The Archbishop of the Province of West Africa of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Dr. Justice Akrofi has nullified the results of the Special Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Liberia held November 17, 2007 convened at the Epiphany Chapel – Cuttington University Suakoko campus, Bong County at which time the Very Rev. Jonathan B.B. Hart was elected Bishop’s Co-Adjutor.

In a letter addressed to the Acting Chancellor of the Diocese, Cllr. Elizabeth Nelson, copy of which was circulated to the parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Liberia, Dr. Akrofi said his offices have nullified the result of the election because none of the contestants received 2/3 or 60% of the votes cast as the Canon laws of the church provided.

Article 2:2:2 of the Canons states among other things that to be declared winner to the office of a diocesan bishop, the candidate must receive 2/3 of the total votes cast in a given election.

As supporting document to his claims, Archbishop Akrofi cited the nullification of two separate election results in the Province both by the late Archbishop George D. Browne, of Liberia when he headed the Province; and Archbishop Robert Okaine of Koforidua, Ghana, when he also lead the Province as archbishop.

Read it all.

I am not going to spoil it by saying anything but you just have to take the time to watch it. Thoroughly inspiring–KSH.

Just last year, the morality police roamed these streets in dusky blue uniforms and black berets, brandishing cudgels at prayer shirkers and dragging fornicators into Islamic courts to face sentences like death by public stoning.

But these days, the fearsome police officers, known as the Hisbah, are little more than glorified crossing guards. They have largely been confined to their barracks and assigned anodyne tasks like directing traffic and helping fans to their seats at soccer games.

The Islamic revolution that seemed so destined to transform northern Nigeria in recent years appears to have come and gone ”” or at least gone in a direction few here would have expected.

When Muslim-dominated states like Kano adopted Islamic law after the fall of military rule in 1999, radical clerics from the Arabian peninsula arrived in droves to preach a draconian brand of fundamentalism, and newly empowered religious judges handed down tough punishments like amputation for theft. Kano became a center of anti-American sentiment in one of the most reliably pro-American countries in Africa.

But since then, much of the furor has died down, and the practice of Islamic law, or Shariah, which had gone on for centuries in the private sphere before becoming enshrined in public law, has settled into a distinctively Nigerian compromise between the dictates of faith and the chaotic realities of modern life in an impoverished, developing nation.

“Shariah needs to be practical,” said Bala Abdullahi, a civil servant here. “We are a developing country, so there is a kind of moderation between the ideas of the West and traditional Islamic values. We try to weigh it so there is no contradiction.”

Read it all.

The Muslim Canadian Congress is organizing a teddy bear mail-in to protest Sudan’s imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher.

The 54-year-old woman was jailed on Thursday for 15 days for allowing her young students to name a teddy bear Muhammad as part of a class project.

Tarek Fatah, MCC’s founder, said he is asking the group’s 300 members to send “tiny teddy bears” (including the one pictured) to Faiza Hassan

Taha, Sudan’s ambassador in Ottawa, as a protest.

Yesterday, protests at the leniency of Ms. Gibbons’ sentence brought hostile crowds out on the streets of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, with angry men brandishing ceremonial swords and calling for her execution.

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Clergymen from the Anglican Church of Burundi gathered last week to consider the role of the church in building and consolidating peace in the country.

The Archbishop of Burundi the Rt Rev Bernard Ntahoturi met with other bishops of Burundi and with over one hundred pastors from all the Anglican dioceses in the country.

The meeting was part of a continued project to increase the capacity of 250 pastors and 250 lay people in a period of two years.

According to the Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS), in his opening speech the Archbishop told the attendants that they had come together as one united Church with the mission to be peacemakers so that God could be honoured in the Church and so that Burundi could experience healing and reconciliation.

Read it all.

Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher who allowed her class to name their teddy bear Mohamed, has been sentenced to 15 days in jail followed by deportation from Sudan.

Her lawyers announced that Ms Gibbons was found guilty of insulting Islam. The 54-year-old former Liverpool primary school teacher had faced a maximum penalty of 40 lashes and a six-month jail sentence.

Tonight David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “extremely disappointed” with the sentence and summoned Omer Siddig, the Sudanese ambassador to London, to the Foreign and Commnwealth Office (FCO) to make Britain’s position clear.

Read it all.

The British school teacher arrested in Sudan has been charged today with blasphemy, insulting Islam and inciting hatred after her pupils named a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, now faces 40 lashes, a six month prison sentence or a fine if convicted of the crime.

The decision to press charges has triggered diplomatic tensions between Sudan and Britain. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, immediately summoned the Sudanese diplomat in London to the Foreign Office.

“We are surprised and disappointed by this development, and the Foreign Secretary will summon as a matter of urgency the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the matter further,” a spokesman for Gordon Brown said.

Read it all.

Nearly every week, new visitors arrive. They want to see the megachurch that was built in the unlikeliest of places by the unlikeliest of men.

The Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations was founded 13 years ago by a Nigerian immigrant, Sunday Adelaja, in Kyiv, Ukraine. In a predominantly Orthodox Christian country where racism is pervasive, Adelaja created a Pentecostal church with 30,000 members.

The next stop in his bid for global reach is the United States.

“America is fast becoming a mission ground again,” Adelaja said in a phone interview from Sacramento, Calif., during his latest trip through the country. “We are surprised that the Americans who preached to us, the passion they had is almost already gone.”

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Every Bishop has a particular responsibility to build up the unity of his flock, mindful of our Lord’s prayer “that they may be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you” (Jn 17:21). United in one faith, sharing one Baptism and believing in the one Lord, (cf. Eph 4:5), the Church is one throughout the world, yet at the same time she is marked by a rich diversity of traditions and cultural expressions. In Africa, the colour and vibrancy with which the faithful manifest their religious sentiments has added a new dimension to the rich tapestry of Christian culture worldwide, while at the same time your people’s strong attachment to the traditional values associated with family life can help to express the shared faith which is at the heart of the mystery of the Church’s unity (cf. Ecclesia in Africa, 63). Christ himself is the source and guarantee of our unity since he has overcome all forms of division through his death on the Cross and has reconciled us to God in the one body (cf. Eph 2:14). I thank you, dear Brothers, for preaching the love of Christ and exhorting your people to tolerance, respect and love of their brothers and sisters and of all persons. In this way you exercise the prophetic ministry that the Lord has entrusted to the Church, and in particular to the Successors of the Apostles (cf. Pastores Gregis, 26).

Indeed it is the Bishops who, as ministers and signs of communion in Christ, are pre-eminently called to make manifest the unity of his Church. The collegial nature of the episcopal ministry traces its origins to the Twelve Apostles, called together by Christ and given the task of proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples of all nations. Their pastoral mission is continued by the members of the episcopal College in such a way that “whoever listens to them is listening to Christ” (Lumen Gentium, 20). I urge you to continue your fraternal cooperation with one another in the spirit of the community of Christ’s disciples, united in your love for him and in the Gospel that you proclaim. While each of you has an individual contribution to make to the common collegial voice of the Church in your country, it is important to ensure that this variety of perspectives always serves to enrich the unity of the Body of Christ, just as the unity of the Twelve was deepened and strengthened by the different gifts of the Apostles themselves. Your dedication to working together on issues of ecclesial and social concern will bring great fruit for the life of the Church in Kenya and for the effectiveness of your episcopal ministry.

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Traditionalist Anglican leaders have stepped up pressure on their deeply split Communion by urging it to postpone its consultative conference and pledging more support for rebels against liberal local churches.

Nine leaders from the “Global South”, known as primates, want to delay the Lambeth Conference, a 10-yearly assembly due in 2008, and hold an emergency summit of primates to resolve a crisis sparked by a gay bishop being named in the United States.

Also this week, two leading traditionalist archbishops — Peter Akinola in Nigeria and Gregory Venables in Argentina — vowed to continue to defend parishes and dioceses seeking to leave the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism.

Four Episcopal dioceses are considering switching allegiance to foreign primates in protest against their church’s support for gay bishop Gene Robinson, despite threats of disciplinary action from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

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THE four-hour journey through the bush from Kano to Jos in northern Nigeria features many of the staples of African life: checkpoints with greedy soldiers, huge potholes, scrawny children in football shirts drying rice on the road. But it is also a journey along a front-line.

Nigeria, evenly split between Christians and Muslims, is a country where people identify themselves by their religion first and as Nigerians second (see chart 1). Around 20,000 have been killed in God’s name since 1990, estimates Shehu Sani, a local chronicler of religious violence. Kano, the centre of the Islamic north, introduced sharia law seven years ago. Many of the Christians who fled ended up in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, where the Christian south begins. The road between the two towns is dotted with competing churches and mosques.

This is one of many religious battlefields in this part of Africa. Evangelical Christians, backed by American collection-plate money, are surging northwards, clashing with Islamic fundamentalists, backed by Saudi petrodollars, surging southwards. And the Christian-Muslim split is only one form of religious competition in northern Nigeria. Events in Iraq have set Sunnis, who make up most of Nigeria’s Muslims, against the better-organised Shias; about 50 people have died in intra-Muslim violence, reckons Mr Sani. On the Christian side, Catholics are in a more peaceful battle with Protestant evangelists, whose signs promising immediate redemption dominate the roadside. By the time you reach Jos and see a poster proclaiming “the ABC of nourishment”, you are surprised to discover it is for chocolate.

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Wasiu Olasunkani drops to his knees in the sacred grove, lowers his chin to his chest and turns his palms skyward: a gesture of thanks to a traditional water goddess embodied by the massive stone idol with outstretched arms that sweep over an ancient shrine.

Olasunkani, a Muslim whose 1998 pilgrimage to Mecca fulfilled one of the five pillars of Islam, joins tens of thousands of ethnic Yoruba people each year to pray before the idol and offer libations to her mermaid-like spirit, Osun. Last year, Olasunkani beseeched the goddess for a baby. This year he’s thanking her for twin boys, Farook and Cordroy.

“If you want to get a baby, you come here and pray, and you’ll certainly have one,” said the 46-year old doctor after finishing his riverside reverie. Speaking of his fellow Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria ”” 20 million strong and roughly evenly split between Christians and Muslims ”” he says: “We’ve been doing this for centuries.”

Across West Africa, churches or mosques can be found in virtually every settlement: evidence of deep Christian and Muslim roots sown by the merchants, missionaries and slave traders who brought the religions hundreds of years ago. But also firmly settled in the red soil are indigenous practices that West Africans integrate with the foreign beliefs.

The results may sometimes seem to flout the monotheistic holy books, the Bible and Quran. But many West African faithful say their interpretations are equally valid ”” although they don’t always tell their pastors or imams.

Read it all.

Which brings me back to that sense of icy rage at modern intolerance, accepted and even sometimes encouraged in the name of delicacy or diversity. Sainsbury’s are allowing Muslim check-out staff to opt out of touching even sealed bottles containing alcohol. Worse, some Muslim medical students refuse to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases, and a few will not help patients of the opposite sex. The BMA and GMC confirm that such demands are being made. They have been turned down; moreover, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Doctors and Dentists Association condemn the requests and say rather nicely: “The prophet said, Learn about witchcraft but don’t practise it.”

But there it is: a terrible self-righteous minority who must not be indulged: not ever, not at all. Myself, I would not only fail such students but demand repayment of all the money spent on their training.

This is not an Islamophobic observation; intelligent Muslim scholars distance themselves from this nonsense. They also say the shopworkers “exploiting and misusing” Sainsbury’s goodwill. It is also not Islamophobic because precisely the same applies to Christians ”“ who also have been known to behave with disgraceful intolerance, and not only in the 16th century.

Last week’s statement by the Archbishop of Mozambique, Francisco Chimolo, that condoms are secretly infected is downright wicked. Simply because his co-religionists believe that fidelity and abstinence are the best life, the Archbishop utters nonsense like: “I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose . . . they want to finish with the African people.” He also claims that retroviral drugs sent from Europe to help Aids victims are infected with HIV. Similarly, there are US Christian charities that will not help African prostitutes; and closer to home, we have had plenty of soi-disant Catholic and Protestant Irish bombers who thought it fine to kill innocents, and clerics who did not condemn them.

Read it all.

COUNCIL OF ANGLICAN PROVINCES IN AFRICA ”“ CAPA
COUNSEIL DES PROVINCES ANGLICANES D’AFRIQUE

A Statement from the Most Rev’d Ian Ernest,
Bishop of Mauritius, Archbishop of the Indian Ocean,
Chairman of CAPA
5th October 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I write to you as the newly elected Chairman of CAPA with profound gratitude for the trust shown in me by my brother and sister delegates and also with the sure conviction that I can only serve in this role with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the mercy of God our Heavenly Father and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have just completed the CAPA Council Meeting for 2007 with the theme “CALLED TO A LIFE OF FAITHFULNESS” and this, I believe, will be an appropriate theme for my service among you. I do not bring long years of experience nor the resources of a large Province but what I do bring is a confidence in Jesus Christ who has been my Lord, Savior and Friend since childhood. My family members have all been faithful Anglicans for generations and we know what it is to live by His grace and have seen His hand at work in our lives.

I also bring the experience of living in Mauritius, a multi-cultural and multi-religious society that is an example to the world as we live together with a sense of mutual respect and acceptance. I have also seen God’s hand at work in the Province of the Indian Ocean as we have confronted enormous challenges both environmental and cultural and yet continue to grow in numbers and faithfulness. My hope is that I will be able to bring this experience to the challenges that confront the various provinces of beloved Communion at this time.

I take the work of reconciliation very seriously and believe that reconciling people to God and to one another is our apostolic call; but the unity that we seek must never be at the expense of the truth of the Holy Scriptures that is the bedrock of our faith. I also know that nothing can be accomplished that is not rooted in prayer and so I call on all believers to pray for the people, clergy and bishops of the Provinces of CAPA, the work to which we have all been called and the leadership of the Anglican Communion.

Be assured of my prayers and commitment, by the grace of God, to live a life of faithfulness among you.

With every blessing,

+Ian Mauritius

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy ”” to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude 1:24,25)

The Communiqué
CAPA Primates’ Meeting in Mauritius
5th October 2007

We, the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) meeting 3rd to 5th October in Mauritius, Province of the Indian Ocean, issue this Communiqué from our meeting:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our one and only Saviour.

1. We have been greatly encouraged by our time together with the CAPA Council that has just completed its General Meeting. A separate Communiqué has been issued from these proceedings and we give thanks to God for the dedication of each of the delegates and the many signs of God’s blessing throughout our various provinces.

2. At the conclusion of that meeting we conducted elections for the CAPA leadership team and are pleased to announce that the Most Rev’d Ian Ernest, Bishop of Mauritius and Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean was elected to serve as Chairman with the Most Rev’d Emmanuel Kolini, Bishop of the Diocese of Kigali and Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda, elected to serve as Vice-Chairman. We are grateful for their courageous leadership and look forward to the work of CAPA going from strength to strength.

3. We are, however, aware that we live and serve within the context of the wider Anglican Communion and acknowledge that we are profoundly concerned by the current impasse that confronts us. We have spent the last ten years in a series of meetings, issuing numerous communiqués, setting deadlines and yet we have made little progress. As was clearly articulated by our brother bishop, the Most Rev’d Mouneer Anis, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal/Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East when he addressed the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC), “we want unity but not unity at any expense.” We have observed that his call for clarity in response to the Dar es Salaam recommendations and his appeal to them to turn back from their current path or acknowledge that TEC has chosen to walk a different way from the rest of the Anglican Communion was ignored. We believe, therefore, that a change of direction from our current trajectory is urgently needed.

4. While meeting in Mauritius we received a copy of the report of the Joint Standing Committee (JSC) of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council. On first reading we find it to be unsatisfactory. The assurances made are without credibility and its preparation is severely compromised by numerous conflicts of interest. The report itself appears to be a determined effort to find a way for the full inclusion of The Episcopal Church with no attempt at discipline or change from their prior position.

5. We are convinced that what is at stake in this crisis is the very nature of Anglicanism ”“ to understand it simply in terms of the need for greater inclusivity in the face of changing sexual ethics is a grave mistake. It is not just about sexuality but also about the nature of Christ, the truth of the Gospel and the authority of the Bible. We see a trend that seems to ignore the careful balance of reformed catholicity and missionary endeavor that is our true heritage and replace it with a religion of cultural conformity that offers no transforming power and no eternal hope.

6. In our considered opinion, however, there is a possible way forward. The Anglican Communion Covenant is the one way for us to uphold our common heritage of faith while at the same time holding each one of us accountable to those teachings that have defined our life together and also guide us into the future. We therefore propose the following actions:

a. Call a special session of the Primates Meeting. We believe that meeting together is essential if we are prayerfully to allow the Holy Spirit to work through our interactions and bring us to a common mind. We would need to:
i. Review the actual response made by The Episcopal Church ”“ both their words and their actions.
ii. Finalize the Covenant proposal and set a timetable for ratification by individual provinces.

b. Postpone current plans for the Lambeth Conference. We recognize that such an action will be costly, however, we believe that the alternative ”“ a divided conference with several provinces unable to participate and hundreds of bishops absent would be much more costly to our life and witness. It would bring an end to the Communion, as we know it. Postponement will accomplish the following:
i. Allow the current tensions to subside and leave room for the hard work of reconciliation that must be done.
ii. Ensure that those invited to the Lambeth Conference have already endorsed the Covenant and so can come together as witness to our common faith.

7. We make these proposals in good faith believing that they provide an opportunity for us to reunite the Communion consistent with our common heritage and give us a way forward. We also stand ready to work with the various instruments of the Communion to ensure their success.

8. We are very much aware of the plight of faithful Anglicans in North America during these difficult times. We assure them of our prayers, support and full recognition until the underlying concerns are fully resolved.

9. While these current difficulties are challenging for all concerned we do not lose heart because we know that the One we serve is faithful. During our time together we have heard numerous testimonies of God’s faithfulness in the face of enormous difficulties and we are confident that we will find a way forward that will bring honour to His Name.

10. We recognize the fellowship and participation of the following Archbishops who have announced their retirement: the Most Rev’d Bernard Malango, The Church of the Province of Central Africa, the Most Rev’d Most Rev’d Njongonkulu Ndungane, Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Most Rev’d Donald Mtetemela, Anglican Church of Tanzania. We also give thanks to God for the dedicated leadership of our outgoing chairman, the Most Rev’d Peter J. Akinola, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion).

11. Finally, we acknowledge with grateful thanksgiving the hospitality of the Most Rev’d Ian Ernest and the opportunity to pay courtesy calls on the President of the Republic of Mauritius, Sir Aneerood Jugnauth, and the Prime Minister, the Honourable Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam.

To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy ”” to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen

Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa
Tenth CAPA Council Meeting
Mauritius, Indian Ocean, October 2007
Communiqué

1. We, delegates of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, gathered at Hotel El Monaco, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius between the 2nd and 5th October 2007 for the tenth meeting of the Council under the chairmanship of the Most Rev’d Peter J. Akinola. We represent eleven of the twelve Provinces of CAPA* as laity, clergy, bishops and archbishops and we issue this Communiqué from our meeting.

2. We have gathered in Mauritius, a delightful republic that is a bright light of hope for all developing nations after its years as a colonial territory of Great Britain. Mauritius is a diverse multi-ethnic society, with a stable democracy, regular free elections, a positive human rights record and a growing economy that has won world-wide recognition. We have come here to join with our sisters and brothers of the Province of the Indian Ocean to give thanks for their faithfulness as we all bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is the only hope for eternal transformation.

3. We are extremely grateful for the warm welcome shown to us by the Primate of the Indian Ocean and Bishop of Mauritius, the Most Reverend Ian Ernest, the Acting General Secretary, the Most Rev’d Benjamin Nzimbi, the Provincial Secretary, the Rev’d Samatiana Johnson, and the local support team. We are thankful for the gracious hospitality shown to us by the Prime Minister of Mauritius, the Honourable Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam, the Acting Prime Minister, the Honourable Dr. Rashid Beebeejaun, and the Mayor of Quatre Bornes, Her Worship Regina Maudar. We were also pleased to be able to welcome the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev’d John Sentamu, for part of the meeting.

4. We recognize that not every nation in Africa is blessed with such an open and stable government and a helpful economic environment, but we do rejoice in the encouraging signs that have been shared with us. For example, after years of devastating war there are glimmers of hope in Democratic Republic of the Congo and the now vibrant economies of Kenya and Ghana have recently drawn plaudits from the World Bank.

5. We have met as representatives of the fastest growing part of our beloved Communion and those of us gathered account for more than 37 million Anglicans. We believe that we have “come of age”. We, who were once regarded as disobedient to God, are now compelled by the Gospel to declare the Good News of God’s liberating love to all those who live in disobedience to God’s Word.

6. We have come together recognizing the rich history of the African Church and the gift of faith that it has long given to the world. We are reminded of the saints, fathers and martyrs of the early church such as Augustine of Hippo, Tertullian, Cyprian and Perpetua of Carthage, and Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria; and more recent young martyrs of the Continent.

7. We have been distressed by the reports of the suffering and devastation that has occurred in both East, Central and West Africa as a result of recent environmental crises including both drought and floods. We were also disturbed by accounts of the military oppression in Myanmar, political oppression in Zimbabwe and by the conflict between Muslims and Christians in Darfur, Sudan. We are, however, encouraged by the response from the local churches and wider world community. We are praying that all those affected will quickly receive the practical aid that is so sorely needed and the abiding comfort of God’s Holy Spirit.

8. The theme of our meeting was “CALLED TO A LIFE OF FAITHFULNESS” and in his Opening Address, Archbishop Akinola challenged all present to see the importance of our faithfulness to God’s call as it applies to obedience to all of God’s commands, stewardship of all of God’s gifts and mission to all of God’s people. Failure in any one of these areas leaves the church impotent to take on the enormous challenges of today.

9. We were especially reminded of the need for obedience and faithful living when we received the report on our work with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We were encouraged by the good progress made by the CAPA office in Nairobi but the disturbing growth in the numbers and classes of new infections reminded us that the battle is far from over. This is especially true for many women in Africa who find themselves increasingly vulnerable to sexual oppression and abuse. We believe that as a faith community, in addition to our ongoing care for those living with HIV/AIDS, we must issue a renewed call to prevention through abstinence and faithfulness ”“ with particular focus on the men of our communities. We also call on the UN and the Governments of the G8 nations to fulfill their commitments so that the suffering of our most vulnerable sisters and brothers can be alleviated.

10. The acting General Secretary, Archbishop Nzimbi, challenged us to demonstrate faithfulness in all aspects of financial stewardship throughout our various provinces and especially in our financial support of CAPA. There was unanimous conviction that all provinces presently in arrears will fulfill their commitments by the end of 2007. We were also reminded that the number of people living in abject poverty within our provinces continues to grow and is a devastating indictment of poor governance in a continent that has been blessed by God with remarkable resources. We were encouraged by the report of the Global South Economic Empowerment Consultation (see end note ) recently concluded in Accra, Ghana. We support its recommendations, especially in the call for the recruitment of an Economic Empowerment officer in each of our provinces.

11. Faithfulness in mission is at the heart of our call to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We were blessed by the reports of continued growth in mission throughout many of our provinces. We are, however, very much aware of the truth of the saying that “the church is always one generation away from extinction”. We urge all churches to reach out to and disciple the youth of our Provinces so that they are empowered to stand against the false promises of materialism that bombard their minds, become mature disciples of Christ and take their full part in the future mission of our church.

12. While we have spent the majority of our time focused on the CALL TO A LIFE OF FAITHFULNESS within our own Continent we have been unable to ignore the current crisis in our Communion. The situation is summarized well in “The Road to Lambeth” the report commissioned by the CAPA Primates, and is noted below . We are united in our conviction that the Lord of the Church is calling upon Africa once again to contend for the “faith once and for all delivered to the saints.”

13. We concluded our meeting with a special service for the inauguration of the DORCAS Activity Center at St. Thomas Church, Beau Bassin ”“ an outreach ministry to the underprivileged of the surrounding community. It was a joyful celebration and a reminder that in the middle of all of our struggles God is at work renewing his Church ”“ especially at the local level.

14. We recognize that in the few days that we have shared together we have only been given a glimpse of all that God is doing but it is enough to fill us with hope in God’s love, God’s power and God’s faithfulness. We are grateful for the dedication and commitment shown by the CAPA leadership team over these past four years and look forward to God’s continued blessing in the coming years.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph. 3:20,21)

* Provinces Represented:

Burundi, Central Africa, Congo, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Southern Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and West Africa.

As Bishops from the African Anglican churches meet in Mauritius over the next few days we recognise that they have serious and pressing issues to address such as evangelism, poverty, disease and injustice. We pray that God would prosper their efforts to proclaim Christ in Africa and elsewhere, and to transform society for His glory.

We know that many of them are disturbed by the apparent fixation of some in the western churches with promoting homosexual practice and changing the church’s traditional teaching based on Scripture. Yet we hope and pray that out of concern for their brother and sister Anglicans around the world they will find time to do the following:

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The political disputes over The Episcopal Church’s place within the Anglican Communion have spilled over into Central Africa, leading to the replacement of the provincial dean, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana.

The Rt. Rev. Albert Chama, Bishop of Northern Zambia, was appointed to replace Bishop Mwamba as dean by the church’s General Synod, which began meeting on Sept. 6 in Mangochi, Malawi.

The government-backed Harare Herald reported Bishop Mwamba was “relieved of his duties” due to his “pro-gay” and pro-American lobbying, and because he misrepresented “the province’s position on the issue of homosexuals.”

Read it all.

A broadcasting company with programs produced by and for Christians in the Middle East and North Africa is rolling out this fall a situation comedy touching on moral and ethical issues in a lighthearted way.

The Arabic name of the show, “Mayli Min Kil Aileh”–the English title is “Faces of a Family”–is a Lebanese expression that says every situation can be looked at in different ways. The sitcom is written and produced in Lebanon for SAT-7, a broadcasting company established 12 years ago by Christian ministries in the Middle East and around the world to establish a Christian voice in the region through satellite TV.

Mette Schmidt, assistant communications manager of SAT-7 International, told EthicsDaily.com in an e-mail the series is in production. The fifth episode currently is being shot. The program is scheduled to start airing in January.

The first episode introduces the family: father Youssef, mother Nihad and children Tony, 17, Rogee, 14, and Samar, 10. Ethical dilemmas begin in Episode 2, when the parents are forced to leave the children in the custody of their grandparents and a family friend due to a family illness. Other episodes deal with real-life issues like cheating at school, stealing, lying, smoking, selfishness, sibling rivalry and the precious relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.

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From Zenit:

The nurse warned that the greatest problem of the continent isn’t poverty or a lack of infrastructure, but rather “the absence of reference points [”¦] an ideal and a sense of the meaning of life is lacking.”

She contended that this has caused a general insecurity in personal relationships.

Busingye said she combats this phenomenon by responding not only to the material needs of her patients, but trying to make them aware of their worth, which cannot be reduced even if they are sunk in misery.”

To promote change, Busingye encourages not only children, but also their parents, to get an education.

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Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, claims to be a man of faith””and with some reason. He was born to mission-educated parents and, like many Zimbabweans of his generation, he attended a Jesuit school. He reportedly still attends weekly Mass in Harare. Martin Meredith, a former southern Africa correspondent for the London Times and a biographer of Mugabe, asserts that, at least in his younger days, Mugabe’s “mentor had been the Catholic Church.”

Yet in his twenty-seven years of dictatorial rule, Mugabe has shorn himself of anything his religious upbringing might have instilled. His genocide in the 1980s against members of the minority Ndebele tribe; his politically induced starvation of opponents; and the arrest, torture, and sometimes outright murder of those who speak out against his rule have all demonstrated a wanton disregard for what the Church””particularly the Church in Zimbabwe””has taught its flock. “I was brought up by the Jesuits and I’m most grateful,” Mugabe has said. “I benefited from their teaching enormously.” In truth, the only thing Mugabe seems to have kept from his Jesuit education is an austere self-discipline, a virtue that he has ruthlessly distorted to keep himself in power at the expense of his suffering countrymen.

To many African leaders, Mugabe is seen as a hero of the struggle against European dominance of the continent. But, in the end, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe remains remarkably similar to its predecessor, the Rhodesia of Ian Smith. The white authoritarian tyranny of Smith relied on distinct forms of prejudice, and so does the black kleptocratic tyranny of Mugabe””both abjectly refusing to recognize the inviolable rights of man.

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About 7,000 miles separate Grace Episcopal Church here, where the Rev. Zachariah Jok Char preaches most Sundays, from the small town of Duk Padiet in Sudan, where he was born.

The tally of the miles started about 21 years ago when Mr. Char was 5 and militias backed by the Sudanese government attacked his town during the civil war in the south. He saw the explosions from the field where he was playing, and he fled. He met other boys who had escaped similar attacks, and they started walking.

“I still remember what I was wearing then: red shorts and a T-shirt,” said Mr. Char, sitting in an empty pew one afternoon at the church. “I didn’t have shoes. Some were naked.”

The orphans, mostly boys, walked more than 1,000 miles to Ethiopia from Sudan over three months, Mr. Char said. Later, they were forced to walk to Kenya. Thousands died. The West called them the Lost Boys.

Those boys are men now, and here and in cities like Atlanta and Burlington, Vt., the 3,800 who were resettled in the United States beginning in 2001 are trying to build lives and weave communities. For many, their Christian faith, often Anglicanism, is at the heart of their efforts.

Even as they struggle with school, work and frequent bad news from home, recent Sudanese immigrants have moved rapidly to establish congregations, often with the help of local Episcopal parishes. For the Sudanese, church is a place where they can be themselves after being Americans all week, where they can hear Scripture in their native language and where they can reconstitute a culture they only began to know as children.

“We want to pray God, God who brought us here,” Mr. Char, 26, said of the formation of the congregation at Grace Episcopal. “It was not a human decision but a God decision that we are here.”

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The Anglican Church in Rwanda and Africa will not be bullied into keeping quiet about the non biblical behaviors of the American and European churches, a senior bishop has said.

Bishop John Rucahana – Anglican head of the Shyira Diocese said the current disagreements in the Anglican Church were caused by the ordination of the homosexual bishops by the American Episcopal Church. Rucahana said this was against the teachings of the holly bible.

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JUST last month, the House of Representatives passed the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act and the United Nations Security Council decided to deploy up to 26,000 peacekeepers to Sudan. Both actions were due in no small way to the work of the Save Darfur Coalition. Through aggressive advertising campaigns, this group has done more than any other to focus world attention on the conflict in the Sudanese region.

But with a ruling Wednesday from Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority, Save Darfur now finds itself in the spotlight. Siding with a business group allied with the Sudanese government in Khartoum, the authority ruled that the high death tolls Save Darfur cites in its advertisements breached standards of truthfulness.

The ruling is more than just a minor public relations victory for Khartoum; it exposes a glaring problem in Save Darfur’s strategy. While the coalition has done an admirable job of raising awareness, it has also hampered aid-delivery groups, discredited American policy makers and diplomats and harmed efforts to respond to future humanitarian crises.

The trouble began last fall….

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Hospitals cannot even hydrate patients, let alone put bandages on them. The army is restless. Businessmen who refuse to cut prices in half are being arrested.

National Geographic reported 90% of all ranched animals slaughtered, and 60% of all rare wildlife gone. Each month, thousands of Zimbabweans flee to neighboring South Africa.

It’s tempting to think this can’t go on. Yet it does, just as Fidel Castro’s regime does. A tight little party elite keeps itself fed, clothed and loyal to the Mugabe regime, wallowing in luxury. Their only imperative: Stay in power. Three forces help them do that.

One, Mugabe’s control of his country’s strategic resources.

As hellish as operating conditions are in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has gotten his hands on the only resources of critical value to global industries that always have willing buyers.

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A telling proverb in the Shona spoken by the majority of Zimbabweans goes Nyadzi dzinokunda rufu. In English, this means “embarrassment is worse than death”, and the words have rarely seemed more apt than over the past two weeks, as the latest twist in the ongoing struggle between the dictator, Robert Mugabe, and his would-be nemesis, Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, has been splashed across news pages and TV screens around the world. For what the world has seen are photographs purporting to depict Archbishop Ncube in the act of adultery.

On Monday 16 July, to a huge state orchestrated fanfare, a junior state employee named Onesimus Sibanda filed a case at the High Court in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, demanding damages of Z$20 billion (£80,000) from the archbishop, on the grounds that Archbishop Ncube had had sexual relations with his wife. Mr Sibanda’s declaration alleged that “on diverse occasions between the period beginning 2006 and in places particularly in the environs of Bulawayo and St Mary’s Cathedral, the defendant illicitly associated and engaged with the
plaintiff ’s wife, one Rosemary Sibanda, in an adulterous sexual relationship well knowing of the marital status of the plaintiff ’s wife”.

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THE FORMER Bishop of Harare and Mashonaland Peter Hatendi (pictured) has accused his successor Dr Nolbert Kunonga of banning him from functioning as a priest.

In an open letter published on July 10 in the Zimbabwean, Bishop Hatendi, denied rumours that he had left the Anglican Church. His absence from the pulpit was due to a ban issued by Dr Kunonga, he explained.

“Not long after his consecration as Bishop Dr Kunonga let it be known that he had decided to deprive me indefinitely of my divine right to celebrate, officiate, preach and administer sacraments in the Diocese of Harare. The Diocese in which I was baptised when I was three weeks old, confirmed, ordained and consecrated Bishop.”

No reason for the ban had been given, he said.

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Despite a thicket of troubles, from deadly illnesses like AIDS and malaria to corrupt politicians and deep-seated poverty, a plurality of Africans say they are better off today than they were five years ago and are optimistic about their future and that of the next generation, according to a poll conducted in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by The New York Times and the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

The poll results offer an unusual and complex portrait of a continent in flux, a snapshot of 10 key modern African states as they struggle to build accountable governments, manage violent conflict and turn their natural resources into wealth for the population.

It found that in the main, Africans are satisfied with their national governments and a majority of respondents in seven of the 10 countries said their economic situation was at least somewhat good. But many said that they face a wide array of difficult and sometimes life-threatening problems, from illegal drug trafficking to political corruption, from the lack of clean water to inadequate schools for their children, from ethnic and political violence to deadly disease.

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From the Monitor:

What is the problem in the church today? Simple. Too many converts who are not ‘discipled’ (the word originates from discipline). After staying in the church for long, but without growth, many start to feel that the long stay translates into an automatic qualification to positions of leadership! And bingo: one such fellow will start to refer to himself or herself as a ”pastor’ — without any preparation or authority above them to oversee his or her activities.

The cycle continues. And before we realise what is going on, the expansion becomes massive and runs out of control! Those who are successful are emulated. And in copying, counterfeits are created. The leadership and expansion model, which Jesus gave to his disciples was not a hierarchy of the military chain of command; from top to bottom. In fact it is the exact opposite; it is from bottom to top. Jesus says that whoever wants to be greater than others has to be the servant (Mathew 20:26-27). So in the corporate world, a janitor is greater than the CEO.

In the church, the homeless and jobless guy with a Shs500 coin ought to get the VIP seat. The expansion model of the church was also designed to multiply — the way living cells multiply; starting off with the smallest cell of two or three people (Mathew 18:20).
It ought to be horizontal growth — i.e. we all have complementary roles: a singer, prophet, teacher, pastor or evangelist should all co-exist in one fellowship (read church). Paul puts it this way: we are all different parts of the same body with Christ as the head of the church (I Corinthians 12:12). From this model it is easy to identify the counterfeit churches.

Yes, there are many born-again in Uganda today: from about 10,000 folks in 1986 to an estimated 6.5million converts today. One would expect corruption to be history. But instead, the con artists have increased in number! This means that the tree is not bearing good fruit (Mathew7:16-20).

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