Conger

The Anglican Church has failed the people of Kenya by not speaking with a “prophetic voice” in the wake of the disputed Dec 27 elections, the former Archbishop of Kenya has declared.”

We did not need Tutu to come all the way from South Africa to solve this crisis. We did not need Kofi Annan. The Church should have been able to solve this problem. But they are seen as partisan,” Archbishop David Gitari told the East African Standard. Kenya’s post election violence has led to the deaths of over 1000 people and forced over 350,000 from their homes.

(Archbisop Gitari and Kenyan Vice President George Saitoti in 2000 pictured)

Last week the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) apologized to the nation for the partisan political divisions within the churches, which had muted its prophetic voice. “Religious leaders failed to stay on the middle path, they took sides and were unable to bring the unity needed when the crisis arose,” NCCK secretary-general Canon Peter Karanja said on Feb 13.

In an interview with the Standard, Dr. Gitari recounted the church-led campaign to end one-party political rule in the 1990’s. “The Church is a reconciler and a reconciler does not take sides unless he is completely sure the side he is taking is the right one,” he said.

However, we are called “the light of the world and salt of the earth. Whoever does wrong has to be challenged, whether that person is your brother or tribesman,” the retired archbishop said.

Kenya’s Anglican bishops either were “not courageous enough or have taken sides,” he charged. The church’s bishops were split down the middle along tribal lines in the current dispute and “it is wrong.”

They were “failing to be prophetic,” and had lost the public’s trust, Dr. Gitari said.

Following a meeting in Limeru last week, the NCCK’s executive council released a statement acknowledging that “Church leaders have displayed partisan values in situations that called for national interest. The church has remained disunited and its voice swallowed in the cacophony of vested interests.”

Kenya’s Christian leaders called for a fresh start. “All have failed, including the church leaders.”

In a statement published on the NCCK’s website, church leaders called for the arrest of those involved in inciting violence as well as the disciplining of police officers who had used excessive force in responding to the unrest. They also called for the strengthening of the judiciary, Parliament and the Electoral Commission, and a ban on political parties that pandered to tribal interests and sectarian passions.

The vicar of Emmanuel Church, Hornsey Road, London has been appointed the principal of Carlile College, the Anglican Church of Kenya’s Church Army training college in Nairobi.

(Canon David Williams, pictured)

The Rev. Tim Wambunya will succeed the Rev Canon David Williams, who returns to the UK. A graduate of Oak Hill College, Mr. Wambunya has served in the parish ministry of the Church of England for the past ten years and is chairman of the Kenya Church Association UK.

A native of Kenya, he has served as chairman of the African Institute for Contemporary Mission and Research, a study centre in Western Kenya, is a panel member of the Church of England’s “Partners in World Mission and a board member of Crosslinks.

Under the leadership of Canon Williams since 2000, Carlile College has seen a growth in the number of students in training and the introduction of a special programme for the training of Sudanese clergy, exiled by the war in South Sudan, along with expanded distance learning programmes. Located in Kibera, one of the world’s largest slum communities on the outskirts of Nairobi, Carlile College also has an extensive urban ministry training programme, preparing ministers to serve the fast growing urban populations of Africa.

Mr. Wambunya will be the first African principal for the college.

The Archbishop of York has paid flying visit to Nairobi as a sign of support for the Kenyan people.”

During their time of trouble, I have decided to come and stand in solidarity and prayer with the suffering in this land,” Dr. John Sentamu said on Feb 10 following services at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi.

Following a telephone conversation with the Primate of Kenya, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Dr. Sentamu flew out to Kenya on Thursday. He toured three refugee camps on the first day of his visit and on Saturday met with government ministers and the leader of the opposition, Raila Odinga.

On Feb 11 Dr. Sentamu met with President Mwai Kibaki at State House, and discussed the church’s on-going role in ending the post-election violence. More than 1000 people have been killed and over 300,000 driven from their homes in sectarian violence following Kenya’s disputed Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Dr. Sentamu urged Kenyans to “forget what is behind this and face forward. This country is capable of rising above the nonsense that has gone on.”

Following Sunday services, Dr. Sentamu told the press that a healthy democracy required a strong opposition party. “Kenyans should ensure that a strong opposition party thrives to check against possible excesses of the executive,” he said, adding that he hoped the country would not return to “one-party” rule.

The Vicar of Frome has been named Suffragan Bishop of Marsabit in the Anglican Church of Kenya’s Diocese of Kirinyaga.

The Rev. Rob Martin will be consecrated next month by the Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi and will take up his post in October.

Bishop-elect Martin is being sent out to Kenya by Crosslinks, the Anglican Mission agency, but will be self-supporting in his ministry. Mr. Martin read languages at Cambridge and is fluent in Swahili and speaks some Kikuyu.

Trained as a chartered accountant, Mr. Frome went out to Africa in 1978 and served as the administrator of the Diocese of Mount Kenya East for ten years before returning to train for the ministry at Trinity College, Bristol.

Ordained deacon in 1991 and priest in 1992, he served his curacy in the Kingswood Team Ministry and has been Vicar of Holy Trinity, Frome for 13 years. He has also been Rural Dean of Frome for the last four years.

Mr. Martin will assist the Bishop of Kirinyaga, the Rt. Rev. Daniel Munene Ngoru oversee a diocese of five Archdeaconries, 221 congregations, 213 priests and 70,000 communicants. The Diocese of Kirinyaga was created in July, 1990 following the sub-division of the former Diocese of Mt. Kenya East. It was divided again in 1997, with the southern half forming the Diocese of Meru.

The new bishop’s episcopal area will be along Kenya’s northern border with Somalia, and centered in the town of Marabit. He will be one of three Suffragan Bishops in Kirinyaga and oversee an area the size of England.

“It’s about 400 miles from one end to the other,” he said in a press release issued by the Diocese of Bath & Wells, “with no tarmac. The only way to get around is either by flying, which I will do with the Mission Aviation Fellowship, or Land Rover. “

“I love the country and its people,” he said. “This is a new and challenging opportunity to serve them.”

“My job will be to listen and to learn what are the Church’s and the people’s needs, find out what are their hopes and dreams and help them achieve them,” he said.

Kenya’s post-election violence has had harsh economic and social effects across East Africa, the Archbishop of Uganda’s assistant for international affairs, Canon Alison Barfoot reports from Kampala.

While there is little danger the political and ethnic strife will spill over into the Great Lakes region of Africa, Canon Barfoot reports the economic impact of the Kenyan civil unrest has been immediate.

Petrol supplies have all but run out in Kampala as Uganda’s petroleum supplies are imported via Mombasa. Since the violence began in Western Kenya, the flow of oil to Uganda and the other Great Lakes countries: Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo, has stopped.

All domestic flights have been grounded due to a shortage of jet fuel, and the cost of public transportation has doubled in less than a week.

Some office workers in Kampala who had returned home to their villages for the Christmas holidays found they could not come back to Kampala due to the fuel shortage. When black market diesel fuel is available it sells for over £10 a gallon. Electricity is now being rationed at eight hours a day in the West Nile District of northwestern Uganda, with fuel stockpiles expected to last only through the end of the week.

Canon Barfoot reports the Church of Uganda has been sheltering Kenya refugees.

“Kikuyu (historically from the central region of Kenya), who were living in Western Kenya (home to the vast majority of Luos), have experienced the brunt of the post-election violence. They have been chased from their homes,” she reports.

“They are staying in our churches and schools, and at police stations. They need our prayers, as do our diocesan leaders in those places,” she said.

Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has begun soliciting the views of the primates as to whether the Sept. 25 statement from the House of Bishops adequately responds to the primates’ request for clarification on The Episcopal Church’s stance on gay bishops and rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

Archbishop Williams has begun telephoning and writing the primates, seeking their views. However, his trip to Armenia and Syria, and the opening of the Church of England’s House of Bishops meeting on Oct. 1, has hindered a speedy response to the New Orleans statement.

Public statements from some of the primates indicate a split of opinion along factional lines, with some declaring the statement adequate, while others have dismissed it as dishonest and non-responsive to the primates’ request.

Archbishop Alan Harper, Primate of Ireland, said the “American bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics.”

Bishop David Beetge of the Highveld, the acting primate and vicar general of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, said he welcomed the decision “for the simple reason it gives us more space and time to talk to each other.”

The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane said he believed the bishops had “responded positively to the substance of [the primates'] requests.”

Other primates were more critical. “What we expected to come from them is to repent. That this is a sin in the eyes of the Lord and repentance is what we, in particular, and others expected to hear” from the House of Bishops, said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya.

The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, said the bishops’ response fell short. The primates had given The Episcopal Church “one final opportunity for an unequivocal assurance” that it would conform “to the mind and teaching of the Communion,” he said, and the bishops failed to do that. The primates are unwilling to accept further “ambiguous and misleading statements” from The Episcopal Church, he said.

Published in The Living Church.

Reactions to the US House of Bishops New Orleans statement amongst the Primates have broken along factional lines, with conservatives denouncing the statement as insubstantial and dishonest, while liberals have praised its candor and modesty.

The divergent views of the adequacy of the US response to the Primates request for clarification of American church practices towards gay bishops and blessings further complicates the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hopes of forestalling a schism within the Communion.

Straightened finances and fears of a boycott by the primates of Wales, Ireland and Scotland to an emergency primates’ meeting to discuss the American response to the primates’ Dar es Salaam communique, has led to Dr. Williams telephoning the Communion’s primates to try to find a common mind.

Whether the primates’ round robin will produce an amicable resolution appears to be further hampered by the different world views of the players in Anglicanism’s great game. Aides to the Archbishop told The Church of England Newspaper during his meeting with the American bishops in New Orleans that Dr. Williams hoped to find the right combination of words that would satisfy the church’s disparate factions.

However, leaders of the Global South coalition have demanded not words, but action from the American church, and have little trust in the veracity of American promises of good behavior. Leaders of the liberal wing of the US Church and across the Communion are also divided, with some arguing that truth must not be subordinated to expediency while others hope their place within the councils of the church can be saved through the artful use of semantics.

The Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh lauded the American response, saying the American “Bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics.”

Archbishop Harper noted the “generous agreement” of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori “to put in place a plan to appoint Episcopal visitors for dioceses that request alternative oversight” and stated that while the bishops had declined “participation in the ‘Pastoral Scheme’ offered by the Primates,” they had “at least” recognized the “useful role” of the Communion in these debates.

Dr. Harper stated this seemed to be a “balanced and relatively generous response in a very delicate area of inter-provincial relationships.”

Bishop David Beetge of the Highveld, the acting primate and vicar general of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, said he welcomed the decision “for the simple reason it gives us more space and time to talk to each other.”

The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane said he believed the US had “responded positively to all the requests put to them by the Primates in our Dar es Salaam communiqué.”However, he went on to damn the American Church with faint praise saying “Certainly they have responded to the substance of those requests.”
However the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Peter Jensen was not as sanguine. “At first reading, the statement from the TEC bishops does not seem to say anything new,” he noted. “The situation may not then be changed in any way.”

The African churches were stronger in their condemnation. “What we expected to come from them is to repent. That this is a sin in the eyes of the Lord and repentance is what me, in particular, and others expected to hear coming from this church,” Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said.

The Assistant Bishop of Kampala, David Zac Niringiye told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme Uganda believed the statement was inadequate as it was “not a change of heart”, but a temporizing solution.The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola stated the US response fell short of what was required. The primates had given the US “one final opportunity for an unequivocal assurance” that it would conform to the “to the mind and teaching of the Communion.”

He said the primates were unwilling to accept further “ambiguous and misleading statements” from the US Church. “Sadly it seems that our hopes were not well founded and our pleas have once again been ignored.”

Meanwhile the Anglican Mainstream group said they were disappointed with the response because it failed to address the specific questions asked of it by the Primates’ Meeting in February, and backed the Common Cause College of Bishops. In a statement they said: “The first two points — on the election of non-celibate gay and lesbian bishops, and on public rites for blessing same-sex unions — suggest that the TEC House of Bishops has agreed not to walk further away from the rest of the Anglican Communion for the moment.

“However, the TEC House of Bishops gives no indication of being prepared to turn and walk back towards us so that we may walk ahead together, and in reality same-sex blessings are continuing.

“Moreover, there is no response to the Primates’ request to suspend all legal action.”

The Church Society also rejected the House of Bishops statement saying it demonstrates TEC has ‘abandoned orthodox Christianity’.

St. Paul’s United Theological College in Limeru, the Anglican Church of Kenya’s leading clergy training college, has been granted a university charter in a Sept 14 ceremony led by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

The new institution will be named St. Paul’s University. World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary the Rev. Samuel Kobia, a St. Paul’s alumnus, was named Chancellor.The promotion of St. Paul’s to the University level is part of a government programme to increase places for qualified students. President Kibaki stated his government would build ten new university campuses and increase first year admissions in public universities from 10,000 to 16,000 students per year.

Between 2005 and 2006, a total of 131,000 students qualified for university admission, but only 36,000 were able to obtain admission to local universities, the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation reported.

“A great deal of planning, resource mobilization and long hours of work” had been invested in meeting the accreditation requirements for St. Paul’s, he noted, praising the school for broadening its curriculum to include business and communications studies, and encouraged it to add faculties of engineering and science.His government sought to raise in a single generation an educated and prosperous society, President Kibaki said. By 2030 he hoped that all Kenyans would have access to 14 years of publicly funded education. St. Paul’s expansion was essential in meeting this goal, he said.

“We have made the first step. We have attained the goal of 8 years of free primary education. We aim to achieve the pre-school education goals in the next two years. We are also progressively moving towards elimination of all fees charged by public secondary schools,” he said.

Founded as St. Paul’s Divinity School in 1903 by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Freretown, Mombasa, the school moved to its present site in 1930 in Limuru. In 1955 the Divinity School changed its name to St. Paul’s United Theological College after the Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches combined their clergy training colleges into a single institution.

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has been tapped to lead a private-public partnership charged with promoting peace and monitoring violence in the run up to Kenya’s General Elections in December.

On Sept 12, Archbishop Nzimbi, leaders of the Kenyan National Council of Churches along with leaders of the Muslim and Hindu communities signed an accord at a ceremony at Nairobi’s Grand Regency Hotel with representatives of the country’s political parties and the Electoral Commission of Kenya pledging to eschew violence and uphold the rule of law in the coming elections.

Supported by a grant from the United Nations Development Programme, the Kenyan Inter-Religious forum on Sept 21 will formally launch the election peace campaign entitled “Chagua Amani Zuia Noma” with a public ceremony led by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

While the campaign will not have any legal powers to compel peace between Kenya’s fractious political parities Archbishop Nzimbi said the pledge of non-violence had the backing of all the country’s major religious groups and the moral commitment of the political parties.

The Church’s 29 dioceses will spearhead the campaign and will remind the political parties that they had given their commitment to peace, should violence erupt.

The Churches of Uganda and Kenya consecrated their American flying bishops this week, in actions taken to strengthen the remnants of traditionalist North American Anglicanism.

The Rt Rev William Murdoch and the Rt Rev Bill Atwood were consecrated as suffragan bishops of All Saints Diocese, Nairobi by Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi on Aug 30, and the Rt. Rev. John Guernsey was consecrated a provincial suffragan bishop by Uganda’s Archbishop Henry Orombi on Sept 1 in the southwest Ugandan city of Mbarra.

Bishops Murdoch and Atwood will have oversight of the Kenyan churches 32 US congregations, while Bishop Guernsey, along with the former Bishop of North Dakota, Andrew Fairfield, will oversee Uganda’s 33 US congregations.

Eight primates along with representatives of two others participated in the consecration. Archbishops Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, Gregory Venables of South America, Justice Akrofi of West Africa, Bernard Malango of Central Africa, Ian Ernest of the Indian Ocean, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, and representatives from Nigeria and South East Asia joined the Ugandan and Kenyan archbishops in laying hands on the new bishops.

The Bishops of Fort Worth and Pittsburgh, Jack Iker and Robert Duncan, the retired Bishop of Western Newfoundland, Don Harvey, as well as CANA Bishop Martyn Minns and AMiA Bishop Charles Murphy also participated in the ceremonies.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, had been notified of the consecrations, but was not consulted as to their propriety, Archbishop Nzimbi said.

While the consecrations do not alter the basic political calculus underlying the Anglican Communions sex wars, their symbolism, along with the simultaneous announcement of the nomination of a lesbian priest to stand for election as Bishop of Chicago, will not lighten Dr. Williams’ burden of holding the Church together.

The consecrations come three weeks before Dr. Williams meets with the American bishops in New Orleans, and a month before the Sept 30 deadline set by the Primates’ Dar es Salaam communiqué to clarify the American church’s response to the Windsor Report.

In his consecration sermon in Nairobi, Archbishop Gomez stated the new bishops were beginning their ministries “at a time when the Communion is being severely challenged” by questions of the “the maintenance of Eucharistic communion, continuity and apostolic teaching, and the oversight of the churches.”

He said the present crisis had arisen due to the actions taken by the American Episcopal Church “in respect of human sexuality with special reference to the consecration of a bishop living in an opened homosexual relationship.”

Yet Archbishop Gomez said the “issue is not primarily on of sexuality but one which seeks to answer the question ‘which relationships correspond to God’s ordering of life, and violate it?’ It is a division of opinion between those of us who firmly believe that homosexual practice violates the order of life give by God in scripture and those who seek by various mean to justify what scripture does not honour.”

“We believe that faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ prevents us from compromising the truth so clearly revealed in Holy Scripture,” he said.

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, along with more than 30 members of General Synod sent an open letter of support to the new bishops, writing they would “represent vibrant and growing Churches in Africa in their love and care for those in the United States who are suffering for their commitment to the faith once delivered to the saints, in the face of a determined capitulation by The Episcopal Church to the forces of contemporary North American culture.”

The letter said the consecrations were a response of the “universal church” to the “needs of the “local church” in such a way as to “preserve global orthodox Anglican witness and fellowship that is not impaired by man-made intermediate structures.”

The Rev. Susan Russell, president of the American gay pressure group integrity, said the consecrations were the actions of a “fringe group” and “one more sad indication of just how far those committed to splitting the Episcopal Church are willing to go to achieve their goal of a church created in their own image.”

The Diocese of Massachusetts recently announced an amicable separation agreement with the Rev. William Murdoch and the majority of members at All Saints’ Church, West Newbury, who have left The Episcopal Church for the Anglican Church of Kenya.

In a statement released July 17, Fr. Murdoch, who along with the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood will be consecrated Aug. 30 as bishops suffragan of the Kenyan church to oversee their American congregations, stated that the Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Bishop of Massachusetts, will permit the congregation to worship at All Saints’ until Sept. 2.

Read it all in The Living Church.

THE PRIMATE of Kenya, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, has urged the government to suppress the brutal criminal gangs that have seized de facto control of the shanty towns surrounding Nairobi, but cautioned that a violent government response could exacerbate the “Mungiki” menace. “As a nation, we reaffirm the dignity and sanctity of life of even law breakers and grieve at any violent loss of life,” Archbishop Nzimbi said in an address to the Kenyan House of Bishops on June 29 at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi.

Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.

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DELEGATES to the first International Women’s Summit on Women’s Leadership and HIV and AIDS in Nairobi have unveiled a 10-point action plan to foster leadership roles for women in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. The July 4-10 conference organised by the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) drew 1,500 delegates from around the world to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on women.While united in their desire to end the pandemic, Church leaders in the East African nation remain divided on strategies to combat the spread of the disease. Moral principles must be paramount in developing prevention strategies, the chairman of Kenya’s Roman Catholic Episcopal Conference, Archbishop John Njue said at the end of the conference, stating the church opposed the use of condoms. The Anglican Church, however, supported the use of condoms to prevent the spread of the disease, but cautioned against inadvertently giving the message that support for condom use was support for sexual license. In a sermon last December on World AIDS Day, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya stated condoms should be used by “discordant couples, partners who are both infected and for child spacing within the context of marriage only.”

Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.

Uganda and Kenya have named two more bishops to support their congregations in the United States. On June 27 Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda announced that former North Dakota Bishop Andrew Fairfield had quit The Episcopal Church for Uganda, while on June 29 Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya named Massachusetts priest William Murdoch a suffragan bishop.

Bishop Fairfield is the fourth Episcopal bishop to quit the Church this year, while the appointment of Bishop-elect Murdoch by Kenya increases to 11 the number of bishops overseen by foreign Anglican jurisdictions active in The Episcopal Church.

Archbishop Orombi said it was an honor to receive Bishop Fairfield into the Ugandan Church noting he would be a “great support to Bishop-elect John Guernsey and all the congregations in America that are under our care.”

Elected Bishop of North Dakota in 1989, Bishop Fairfield retired in 2003. Prior to his consecration he served his entire career in the Diocese of Alaska, first as a missionary along the Yukon River and then as an assistant to the bishop. In moving to the Ugandan Church Bishop Fairfield said he sought “further Christian service, especially in the process of this transition in Anglican orthodoxy.”

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan applauded the move, saying Bishop Fairfield had “found a new ecclesiastical home in the Church of Uganda, a Province which has declared a state of broken communion with The Episcopal Church’s majority, but embraces full communion with all in the Anglican Communion Network.”

Bishop Fairfield is the fourth member of the House of Bishops to quit The Episcopal Church this year. In March, retired Assistant Bishop of Oklahoma William Cox moved to the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone, retired Suffragan Bishop of Albany, David Bena was received by the Church of Nigeria and serves as an Assistant Bishop of CANA, while the former Bishop of Albany Daniel Herzog was received by the Roman Catholic Church.

On June 29 the Provincial Synod of the Anglican Church of Kenya elected William L. Murdoch a Suffragan Bishop of All Saints Cathedral Diocese in Nairobi to “serve the international interests of the ACK including taking responsibility for care for the congregations and clergy in the USA under Kenyan jurisdiction,” Archbishop Nzimbi said.

Kenya’s two new American bishops, Bill Atwood and William Murdoch, “will collaborate with others in the Common Cause network, chaired by the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan to provide orthodox Episcopal care and oversight, strategically uniting a broad conservative coalition that shares historic Anglican faith and practice.”
Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in West Newbury, Mass., since 1993, Bishop-elect Murdoch was received by The Episcopal Church in 1984 after serving as a Congregationalist minister. He has served as Dean of the Anglican Communion Network’s New England Convocation since 2004.

The provincial synod of the Anglican Church of Kenya on June 29 elected the Rev. William L. Murdoch, rector of All Saints’ Church, West Newbury, Mass., as a Bishop Suffragan of All Saints Cathedral in the Diocese of Nairobi.

Bishop-elect Murdoch will be consecrated along with bishop-elect Bill Atwood on Aug. 30 by the Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi, Archbishop of Kenya, in Nairobi to “serve the international interests of the ACK [Anglican Church of Kenya], including taking responsibility for care for the congregations and clergy in the U.S. under Kenyan jurisdiction.”

Read it all in The Living Church.

CANDIDATES for political office should set an example for the nation and be tested for HIV, the Archbishop of Kenya said last week. Speaking from All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi on June 24, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi urged parliamentary candidates in the forthcoming general election to be tested for HIV/AIDS. Submitting to testing would set an example for the nation, he said, and would help combat the stigma surrounding the disease.

Read it in The Church of England Newspaper.

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The caption to this photo as printed by The Living Church on 6.22.07 read:

The Rev. John Guernsey, rector of All Saints Anglican Church, Dale City, Va., and the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, visited together at General Convention 2006. The Church of Uganda has announced it will consecrate Fr. Guernsey as a missionary bishop to the U.S.; the Anglican Church of Kenya announced last week that it will consecrate Canon Atwood as a suffragan bishop to oversee the U.S.-based congregations of that church.

The Living Church

The announcement by the Anglican Church of Kenya that it will consecrate an American bishop to oversee its US-based congregations has drawn mixed responses from across the Anglican Communion.

While American conservative leaders and Primates from the Global South coalition have welcomed the news, US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Lambeth Palace have remained silent.

A spokesman for the Anglican Consultative Council told The Church of England Newspaper the proposed consecration was inopportune. “The current danger is that if each Province starts to react to the current situation independently of the Instruments of Communion, we are in danger of increased confusion Communion-wide.”

However the Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez said the Aug 30 consecration of Canon Bill Atwood could strengthen the Communion by stabilizing the American scene, leading “towards a creation of a viable, stable and orthodox Anglican presence in the United States.”

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola was the first to respond to the June 12 announcement by Kenyan Archbishop Bernard Nzimbi, privately forwarding his congratulations and subsequently posting a statement of support on the Church of Nigeria’s website.

Archbishop Akinola, the patron of the Nigerian-backed US jurisdiction the Convocation of Anglicans in North America [CANA], lauded Canon Atwood’s international work and personal character. The Kenyan decision “demonstrates a growing recognition” by the African churches that the “situation in North America continues to deteriorate because of the intransigence of the leadership of The Episcopal Church,” he stated.

The Nigerian leader pledged his church’s cooperation with Canon Atwood, as did CANA Bishop Martyn Minns, who wrote on June 13 this “development will result in new creative partnerships with CANA” and the other Anglican jurisdictions in the US.

Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi, whose church also exercises jurisdiction over approximately two dozen US parishes, endorsed the Kenyan decision, as did South American primate Gregory Venables.

In a statement given to the CEN, Archbishop Venables welcomed the news, noting the US congregations under his care would work closely with the Kenyan parishes and the other overseas-led jurisdictions in the US. “Collaboration among Provinces working in the States and the Network is helping build a unified future for those who share the historic Biblical faith,” he stated.

Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker stated he also was “delighted with the news”, while Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan stated the Anglican Communion Network was “deeply thankful for this step” by Kenya. Bishop Iker observed the rejection by the US Bishops of the primates’ pastoral care plan for embattled conservatives “will lead to further extraordinary efforts such as this to extend episcopal care to faithful Anglicans who believe they have no alternative but to separate from the church they have loved and served for so many years.”

Archbishop Gomez’ June 18 statement of support, however, was the first by an overseas leader who had criticized overseas primates for establishing jurisdictions in the US. The rejection by the US bishops and the church’s Executive Council of a pastoral council to respond to the plight of conservatives had changed the Communion’s political calculus.

Kenya’s “provision of adequate pastoral care and episcopate oversight constitutes a deliberate and intentional effort to provide stability in an environment in which Anglicanism is being severely tested and challenged,” Archbishop Gomez said.

It signaled a willingness by Kenya “to act responsibly to provide care for persons already under its jurisdiction” he noted and served as a centralizing force within the fragmenting American scene, as “the willingness of the Province of Kenya to collaborate with the other orthodox Anglicans in the United States could serve the point towards a creation of a viable, stable and orthodox Anglican presence in the United States.”

Senior Communion leaders in London told CEN the situation in the US appeared to resemble the late 1970’s when the traditionalist opposition to the ordination of women fragmented into several dozen ‘continuing’ churches, each with its own bishop.

Sources close to the Global South primates stated the cooperation of a half dozen primates in the Atwood consecration belied the analogy. Unlike the 1970’s, where no sitting bishops stepped in to support the recusants, the coordination of action by the primates, and their pledges of cooperation among their US jurisdictions would prevent the normally fissiparous American evangelical community from breaking apart.

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THE ANGLICAN Church of Kenya (ACK) will consecrate a missionary bishop for the United States, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has announced. The rejection by the American bishops of the Primates’ proposal for a Pastoral Council to support embattled traditionalists had left the Kenyan Church with no other options, he said on June 12.

Archbishop Nzimbi and an undisclosed number of other Global South archbishops will consecrate American traditionalist leader the Rev Canon Bill Atwood as “Suffragan Bishop of All Saints Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi” on Aug 30.

The Nairobi consecration would be “part of a broader and co-ordinated plan with other provinces” Archbishop Nzimbi said. This would “support the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, including support of Kenyan clergy and congregations in North America.”

Bishop-elect Atwood, along with CANA Bishop Martyn Minns and AMiA Bishop Chuck Murphy would oversee approximately 200 US-based congregations under the oversight of foreign primates.

The creation of a third Anglican structure, the North American Anglican Coalition, is understood to have received the approval of the leaders of the Global South. Archbishop Rowan Williams was not included in the deliberations, sources tell The Church of England Newspaper.

The coalition will “provide a safe haven for those who maintain historic Anglican faith and practice,and offer a way to live and work together in the furtherance of the Gospel,” the statement said.

Archbishop Nzimbi stated The Episcopal Church had torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion and the House of Bishops had “exacerbated” the damage by failing to provide adequate pastoral care for the “faithful” and for rejecting the Pastoral Council “offered through the Primates in their Communiqué from Dar es Salaam.”

The request to create a Kenyan bishop for the US came at a meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, in
January between Archbishop Nzimbi and the clergy and lay leaders of 17 American AKC congregations. They petitioned Archbishop Nzimbi to create a missionary diocese for the 25 US based congregations of Kenyan expatriates and American traditionalists under his care.

Archbishop Nzimbi told the gathering he had to consult with the Primates before he would act. “We must go slowly and assure that in every step we are giving honour and glory to God,” he told the meeting.

The Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya, has announced he will consecrate the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood as a suffragan bishop to oversee the U.S.-based congregations of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK).

The Aug. 30 consecration of Canon Atwood as “Suffragan Bishop of All Saints’ Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi” is “part of a broader and coordinated plan with other provinces,” Archbishop Nzimbi said on June 12, to “support the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, including support of Kenyan clergy and congregations in North America.”

Read it all in The Living Church.

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The Anglican Church of Kenya has called upon its government to reject an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and Kenya, saying free trade with Europe would not be fair trade.

Representatives of Kenya’s Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Reformed, Independent and Pentecostal churches urged the government to rethink the trade treaties brokered under the 2000 Contonou Partnership between the EU and the less developed nations of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

“EPAs have turned out to be free trade agreements, which can have a detrimental effect on the Kenyan economy,” the Churches warned. Free Trade with the EU would undercut Kenya’s exports to other African nations, and would “undermine our government’s national development plans” by weakening Kenya agriculture.

Over 77 percent of Kenya’s work force is employed in agriculture, the churches said. The removal of price controls and trade barriers would devastate Kenyan farming, which would “be under serious threats from the subsidised products of the EU.”

Government tax revenues would also be threatened by the removal of import tariffs on EU goods, as well as reduced tariff collections on domestic agricultural production.

The churches urged the Kenyan government to study the social and economic consequences of an EU free trade agreement, and its potential impact upon Kenyan society.

“Trade should be at the service of people and not for profit. Hence trade policies should enhance people’s livelihoods through the protection of human rights. It is for this reason that we the church representatives affirm the principles of justice, equity and protection of human rights. These principles should guide any trade policy making and agreements,” they said.