communion’s ‘Standing Committee’.

Bishop Azad Marshall’s decision to stand down will come as a blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury who has sought to vest an unprecedented degree of authority in the new entity—formed by the merger of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee of the Primates Meeting.

The vote of ‘no confidence’ by yet another leader of the Global South group of Anglican churches serves to isolate Dr. Williams from the conservative and liberal wings of the Communion—diminishing his authority as the political centre collapses from under him.

Bishop Marshall’s withdrawal also comes the same week as the Episcopal Church presents Dr. Williams with a new crisis over the legitimacy of the standing committee, with a fight over the seating of Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut on the committee likely to loom large at its next meeting.

The Church of England Newspaper was unable to contact Bishop Marshall, who is traveling in Iran, to confirm his reasons for withdrawing from the standing committee, but those familiar with his decision say it follows in line with the Jan 30 announcement of his primate, Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East. Read the rest of this entry »

By Alex Singleton, Telegraph

There’s no let-up on bad spending ideas coming from the Tory-run Department for International Development (DFID). It is going to spend £2.95 million to give Uganda 45 million condoms, along with some implantable and oral contraceptives. “Who could be against that?”, the sandal-wearing do-gooders at DFID might be wondering. Well me, for a start – and no, I’m not a Catholic.

No one wants HIV/AIDS to spread, but free distribution will never work. As Professor William Easterly, the eminent development economist, has argued, there’s no shortage of Coca-Cola in Africa, and condoms should be treated in the same, for-profit way.

Coke and other soft drinks are vital way of getting something drinkable in rural africa, and tens of thousands of entrepreneurial Africans sell them out of wooden shacks and by the side of roads. The drinks are affordable, but by charging, Africans are able to make a living distributing them.

However, when aid agencies reject the market and demand that Africans distribute goods free of charge, little distribution takes place. It’s now widely accepted that aid-funded bed-nets, which are supposed to stop malaria, are routinely dumped in villages with community leaders and forgotten about, or used as fishing nets. Few of the promiscuous men who would benefit from condoms are going to happily accept contraceptives from community leaders, because it would damage their pride. Nor are they likely to request them from a hospital.  Read here

The Times of London contained a report on Saturday May 22  of a report published 5 months ago called Globalising the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches and Homophobia.  The following two articles address the issues raised in that report. 

Special Report: Resenting African Christianity  By Mark Tooley, American Spectator

Fast growing African Christianity, both evangelical and Catholic, is transforming global religion and affecting American Christianity, particularly its debates over homosexuality. The U.S. Episcopal Church, of course, has been prominently roiled by controversy since its 2003 election of an openly homosexual bishop, now joined by a newly elected openly lesbian bishop. African Anglican bishops, overwhelmingly conservative, have steadfastly encouraged the global Anglican Communion to sanction U.S. Episcopalians for their heterodoxy. But the Anglican Communion's authority is mostly symbolic, and the Episcopal Church governs itself. A new communion, the Anglican Church in North America, is largely for orthodox former Episcopalians, many of whom have placed themselves under the authority of African bishops.

Considerably less publicized but no less significant is the United Methodist Church, which now almost uniquely among liberal-led, old-line denominations continues to affirm orthodox teachings on marriage and sexual ethics. The traditionalist stance, dismaying to its liberal elites, is thanks partly to the denomination's growing African membership. Unlike the U.S. Episcopal Church, which is almost entirely U.S. members plus some small dioceses from Latin America and Taiwan, United Methodism is more fully international, with about one third of its members in Africa. Amid growing United Methodist churches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, among others, and a U.S. church losing about a 1,000 members weekly, the 11.4 million denomination likely will soon be majority African. At the church's next governing General Conference in 2012, probably 40 percent of the delegates will come from outside the U.S., even further diminishing liberal hopes.

Liberal church activists are reluctant to acknowledge that African Christianity has a firm mind of its own, preferring condescendingly to portray it as primitive and easily manipulated by conservative U.S. religionists. It is true that much of African Christianity is new, somewhat similar to fast growing, early American frontier revivalism in its earnest faith, populism, and strong sense of the supernatural. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia of 2001, Africa was less than 10 percent Christian in 1900 but was over 45 percent Christian by 2000. (This compares to Islam's growth in African from 32 percent to 40 percent.) About 20 percent of the world's Christians now live in Africa, and rates of active church attendance are higher in Africa than in much of old Christendom. One Congolese bishop estimated that more Congolese are in a United Methodist Church on a typical Sunday than in all the United States.

But liberal U.S. church activists usually sorely underestimate the depth and richness of African Christianity, including its intellectual traditions, some of which date to the early Church Fathers. Read the rest of this entry »

By George Conger, CEN

Pressure from overseas governments and NGOs to drop the “Christian Nation” clause in Zambia’s constitution, has drawn sharp protest from church leaders in the Central African country.

The former Executive Director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, Bishop Paul Mususu, told the Times of Zambia last week that it was wrong for foreigners to dictate the terms of the constitution and promote a secular state that would support gay rights.

“It is not proper for us to get rid of what we have cherished over the years. We shall be sinking so low if we allow things like homosexuality and pornography in the name of freedom of expression,” Bishop Mususu said.

Read here

by Mark Tooley AmericanSpectator

Fast growing African Christianity, both evangelical and Catholic, is transforming global religion and affecting American Christianity, particularly its debates over homosexuality. African Anglican bishops, overwhelmingly conservative, have steadfastly encouraged the global Anglican Communion to sanction U.S. Episcopalians for their heterodoxy. 

Liberal church activists are reluctant to acknowledge that African Christianity has a firm mind of its own, preferring condescendingly to portray it as primitive and easily manipulated by conservative U.S. religionists. 

But liberal U.S. church activists usually sorely underestimate the depth and richness of African Christianity, including its intellectual traditions, some of which date to the early Church Fathers. Infamously, revisionist retired U.S. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong once derided African Anglicans for having moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity," while condemning Third World "religious extremism" and "Pentecostal hysteria."   Read more

Press Release:  The Rev. Todd H. Wetzel, Executive Director of Anglicans United & Latimer Press

Let’s be honest:  yesterday’s consecration of Canon Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles sealed the separation of TEC from the overwhelming majority within the Anglican Communion and signaled increasing fragmentation in the Communion: proof that Gene Robinson’s consecration in 2003 was not an aberration, but a clear indication of the determined direction of The Episcopal Church (TEC). 

As the Anglican Communion moved towards a more conscious and clearly defined commitment to Biblical authority and the conciliary tradition of the Church Catholic, TEC moved in the opposite direction.  As the Anglican Communion moved towards increasing collegiality and interdependence, TEC moved (albeit with few other Western allies) to affirm greater independence.  While the public rhetoric of the Episcopal Church continually affirmed their care and consideration for the rest of the Communion, the actions of this insular body made those statements empty sentiment. 

The desires of the Communion, especially those of the Global South, who find themselves dealing with multiculturalism and open hostility from Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, are treated with disdain.  No “bonds of mutual affection” here! 

A significant portion of the once proud but poorly defined “Anglican Communion” may well emerge from this crisis stronger and more clearly organized.  TEC’s hypocritical nonsense about unity has been sacrificed in their obdurate affirmation of a “new revelation” from the spirit (of the age).  Maybe it’s about time. 

You can’t build substantive Communion on any other basis than unity on the essentials.  Biblical ethics are clearly essential, as is Biblical and historical theology.  TEC is now inextricably bound to the spirit of the age in this generation.   She will find herself widowed in the next. The American Episcopal Church is now headed for the ash heap of heterodoxy– severed and isolated from historic and orthodox Christianity.

While the crowd cheered at Gene and Mary’s consecrations, Heaven wept.  And the rest of the Communion looked on in shame.

From AAC

Upon my return from the Fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter (GSE4) in Singapore, I needed to plunge immediately into the organizational Synod of the newly forming Anglican Diocese of the South-a new diocese in the AC-NA that the AAC has helped to launch through our organizational work and our conference on "Sharing our Faith." Now that the Synod and conference are completed, I have had time to reflect on the things I saw and heard at the GSE4, and my observations can be summed up in three words: Gratitude, Caution and Hope.

Gratitude: I am grateful for the privilege and honor of representing the AC-NA with Archbishop Duncan, Bishop Guernsey and Mr. Hugo Blankingship, chancellor of the AC-NA. I am grateful for the opportunities to fellowship with Communion Partner Bishops Mark Lawrence and John Howe. I am grateful for the exceptional organization and hospitality extended by Archbishop John Chew, the clergy and the people of the Diocese of Singapore. I am grateful for the anointed Bible studies by Bishop Rennis Ponniah, assisting Bishop of Singapore, from Isaiah on a new vision for God, the Church and leadership. The Bible studies and prayer times brought us daily into the presence of the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit! I am grateful for the special meeting called by the primates to hear the concerns of the AC-NA and Communion Partners and better understand the situation we face in North America. I am grateful for the mutually supporting words offered by Archbishop Duncan and Bishop Howe in response to their questions. I am grateful that the primates recognized the flaws in the current version of the Anglican Covenant, insisted upon compliance with Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as a precondition for signing the Covenant, called for the primates to review and enforce the Covenant rather than the ersatz "Standing Committee," and thereby reaffirmed the authority and responsibility of the primates regarding faith and order in the Anglican Communion.

Read here

From The Rt Revd Bill Atwood (Hat Tip: AAC)

Clearly, when the Jews left the wilderness and crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land, their struggles were not over. They still had many challenges and battles to fight, but the passage of crossing the Jordan was a tremendously important one, and the Lord called them to mark it with large stones.

The Fourth Global South Encounter (GSE4) that was just held in Singapore was a huge passage for many, but particularly so for the Anglican Church in North America. I have noted with interest that some people have expressed great disappointment with the lack of "action," but I'd like to suggest that they may have missed some points of tremendous significance.

First some background: GSE4 gathered 130 delegates from 20 provinces of the Anglican Communion. The term "Global South" is not unique to Anglicanism, but it has special application in the Communion. A complicating detail is that the term is used differently by different people. For some it is simply a description of everything south of the 20º northern parallel.

For others, it is a description of the developing nations of the "two-thirds world." In that application, it would exclude nations like Australia and New Zealand because they are considered "western" in culture and economic development. It is hard to imagine in that model why Hong Kong and Singapore would be included in the Global South list. Of course, the Diocese of Singapore includes the missionary deaneries of Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and Nepal. (Oddly enough, even though there is a tremendous distance between Singapore and Nepal, there are natural links. Many Nepalese go to Singapore to work so it has been a fruitful connection.)   Read here

`Living Church News Society' 

There are still reasons to be hopeful about the future of the Anglican Communion, that we may manage to reform ourselves along covenantal lines, and so intensify our life together in Christ. Let us not deceive ourselves, however, that there is a unified conservative (or any other) bloc in the global south, or among Communion-minded cognoscenti the world over with a clear plan, based on a commonly received and articulated theology of the Church, that will prevail at any moment. Living Church, 30 April 2010

By Edmond Chua for The Christian Post (Hong Kong)  H/T Cherie Wetzel

As a watching world wonders if Anglicanism is falling apart, major players in the Anglican Communion are assured of unity. But it is an assurance that is mingled with a deep sorrow.

These were recurrent themes in conversations The Christian Post had with most of the Global South archbishops and representatives. This paper had met them at a significant summit held last week at St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

For the Global South archbishops, there is no question about whether there will be a split in the largest Protestant communion.

“There is really only one Anglican Communion,” said the Most Revd. Henri Kahwa Isingoma of Congo. “It is the North American Churches that have gone far from the roots of our common faith.”

Isingoma went on to explain that the Global South is a ‘resistance’ movement to stem the tide of theological liberalism. For him and other archbishops at the meeting, the Anglican Communion is defined not by self-styling but by biblical orthodoxy.

The worldwide communion was thrown into chaos when two North American Churches started blessing same-sex unions and ordaining homosexuals as bishops eight years back.  Read here

By David Virtue, VOL

A Coptic Orthodox Church observer to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter ripped into the Episcopal Church, stunning some 130 archbishops, bishops, clergy and laity, urging them to say "no to ordination of homosexuals, no to gay marriage, no to such immorality, and that it is time to purify the sanctuary of the Lord from this abomination that causes our God to suffer, bleed and be crucified again everyday."

"You are martyrs without the shedding of blood because you are upholding the teaching of the Gospel handed down once and for all to the apostles," Bishop Anba Suriel told the stunned delegates.

"An army of sheep led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep. I really pray that you lions here, the primates of each of the provinces of the Global South will stand united with one accord against the heresies of The Episcopal Church.

"I want to share with you a saying of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism. This great Egyptian saint said, "There will come a day when the mad people will look at the normal people and say, 'Look at these mad people because they are not like us.'" I think this prophecy has been fulfilled in our day and age. Abnormality has become the new normality. Certain factions of the Christian Church are becoming desensitized to the truth of the Gospel. I call it the frog in the kettle syndrome.

Read here

We are encouraged by and welcome the Communique from the Fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter in Singapore, with its positive emphasis on mission. We particularly endorse:

1. Their positive response to the call to declare the next ten years a Decade of Mission and Networking, to expand mission sending capacity to enhance networking among Global South Provinces, together with the need to pay greater attention to the role of Christian professionals in the mission, ministry and witness of the Christian community. and the pastoral needs of the laity, especially women and young [10]

2. Their agreement that the future of the Communion lies in winning the next generation for Christ and therefore their call to each region to adopt initiatives to better understand the needs and characteristics of this new generation so that we might better communicate the Gospel and Christian values to them. [12]

3. Their statement of ‘the absolute necessity and priority for the Church to disciple her members under the authority of the inspired Scriptures so that they may transform their societies and reach the nations with the Gospel’. [13]

4. Their recognition that TEC and ACC’s ‘continued refusal to honor the many requests made of them by the various meetings of the Primates throughout the Windsor Process have brought discredit to our witness’; the urging of the Archbishop of Canterbury to implement the recommended actions’; and their encouragement to Provinces ‘to reconsider their communion relationships with The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada until it becomes clear that there is genuine repentance’. [18 and 19]

5. Their acknowledgement that there are many within TEC who do not accept their church’s innovations, to whom we should offer loving and prayerful support. [19]

6. Their recognition that the recently formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a faithful expression of Anglicanism’; their welcome to ACNA churches as partners in the Gospel; and their hope that all provinces will be in full communion with the clergy and people of the ACNA and the Communion Partners. [19]

7. Their view that ‘there is a need to review the entire Anglican Communion structure; especially the Instruments of Communion and the Anglican Communion office; in order to achieve an authentic expression of the current reality of our Anglican Communion’. [22]

Dr Philip Giddings (Convenor Anglican Mainstream)
Rev Paul Perkin (Chairman, Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (UK and Ireland))
Canon Dr Chris Sugden (Executive Secretary, Anglican Mainstream)

From Christian Post (Singapore)

Archbishops representing three-quarters of the Anglican world are rallying for firm action against two Western Churches for ‘celebrating’ homosexuality.

The decision by the top leadership of the Global South of the Anglican Communion was prompted by the recent election by The Episcopal Church (U.S.) of a partnered lesbian as a bishop.

Heads of Churches in the Anglican Global South will be persuading their representative assemblies to reconsider communion with the North American Churches. This is “until it becomes clear there is genuine repentance,” in the words of a communiqué. The ‘Fourth Trumpet’ was released Friday after an Anglican Global South summit held throughout the week at St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

To prevent repeat occurrences, the archbishops are also seeking to articulate the Anglican faith and invest the council of worldwide Church heads with disciplinary powers. They will do this by proposing amendments to a proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. Read here