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.
A few days ago I got a mailing about the National Pastors convention. The two Anglican speakers I noted were Bishop NT Wright and Bishop Rucahana.
http://northernplainsanglicans.blogspot.com/2007/07/diocese-of-south-dakota-declares.html
Quote right there from a TEC Bishop proudly announcing that he and his fellow TECsters are declaring a revolt against Anglicanism!
Isn’t his name spelled Rucyana?
I thought I was used to being condemned and called satanic by some bishops in the so-called “Global South” (though that term does seem to cover only select parts of the Southern Hemisphere), but then something like this comes along. Not only is the colonialism and homophobia cards played, so is the race card as well.
I’m sorry, but a bishop from [b]Rwanda[/b], given its recent history, really should think twice before labeling others as “satanic.” Didn’t someone once say something about taking the log out of your own eye before the speck in someone else’s?
So, the guiding bishop of the AMiA is stirring up race hatred and anti-colonialist sentiments by Africans against Americans. He is also representing that there are multiple homosexual bishops in TEC when there are not, and that the different treatment of the AMiA and other “Rwandan” bishops was motivated by some sort of theological bias on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In view of the protestations by most reasserters that this is not about homosexuality, it is interesting that he describes the AMiA constituency as “antigay conservatives.”
I recommend a regular reading of allafrica.com to anybody who thinks that these sentiments are at all out of the ordinary in the pronouncements made by Global South figures for home consumption. And you wonder why many of us who think of ourselves as orthodox Christian believers don’t go flocking to the banner of GS Anglicanism? A lot of it is just as captive to cultural bias as the reappraiser wing of TEC, except that it isn’t North American culture that it is captive to. US reasserters may be happy with the GS stance on homosexuality, but the imposition of non-Western cultural readings of Scripture won’t stop there.
#5.
While I am a thoroughgoing reasserter whose parish is currently under a wonderful, Godly and humble Ugandan bishop, I too have been dismayed by some of the anti-western, verging on racist, remarks to come from a number of African primates quoted in the blogshpere. Without the stability of the colonial years, the churches in Africa would probably never have survived to flourish as they are presently doing. Every Christian in Africa therefore owes a dept of gratitude to the former colonial powers.
Yes, the church in Africa first received the Christian message from Western missionaries…something for which they repeatedly give thanks. And now, when the Western church has abandoned its Biblical foundation and teachings, they are calling us to repentance and sending missionaries to US….something for which I am incredibly grateful!
Isn’t it remarkable how clear the English is of those in Africa whose native tongue is not English. Yet, the English spoken by the church in the U. S. and U. K. is so convoluted.
#7 yes.
We should be slow to criticize word choice (race hatred?) and tense of individual nouns – how many of us speak/translate a local dialect, French, and English. How do we know how the original words would be taken in Rwanda? In fact, many of the reported quotes were taken from the context of a larger radio broadcast, which also may have been translated from a language other than English. Perhaps it is a local, western cultural bias that leads us to jump to such accusations.
Oh, by the way, Otis Charles makes two, and I am aware of at least a third.
[i]Rucahana said this was against the teachings of the [b]holly bible.[/b][/i]
Is this a Bible decorated for Christmas?