Yours truly in a recent teaching.

I’ve learned some new words.

One is “autocannibalism,” coined in French but equally appropriate in English. It describes what happens when a militia here in eastern Congo’s endless war cuts flesh from living victims and forces them to eat it.

Another is “re-rape.” The need for that term arose because doctors were seeing women and girls raped, re-raped and re-raped again, here in the world capital of murder, rape, mutilation.

This grotesque vocabulary helps answer a question that I’ve had from readers: Why Congo?

Read it all.

…What`s so interesting at the same time is that what I think people…find so jarring about Omar Hammami is how familiar he is. When most people think about jihadists, they have this image of these people who are alien, otherworldly….People you can`t imagine knowing, who are at odds with the West. And Omar Hammami just turns that on his head, because he`s really straddling the divide. And not just him, but also a lot of these guys from Minneapolis. They get to Somalia and they continue to maintain contact with their friends and family via Facebook, via cell phones, via e-mail. All of the tools — this is a new generation, this is a generation that has come of age with the Internet. And so they remain connected to this wider modern world, while at the same time embracing this vision of utopia that goes back centuries. And while also seeing America as the enemy. And so, it`s the juxtaposition of those two things that I think people find so alarming, especially with Hammami, because, I mean, he could be the kid next door. For a lot of people who grew up with him, he is the kid next door. So he brings this home.

–Andrea Elliott of the New York Times in a recent Charlie Rose interview

It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better.

But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.

What those numbers don’t capture is the way Congo has become the world capital of rape, torture and mutilation, in ways that sear survivors like Jeanne Mukuninwa, a beautiful, cheerful young woman of 19 who somehow musters the courage to giggle. Her parents disappeared in the fighting when she had just turned 14 ”” perhaps they were massacred, but their bodies never turned up ”” so she moved in with her uncle.

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Omar Hammami had every right to flash his magnetic smile. He had just been elected president of his sophomore class. He was dating a luminous blonde, one of the most sought-after girls in school. He was a star in the gifted-student program, with visions of becoming a surgeon. For a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma.

Despite the name he acquired from his father, an immigrant from Syria, Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like “sugar” and “darlin’.” Brought up a Southern Baptist, Omar went to Bible camp as a boy and sang “Away in a Manger” on Christmas Eve. As a teenager, his passions veered between Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, soccer and Nintendo. In the thick of his adolescence, he was fearless, raucously funny, rebellious, contrarian. “It felt cool just to be with him,” his best friend at the time, Trey Gunter, said recently. “You knew he was going to be a leader.”

A decade later, Hammami has fulfilled that promise in the most unimaginable way. Some 8,500 miles from Alabama, on the eastern edge of Africa, he has become a key figure in one of the world’s most ruthless Islamist insurgencies. That guerrilla army, known as the Shabab, is fighting to overthrow the fragile American-backed Somali government. The rebels are known for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, they have managed to turn Somalia into an ever more popular destination for jihadis from around the world.

Read it carefully and read it all.

You may find information about it here.

The Archbishop said:

“The Church in Sudan is completely committed to peace and development and will work with all agencies, governmental and non-governmental, committed to the same goals. Its infrastructure is at the service of the community, the government and international agencies”.

Earlier in the day the Archbishop met the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy. The rehabilitation of children who had become caught up in conflict was a key role for churches, so too was protecting children from the vortex of abuse and violence including trafficking and abduction.

“The nurture of children is the touchstone of our mature care of humanity” said Dr Williams.

Read it all and enjoy the picture.

It should be noted that in Jos we are coming face to face in confrontation with Satan and the powers of hell, and only God can save us. There are, however, many Muslims who totally disagree with violence as a means of settling issues, and of course it is not in accordance with the gospel to use violence to settle issues either. What seems to be a recurring decimal is that over time, those who have in the past used violence to settle political issues, economic issues, social matters, intertribal disagreements, or any issue for that matter, now continue to use that same path of violence and cover it up with religion. We must pray against the powers of hell. We must also pray for our state government, our Houses of Assembly at state and federal levels and our law enforcement agents, that they may choose the path of truth and justice, and deal with crime by its proper name, so that no-one, no matter how high or low, no matter of what faith or creed, should be exempt from facing the law.

The national leadership should be lifted up to God, that they may rise beyond a concern for political success and seek to do good and right in all things for the benefit of all people. This is a most urgent prayer request, because Nigeria as a nation has a large and ever-increasing army of leaderless, lawless, unemployable, unemployed, demoralized, and near hopeless youth. This, to my prophetic mind, is the big security issue which the governments at local, state and federal levels are not taking seriously. For example, every crisis in Nigeria in the last ten years has been executed by this generation of young people. With each passing year, they perfect their skills, and when they run out of a supply of money””or when they become bored with any situation””then any opportunity for action gives them satisfaction. This army has no religion, but can choose to go under the name of religion to achieve its motives. They are uneducated, and so their values are totally different, as are their ways of handling weapons or choosing how issues are settled. Please pray for us.

Read the whole thing.

The Anglican bishop of the Diocese of Benin, Church of Nigeria, was abducted at gunpoint from his home Jan. 24 after returning from a service of Holy Eucharist at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in the nation’s southern state of Edo, according to news reports.

Read it all and please keep him in your prayers.

Yenagoa ”” The recent corruption rating of the nation by Transparency International is generating concern among the First Synod of the Diocese of Western Izon, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Patani, Delta State.

As a result, the synod has urged compatriots and the government to tackle the anti-corruption war seriously.

This was contained in a communiqué issued by the Diocesan Bishop, Edafe Emamezi, and Secretary, Church Enoya, at the end of its synod at Patani, Delta State.

The church was reacting to the nation’s credibility rating published by Transparency International, which brought down Nigeria from its 121st position to 130th.

Read it all.

Nigerian authorities have relaxed the 24-hour curfew in the central city of Jos, where fighting between Muslims and Christians has left hundreds dead.

Army chief Lt Col Shekari Galadima said he was satisfied the violence which began on Sunday had been halted.

Officials said easing the curfew would allow people to find food and water and those displaced to return home.

Eyewitnesses say the army is patrolling the streets and people are wary about venturing too far.

Read it all.

It is true that for many African church members and leaders homosexual behaviour is regarded as unnatural, not moral, not Christian, nor African. But this is also true of a large number of other traditional societies anywhere in the world who resist modern cultural pressures and seek to deal with them in their own way. Churches with their global communities and their willingness to assess traditional and cultural norms by transcendent divinely authorized Christian values and norms and by their partnership with the global church and drawing on the knowledge and resources of the global church are best placed to help African societies deal with the challenges of modernity in an African way, relating the best of their cultures, refining their cultures and rejecting those who would assault their cultural identity and integrity.

It is sad to see that some leaders of TEC who have advised this project have departed from this very tradition of support of Anglican churches in the non-Western world to negotiate their cultural challenges in which Anglican mission work along with Roman Catholics has been a leader. It raises the question of their motivation in promoting such an attack on the African Anglican Churches ”“ perhaps it is a backlash against the African Anglican Churches breaking communion with TEC. Far from going beyond colonialism, this report falls back into it by universalizing the local culture of the United States.

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Africa has shrunk now that one person in three owns a mobile phone. Already the effect on families, business and even governance has been extraordinary, but the telecommunications revolution has only just begun.

Over the single piece of cloth that George Kamakei Olodopash, an illiterate Masai farmer in Narok, Kenya, wore wrapped around his torso and thighs, hung a mobile phone from a thin black belt. Through an interpreter I asked him what he used it for. He looked at me as though I was from a previous century.

“If I’m out in the fields and I’m going to be late home, I can phone my wife and tell her,” he spelt out. How did he charge it? “I have a solar panel on the roof of my hut,” he replied.

That was in 2003. Since then the number of Africans buying mobile phones has shot up by 550 per cent, according to the United Nations. The “Information Economy Report” published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development in October, found that mobile subscriptions rose from 54 million to 350 million between 2003 and 2008 ”“ meaning more than a third of Africans now owns a mobile phone.

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The draconian penalties in Uganda’s proposed ”˜Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ have come under sharp criticism from the Christian Churches of Uganda.

In its December 17 Christmas message, the Uganda Joint Christian Council, a coalition of the country’s Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, said that while its individual member churches had not yet issued formal statements on the proposed bill, all were opposed to the harsh penalties proposed for the suppression of vice.

On 14 Oct MP David Bahati of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) tabled a private-members bill before parliament entitled the ”˜Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ that would stiffen Uganda’s sodomy laws. The proposed law has come in part in response to concerns over growing child-sex tourism in East Africa and the highly publicized arrests of two NGO workers, as well as with the perception that Uganda’s culture is under siege by the West.

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The Archbishop of Sudan accused China on Monday of pursuing a damaging policy of economic gain in his country and urged Beijing to use its influence to help ease rising tension ahead of elections.

Archbishop Daniel Deng said Beijing, which imported $6.3 billion (3.9 billion pounds) of Sudanese crude oil in 2008, should try to help bring together parties at loggerheads over the full implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, including the delivery of credible elections.

“China is looking only for minerals, they are looking for economic benefit. That is all. That is damaging the country. They are not even making peace,” the Anglican archbishop said during a visit to Lambeth Palace in London.

Read it all.

There has been general shock at the attempted downing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit. It isn’t just that yet another aeroplane terrorist atrocity was averted only by luck and courage after US and British intelligence were caught with their pants down once again. Nor is it just the lax airport security.

No, the real amazement has been that the perpetrator, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian who apparently got his orders from al-Qa’eda in Yemen; that the genesis of the pants bomber’s radical journey lies not in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor in Israel/Palestine, but in Africa.

It was while at school in Togo that Abdulmutallab reportedly adopted the most belligerent version of Islam. As a fully fledged Islamic extremist, he was naturally received with open arms in Londonistan, where he was further radicalised to terrorism before being kitted out in Yemen with the latest accessories of mass murder.

He is first and foremost a religious fanatic ”” and the crucial context for his extremism is Africa.

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Since the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, many have asked how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student whose father flagged his radicalization to U.S. authorities, was able to get highly explosive material through airport security checkpoints and even on board a plane in Lagos. It may be a while before U.S. and Nigerian investigators present concrete responses to apparent security flaws. But some things are already clear.

The problems at Nigeria’s largest airport are symptomatic of issues plaguing the West African country. Once one of Africa’s greatest hopes, Nigeria, a nation about the size of Arizona, California and Nevada combined, has become an embarrassment, a lawless country run by plutocrats. Nigeria has all the makings of a failed state: Less than half of its 148 million people have access to running water, the World Health Organization and UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation have reported. Electricity is epileptic. The K-12 and public university systems are frequently beset by strikes. Roads are poor, often unpaved and unpassable. Crime is the order of the day. Nigerian police officers don’t protect and serve; their uniforms allow them to exploit, extort and oppress. If victims are not from Nigeria’s small protected class, they are sometimes murdered. Borders with neighbors such as Niger, which is known to host al-Qaeda cells, are notoriously porous.

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I once landed at a remote airstrip in southern Sudan. The pilot dropped me off and flew away, and I was alone with a long wait for the person who was to pick me up. As we flew in I had seen nothing but bush and rock; almost no sign of human habitation.

But as I sat and waited in the shade of a tree, an old man emerged from the bush. He greeted me as if I came every day and asked if I had brought any newspapers. I had not. But he did not seem to think his journey had been wasted. We sat and chatted and then, when conversation dried up, we just sat in the shade and stared across the wooded valley.

Anywhere else it would have felt awkward just sitting there in silence. But silent companionship is just fine in Africa. Just being with someone is perfectly normal. In Britain we shut ourselves off from other people and leave the lonely to themselves, especially at Christmas. Loneliness and depression are serious afflictions, created by the way we live.

Maybe we should learn from Africa.

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“The father ”” Alhaji Umaru Mutallab ””- who is a responsible and respected Nigerian, has already expressed deep shock and regret over his son’s action,” Akunyili said. “We want to reiterate that Nigeria as a nation abhors all forms of terrorism. Nigerian security agencies are working hand in hand with international security agencies on this matter.”

In its statement today, Abdulmutallab’s family said that before cutting ties, the suspect had never displayed any behavior to give them concern. Mike Rimmer, his history teacher for three years at the exclusive British School of Lome in the west African nation of Togo, said he couldn’t believe his ears when he heard the news.

“I was absolutely shocked,” Rimmer said. “I was expecting great things from Umar. I certainly wasn’t expecting this. He was a great lad. He was a model student ”” very keen, very enthusiastic.”

Rimmer told the BBC that it hadn’t occurred to him then, but perhaps there were early signs that he had missed.

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The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have condemned the recent resurgence of police intimidation of Anglicans in Zimbabwe. Church goers, including clergy and local bishops, have been barred from entering their churches and threatened with arrest and violence.

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It’s almost unimaginable.

Fifteen years ago, Rwandans killed nearly 1 million of their own.

Today, the country’s economy is starting to pick up steam. Tourism has become the top industry. Residents acknowledge the genocide, but go about their business. Some live doors away from the person who killed their family members.

Contradictions pervade Rwanda as the government tries to pull off ambitious plans to modernize the nation with an eco-friendly economy. This country, where a collection of Iowans is investing expertise, money and passion, appears poised to become one of Africa’s great success stories, but the view on the ground shows it won’t be easy.

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Since the start of Advent the ZRP and Kunonga loyalists have disrupted services and locked out congregations across the diocese loyal to Dr Gandiya and the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA).

Dr Kunonga’s fresh campaign for control of the church in Harare is a “real test to the fragile government of National Unity,” the Rev Paul Gwese reported, “as it was at the intervention of the co-ministers of Home Affairs” that Anglicans were able to “use their churches without been disrupted by rogue police officers aligned to Kunonga.”

In an email sent to supporters dated Nov 29, Dr Gandiya recounted how the ZRP and Kunonga clergy broke up a service he was leading at St Clare’s Mission in Murewa.

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US Special Envoy Lt Gen Scott Gration has also vowed to make saving the CPA a top priority of the Obama administration. However, the “inter-ethnic violence currently witnessed across much of Southern Sudan, the ongoing violence against civilians in Darfur, and the violent attacks on civilians being perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the south-west of the country,” was destabilizing the region, the church warned.

The escalation of violence “will make registration and voting in the elections and referendum very difficult,” the church warned. “The conclusion that is drawn is that this violence is intended to negatively affect the elections and referendum,” it concluded.

Read the whole thing.

Pastor Rick Warren today asked Ugandan pastors to oppose a proposed law that could bring death to Ugandans engaging in gay sex.

The Saddleback Church pastor had come under fire last week on the Internet and in the media for not taking a stand or issuing a condemnation of the proposed legislation.

In a video posted on YouTube, Warren asked Ugandan pastors to speak out against a proposed law by a Ugandan pastor who endorsed proposed legislation making gay sex punishable by life in prison or even in some cases death.

Read the whole article.

Uganda will drop the death penalty and life imprisonment for gays in a refined version of an anti- gay bill expected to be ready for presentation to Parliament in two weeks, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of ethics and integrity, said.

The draft bill, which is under consideration by a parliamentary committee, will drop the two punishments to attract the support of religious leaders who are opposed to these penalties, Buturo said today in a phone interview from the capital, Kampala.

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The recent election in the Diocese of Los Angeles of a partnered lesbian as bishop suffragan raises the questions of covenant and communion within The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Communion once again. Leadership in the Diocese of Texas has consistently adhered to the request for gracious restraint and a moratorium put forth in the Windsor Report and supports the ongoing process of a Covenant within the global Communion and will continue to do so.

The Diocese of Los Angeles and the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, elected on December 5, must now follow a consent process. The implications of this vote are far reaching and it remains to be seen if more than half of TEC’s 109 diocesan standing committees and more than half of the diocesan bishops will approve her election. It may take up to four months for the consent process to unfold.

The Windsor Report, written following the election and consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, NH in 2003, requested a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops and in 2006, The Episcopal Church agreed to refrain from electing additional actively gay bishops. This summer, the Church’s General Convention acknowledged there is great diversity of opinion within the Church on the issueof sexuality, marriage and ordination.

The Diocese of Texas is a diverse diocese and opinions among our clergy and our laity vary on the issue of sexuality. We have many gay and lesbian members across the diocese and week after week they join with the rest of our Church as faithful communicants to worship and work on behalf of Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the blessing of diverse opinions on scripture and sexuality, while as a whole the Diocese of Texas has continued and continues to offer a clear response to the wider Communion through a traditional teaching on marriage and ordination.

Even so, the Diocese of Texas has always supported both the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process which seeks to realize a Communion where everyone across the globe has a voice in the common life of the Church. We cannot isolate ourselves by listening only to the voices of any one province, or even the voices of any one diocese within our province. In the Diocese of Texas we are interested in our relationships locally and abroad, believing we are stronger when we listen to and partner with diverse cultures around the world.

As bishop of the Diocese of Texas I will continue to honor the request of my brother and sister bishops across our province and the Communion, and the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and will not consent to the Rev. Glasspool’s election.

While I will not vote to consent to this election, I am unified with others throughout the Anglican Communion around the issues of safeguarding human rights everywhere. We reject the pending Ugandan legislation that would introduce the death penalty for people who violate portions of that country’s anti-homosexuality laws.I believe that “efforts to criminalize homosexual behavior are incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (General Convention 2006, Resolution D005). This has been the position of Anglican bodies, including several Lambeth Conferences.

The Primates’ Meeting noted that, as Anglicans, “we assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship” (Primates’ Communiqué, Dromantine, 2005). Recently, our Presiding Bishop has spoken out and our Archbishop has been meeting intensively with the leaders of Uganda to insure the dignity of every human being is honored as a creature of God.

–(The Rt. Rev.) C. Andrew Doyle is Bishop of Texas

Uganda may pass a law that could lead to the death penalty for homosexual behavior.

The proposed law is odious.

Due to the legacy of colonialism, Western people should be sensitive about interfering in sub-Saharan African politics and modest in making moral pronouncements regarding Africa, but this law deserves universal condemnation. Uganda experienced many evils under colonialism, including the loss of basic liberties.

Experiencing evil does not give a free pass to do evil and this bill is wicked.

It is not a close call.

No good can come of this bill and great harm will be done if it is passed.

This well expresses my basic sentiments on this matter. Read it all.

But what is the Pope offering disenchanted Anglican flock? Is it that “enticing”? The invitation to Catholicism for the Anglicans hasn’t yet been structured but there may be separate services held in Catholic churches. There may also be special prayer books and training centres but the chain of command will still lead to the Pope.

The migrant Anglicans may also have to accept all Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings and could use elements of Anglican tradition. However, this is the jewel in the Nile for most; married Anglican clergy can still be ordained as Roman Catholic Priests with a view to eventually providing pastoral care for other former Anglicans.

This is where the olive branch offered by the Pope becomes somewhat tainted. Celibacy is a requirement to join the Catholic priesthood and if so, won’t the ordainment of married Anglican clergy as Roman priests smack of opportunism by the Pope? Why tear up the rulebook to accommodate married Anglicans? Does that mean celibacy will in the future be a non entity for those wishing to be Roman priests? Are all Catholics happy with this cross fertilisation?

Read the whole article.

The pending Ugandan legislation that would imprison for life or execute people who violate that country’s anti-homosexuality laws would be a “terrible violation of the human rights of an already persecuted minority,” Episcopal Church House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson has said.

Anderson was responding to a Nov. 16 request that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Archbishop Henri Orombi of Uganda and she speak out against the legislation. Anderson is the first to issue a statement.

Homosexuality in Uganda currently carries a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment. If passed, the bill would extend prison sentences for homosexuals up to and including life imprisonment and introduce the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” which includes assault against people under the age of 18 and those with disabilities.

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The publication of a draft constitution for Kenya, recognising the presence of Muslim civil courts known as the Kadhi courts, has once again widened the Christian-Muslim split in the East African nation.

Kenyan Church leaders have dismissed the creation of the Kadhi Courts, as currently proposed in the draft constitution, as a ploy to “elevate one religion over the other,” while the Islamic clerics ha ve warned that they would mobilise the Muslim community to reject a new draft that omits the Kadhi courts.

Kenyans have been discussing the prospect of a new constitution. The last attempt to have a constitution, in November 2005, ended with a majority vote rejecting the draft constitution, which proposed to create the office of the Chief Kadhi, to enjoy similar constitutional powers as the Chief Justice.

Read it all.