Four senior officials of the Anglican Diocese of Bo in Sierra Leone have been sentenced to three years imprisonment after having been convicted of stealing over 2 Billion Leones (approximately $275,000) in donations gathered by Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and the United Society (USPG) to support of victims of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The trial continues for the Bishop of Bo, the Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Tucker, who remains free on bail after posting a 500 million Leones bond.

An estimated 11,000 people died over 21 months beginning in 2014 from the virus in West Africa, leading to travel bans from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone from a number of Western nations, and a collapse in the local economy.

In February 2016 Bishop Tucker was lauded by the USPG’s Mike Brookes, who told a fringe meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod the bishop had helped combat the virus through health and sanitation education, and dispelling fears the virus was a curse.

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Britain invited these West Indian citizens from the Caribbean after the economic devastation of WWII to join the labour force.

As has been pointed out, at that time the UK was not part of the EU but of the worldwide family of nations known as the Empire. The migrants who came were in fact British subjects: that was their constitutional identity in relation the UK.

They arrived here as to the mother country of the British Empire, not as strangers, and they were shocked that in many areas they were faced with racist abuse. They wanted to integrate into society, back then a Christian society in many ways.

They filled vacant jobs and proved vital in helping rebuild war-ravaged Britain. So now, when we hear that their children are suffering government pressure to ‘go home’, as if illegal immigrants, it is shocking news. Furthermore, papers certifying the status of these second-generation Windrush invitees have been destroyed by the Home Office.

As this horror story was coming out the heads of the Commonwealth were meeting – it could not have been a more sensitive moment: the family of nations continuing from the British Empire must have been truly upset by British behaviour towards their people who were nothing but loyal and hard-working citizens. Individual stories of people being denied health care or threatened with deportation brought home the real unpleasantness they have had to face.

From the Christian angle this kind of treatment is simply wrong and needs to be reversed and compensated for, whatever the origins of the victims. But in this case we are talking about a population of often deeply Christian people, fellow members of the Body of Christ.

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Sunday the 22nd of April, 2018 was a joyous day in the south Sudanese capital of Juba, as thousands of Christians gathered at All Saints Cathedral to witness the enthronement of the fifth archbishop and primate of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan.

The Rt Rev Justin Badi Arama, who was previously the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Maridi in the western part of the country, won the election after a tight victory over the Rt. Rev. Abraham Yel Bishop of Aweil, a diocese in the northern part of the country. Bishop Justin won the election on 20 Jan 2018 by only a vote over his challenger and was pronounced the fifth archbishop of the province.

The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, Bishop of Lambeth, represented the Archbishop of Canterbury at the enthronement, noting Archbishop Welby regretted he was not able to attend due to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London. Bishop Thornton read out a letter written by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the new archbishop expressing have his greetings to the people of south Sudan. Archbishop Welby wrote that though he was not present at the occasion of the enthronement he will be coming with Pope Francis to South Sudan once they have fix a date for their joint visit. He have assured the people of South Sudan that Christians worldwide were praying for South Sudan so that they may see peace once again.

The six-hour service included a sermon on the topic of forgiveness by the Rt Rev Dr Josiah Atkins Idowu secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council. He started by encouraging South Sudanese to love themselves regardless of tribes, saying “I came from a country where there are more than 250 tribes. Tribalism cannot take you ahead “and for you to realise peace it must start from you to love each other dearly.

He further said “this constant division on basis of tribes and in the church must not take our hearts out of the love of Christ. The constant disagreement in the present church on the issue of women’s ordination or baptism (sprinkling water or immersion) should not be issues that Christians should break fellowship. Our unity is not about women’s ordination or any other doctrine but our unity remains in Jesus Christ and we must all be united in the name of Jesus whether you are from the tribe of Dinka, Nuer, Azande or Bari. We are all one in Jesus.”

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At least 19 people were killed Tuesday after gunmen opened fire at a church in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, police said.

Two priests and 17 worshippers were killed when armed men, believed to be cattle herders, stormed a Catholic church during early morning Mass on Tuesday in a remote village in Benue state.
State police spokesman Terver Akase told CNN the attackers, thought to be Fulani herdsmen, set many homes on fire.
“The herdsmen burnt nearly 50 houses during the attack and sacked the entire community, ” Akase told CNN. “We expect arrests to be made because they (attackers) are becoming more brazen,” he added.

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Dear Mr Nye,

You will be aware that your previously undisclosed letter to The Episcopal Church has been met with anger, frustration and disappointment by many across the Church of England, on whose behalf you presume to speak. We wish to add the voices of our members to those calling for a more courageous, just and Christ-like response to what has become – we wish it were not so – the issue on which many will judge our church, and find it sorely wanting.

Your letter raises a wide range of issues – about governance and accountability, about process, about how the Holy Spirit might move in the lives and structures of the Body of Christ across generations and nations, about simple pastoral care and concern for those who don’t fit the received ‘norms’ we’ve imposed on people down the years. In particular, your focus on procreation seems to ride roughshod over all those who have ever known the anguish of unwanted childnessness, or the loss of a pregnancy. To them, and to all who bear the human costs of your carefully chosen words, we say: not in our name.

Perhaps we should share something of the response of LGBT people to the developments in TEC, since our voices so often seem absent in your pronouncements. We saw in ECUSA’s brave and costly decision some hope that change might come for us too. We saw our brothers and sisters listening intently to the Spirit speaking through the Body – and having listened, acting with courage, integrity and the determination to keep walking with Christ and with one another. And if it should prove impossible, to know that walking with Christ is our highest calling.

Your suggestion that such a move represents a challenge to our mission could not be further from the truth; our experience is that the inertia and simple refusal to listen which has characterised the Church of England for decades continues to be the single biggest missional disaster of our generation.

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Proposals to incorporate marriage rites used by same-sex couples into the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) of the Episcopal Church in the United States will increase pressure in the Church of England to “dissociate” itself, the secretary general of the Archbishops’ Council, William Nye, has warned.

In a letter to the Episcopal Church’s Task Force on the Study of Marriage, which has produced the proposals, Mr Nye writes that, if the rites — written to be used by same-sex or opposite-sex couples — are incorporated into the BCP as the only marriage rite, “the pressure to dissociate the Church of England from TEC [the Episcopal Church], in all manner of ways, would increase”. Such a move would also be “potentially damaging” to work in the C of E to create a new teaching document on sexuality (News, 30 June), he writes.

He goes on to warn that, if provision is not made for traditionalists in the Episcopal Church, it would be a “serious blow for interfaith relations, negatively impacting Christians around the world especially in areas where they are persecuted minorities, as well as harming the stringent efforts to reinforce moderation in religious expression in countries like ours which are affected by terrorism”. The Episcopal Church’s promulgation of the new liturgies is, he writes, “at the least, unhelpful to those of us seeking to bring the Church of England’s deliberations to a good outcome”.

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The Brickendens are one of the few couples in Canada to receive a doctor-assisted death together, and the first to speak about it publicly.

They wanted to explain what it meant to them to die at a time and place of their choosing, as at least 2,149 Canadians and likely hundreds more have done since assisted dying became legal in this country.

The Brickendens are at the vanguard of patients and families who are creating new rituals around dying in Canada – the kind of rituals that are only possible when death comes at a previously appointed hour.

But cases like theirs also raise uncomfortable questions about whether the vague eligibility criteria in Canada’s assisted-dying law are sometimes being interpreted more broadly than the government intended.

One of the most controversial stipulations in the law is that a patient’s natural death must be “reasonably foreseeable,” – something that could plausibly be said of every nonagenarian. The law dictates other requirements, including intolerable suffering and irreversible decline, but those concepts can be elastic, too.

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A Globe+Mail profile Story of the medically assisted suicide of a Couple Married 73 yrs https://t.co/OQAykxs9ZA #canada #death #law #lifethics #politics '1 of the most controversial stipulations in the law is that a patient’s natural death must be “reasonably foreseeable"'

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 5, 2018

Following the Publication of the Integrated Communities Strategy, the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council has issued the following statement:
“We welcome this Green Paper as a very positive step towards a national debate and programme of action to make our communities places where everyone – whatever their background – can live, work, learn and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities.

“This aim is entirely at one our vision for the nation, committed to the common good, recognising all as made in the image of God.

“We also warmly welcome the importance accorded in this document to the place of faith institutions in building integration.

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In a terse statement, the Synod of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa said the Anglican Church of Southern Africa was very concerned about the one percent VAT increase, announced by finance minister Malusi Gigaba in his budget speech on Wednesday.

“It is distressing to us that the ordinary citizens of South Africa are being called upon through increased VAT to fill the gaps in government finances which are partly a result of massive maladministration and corruption, especially in state-owned enterprises,” said the statement….

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John R. W. Stott first met Billy Graham in the 1940s, while sharing an open-air meeting at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. Their shared concern for evangelism led to a close association during Graham’s 1954 Harringay crusade, which captivated London nightly for nearly three months. Over the next 50 years, the two men’s lives would frequently intertwine, through shared leadership in significant ventures like the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization and in personal friendship. In 2007, Stott offered these unpublished reminiscences:

Integrity. If I had to choose one word with which to characterize Billy Graham, it would be integrity. He was all of a piece. There was no dichotomy between what he said and what he was. He practiced what he preached.

Finance. When Graham first came to London, a considerable group of church leaders was wondering whether to invite him to preach there. They were critical, but he had anticipated their questions. He was able to say that he received a fixed salary, less than most salaries paid to the senior pastors of large churches, and he received no “love offerings” (unaccounted extras). As for crusade finances, they were published in the press during each crusade.

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In the DRC, 4.3 million people are displaced throughout the country and 13.1 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance throughout the country this year.

In South Sudan, 2 million people have fled the young nation as refugees and about 1.9 million people are internally displaced, over the past four years of conflict – with 7 million people inside the country – this is almost two-thirds of the remaining population – still in need of humanitarian assistance.

Read it all and note the resources at the bottom of the page.

From the beginning of the Gafcon movement there have been a variety of understandings among our members on the question of consecrating women to the episcopate. Recognising that this issue poses a threat to the unity we prize, the Primates agreed in 2014 to do what was within their power to affect a voluntary moratorium on the consecration of women to the episcopate. They then set up the Task Force on Women in the Episcopate, chaired by Bishop Samson Mwaluda which presented a report to the 2017 Gafcon Primates Council.

In discussion at this Council, the Primate of South Sudan, Archbishop Deng Bul (who had not been present when the moratorium was agreed) shared with us that his personal decision to consecrate a female bishop was an extraordinary action taken in the midst of civil unrest in a part of his country where most of the men were engaged in armed conflict….

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[The] Rt Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley was welcomed into the Church of England as the new Bishop of Ripon on Sunday with guests flying in from New Zealand to conduct the ceremony.

Speaking to Premier, Hartley said she was “excited, it’s [been] quite a time preparing for it since I knew about the appointment last year so it’s at that point where I’ve moved in and ready to get started!”

Describing the service she said: “It’s going to be probably a bit different in the sense that, because I’m moving from another part of the Anglican communion, from New Zealand, some Maori priests from New Zealand have made the journey to England, which is amazing and they’re going to start the service off by handing me over to the diocese of Leeds.”

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Sun 7am & 8am @BBCYork Hear Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley as she looks forward to her Installation as Bishop of #Ripon on Sunday afternoon @riponcathedral @h_ahartley @RevNgira pic.twitter.com/VZqi5BmvJc

— Jonathan Cowap (@joncowap) February 3, 2018

For Anglican Bishop of Dunedin the Rt Rev Dr Steven Benford belief and community are more important than buildings.

For this reason, neglected churches with struggling congregations should be able to “die with dignity”, he said.

“What does it say to society in general if you have a crumbling place that’s falling down with a sign that says Anglican Church.

“It’s a bit like a funeral for a loved aunt.

“We have to thank God for what’s happened, but acknowledge that things have moved on.”

Dr Benford was ordained at St Paul’s Cathedral in September.

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The Role is exhilarating, new #Anglican Bishop of Dunedin says https://t.co/dH8mtT5aPL #newzealand #medicine #ministry #religion

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 30, 2018

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Bishop Yel said he accepted the results of what he termed as a tight race in which he lost by one vote to preserve unity and strengthen harmony within the Anglican Church and the whole country.

“The election was conducted in a harmonious atmosphere although there were election fevers during campaign but at the end of the day Bishop Badi was declared the successful candidate. He won by 1 vote. He got 80 votes and I got 79 votes. Immediately after the announcement was made, I stood up and congratulated him. I did it so to preserve the unity of the church and to strengthen harmony of our believers and the faithful,” he said.

Read it all and you may find more there.

“The Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Today, as we celebrate Christmas, we pray for the families of the Egyptian martyrs who lost their loved ones in the terrorist attacks last year. We also pray for divine protection from all evil powers for our beloved country Egypt.

We also remember our Palestinian brothers and sisters and pray for them; that they may get to live in an independent State with Eastern Jerusalem as its capital. We cry out to the Lord of justice to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinians, Yemenis and Syrians. We fix our eyes on the Prince of Peace, and ask that He grant His peace to all the peoples of the region.

During the last few weeks, we observed Advent, and during this time, we meditated on the prophecies that were made by the Old Testament prophets about the birth of Jesus Christ. We also meditated on the circumstances in which the people lived at that time. We reflected on how we can prepare our hearts for the second coming of Christ.

Today, we celebrate Christmas, which is the first coming of Jesus, while our hearts long for His second coming. If we compare the contexts in which Jesus was born with the current context where we live now, we will find lots of similarities between the two.

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https://t.co/dJg0TsZbqj Henry Budd: first indigenous Anglican minister: 1822 #rancanfacts #Anglican pic.twitter.com/8CfmsemW3p

— rancanfacts (@rancanfacts) July 21, 2016

Creator of light, we offer thanks for thy priest Henry Budd, who carried the great treasure of Scripture to his people the Cree nation, earning their trust and love. Grant that his example may call us to reverence, orderliness and love, that we may give thee glory in word and action; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

from there:

On behalf of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the National Church Leaders’ Forum, I congratulate the new leadership of the ANC on their election.

As people of faith, our hope is always in God and not in any political party or leader. But we do need leaders of integrity who will put the common good above all else.

I look forward to critical engagement with the new leaders of the ANC. The country is looking to them to work for the common good, to promote equality of opportunity and to uphold the highest ethical standards.

The new leaders and their supporters can count on the support of the faith community – but only if they work together to re-establish values-based, ethical and moral leadership

The Anglican church’s governing body, the Synod, voted in September to restore the derelict cathedral, conditional upon a multimillion-dollar funding package promised by the Government, the Christchurch City Council and restoration advocates.

The council received 1063 submissions on the grant, with 54.5 per cent (579) unsupportive of the move and 45.2 per cent (481) in favour of the grant.
Dalziel said the consultation was not a referendum on the restoration of the cathedral.

“It was never appropriate that our consultation became a referendum on whether people wanted to see the cathedral reinstated or not,” she said.

“The one thing that unified the city was the overwhelming majority that just wanted a decision that could be implemented.”

Templeton said the $10m grant was unfair to Christchurch ratepayers.

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Anglican leaders will take the future of the earthquake-damaged Christ Church Cathedral back to a Synod vote if councillors do not approve a $10m restoration grant.

Christchurch city councillors heard submissions on a proposal to grant $10 million for restoration of the cathedral on Thursday. The Anglican church’s governing body, the Synod, voted in September to restore the cathedral, conditional upon a mult-million dollar funding package promised by the Government, council and restoration advocates.

The council received 1063 submissions on the grant, with 54.5 per cent (579) not supporting the move and 45.2 per cent (481) in favour of the grant.

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Dr Williams is chair of Christian Aid and called for support for its Christmas appeal as he said, ‘life doesn’t have to be like this. We can build a world with deeper justice, greater fairness, greater security for all.’

He said: ‘One of the most serious forms of powerlessness that anyone can experience is, of course, hunger. Take a country like South Sudan: after years of merciless and bloody civil war, food security has become a major question in South Sudan. This year, a famine was declared. Countless young people faced starvation. It’s not the only place in Africa, or indeed throughout the world, where this is a problem. Places like Burkina Faso are facing some of the same challenges.

‘But South Sudan is particularly vivid in my own memory: I visited there a couple of times in the last 10 years. I’ve seen what life is like in the refugee camps. I’ve seen the feeding programmes, combined with educational programmes, that many local churches and charities take up. The challenge is enormous, and it’s one that we are determined to face this Christmas, and to respond to. A gift of £10 will feed a family in South Sudan for a week. A gift of £40, for a month.’

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The Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Archbishop Suheil Dawani, has called for tolerance, harmony and mutual respect for all in the Holy City of Jerusalem. He made his comments in a sermon preached at St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem yesterday, the second Sunday in Advent.

Reflecting on the Gospel story of John the Baptist, he said that his voice “echoes in the wilderness”, calling the people “into ways of justice and peace.” The prophet’s message today, he said, might be difficult to hear or digest. “Its message may require us to sacrifice some of the things we hold dear,” he said. “We know that the prophets throughout the ages asked difficult questions – Isaiah, Elijah, Amos, Micah. They had messages that were delivered to people who did not like the message.”

Archbishop Suheil said: “We do not know what the future of this land is. For many centuries people have suffered here under different regimes; and they are suffering again today. The young and the old are fearful of the future. Many say – ‘what shall we do?’ or ‘what can we do?’

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A bruising church leadership battle comes to an end this weekend when Bishop Hummingfield Charles Nkosinathi Ndwandwe is enthroned as the new bishop of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Mthatha Diocese.

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A group of Anglican bishops has split with some of the church’s top leaders to declare support for the current version of the same-sex marriage bill before Parliament, publicly calling on lower house MPs to resist the conservative push to insert stronger religious protections.

The House of Representatives will begin debating the bill drafted by Liberal senator Dean Smith on Monday and is expected to pass it by the end of the week. If it passes unchanged it will then be signed into law, and same-sex weddings will occur within weeks.

However Coalition conservatives are set on amending the bill, which passed the Senate 43 votes to 12 last week, without change. If they manage to get enough support for their changes around freedom of religion and conscience the bill will have to return to the Senate.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed he would support some of those changes in a bid to guard against any “unintended consequences”, seven Anglican bishops wrote to all lower house MPs to show not all religious leaders believe amendments are necessary.

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Read it all as well as the full report.

The Anglican Church has encouraged its members to seriously speak against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), corruption and political oppression.

Zambia Anglican Bishop and Primate of the Council of Anglican Province in Africa (CAPA), Albert Chama said this at the just-ended two-day Anglican 2017 high-profile Provincial Synod held in Gaborone.

The Central Africa Province Synod consists of Anglican bishops from Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe and convenes every three years. The main aim of the meeting is to deliberate on diocesan matters in the region.

“Our continent of Africa has been gripped with fear, deaths, ethnic divisions and many more evils one can think of.

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From there:

It was reported that a group of terrorists bombed the mosque, and opened fire on the people during the Friday prayers at 1.30 pm. It is said that most of the people killed are Sufis. It is known that militant Salafi and Jihadist groups consider Sufis as heretics. They used to target policemen, soldiers and Christians but now Muslims are also targeted. No group is exempt. This massive bloody attack is the largest during the last few years.

Many world leaders condemned the attack and expressed their support to Egypt in its war against terrorism. We, Egyptians, are determined to fight terrorism and support President Abdel Fatah El Sisi who is leading the war against terrorism in the region.

Terrorism is a great threat to the whole world. This fact puts the responsibility on the international community to stop all groups and organisations which financially support these terrorist groups. These organizations take advantage of the freedom in the European countries to raise funds to support terrorists to carry out their bloody attacks on human beings.

Please pray for the families who lost their loved and the injured.

Pope Francis met on Friday with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, together with the new director of Rome’s Anglican Centre, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi. Following their half hour encounter in the Apostolic Palace, the two Anglican archbishops and their wives joined the pope for lunch in his Santa Marta residence to continue the conversation.

On Thursday, the Anglican leader presided at Vespers at Rome’s Caravita church for the installation of Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi as his official representative to the Holy See. The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, who previously served as nuncio in Burundi, preached the homily, stressing that ecumenical engagement is a moral imperative for all Christians.

Philippa Hitchen caught up with Archbishop Welby at the end of his brief visit to Rome to find out more about his meeting with the pope and their plans for a joint visit to war-torn South Sudan…

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Maridi Town and the surrounding countryside within a 2–mile radius are currently relatively safe but the area and the church face enormous problems:
Insecurity, as government and rebel forces engage in violent skirmishes;
Stretched resources. Since fighting began, 12–14 thousand displaced people have descended on the area – Bishop Justin’s home in the cathedral compound is full of refugees. many of those who were successfully cultivating food outside the town cannot return to their fields and hunger is rife.
Travel by vehicle is almost impossible. Sporadic and unpredictable violence and the scarcity and high cost of fuel mean most have to walk or travel by bicycle. Some estimates put inflation at 800%;
For many of the displaced children, education has ceased.
As you can imagine, ministry is both difficult and dangerous. Bishop Tandema of neighbouring Olo Diocese recently had to abandon his sermon as gunfire erupted and he and his congregation had to flee for their lives.

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Bishop Justin Badi updates his Irish friends on the situation in #SouthSudan https://t.co/10LqPZEIOz 2/2 #anglican #violence #insecurity pic.twitter.com/FTHf1nL65A

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 25, 2017