The Episcopal Church of Rwanda has elected three new Bishops to serve in one of the provinces of the Anglican Church in North America.
The election took place on Saturday 13 at the Anglican Diocese of Kigali.
The Bishops who were elected are: The Rev. DR. Todd Hunter, The Rev. Canon Doc Loomis and Rev. Silas TAK Yin Ng.
According to the communiqué the first two bishops will serve in US while one Silas TAK Yin Ng will serve in Canada.
Today Rwanda is a much different place thanks, in part, to this man””Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana
Bishop JOHN RUCYAHANA (Chairman, Prison Fellowship Rwanda): People are smiling because they have the hope, but the wounds and the healing is a process that we’ll continue to engage deliberately to tell people that they just can’t cover it up. We need to be able to unearth it and deal with it head on.
[LUCKY] SEVERSON: That’s what the bishop has been preaching from the pulpit of his beautiful church in northern Rwanda since the killing stopped: deal with it head on. And it was personal for him. How could it not be after so many members of his extended family were murdered, including his niece?
Bishop RUCYAHANA: I have forgiven those who killed my niece, and they peeled off the flesh off her arms to the wrist, and they left bare bones, and they gang-raped her, and I forgive them because forgiving is not only benefiting the criminal, it benefits me.
This month, as Rwanda marks the 15th anniversary of its genocide, an Anglican church in the Triangle is trying to glean lessons from the aftermath of the mass killings.
All Saints Church has good formal reasons to undertake the study. From a denominational standpoint, it is part of the Anglican Mission in America, which is overseen by the Anglican Church of Rwanda.
The congregation, formed in 2005, also has a sister parish relationship with a church in the southern Rwandan city of Butare.
The Anglican Church let down the people of Rwanda by preaching a false gospel whose pious words were not backed up by right actions, Prime Minister Bernard Makuza said at the consecration service of the new bishop of Butare.
While he lauded its economic and social development work on behalf of the country, the central task of the church, he argued, was to preach a Gospel that led to the transformation of the inner man. “Churches and religions should embark on teachings that help Rwandans to change their mindset, behaviour and way of doing things. Church teachings must be followed by action” Makuza said on Jan 10.
But in July of 2003, the Episcopal Church, including Colorado’s bishop, Jerry Winterrowd, knowingly and happily elected to consecrate as bishop an openly homosexual priest living in a same-sex relationship.
At this point, the Episcopal Church in America””which, frankly, had been crumbling””was broken.
It had been under stress for two reasons: the gradual crackup of the authority of Scripture (and hence the Lord of the Scriptures) and the role of bishops. In our tradition and polity, the Scriptures are the lifeblood of the church, and bishops are the foundation extending from the cornerstone, Jesus Christ. Episcopal bishops exercise spiritual authority because of a godly life and their commitment to perpetuate, guard, and defend the Biblical faith.
The role of bishop””one who “guard[s] the faith,” obedient to the Lord in the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit””is foundational to Anglican identity.
From the Diocese of Pittsburgh website, here are statements from +Venables, +Gomez, Nzimbi, +Kolini. Also posted there are statements from +Mouneer Anis, +Peter Jesen of Sydney, and +Cavalcanti, Diocese of Recife.
A Joint Statement from Archbishops Venables of the Southern Cone, Gomez of the West Indies and Nzimbi of Kenya.
In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen. We the undersigned are grieved at the violation of catholic order in the declaration of deposition of The Right Rev. Robert Duncan by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church and consider it to be invalid. Legitimate actions of catholic order must rise from Biblical catholic faith. Actions such as this continue to alienate countless Christian people not only within, but beyond the limits of the Communion. We continue to recognize the fidelity and validity of Bishop Duncan’s orders, role, and ministry. Without reservation, we continue in full sacramental communion with him as an Anglican bishop. We thank God that by the vote of the Provincial Synod he has been given membership in the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone. Our fellowship and shared ministry with him is not disrupted.
Yours in Christ,
The Most Rev Gregory Venables
The Most Rev Drexel Gomez
The Most Rev Benjamin Nzimbi
From Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda:
September 17, 2008
News is circulating around the United State and the Anglican Communion that the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops is likely to depose the Rt. Rev. Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, this week at a special meeting. I have known and worked with Bishop Duncan for a number of years, and I know him to be a godly man.
As he faces this time of trial, I encourage him to remember that he is not being deposed by God, but only by man. He will remain very much a part of the new work that God is creating within Anglicanism. In addition, he and his family will remain in my thoughts and prayers, and I am confident that the Lord will bless Bishop Duncan in this new season of ministry.
I am reminded of Joseph’s words to his brothers that are recorded in Genesis. <
Most Reverend Emmanuel Kolini
Archbishop of the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda
“I hope they will repent one day,” he said, likening it to a patient seeking the doctor’s help.
Kolini said this while addressing over 200 members of the Anglican Church from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda who had come to celebrate the end of 40 days of Purpose Driven life at Presbyterian Church in Kiyovu, Kigali on Thursday.
He further explained that their refusal to attend the conference was a joint resolution of Anglican leaders from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and other countries from South America, reached at the Global Anglican Future Conference held in Jerusalem, Israel earlier.
He repeated the early criticisms of the boycotting members against Canterbury for not taking immediate action against gay supporters.
“God can’t accept this because it’s against the Bible. The norms of the Bible have been breached and therefore as a Church of God we can’t allow this,” he said.
He told churches in the region to adhere to the original doctrines of the Bible.
He cited Mathew 28: 19- 20 and said: “Go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury will be told this week to stop conservative clergy leaving their national churches and becoming bishops in other countries.
Dr Rowan Williams is to be lobbied by liberals who are dominating the ten-yearly Lambeth Conference, because more than 200 traditionalist bishops have boycotted the gathering as a result of divisions on gay clergy and women bishops.
He will be told that the process of conservative American clergy opting out of their national body and becoming bishops in African and South American churches goes against tradition and must be stopped.
Dr Williams will also be urged to prevent orthodox Anglicans, who believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong, from setting up a new province in North America to rival the Episcopal Church of the USA, which triggered the current crisis by electing the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Communion.
Read it all. So, let us get this straight. None of these transfers to other Provinces in the Anglican Communion would be occurring if the Episcopal Church had not done in 2003 what the Anglican Communion in many different ways asked the Episcopal Church not to do. And, of course, what they did was against tradition.
Also, during the 2003 debate, any outside urging or attempted persusasion, or, even more strongly, intervention by Anglican authorities was seen to be an inappropriate transgression of provincial “autonomy.”
Now, however, that something is happening that the Episcopal Church leadership does not like, what is said leadership doing? Appealing to tradition, and asking for outside influence and intervention from Anglican Communion authorities. Got it? Pot, please meet kettle–KSH.
Prayer ministers cutting across all ranks in the Anglican Church of Nigeria assembled at St. Piran’s Church, Jos, Plateau State in a corporate and intensive intercession focusing on Church renewal and advancement of evangelization process in the 21st century.
The convocation which formally kicked off with a solemn Holy Communion Service presided over by the Bishop of Jos Diocese and the Archbishop-elect of the Province of Jos, the Rt. Revd. Benjamin Kwashi, had in attendance bishops, clergy, intercessors, missionaries and evangelists from all across the Anglican communion in Nigeria.
Bishop Kwashi speaking in a sermon at the service admonished the intercessors not to relent in their prayers for the Primate and the Leadership of the Church of Nigeria as they champion the opposition to all unbiblical acts in the world and the move into large missionary enterprise in Africa.
Mr. [John] Guernsey says his own church, All Saints’, voted 402-6 to align with Uganda late last year and avoided a legal battle over property by negotiating a settlement with the Virginia diocese. Late last year, Mr. Duncan, Pittsburgh’s dissident conservative bishop, wrote to Ugandan Archbishop Orombi and proposed that he promote Mr. Guernsey to bishop. Mr. Orombi, who says he has no designs on American property, embraced the idea so as to provide “Ugandan” churches in the U.S. with an American-based overseer.
A few weeks before this month’s ceremony in Mbarara, the Episcopal bishop of Virginia, Peter James Lee, booted Mr. Guernsey and 21 other dissident Virginia preachers from the Episcopal priesthood.
As he stood amid family members, supporters from Virginia and throngs of African faithful, Mr. Guernsey pledged allegiance to the Church of Uganda and vowed to “banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word.”
A thin layer of clouds shielded the gathering from a scorching equatorial sun. This, declared Archbishop Orombi, showed the occasion was God’s work. “This weather is not normal,” he told the crowd. “God has done a good thing.”
A suburban Chicago church sought leadership from Rwanda amid theological disputes with the Episcopal Church. This week, it found itself in conflict with its leaders over Rwandan politics.
All Souls Anglican Church had invited Paul Rusesabagina, whose life was featured in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda, to speak during Sunday morning services. The Wheaton, Illinois, church, a member of the Rwandan-led Anglican Mission in America, invited him as part of a fundraiser to build a school in Gashirabwoba, Rwanda.
On Thursday, however, Emmanuel Kolini, the Anglican archbishop of Rwanda, asked All Soul’s pastor J. Martin Johnson to rescind the invitation.
Rusesabagina has been at odds with the president of Rwanda. The archbishop feared that the event could create a strain in the relationship between the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the government.
“Truly I am horrified that we could have such a negative impact without meaning to,” Johnson told Christianity Today. “I had no idea this was a controversial issue.”
Read it all (hat tip: Ted Olsen).