FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, July 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- Christians continue to be martyred abroad, but few American believers are aware of how pervasive religious persecution is around the world. "Christians in this nation don't realize how fortunate they are to live in the U.S.," observes Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International.
The Taliban's kidnapping of the South Korean aid workers in Afghanistan illustrates how that conflict is essentially religious. Yet "the U.S.-backed government is little friendlier to Christians," observes Jacobson. "Last year Christian convert Abdul Rahman barely evaded a death sentence, and only after Western nations placed substantial pressure on Kabul."
In Turkey attacks continue on Christians and churches. In an area along the Black Sea coast where an Italian Catholic priest was previously murdered, a Protestant church was vandalized and its pastor threatened. "Earlier this year three Christians were murdered in a particularly gruesome fashion by Muslim extremists," Jacobson points out.
Attacks on Christians are up in India. In one city a Catholic convent school was attacked; in another town Hindu fanatics murdered a Christian convert; elsewhere a Protestant minister was arrested for allegedly offering money for a conversion, after seeking to mediate a dispute within a Buddhist family; in another case Christian missionaries were beaten. "India might be a democracy," notes Jacobson, "but it is far from free religiously."
In Kazakhstan, Christians were tossed out of their home because they held an unauthorized prayer meeting. A Baptist minister was arrested in Azerbaijan while conducting services.
Malaysia's top court prevented a Muslim woman from legally converting to Christianity. Egypt similarly discourages conversions away from Islam; while mobs recently attacked Coptic Christians thought to be planning to build a church.
Pakistan is preparing to execute a Christian falsely accused of blaspheming Islam and the prophet Mohammed. China continues to close down Protestant home churches and promote the official "patriotic" Catholic church over the underground, legitimate church.
Vietnam recently arrested and tortured Montagnard Christians. In Indonesia scores of Christians have been arrested for blasphemy; Muslim extremists forced the Carmelite Prayer Centre in West Java to cancel a planned international conference. Christians were killed and wounded in a bomb attack in Ethiopia.
Far worse "is the plight of Christians in Iraq," says Jacobson. Christians are routinely murdered and kidnapped; Christian churches are regularly destroyed; hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled Iraq.
American Christians "belong to an international fellowship of believers," explains Jacobson, and "have an obligation to care for their brethren around the world." The U.S. government could speak out more, he notes, but often refuses to do so because of other political considerations.
"Which means that it is up to Americans, all Americans who believe in freedom of conscience and faith," says Jacobson. "It is ironic that in an age when many people once thought religion was on the wane, persecution has become a bigger issue than ever."
But this means that our role as Christians and as Americans is more important than ever. As persecution rises abroad, "we must make our voices in protest even more loudly known," he explains.
For more information about Christian persecution, visit www.christianfreedom.org.
Christian Newswire
Monday, July 30, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Archbishop of Kanuna installed as a Six Preacher in Canterbury Cathedral
ACNS 4303 | ENGLAND | 27 JULY 2007
The Most Revd Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna and Bishop of Kaduna diocese, was installed as a Six Preacher yesterday during Evensong by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, and the Very Revd Robert Willis, the Dean of Canterbury. The appointment is for five years and may be renewed. Archbishop Idowu-Fearon replaces Canon Dr John Polkinghorne, who has retired as a Six Preacher. Recent Six Preachers include Bishop John Robinson and Prof A J Mason, the translator of many hymns.
Archbishop Idowu-Fearon was born in 1949 in Nigeria. Although he trained briefly as a soldier, he soon decided that he wished to serve God as a priest and was ordained in 1971, becoming a bishop in 1990. He has a doctorate degree in Islamic studies, with special interest in Christian-Muslim relations, and is married to Comfort; they have two sons, Ibrahim and Dquda, and a daughter Ninma.
"We have already come to know Archbishop Josiah as a friend from his time spent teaching in our International Study Centre to the Canterbury Scholars course" said Robert Willis earlier today. "This appointment - one of the first from the wider Anglican Communion - enhances the concept of the teaching ministry at Canterbury Cathedral that was so firmly laid down by Cranmer at the time of the Reformation". "I feel humbled by this appointment" Archbishop Idowu-Fearon said yesterday before the service, "remembering that this ministry was founded by Archbishop Cranmer. Being a Six Preacher will give me a sense of belonging to the community at Canterbury Cathedral which has existed for over 1,400 years - my own Diocese of Kaduna is only 50 years old! I hope that this recognition will help me to be an ambassador for Christ, not just within the Anglican Communion, but to my Muslim neighbours".
Notes to Editors
The Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral were originally the idea of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, forming part of his plans for a new foundation to replace the dissolved Canterbury Cathedral Priory. Canterbury was unique in this: no other cathedral had a group of preaching priests and is a reflexion of Cranmer's determination to give greater prominence to preaching.
___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is distributed to more than 8,000 journalists and other readers around the world.
The Most Revd Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna and Bishop of Kaduna diocese, was installed as a Six Preacher yesterday during Evensong by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, and the Very Revd Robert Willis, the Dean of Canterbury. The appointment is for five years and may be renewed. Archbishop Idowu-Fearon replaces Canon Dr John Polkinghorne, who has retired as a Six Preacher. Recent Six Preachers include Bishop John Robinson and Prof A J Mason, the translator of many hymns.
Archbishop Idowu-Fearon was born in 1949 in Nigeria. Although he trained briefly as a soldier, he soon decided that he wished to serve God as a priest and was ordained in 1971, becoming a bishop in 1990. He has a doctorate degree in Islamic studies, with special interest in Christian-Muslim relations, and is married to Comfort; they have two sons, Ibrahim and Dquda, and a daughter Ninma.
"We have already come to know Archbishop Josiah as a friend from his time spent teaching in our International Study Centre to the Canterbury Scholars course" said Robert Willis earlier today. "This appointment - one of the first from the wider Anglican Communion - enhances the concept of the teaching ministry at Canterbury Cathedral that was so firmly laid down by Cranmer at the time of the Reformation". "I feel humbled by this appointment" Archbishop Idowu-Fearon said yesterday before the service, "remembering that this ministry was founded by Archbishop Cranmer. Being a Six Preacher will give me a sense of belonging to the community at Canterbury Cathedral which has existed for over 1,400 years - my own Diocese of Kaduna is only 50 years old! I hope that this recognition will help me to be an ambassador for Christ, not just within the Anglican Communion, but to my Muslim neighbours".
Notes to Editors
The Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral were originally the idea of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, forming part of his plans for a new foundation to replace the dissolved Canterbury Cathedral Priory. Canterbury was unique in this: no other cathedral had a group of preaching priests and is a reflexion of Cranmer's determination to give greater prominence to preaching.
___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is distributed to more than 8,000 journalists and other readers around the world.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Rosary Rallies Planned for Fatima Anniversary
HANOVER, Penn., July 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- Ninety years after the Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, Catholics are gearing up to commemorate its jubilee anniversary with two thousand public square rosary rallies. The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign are coordinating the event set for October 13, the day of the Miracle of the Sun.
"So far the campaign has received enthusiastic support. Over 537 Catholic activists already volunteered to hold peaceful rosary rallies in their respective cities," said Robert Ritchie, executive director of America Needs Fatima.
The Catholic group's web site (www.tfp.org) offers visitors a wide array of online material to start a rosary rally, such as posters, banners, rosaries, and a detailed map of the nation announcing rally locations by state. It also lists over twenty universities and colleges where students have started Campus Rosary Crusade chapters to pray the rosary in public locations each month.
"An amazing network is forming to honor the Mother of God and pray for the conversion of America," said Mr. Ritchie. "It's important to remember that Our Lady of Fatima appeared asking mankind to stop offending God in order to avert punishment. She asked for prayer, penance and amendment of life," he continued. "However, God continues to be offended. Just consider how abortion, pornography, blasphemy and sins against nature are so widespread."
"There's a brutal Cultural Revolution undermining the moral values of our country, and the best response to that is public prayer. If anything can reverse the moral crisis in society, it's the power of the Rosary," Mr. Ritchie added. "There's nothing more powerful spiritually."
The American TFP was founded in 1973. Its America Needs Fatima campaign has over 120,000 members nationwide. According to its web site, the TFP organized 2,092 prayer rallies last year against The Da Vinci Code, a film it called "anti-Catholic" and "blasphemous."
For more information, please visit: http://tfp.org/rosarycampaign/index.htm
Christian Newswire
"So far the campaign has received enthusiastic support. Over 537 Catholic activists already volunteered to hold peaceful rosary rallies in their respective cities," said Robert Ritchie, executive director of America Needs Fatima.
The Catholic group's web site (www.tfp.org) offers visitors a wide array of online material to start a rosary rally, such as posters, banners, rosaries, and a detailed map of the nation announcing rally locations by state. It also lists over twenty universities and colleges where students have started Campus Rosary Crusade chapters to pray the rosary in public locations each month.
"An amazing network is forming to honor the Mother of God and pray for the conversion of America," said Mr. Ritchie. "It's important to remember that Our Lady of Fatima appeared asking mankind to stop offending God in order to avert punishment. She asked for prayer, penance and amendment of life," he continued. "However, God continues to be offended. Just consider how abortion, pornography, blasphemy and sins against nature are so widespread."
"There's a brutal Cultural Revolution undermining the moral values of our country, and the best response to that is public prayer. If anything can reverse the moral crisis in society, it's the power of the Rosary," Mr. Ritchie added. "There's nothing more powerful spiritually."
The American TFP was founded in 1973. Its America Needs Fatima campaign has over 120,000 members nationwide. According to its web site, the TFP organized 2,092 prayer rallies last year against The Da Vinci Code, a film it called "anti-Catholic" and "blasphemous."
For more information, please visit: http://tfp.org/rosarycampaign/index.htm
Christian Newswire
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Homosexual Immorality: What's the Debate?
WASHINGTON, July 20 /Christian Newswire/ -- On August 9, MTV's homosexual cable network, Logo, is hosting the first- ever presidential debate intended to promote the homosexual and transgender (gender identity disorder) lifestyles. All major presidential candidates have been invited to participate. To date, all Republican presidential candidates have declined, while all major Democratic candidates have accepted. Those candidates who have accepted are Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), former Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).
Both Joe Solmonese, president of the homosexual "Human Rights Campaign" and lesbian singer/activist Melissa Etheridge have been selected as panelists.
Matt Barber, CWA's Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said, "This debate is clearly designed to advance the radical homosexual agenda and to promote social and governmental acceptance and celebration of the high-risk and destructive homosexual lifestyle.
"It's disgraceful that our nation's moral standards have now dipped so low that it's considered 'tolerant' to hold a debate organized entirely around the promotion of sexual immorality. What's next? Are presidential candidates going to be asked to participate in a debate on how to garner widespread acceptance of adultery or incest? Are members of the growing polygamy lobby and the pedophile group NAMBLA going to tap candidates for a televised debate to promote their chosen lifestyles?
"Thousands of years of history, every major world religion, the unambiguous science of human biology and good old fashioned common sense have established that homosexual behaviors are both immoral and destructive to the lives, health and spiritual well being of those who choose to participate in those behaviors. For instance, the CDC has recently determined that 71 percent of all males living with deadly HIV/AIDS were infected with the disease through homosexual behaviors," said Barber, "Furthermore, the CDC has determined that homosexuals -- especially males -- are by far at greatest risk for nearly all forms of sexually transmitted disease as well as other lifestyle related injuries.
"Will any of the presidential candidates bring up any of these facts during the debate? Organizers are expecting them to fall all over themselves trying to prove to the world who's most sympathetic to the left's twisted version of 'tolerance' and 'diversity.' But there's nothing to debate here. These candidates should play it straight, so to speak, and call it like it is. Immorality is immorality," concluded Barber.
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.
Christian Newswire
Both Joe Solmonese, president of the homosexual "Human Rights Campaign" and lesbian singer/activist Melissa Etheridge have been selected as panelists.
Matt Barber, CWA's Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said, "This debate is clearly designed to advance the radical homosexual agenda and to promote social and governmental acceptance and celebration of the high-risk and destructive homosexual lifestyle.
"It's disgraceful that our nation's moral standards have now dipped so low that it's considered 'tolerant' to hold a debate organized entirely around the promotion of sexual immorality. What's next? Are presidential candidates going to be asked to participate in a debate on how to garner widespread acceptance of adultery or incest? Are members of the growing polygamy lobby and the pedophile group NAMBLA going to tap candidates for a televised debate to promote their chosen lifestyles?
"Thousands of years of history, every major world religion, the unambiguous science of human biology and good old fashioned common sense have established that homosexual behaviors are both immoral and destructive to the lives, health and spiritual well being of those who choose to participate in those behaviors. For instance, the CDC has recently determined that 71 percent of all males living with deadly HIV/AIDS were infected with the disease through homosexual behaviors," said Barber, "Furthermore, the CDC has determined that homosexuals -- especially males -- are by far at greatest risk for nearly all forms of sexually transmitted disease as well as other lifestyle related injuries.
"Will any of the presidential candidates bring up any of these facts during the debate? Organizers are expecting them to fall all over themselves trying to prove to the world who's most sympathetic to the left's twisted version of 'tolerance' and 'diversity.' But there's nothing to debate here. These candidates should play it straight, so to speak, and call it like it is. Immorality is immorality," concluded Barber.
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.
Christian Newswire
Friday, July 20, 2007
AAC Supports Global South's Position on Lambeth and The Episcopal Church
The American Anglican Council (AAC) applauds the recent statement from the Global South Steering Committee. The statement is "a clear warning to both Presiding Bishop Schori and Archbishop Williams," said AAC President and CEO the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson.
"The Global South and their 40 million congregants refuse to sit by and watch The Episcopal Church (TEC) defy Communion agreements and legally persecute those U.S. parishes that wish to remain faithful to the Gospel and church teaching," said Anderson.
The Global South Primates urged TEC to reconsider its rejection of the Dar Es Salaam Communiqué requests and principles and called for TEC's "heartfelt repentance and genuine change" in order to restore true communion. The statement also called the Anglican Church of Canada to task for their declaration that “same-sex blessing is not core doctrine” and their defiance of Windsor Report recommendations. The statement made clear the Global South's intention to continue extending pastoral care to U.S. based churches and to make similar provisions for biblically faithful churches in Canada. It also showed the Global South's resolve to not attend next year's Lambeth conference unless the Archbishop of Canterbury reconsiders his Lambeth invitations and allows for discipline in the Communion and true reconciliation.
Anderson said the statement "is the best news and the clearest word we have received in a very long while."
The Global South Steering Committee reiterated the Primates’ request for TEC to immediately suspend litigation against “congregations and individuals which wish to remain Anglican but are unable to do so within TEC.” It also alluded to a future where orthodox Anglican churches in the U.S. have their own ecclesiastical structure separate from the Episcopal Church.
"This is more than a message of hope for weary Christians; this is a call to action from the Global South Primates. Our plan at the AAC is to act alongside the Global South and fellow orthodox Anglican Christians,” Anderson said.
Date: 7/20/2007
"The Global South and their 40 million congregants refuse to sit by and watch The Episcopal Church (TEC) defy Communion agreements and legally persecute those U.S. parishes that wish to remain faithful to the Gospel and church teaching," said Anderson.
The Global South Primates urged TEC to reconsider its rejection of the Dar Es Salaam Communiqué requests and principles and called for TEC's "heartfelt repentance and genuine change" in order to restore true communion. The statement also called the Anglican Church of Canada to task for their declaration that “same-sex blessing is not core doctrine” and their defiance of Windsor Report recommendations. The statement made clear the Global South's intention to continue extending pastoral care to U.S. based churches and to make similar provisions for biblically faithful churches in Canada. It also showed the Global South's resolve to not attend next year's Lambeth conference unless the Archbishop of Canterbury reconsiders his Lambeth invitations and allows for discipline in the Communion and true reconciliation.
Anderson said the statement "is the best news and the clearest word we have received in a very long while."
The Global South Steering Committee reiterated the Primates’ request for TEC to immediately suspend litigation against “congregations and individuals which wish to remain Anglican but are unable to do so within TEC.” It also alluded to a future where orthodox Anglican churches in the U.S. have their own ecclesiastical structure separate from the Episcopal Church.
"This is more than a message of hope for weary Christians; this is a call to action from the Global South Primates. Our plan at the AAC is to act alongside the Global South and fellow orthodox Anglican Christians,” Anderson said.
Date: 7/20/2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Senators Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid Both Refuse to Allow Chaplain Who Prays 'in Jesus Name," but Welcome Hinduism to the Floor of the U.S. Senate
WASHINGTON, July 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- A Hindu chaplain will pray a Hindu prayer on the floor of the U.S. Senate for the first time in history. But yesterday, staffers from the offices of Senator Clinton (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) both denied a request for equal access to a chaplain who prays "in Jesus name."
Former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt personally visited the Washington offices of both Senators on July 10th, but was turned away.
"Yes, we sponsored today's Hindu chaplain from Nevada to pray Hindu prayers on the Senate floor," admitted Reid's staff, "but we won't sponsor you because you're from New York ," they told Chaplain Klingenschmitt.
Senator Clinton's office also turned away her own constituent. "We won't sponsor you to pray 'in Jesus name' on the floor of the Senate," her staff told Klingenschmitt, "because Senate Chaplain Barry Black is a Seventh-Day Adventist who regularly prays on the Senate floor... so we don't need a Pentecostal chaplain who prays in Jesus name. You can ask Chaplain Black if he'll sponsor you, but Senator Clinton won't."
Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who is a former Chief of Navy Chaplains, refused to help. "How did you get in here?" his staffer asked Klingenschmitt. When he pointed to the sign above Black's door that says "welcome, please come in," the staffer replied, "Chaplain Black knows who you are, and he likely won't talk to you, and his personal calendar is booked with appointments until 2009."
"Our national motto isn't 'in gods we trust.'" said Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action. "I believe U.S. Government-sanctioned Hindu prayers are an abomination," Folger added, "Unless you sing 'gods bless America...', use your Freedom of Speech to let your Senators know you are outraged by calling: 202- 224-3121."
Chaplain Klingenschmitt will be a guest on Janet Folger's Faith2Action nationally syndicated radio program on July 12th, which airs from 2-3:00 p.m. EST and on www.f2a.org.
To schedule an interview with Chaplain Klingenschmitt, 719-360-5132 cell, chaplaingate@yahoo.com for Janet Folger contact Wanda Sanchez, 209-534-9921, wanda@fullphasemedia.com. Klingenschmitt plans to watch the Hindu chaplain's prayer from the Senate gallery tomorrow, and will take interviews in the Capitol Rotunda immediately afterward.
Christian Newswire
Former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt personally visited the Washington offices of both Senators on July 10th, but was turned away.
"Yes, we sponsored today's Hindu chaplain from Nevada to pray Hindu prayers on the Senate floor," admitted Reid's staff, "but we won't sponsor you because you're from New York ," they told Chaplain Klingenschmitt.
Senator Clinton's office also turned away her own constituent. "We won't sponsor you to pray 'in Jesus name' on the floor of the Senate," her staff told Klingenschmitt, "because Senate Chaplain Barry Black is a Seventh-Day Adventist who regularly prays on the Senate floor... so we don't need a Pentecostal chaplain who prays in Jesus name. You can ask Chaplain Black if he'll sponsor you, but Senator Clinton won't."
Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who is a former Chief of Navy Chaplains, refused to help. "How did you get in here?" his staffer asked Klingenschmitt. When he pointed to the sign above Black's door that says "welcome, please come in," the staffer replied, "Chaplain Black knows who you are, and he likely won't talk to you, and his personal calendar is booked with appointments until 2009."
"Our national motto isn't 'in gods we trust.'" said Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action. "I believe U.S. Government-sanctioned Hindu prayers are an abomination," Folger added, "Unless you sing 'gods bless America...', use your Freedom of Speech to let your Senators know you are outraged by calling: 202- 224-3121."
Chaplain Klingenschmitt will be a guest on Janet Folger's Faith2Action nationally syndicated radio program on July 12th, which airs from 2-3:00 p.m. EST and on www.f2a.org.
To schedule an interview with Chaplain Klingenschmitt, 719-360-5132 cell, chaplaingate@yahoo.com for Janet Folger contact Wanda Sanchez, 209-534-9921, wanda@fullphasemedia.com. Klingenschmitt plans to watch the Hindu chaplain's prayer from the Senate gallery tomorrow, and will take interviews in the Capitol Rotunda immediately afterward.
Christian Newswire
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Church Leaders Support Surgeon General Nominee
WASHINGTON, July 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- The National Clergy Council, representing church leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox and Protestant traditions, expresses its full confidence in the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger for U.S. surgeon general.
National Clergy Council president Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) stated, "Dr. Holsinger is professionally qualified for this post. Senators who intend to vote against him are taking a political position on homosexual behavior, not a scientific one. Dr. Holsinger has presented both a factual physical analysis of homosexual behavior, as well as a sound moral commentary on it. Senators who decide to appease gay political constituencies over giving the country an excellent surgeon general should be held to account for their irresponsibility."
Mr. Schenck is available for further comment at 202-546-8329, ext. 106.
Christian Newswire
National Clergy Council president Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) stated, "Dr. Holsinger is professionally qualified for this post. Senators who intend to vote against him are taking a political position on homosexual behavior, not a scientific one. Dr. Holsinger has presented both a factual physical analysis of homosexual behavior, as well as a sound moral commentary on it. Senators who decide to appease gay political constituencies over giving the country an excellent surgeon general should be held to account for their irresponsibility."
Mr. Schenck is available for further comment at 202-546-8329, ext. 106.
Christian Newswire
National Pro-Life Religious Council Praises Life of Harold O.J. Brown
WASHINGTON, July 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- Leaders of the National Pro- Life Religious Council (NPRC) today praised the life of theologian Harold O. J. Brown, who died Sunday after a long battle with cancer.
"Dr. Brown was a giant in the struggle against the culture of death," said Fr. Pavone, President of the NPRC. "Of how many people can it be said that countless lives were saved by their work? Yet that is undoubtedly true of a man who not only provided spiritual and intellectual leadership for the pro-life movement, but also co-founded what is now the Care Net network of pregnancy care centers. His legacy lives on with the lives he helped save, the minds he inspired, and the souls he touched. I will miss him."
Dennis DiMauro, Secretary of the NPRC, was a student when he first knew the Christian leader. "Harold O. J. Brown was my thesis advisor at Reformed Theological Seminary and one of my true heroes in the faith," said DiMauro. "Dr. Brown was a towering intellect and a man who possessed a deep faith in Jesus Christ."
"I remember discussing with him current efforts to end the tragedy of abortion that still deeply traumatizes this nation," added DiMauro, "and it was apparent to me that his devotion to the defense of the unborn was paramount. He was also a man of true independent conviction and courage, attributes that are not often seen in today's public discourse. Indeed, it is rare to find a person who possesses a love for God, a mind for God, and who also has the mettle to truly work for the Kingdom of God. I knew such a person in Dr. Harold O. J. Brown."
Christian Newswire
"Dr. Brown was a giant in the struggle against the culture of death," said Fr. Pavone, President of the NPRC. "Of how many people can it be said that countless lives were saved by their work? Yet that is undoubtedly true of a man who not only provided spiritual and intellectual leadership for the pro-life movement, but also co-founded what is now the Care Net network of pregnancy care centers. His legacy lives on with the lives he helped save, the minds he inspired, and the souls he touched. I will miss him."
Dennis DiMauro, Secretary of the NPRC, was a student when he first knew the Christian leader. "Harold O. J. Brown was my thesis advisor at Reformed Theological Seminary and one of my true heroes in the faith," said DiMauro. "Dr. Brown was a towering intellect and a man who possessed a deep faith in Jesus Christ."
"I remember discussing with him current efforts to end the tragedy of abortion that still deeply traumatizes this nation," added DiMauro, "and it was apparent to me that his devotion to the defense of the unborn was paramount. He was also a man of true independent conviction and courage, attributes that are not often seen in today's public discourse. Indeed, it is rare to find a person who possesses a love for God, a mind for God, and who also has the mettle to truly work for the Kingdom of God. I knew such a person in Dr. Harold O. J. Brown."
Christian Newswire
The Telegraph: Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament
Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure."This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find," Dr Finkel said yesterday. "If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power."
Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing and was commonly used in the Middle East between 3,200 BC and the second century AD. It was created by pressing a wedge-shaped instrument, usually a cut reed, into moist clay.
The full translation of the tablet reads: (Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
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Posted July 11, 2007 at 6:45 am
The URL for this article is http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4302/
Maryland State School Board Advances 'Sexual Diversity' Above Children's Safety
ROCKVILLE, Maryland, July 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- In its ruling last week regarding a controversial sexuality curriculum in Montgomery County, the Maryland State Board of Education (MBOE) has implicitly authorized local school boards to promote "sexual diversity" to students and teach about anal sex while excluding warnings of the medical dangers pertaining to such practices.
Both the MBOE and Montgomery County School Board rejected a petition from 270 local medical doctors to include warning about anal sex critical to student safety as issued by the Office of the Surgeon General and National Institutes of Health.
The MBOE has also ruled that Maryland schools may teach questioning and confused students that homosexuality is "innate," a controversial and unproven theory advanced by gay advocacy groups serving on the Montgomery County School Board's curriculum advisory committee.
"In order to pander to these forces, sound education doctrine will now be turned on its head in Maryland," said Regina Griggs, Executive Director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX). "The MBOE has taken the preposterous position that questioning children can now be taught that they are 'born that way' until science proves otherwise 'with a preponderance of evidence.'"
"Millions of dollars and three decades of research have failed to prove that homosexuality is innate or that change is not possible," said Griggs. "After our expert testimony and briefs, it became obvious that science failed to justify the Montgomery County Public Schools' biased and anti-exgay curriculum. Because they know that what they want to teach is not factual, MBOE instead claims that teaching children to 'respect differences in sexuality' of transgenders, transsexuals, homosexuals and cross-dressers is a 'civic virtue.'"
"But if that respect is for ex-gays or an individual's choice to not embrace homosexuality--then teaching respect is not necessary, according to the MBOE ruling," said Griggs. "So much for so- called 'respecting diversity.' The Montgomery County School Board reappointed the curriculum advisory committee members who openly attack ex-gays and discourage equal access by ex-gay supporters."
The following Maryland State School Board members voted to endorse this dangerous and discriminatory sex education curriculum: Edward L. Root, President; Dunbar Brooks, Vice President; Lelia T, Allen; Beverly Cooper; Calvin D. Disney; Karabelle Pizigati; and Marcia C. Torres-Queral.
For the legal ruling click here
PFOX leads the nation in providing outreach, education, and public awareness in support of families and the ex-gay community. They can be reached via their website at www.pfox.org
Christian Newswire
Both the MBOE and Montgomery County School Board rejected a petition from 270 local medical doctors to include warning about anal sex critical to student safety as issued by the Office of the Surgeon General and National Institutes of Health.
The MBOE has also ruled that Maryland schools may teach questioning and confused students that homosexuality is "innate," a controversial and unproven theory advanced by gay advocacy groups serving on the Montgomery County School Board's curriculum advisory committee.
"In order to pander to these forces, sound education doctrine will now be turned on its head in Maryland," said Regina Griggs, Executive Director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX). "The MBOE has taken the preposterous position that questioning children can now be taught that they are 'born that way' until science proves otherwise 'with a preponderance of evidence.'"
"Millions of dollars and three decades of research have failed to prove that homosexuality is innate or that change is not possible," said Griggs. "After our expert testimony and briefs, it became obvious that science failed to justify the Montgomery County Public Schools' biased and anti-exgay curriculum. Because they know that what they want to teach is not factual, MBOE instead claims that teaching children to 'respect differences in sexuality' of transgenders, transsexuals, homosexuals and cross-dressers is a 'civic virtue.'"
"But if that respect is for ex-gays or an individual's choice to not embrace homosexuality--then teaching respect is not necessary, according to the MBOE ruling," said Griggs. "So much for so- called 'respecting diversity.' The Montgomery County School Board reappointed the curriculum advisory committee members who openly attack ex-gays and discourage equal access by ex-gay supporters."
The following Maryland State School Board members voted to endorse this dangerous and discriminatory sex education curriculum: Edward L. Root, President; Dunbar Brooks, Vice President; Lelia T, Allen; Beverly Cooper; Calvin D. Disney; Karabelle Pizigati; and Marcia C. Torres-Queral.
For the legal ruling click here
PFOX leads the nation in providing outreach, education, and public awareness in support of families and the ex-gay community. They can be reached via their website at www.pfox.org
Christian Newswire
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Gay clergy to be banned in Synod deal
By Jonathan Petre Religion Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 10/07/2007
The Church of England yesterday agreed to draw up a disciplinary code that could result in the expulsion of liberals from worldwide Anglicanism after it heard that the alternative was disintegration.
In an emotive debate at the General Synod in York, liberal speakers criticised the idea of such a covenant, saying it could be used like a "blunt instrument" against them.
But conservatives said that if the Church failed to define boundaries of belief, worldwide Anglicanism could never rebuild the trust destroyed during the conflict over homosexuality that has brought it to the brink of schism.
advertisementA draft version has already been drawn up by an international group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, one of its strongest advocates.
Although no final form of words has been agreed, conservatives hope that it would prevent liberal churches consecrating gay bishops.
The chairman of the group, the Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, told the Synod that the Church was facing a serious crisis, and it needed to agree a set of common doctrines to allow its warring factions to co-exist.
"Anglican leaders are seriously wondering whether they can recognise in each other the faithfulness to Christ that is the cornerstone of our common life and co-operation," he said.
"While some feel that there will be inevitable separation, others are trying to deny that there is a crisis at all. That is hardly a meeting of minds. Unless we can make a fresh statement clearly and basically of what holds us together, we are destined to grow apart."
A number of conservative African archbishops are already threatening to boycott next year's Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly gathering of all Anglican bishops in Canterbury, in protest at the liberal American Church's pro-gay agenda.
But leaders of the worldwide Church are hoping that the covenant can provide a way of uniting the vast majority of moderate Anglicans who want to preserve the unity of the worldwide Church, which has 70 million members.
Archbishop Gomez reassured liberals that the covenant would go through many drafts before approval, not least a debate at the Lambeth Conference.
"What I understand you are asked on this occasion to consider is this: are you willing to engage in principle with the process which seeks to find a common basis for the provinces of the Anglican Communion to move forward together?"
A number of speakers urged the Synod to resist the development because it could lead to the exclusion of Churches deemed to have breached it, undermining the spirit of Anglican tolerance and concentrating power in the hands of a few senior archbishops.
The Rev Miranda Thelfall-Holmes, from Durham University, warned that history was littered with pieces of paper that had had no effect on the subsequent behaviour of those who had signed them.
The Rev John Plant, from the diocese of Leicester, said doctrinal certainty was "not always a virtue" and Anglicans did not have access to "an infallible source of truth".
But the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said a vote against the covenant was a vote for anarchy.
Tim Cox, from Blackburn, argued that the covenant should be strengthened to reaffirm traditional teaching that sex should only occur within heterosexual marriage.
However, his amendment was overwhelmingly rejected, and the Synod instead agreed to allow the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to respond to the draft covenant by the end of the year.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 10/07/2007
The Church of England yesterday agreed to draw up a disciplinary code that could result in the expulsion of liberals from worldwide Anglicanism after it heard that the alternative was disintegration.
In an emotive debate at the General Synod in York, liberal speakers criticised the idea of such a covenant, saying it could be used like a "blunt instrument" against them.
But conservatives said that if the Church failed to define boundaries of belief, worldwide Anglicanism could never rebuild the trust destroyed during the conflict over homosexuality that has brought it to the brink of schism.
advertisementA draft version has already been drawn up by an international group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, one of its strongest advocates.
Although no final form of words has been agreed, conservatives hope that it would prevent liberal churches consecrating gay bishops.
The chairman of the group, the Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, told the Synod that the Church was facing a serious crisis, and it needed to agree a set of common doctrines to allow its warring factions to co-exist.
"Anglican leaders are seriously wondering whether they can recognise in each other the faithfulness to Christ that is the cornerstone of our common life and co-operation," he said.
"While some feel that there will be inevitable separation, others are trying to deny that there is a crisis at all. That is hardly a meeting of minds. Unless we can make a fresh statement clearly and basically of what holds us together, we are destined to grow apart."
A number of conservative African archbishops are already threatening to boycott next year's Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly gathering of all Anglican bishops in Canterbury, in protest at the liberal American Church's pro-gay agenda.
But leaders of the worldwide Church are hoping that the covenant can provide a way of uniting the vast majority of moderate Anglicans who want to preserve the unity of the worldwide Church, which has 70 million members.
Archbishop Gomez reassured liberals that the covenant would go through many drafts before approval, not least a debate at the Lambeth Conference.
"What I understand you are asked on this occasion to consider is this: are you willing to engage in principle with the process which seeks to find a common basis for the provinces of the Anglican Communion to move forward together?"
A number of speakers urged the Synod to resist the development because it could lead to the exclusion of Churches deemed to have breached it, undermining the spirit of Anglican tolerance and concentrating power in the hands of a few senior archbishops.
The Rev Miranda Thelfall-Holmes, from Durham University, warned that history was littered with pieces of paper that had had no effect on the subsequent behaviour of those who had signed them.
The Rev John Plant, from the diocese of Leicester, said doctrinal certainty was "not always a virtue" and Anglicans did not have access to "an infallible source of truth".
But the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said a vote against the covenant was a vote for anarchy.
Tim Cox, from Blackburn, argued that the covenant should be strengthened to reaffirm traditional teaching that sex should only occur within heterosexual marriage.
However, his amendment was overwhelmingly rejected, and the Synod instead agreed to allow the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to respond to the draft covenant by the end of the year.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Friday, July 06, 2007
The Ratzinger Effect: more money, more pilgrims – and lots more Latin
From The Times
Richard Owen in Rome
With donations to the Church from around the world almost doubling and pilgrims pouring into Rome in ever-greater numbers, Vatican watchers are beginning to reassess the two-year-old pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI and noting a positive “Ratzinger effect”.
Today the Vatican will publish the Pope’s “motu proprio” decree allowing broader use by Roman Catholics of the Latin Tridentine Mass — the pontiff’s last act before leaving for his traditional summer holiday.
The move, which amends the Second Vatican Council’s decision in the 1960s that worship should be in the vernacular, is regarded as yet another sign of Benedict’s conservative attachment to tradition and doctrine. Some senior Catholics in Britain have accused him of “encouraging those who want to turn the clock back” and say that they fear the rite will revive preVatican II prayers for the conversion of “the perfidious Jews”.
The Vatican denies this, however, and points instead to the huge appeal of the Latin Mass — and Gregorian chant — not only for disaffected right-wing Catholics but also for many ordinary believers who value “the sheer beauty” of the ancient liturgy. “This is a Pope who — contrary to conventional wisdom — is in tune with the faithful,” one Vatican source said.
The unassuming and scholarly Benedict does not have the star appeal of John Paul II. At 80, he does not travel as much as the “Pilgrim Pope” or write as many documents.
Andrea Tornielli, the biographer of several popes including Benedict, said that when crowds packed into St Peter’s Square to hear Benedict in the early days of his pontificate, “many people attributed this to the John Paul effect”, or the global media coverage of the late Pope’s courage in the face of illness and death.
It was increasingly clear that although Benedict — formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s long-serving doctrinal adviser — lacked the showmanship and charisma of his predecessor, his “simple and direct” assertion of values struck a chord with believers, Mr Tornielli said.
The distinction between “the good and progressive John Paul and the bad conservative Benedict” was a false one, Mr Tornielli told The Times. “Ratzinger was John Paul’s closest adviser for over two decades, and many of his initiatives as Pope — including the Tridentine Mass — are developments of John Paul’s own ideas.”
While less theatrical than his predecessor, Benedict makes no secret of enjoying the “dressing up” side of the job, reviving ermine-trimmed robes, elaborate headgear and dainty satin shoes. He has grown more adept and relaxed at greeting people.
Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, head of economic affairs at the Holy See, said that the “remarkable increase” in both donations and numbers of pilgrims showed that there was “a symbiosis, a mutual sympathy between this Pope and Christian people everywhere”.
Presenting the Holy See’s annual budget yesterday, Cardinal Sebastiani noted that not only had it closed last year with a surplus of €2.4 million, partly thanks to diocesan donations, there had also been a “huge jump” in “Peter’s Pence”, the annual church collections given directly to the Pope to use for charity, from $60 million (£30 million) in 2005 to $102 million. “The days when people talked of papal bankruptcy are past,” said Marco Tosatti, Vatican correspondent of La Stampa.
John Paul, who is on the road to sainthood, continues to be an attraction: with up to 35,000 pilgrims filing past his tomb in the crypt of St Peter’s every day, the Vatican is considering moving the tomb into the Basilica.
Record numbers attend Benedict’s weekly audiences, and seven million people a year now visit St Peter’s, a rise of 20 per cent. Similar increases are recorded for pilgrimages to Catholic shrines at Assisi, Lourdes, Fatima in Portugal and Madonna di Guadalupe in Mexico. “This is a Ratzinger phenomenon,” reported La Repubblica.
For some he remains “God’s Rottweiler” or the “Panzerkardinal”. He has disappointed liberals who hoped that he would relax rules on priestly celibacy or the use of condoms to help to fight Aids in Africa. Next week the Vatican is due to issue a document reasserting that only the Catholic Church is “the Church of Christ”, a move that risks offending Anglican and Orthodox Christians.
Benedict’s statements on issues from the Latin Mass to dialogue with China were promised “imminently”, then delayed, and Curia department heads long past retirement age have not been replaced. “Running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is not the same as running the world-wide Church,” one insider said. “Benedict tends to appoint men he knows and trusts — regardless of whether they are right for the job.” Above all, he does not delegate as the ailing John Paul II did, and such is his reputation as a theologian that no one dares to offer him advice.
This has led to a series of avoidable public relations disasters, most notably his speech on “faith and reason” at Regensburg University last year, when he inflamed Muslim opinion by appearing to suggest that Islam was inherently violent.
In Brazil in May he angered indigenous populations by asserting that the arrival of Christianity in the New World did not amount to “the imposition of a foreign culture” on native peoples, and his off-the-cuff assertion that Catholic legislators who voted for easier abortion in Mexico should be excommunicated had to be hastily “clarified” by Father Federico Lombardi, his spokesman.
More recently the Vatican was dismayed when a reference to a “frank exchange of views” on “delicate questions” after Tony Blair’s farewell meeting with the Pope was taken to mean the two men had had a row. Such lapses, says John Allen, another of his biographers, make him appear “tone deaf”. “For those who know Benedict’s mind, it can be painful to watch his carefully reasoned reflections become capsized in the court of public opinion by a stray phrase that’s obviously open to misinterpretation.”
Traditional strength
- On his election, Benedict XVI replaced the crown on the papal arms with a mitre, indicating a rejection of political power
- He has maintained the Church’s position on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality, areas that reformers had hoped would change
- Deus Est Caritas, Benedict’s first encyclical, argued that the concept of “Eros”, or sexual love, now signified simply sex. Its warmth and insight surprised commentators
- In March, the Pope affirmed the Catholic doctrine that Hell “exists and is eternal for those who shut their hearts to [God’s] love”. The move caused controversy amongst liberal theologians
For Christmas 2006, the Pope, who has described rock music as Satan’s work, abandoned the annual Vatican pop concert established by John Paul II. The move was seen as a refreshingly honest refusal to compromise spiritual values for popularity
Source: Times archives
Richard Owen in Rome
With donations to the Church from around the world almost doubling and pilgrims pouring into Rome in ever-greater numbers, Vatican watchers are beginning to reassess the two-year-old pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI and noting a positive “Ratzinger effect”.
Today the Vatican will publish the Pope’s “motu proprio” decree allowing broader use by Roman Catholics of the Latin Tridentine Mass — the pontiff’s last act before leaving for his traditional summer holiday.
The move, which amends the Second Vatican Council’s decision in the 1960s that worship should be in the vernacular, is regarded as yet another sign of Benedict’s conservative attachment to tradition and doctrine. Some senior Catholics in Britain have accused him of “encouraging those who want to turn the clock back” and say that they fear the rite will revive preVatican II prayers for the conversion of “the perfidious Jews”.
The Vatican denies this, however, and points instead to the huge appeal of the Latin Mass — and Gregorian chant — not only for disaffected right-wing Catholics but also for many ordinary believers who value “the sheer beauty” of the ancient liturgy. “This is a Pope who — contrary to conventional wisdom — is in tune with the faithful,” one Vatican source said.
The unassuming and scholarly Benedict does not have the star appeal of John Paul II. At 80, he does not travel as much as the “Pilgrim Pope” or write as many documents.
Andrea Tornielli, the biographer of several popes including Benedict, said that when crowds packed into St Peter’s Square to hear Benedict in the early days of his pontificate, “many people attributed this to the John Paul effect”, or the global media coverage of the late Pope’s courage in the face of illness and death.
It was increasingly clear that although Benedict — formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s long-serving doctrinal adviser — lacked the showmanship and charisma of his predecessor, his “simple and direct” assertion of values struck a chord with believers, Mr Tornielli said.
The distinction between “the good and progressive John Paul and the bad conservative Benedict” was a false one, Mr Tornielli told The Times. “Ratzinger was John Paul’s closest adviser for over two decades, and many of his initiatives as Pope — including the Tridentine Mass — are developments of John Paul’s own ideas.”
While less theatrical than his predecessor, Benedict makes no secret of enjoying the “dressing up” side of the job, reviving ermine-trimmed robes, elaborate headgear and dainty satin shoes. He has grown more adept and relaxed at greeting people.
Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, head of economic affairs at the Holy See, said that the “remarkable increase” in both donations and numbers of pilgrims showed that there was “a symbiosis, a mutual sympathy between this Pope and Christian people everywhere”.
Presenting the Holy See’s annual budget yesterday, Cardinal Sebastiani noted that not only had it closed last year with a surplus of €2.4 million, partly thanks to diocesan donations, there had also been a “huge jump” in “Peter’s Pence”, the annual church collections given directly to the Pope to use for charity, from $60 million (£30 million) in 2005 to $102 million. “The days when people talked of papal bankruptcy are past,” said Marco Tosatti, Vatican correspondent of La Stampa.
John Paul, who is on the road to sainthood, continues to be an attraction: with up to 35,000 pilgrims filing past his tomb in the crypt of St Peter’s every day, the Vatican is considering moving the tomb into the Basilica.
Record numbers attend Benedict’s weekly audiences, and seven million people a year now visit St Peter’s, a rise of 20 per cent. Similar increases are recorded for pilgrimages to Catholic shrines at Assisi, Lourdes, Fatima in Portugal and Madonna di Guadalupe in Mexico. “This is a Ratzinger phenomenon,” reported La Repubblica.
For some he remains “God’s Rottweiler” or the “Panzerkardinal”. He has disappointed liberals who hoped that he would relax rules on priestly celibacy or the use of condoms to help to fight Aids in Africa. Next week the Vatican is due to issue a document reasserting that only the Catholic Church is “the Church of Christ”, a move that risks offending Anglican and Orthodox Christians.
Benedict’s statements on issues from the Latin Mass to dialogue with China were promised “imminently”, then delayed, and Curia department heads long past retirement age have not been replaced. “Running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is not the same as running the world-wide Church,” one insider said. “Benedict tends to appoint men he knows and trusts — regardless of whether they are right for the job.” Above all, he does not delegate as the ailing John Paul II did, and such is his reputation as a theologian that no one dares to offer him advice.
This has led to a series of avoidable public relations disasters, most notably his speech on “faith and reason” at Regensburg University last year, when he inflamed Muslim opinion by appearing to suggest that Islam was inherently violent.
In Brazil in May he angered indigenous populations by asserting that the arrival of Christianity in the New World did not amount to “the imposition of a foreign culture” on native peoples, and his off-the-cuff assertion that Catholic legislators who voted for easier abortion in Mexico should be excommunicated had to be hastily “clarified” by Father Federico Lombardi, his spokesman.
More recently the Vatican was dismayed when a reference to a “frank exchange of views” on “delicate questions” after Tony Blair’s farewell meeting with the Pope was taken to mean the two men had had a row. Such lapses, says John Allen, another of his biographers, make him appear “tone deaf”. “For those who know Benedict’s mind, it can be painful to watch his carefully reasoned reflections become capsized in the court of public opinion by a stray phrase that’s obviously open to misinterpretation.”
Traditional strength
- On his election, Benedict XVI replaced the crown on the papal arms with a mitre, indicating a rejection of political power
- He has maintained the Church’s position on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality, areas that reformers had hoped would change
- Deus Est Caritas, Benedict’s first encyclical, argued that the concept of “Eros”, or sexual love, now signified simply sex. Its warmth and insight surprised commentators
- In March, the Pope affirmed the Catholic doctrine that Hell “exists and is eternal for those who shut their hearts to [God’s] love”. The move caused controversy amongst liberal theologians
For Christmas 2006, the Pope, who has described rock music as Satan’s work, abandoned the annual Vatican pop concert established by John Paul II. The move was seen as a refreshingly honest refusal to compromise spiritual values for popularity
Source: Times archives
Dr. Alveda King Calls on NAACP Leadership to Address the 'Inconvenient Truth' of Abortion's Impact on African Americans
ATLANTA, Ga., July 6 /Christian Newswire/ -- Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., today called for the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to adopt a resolution passed by the group's Macon, Georgia, chapter addressing the impact abortion has had on the African American community. The NAACP opens its 98th Annual Convention this weekend in Detroit.
"The NAACP has always been about justice," said Dr. King. "Today, there is no greater injustice facing black people than abortion. Over 13 million African Americans are not here because they died by legal abortion. It's as if a plague swept through our cities and towns and took one of every four blacks. Talk about inconvenient truths - the national leadership of the NAACP needs to address what abortion has done to the African American community and our nation as a whole, even if it means making some people in high positions uncomfortable."
The Macon Chapter of the NAACP this year adopted a resolution urging the national NAACP to undertake efforts to reduce the high abortion and infant mortality rates in the black community and to reduce the disproportionately high black inmate population, which the group says has a dramatic impact on the black family. A similar resolution was submitted to the national NAACP convention by the Macon Chapter in 2004, but was not considered due to an alleged technicality.
"In my travels across the country, I have met countless fellow NAACP members who are praying and marching for justice for all, including justice for unborn babies," said Dr. King. "The National Board of the NAACP needs to know that its membership loves our children and wants what is right for them, and what is right is for them to be allowed to live."
Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro- life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.
Christian Newswire
"The NAACP has always been about justice," said Dr. King. "Today, there is no greater injustice facing black people than abortion. Over 13 million African Americans are not here because they died by legal abortion. It's as if a plague swept through our cities and towns and took one of every four blacks. Talk about inconvenient truths - the national leadership of the NAACP needs to address what abortion has done to the African American community and our nation as a whole, even if it means making some people in high positions uncomfortable."
The Macon Chapter of the NAACP this year adopted a resolution urging the national NAACP to undertake efforts to reduce the high abortion and infant mortality rates in the black community and to reduce the disproportionately high black inmate population, which the group says has a dramatic impact on the black family. A similar resolution was submitted to the national NAACP convention by the Macon Chapter in 2004, but was not considered due to an alleged technicality.
"In my travels across the country, I have met countless fellow NAACP members who are praying and marching for justice for all, including justice for unborn babies," said Dr. King. "The National Board of the NAACP needs to know that its membership loves our children and wants what is right for them, and what is right is for them to be allowed to live."
Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro- life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.
Christian Newswire
Major Texas Parish warns House of Deputies' President
Chuck Collins
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
Date: July 5, 2007
An open letter to: House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson
Dear Ms. Anderson,
I read with interest the ENS report of your visit to Albuquerque a few days ago. If the report is accurate, it's shocking the veiled and not so veiled attempts you made as a guest in the Diocese of the Rio Grande to undermine the authority of their bishop and the leadership of the Diocese of the Rio Grande.
My purpose in writing, however, it to ask you to not include me or Christ Church San Antonio in your reports about the "majority" in the Episcopal Church. The talking point that you and the Presiding Bishop continuously repeat - that only "45 of the Church's 7,500 congregations have decided to leave" - suggests that parishes like ours in San Antonio are with you. I want you to know that, even though we have not joined another Anglican body, we are emphatically not with you and we do not support the revisionist agenda that seems bound and determined to lead us away from the wider Communion.
In a letter to Bishop Gary Lillibridge (July 26, 2006) we stated: "In a unanimous vote, the clergy and [18 member] vestry of Christ Church and Christ Church in the Hill Country affirm our commitment to Jesus Christ, to the authority of Holy Scripture, and to that which binds us to our Anglican heritage. As a consequence, when the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates offer us an acceptable option, we will disassociate from the Episcopal Church. We feel that we must do this because we believe The Episcopal Church has left the Anglican Communion, and us, and now no longer lives under the authority of the Bible."
Ms. Anderson, in the future, please report that "46 of the Church's 7,500 congregations have decided to leave," or at least have the intention to leave once the Primates together offer an option. If the Presiding Bishop, House of Deputies President, and the House of Bishops were to give even passing affirmation to the Tanzania Communiqué and the Windsor Report, if there was even slight movement in the direction of wanting to follow the direction of the Primates, we would feel differently. But the trajectory of the Episcopal Church appears to be set in stone, and it is a direction that clearly leads away from historic Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion.
We at Christ Church wait prayerfully and with eager expectation to see how God brings together orthodox churches and dioceses, with the support of the Primates. We are committed to our bishop who strongly upholds the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant as the hope for our future. Until the Episcopal Church begins to support the mind of the world-wide Anglican Communion, Christ Church San Antonio cannot be counted on to support the Episcopal Church.
Respectfully in Christ,
Chuck Collins
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
210.736-3132
www.cecsa.org
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
Date: July 5, 2007
An open letter to: House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson
Dear Ms. Anderson,
I read with interest the ENS report of your visit to Albuquerque a few days ago. If the report is accurate, it's shocking the veiled and not so veiled attempts you made as a guest in the Diocese of the Rio Grande to undermine the authority of their bishop and the leadership of the Diocese of the Rio Grande.
My purpose in writing, however, it to ask you to not include me or Christ Church San Antonio in your reports about the "majority" in the Episcopal Church. The talking point that you and the Presiding Bishop continuously repeat - that only "45 of the Church's 7,500 congregations have decided to leave" - suggests that parishes like ours in San Antonio are with you. I want you to know that, even though we have not joined another Anglican body, we are emphatically not with you and we do not support the revisionist agenda that seems bound and determined to lead us away from the wider Communion.
In a letter to Bishop Gary Lillibridge (July 26, 2006) we stated: "In a unanimous vote, the clergy and [18 member] vestry of Christ Church and Christ Church in the Hill Country affirm our commitment to Jesus Christ, to the authority of Holy Scripture, and to that which binds us to our Anglican heritage. As a consequence, when the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates offer us an acceptable option, we will disassociate from the Episcopal Church. We feel that we must do this because we believe The Episcopal Church has left the Anglican Communion, and us, and now no longer lives under the authority of the Bible."
Ms. Anderson, in the future, please report that "46 of the Church's 7,500 congregations have decided to leave," or at least have the intention to leave once the Primates together offer an option. If the Presiding Bishop, House of Deputies President, and the House of Bishops were to give even passing affirmation to the Tanzania Communiqué and the Windsor Report, if there was even slight movement in the direction of wanting to follow the direction of the Primates, we would feel differently. But the trajectory of the Episcopal Church appears to be set in stone, and it is a direction that clearly leads away from historic Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion.
We at Christ Church wait prayerfully and with eager expectation to see how God brings together orthodox churches and dioceses, with the support of the Primates. We are committed to our bishop who strongly upholds the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant as the hope for our future. Until the Episcopal Church begins to support the mind of the world-wide Anglican Communion, Christ Church San Antonio cannot be counted on to support the Episcopal Church.
Respectfully in Christ,
Chuck Collins
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
210.736-3132
www.cecsa.org
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Pro-Life Youth to Hold Sit-in at the Los Angeles Presidential Campaign Office of Senator Hillary Clinton
Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust will call for Senator Clinton to end the senseless violence against women and children through her radical support of abortion.
LOS ANGELES, July 5 /Christian Newswire/ -- The demonstration will take place on Friday, July 6, at 1:00 P.M. at 600 Lafayette Park St. in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Survivors say that this emerging generation is embracing the pro-life message in greater numbers than ever as the youth of this nation are loudly standing against the brutal killing of their brothers and sisters through abortion.
The group says that Senator Clinton should expect to see similar emerging generation pro-life witnesses over the next 16 months all across the nation.
Survivor spokesperson, Kortney Blythe, states, "We will not allow a president who claims she will fight for children, yet fails to protect the most weak and vulnerable among them, the unborn."
Survivor Kelly Antonczak adds, "This is not about a political party, but rather about youth taking a stand against anyone who promotes an act that kills a child, permanently scars a woman, and has wiped out one- third of our generation."
For more information or interviews call: Kortney Blythe at 704.778.2702
Christian Newswire
LOS ANGELES, July 5 /Christian Newswire/ -- The demonstration will take place on Friday, July 6, at 1:00 P.M. at 600 Lafayette Park St. in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Survivors say that this emerging generation is embracing the pro-life message in greater numbers than ever as the youth of this nation are loudly standing against the brutal killing of their brothers and sisters through abortion.
The group says that Senator Clinton should expect to see similar emerging generation pro-life witnesses over the next 16 months all across the nation.
Survivor spokesperson, Kortney Blythe, states, "We will not allow a president who claims she will fight for children, yet fails to protect the most weak and vulnerable among them, the unborn."
Survivor Kelly Antonczak adds, "This is not about a political party, but rather about youth taking a stand against anyone who promotes an act that kills a child, permanently scars a woman, and has wiped out one- third of our generation."
For more information or interviews call: Kortney Blythe at 704.778.2702
Christian Newswire
A Communication from the Bishop of Rhode Island Concerning Muslim Priestess
To: Clergy, Members of Diocesan Council and Standing Committee
From: The Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf
Re: The Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding
As many of you know, The Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding is an Episcopal priest who has recently professed her faith in Islam. Dr. Redding is canonically resident in the Diocese of Rhode Island, though she has not served here for over twenty years.
After meeting with her I issued a Pastoral Direction giving her the opportunity to reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam. During the next year she is not to exercise any of the responsibilities and privileges of an Episcopal priest or deacon. Other aspects of the Pastoral Direction will remain private.
I am sending this e-mail to you because the continued web-site coverage suggests that I be as clear as possible with those exercising leadership in our diocese.
From: The Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf
Re: The Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding
As many of you know, The Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding is an Episcopal priest who has recently professed her faith in Islam. Dr. Redding is canonically resident in the Diocese of Rhode Island, though she has not served here for over twenty years.
After meeting with her I issued a Pastoral Direction giving her the opportunity to reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam. During the next year she is not to exercise any of the responsibilities and privileges of an Episcopal priest or deacon. Other aspects of the Pastoral Direction will remain private.
I am sending this e-mail to you because the continued web-site coverage suggests that I be as clear as possible with those exercising leadership in our diocese.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
For God’s sake
From The Times
July 5, 2007
Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria, the world’s most powerful Anglican leader, tells Religion Correspondent Ruth Gledhill that his conservatism is the true faith and that evangelism can combat Islamic terrorism
When Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, consecrated 20 bishops in a single service, an observer asked how this was possible. He replied: “You have not seen anything yet.” This is a man whose name strikes fear into the souls of Western Christian leaders. Heading a Church of nearly 20 million practising Anglicans, he is the most powerful leader in the Anglican Church. While churches are closing in the US and Britain, he cannot open them fast enough. If things continue as they are, his could well be the future face of worldwide Anglicanism. Time is running out for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to avert schism.
Dr Akinola has become a totem of conservatism in the debate over homosexuality. The irony is not lost on him that he is attempting to preach a gospel back to England that was brought to his country by English missionaries in the mid-19th century. To modern, liberal, Western eyes, Dr Akinola is at the most extreme end of fundamentalist Christianity. Few can imagine the “broad” Church of England being led by such a man – but in Nigeria he is at the more liberal end of the Christian spectrum. More importantly, he is in the front line of relations between Christianity and Islam. In the northern, Sharia states of Nigeria, Christians have been driven from their looted homes, even murdered. The relationship with Islam is central to his ministry and he has found a way to counter Islam without violence: it is called evangelism.
I met this enigmatic Archbishop, who in his 63 years has never given an interview to a British national newspaper, in his office in the Abuja diocese. In the small room up a narrow stairway, the most ornate structure was a set of beautifully crafted wooden shelves that this former carpenter designed himself. “God has used my upbringing in carpentry to bear in my work as a bishop,” he says. He wouldn’t be the first to say so. He wore a clerical shirt with no collar, a cross around his neck. His feet were bare. The contrast between this and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s splendid palaces in Lambeth and Canterbury could not have been greater.
Anglican leaders from Africa are portrayed in the West as homophobic fundamentalists whose adherence to biblical truths is born of no more than an ignorance of modern exegesis. “I have been so demonised by the Western media,” says Dr Akinola. “I tell people when they talk about this, Christ had it so much worse. If this is the price I have to pay for leading the Church at this time, so be it. They can punch me here, punch me there, but in the midst of all that are people who say Akinola is the right thing.”
His reluctance to be in the public eye has been perceived as arrogance. The impression in the West has been of a man determined to wrest leadership of the Anglican Church from Canterbury. “I kept on saying you do not have to go through Canterbury to get to Christ.” In the pulpit, few can match his fiery passion. Outside it, he is strangely diffident.
The land in Nigeria is strewn with enormous stones. Massive boulders teeter on top of others. They look as though they could fall at any moment, but have been there for centuries. His friends say of Peter Akinola that, as his name suggests, he is “hewn from the rock”. There is a stubborn stillness about him. His church has broken communion with the Episcopal Church of the US over the ordination in 2003 of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson. Dr Akinola will not contemplate going back into communion with the US unless they abandon completely the liberal gay agenda. It will never happen.
Akin, a common name in the western part of the country, means courageousness, boldness, warlike valour. Ola means wealth and prosperity. With his own business and a Vespa scooter in the 1960s, he was indeed heading for a life of prosperity when he was called to give it all up and follow Christ into the seminary. But he almost had no adult life at all. As a young man, he told me, he narrowly escaped being a victim of a ritual sacrifice. His body parts were to be made into “concoctions”, he said, and sold. He was vulnerable because, when he was 5, his father, who would have protected him against such abuse, died. “Unfortunately my father died on December 12, 1948, before I could get to know him,” he says. “Before he could make any impact on my life he was gone. So my mother had the responsibility of bringing me up.”
He was sent to live with a paternal uncle who was a carpenter, and was not sent to school until the age of 10. “I grew up in a very hard way.” At 16, he wanted to go to secondary school, but was sent instead to northeastern Nigeria to learn a trade. From there he was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in Lagos. He was living with a relative. “Very ugly things happened to me while I was there,” he says. “Another uncle of mine was not thinking well of me. He was going to sacrifice me for a ritual to make money. That is one of the mysteries of my life. God is gracious. It is a very long story. But let me just say I had premonitions. I saw a very clear vision of what was going to happen. The following day, things began to happen the way I saw them. It was not a dream, it was a real vision. It was a serious matter. Frightening. Overwhelming.
“But I came out of the house to go to where I was supposed to be sacrificed and I saw this figure far away at the other end of the road, beckoning me to come. In white. I ran and ran and ran. The faster I ran, the further distance between me and the figure. I never found it. I believe very strongly that the Lord was taking me away from that dungeon.”
When Dr Akinola was growing up it was common, especially in the southern part of the country, for every family to have both Muslims and Christians among their number. On Sunday, the whole family would troop off to church, and then on Friday they went together to mosque. Although in the southern part of the country Muslims and Christians still live together in harmony, there are 12 states in the north where Sharia, or Islamic law, has a hold, and some Christians have suffered.
“We began to see certain threats in the north,” says Dr Akinola. “Religious disturbances, crises, rioting, to the extent that Christians were killed and maimed and properties looted.” His response was informed by his missionary vocation. “By virtue of our religion we cannot fight because we are told, if you are slapped on the right cheek you must turn your left cheek. Love your enemy and pray for him. So how do we respond to these unprovoked attacks on Christians? Evangelism is the answer. Make the Church grow.”
The bigger the Church gets, the fewer conflicts Christians will face. “That is what we believe. So we have put ourselves into the work of mission very seriously.” The era of bishops living like lords in their own little empires has long gone. “Every bishop in his area is an evangelist,” he says.
When his predecessor, Archbishop Abiodun Adetiloye, stepped down, there were 76 dioceses. He had trebled the size of the church by planting a bishop in every city. “I was the Dean then. We did not know who would be Primate. I said, Baba has finished the work, everything is now done, allelujah! He said, Peter, that is a big mistake you are making because the work is yet to begin. As God would have it, I then became the Primate and we set a vision for ourselves as to how to carry on with this great task.”
He decided to aim for doubling the Church. He is nearly there, with almost 130 dioceses and bishops, including Bishop Martyn Minns, consecrated recently to care for conservative evangelicals in the US. His bishops pastor to nearly 20 million practising Anglicans. That compares with an official tally of 25 million in the Church of England, but a paltry one million of these are churchgoers. Dr Akinola points out that the US Episcopal Church has fewer than two millon worshippers, served by 200 bishops. “If I had the means of supporting them I would have 200, 300 bishops,” he says. “We are growing. There are many reasons why we are growing. We believe we have no option but to take the command of Christ very seriously.”
He says the issues troubling the Anglican communion are of no concern to Christians in Nigeria. This does seem to be the case. I asked one Nigerian diocesan bishop whether he would be coming to the Lambeth Conference next year, the ten-yearly gathering of the communion’s 800 bishops. He was surprised by my question: he thought the conference had been cancelled.
Nigeria’s bishops will not meet to decide about Lambeth until September. Dr Akinola says he does not know how they will decide. But at this point, attendance by Nigeria looks extremely unlikely. And if they stay away, this will mark the start of true schism. The Lambeth Conference is one of the communion’s four instruments of unity. For the Nigerians to attend, the Archbishop of Canterbury would have to invite Bishop Minns, which he will not.
And the Episcopal Church in the US would have to backpedal on its liberal agenda, which would be a betrayal of everything it has struggled for in the past two decades.
Dr Akinola does not deny that homosexuals exist in Africa. “All we are saying is, do not celebrate what the Bible says is wrong. If the Bible says it is an aberration, it is an aberration. Do not do it.” He sees no point in his church attending the Lambeth Conference if the bishops cannot share together in Holy Communion. He begins to get passionate, becoming eloquent in his anger. “The missionaries brought the word of God here and showed us the way of life. We have seen the way of life and we rejoice in it. Now you are telling me this way of life is not right. I have to do something else. Keep it for yourself. I do not want it.”
No Nigerian bishop needs to go to Canterbury to learn how to be a bishop, he says. “No Nigerian Anglican needs to go to Lambeth Palace to learn how to become a Christian. It is all available here. We rejoice in our fellowship, we rejoice in our heritage as Anglicans. We celebrate it. But our unity will never be at the expense of truth, of the historic faith.”
In spite of what Western church leaders fear, he has no ambitions to lead a breakaway church. “That has never been on my mind. This is the media thing. You see we have scripture. We have our traditions. We have not broken the law. It is your churches that are breaking the law. You are the ones breaking the rules. You are the ones doing what should not be done with impunity. We are saying you cannot sweep it under the carpet. Maybe in the past you could get away with it, but not any more. We have aged. So we are not breaking away from anybody. We remain Anglicans. We are Anglican Church. We will die Anglicans. We are going nowhere.”
I ask him about his comments a few years ago, when he was reported as saying that homosexuality was an aberration unknown even in the world of animal relationships. He urges me to see these remarks in their context. A diocese in Canada was moving towards authorising the first Angican liturgy for same-sex blessings. “I was shocked to my marrow the very first time I heard the Church is saying a man can marry a man. What? It is from that shock, that surprise, how is that possible? Is it a kind of experiment or something? They are sick or tired of normal heterosexual relationships? How could that be? That is the context in which I said what I said.”
The demand from the West that his Church liberalise he sees as a gross reimposition of an old imperalism. “For God’s sake let us be. When America invades Afghanistan it is in the name of world peace. When Nigeria moves to Biafra it is an invasion. When England takes the Gospel to another country, it is mission. When Nigeria takes it to America it is an intrusion. All this imperialistic mentality, it is not fair.”
He has been criticised for not speaking out against a new law proposed in Nigeria to make it an offence to promote homosexuality. “The Western world does not have a monopoly of homosexuals,” he says. “They are everywhere in the world. But we do not desire to celebrate it. We see it as a problem that can be treated. There have been a lot of importation of Western values and practices in our country. Now the Western world is highlighting the gay issue as the thing. We realise that if care is not taken, our country will be one where you can do whatever you want to do.” The new law was intended to prevent wholesale importation of Western values and practices, he says. He admits to problems with the specific provisions, which are, to Western sensibilities, draconian. “But what you have there is still much less, much softer than if it were to be sharia. This is our context. On the one hand the Christian community is happy that we have this provision. It is just our hope that it will help to preserve the institution of marriage, family life as we know it. But if it is not passed, fine, we will look for something else. It is purely democratic.”
He is buoyed by the fantastic growth of his Church, and cannot help but note the rate of church closures in the US. “I am not God. I keep saying, this is God’s own church. As bad as things are, I can say with certainty that there are still millions of people whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose lips have not kissed Asherah.” (Baal and Asherah are Canaanite deities that feature in the Bible.)
Like me, he has heard the hope that lights up among Western liberals at talk of his pending retirement, as if once he is gone Nigeria will suddenly cease its evangelical mission. “Someone told me they hope when Akinola retires the Church will revert,” he says. “They are making a big mistake. The Church is already receiving hundreds of people who are better, stronger. I can assure you this is God’s own church and the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it. God raised Peter Akinola to what he has done. The same God will raise hundreds of people more gifted than me to get the job done. It is God’s Church not mine.”
He retires in 19 months, and intends to spend his last year as Bishop of Abuja, and then go back home to his village and become a simple preacher again. “I cannot remember God calling me to a position of power. All this stuff about power. It is not me. My motto of life is, the simpler the better. You can ask my colleagues, my bishops, how I operate. Some people say I do embarrass them with my humility.”
Many bishops in the West are looking forward to his retirement, but they might be better sticking with what they know. There are 120 more bishops in Nigeria, all of them with the potential to become the next Primate. If Rowan Williams hopes that by dragging things out, he can delay schism until Akinola retires and then bring Nigeria into line, he’s in for a shock. As Akinola speaks, the fire that has been masked behind his diffidence grows stronger. I get a sense that the battle for the soul of the Anglican Church, for the soul at the heart of Africa itself, has only just begun.
What do you think of the Archbishop’s views? Post your comments below
Archbishop Peter Akinola on child sacrifice: “Sacrifice was common at that time. People who wanted to become rich overnight would go through such rituals. They killed people, some their wives, some their children, some their loved ones. They cut the part they want from the person and make their concoctions ? It was acceptable, traditional. If the king said kill someone to appease the gods, so be it. But in Christianity, no. Christ has died for us once for all so we do not need any more human sacrifice.”
On being selected for ordination: “I said vicar, with due respect your salary is £10 a month. In my workshop I make a hundred or two. What are we talking about? To leave my privileged situation and go and be something else? He said, ‘Go and pray’ ... Now I tell my colleagues and upcoming pastors, ministers of the gospel, that no one who ever leaves anything to serve God will ever regret doing so. In my own case God has been so bountiful, so kind so caring that he’s given to me far more riches than I could ever have dreamed of in my life. Spiritually, materially, just name it he’s given me everything in abundance.”
On Gene Robinson: “The problem is Ecusa and the Western church’s way of seeing and handling Scripture. Gene Robinson is just a symptom ... When you are ordained into the ministry of the gospel of Christ a minister is supposed to be a wholesome example to the whole flock. When you have chosen a particular way of life, a particular orientation, you can only be an example to your own little clique. That in itself negates your ordination. So we have been on this now for so many years, so many meetings, so many committees, task forces, pronouncements, communiques, all to no avail. It is like the harder we work, the more difficult it is. So we have broken communion with The Episcopal Church, not just Nigeria but many provinces in the Global South. Our life together is not what it used to be”
On Church unity: “The condition of having communion together is for The Episcopal Church to return to where we were by giving up its agenda ? Our unity will never be at the expense of truth, of the historic faith.”
On the Episcopal Church: “Has The Episcopal Church ever listened to anyone? They have not listened to the Lambeth Conference, to the Primates communiques. Who’s kidding who?”
July 5, 2007
Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria, the world’s most powerful Anglican leader, tells Religion Correspondent Ruth Gledhill that his conservatism is the true faith and that evangelism can combat Islamic terrorism
When Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, consecrated 20 bishops in a single service, an observer asked how this was possible. He replied: “You have not seen anything yet.” This is a man whose name strikes fear into the souls of Western Christian leaders. Heading a Church of nearly 20 million practising Anglicans, he is the most powerful leader in the Anglican Church. While churches are closing in the US and Britain, he cannot open them fast enough. If things continue as they are, his could well be the future face of worldwide Anglicanism. Time is running out for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to avert schism.
Dr Akinola has become a totem of conservatism in the debate over homosexuality. The irony is not lost on him that he is attempting to preach a gospel back to England that was brought to his country by English missionaries in the mid-19th century. To modern, liberal, Western eyes, Dr Akinola is at the most extreme end of fundamentalist Christianity. Few can imagine the “broad” Church of England being led by such a man – but in Nigeria he is at the more liberal end of the Christian spectrum. More importantly, he is in the front line of relations between Christianity and Islam. In the northern, Sharia states of Nigeria, Christians have been driven from their looted homes, even murdered. The relationship with Islam is central to his ministry and he has found a way to counter Islam without violence: it is called evangelism.
I met this enigmatic Archbishop, who in his 63 years has never given an interview to a British national newspaper, in his office in the Abuja diocese. In the small room up a narrow stairway, the most ornate structure was a set of beautifully crafted wooden shelves that this former carpenter designed himself. “God has used my upbringing in carpentry to bear in my work as a bishop,” he says. He wouldn’t be the first to say so. He wore a clerical shirt with no collar, a cross around his neck. His feet were bare. The contrast between this and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s splendid palaces in Lambeth and Canterbury could not have been greater.
Anglican leaders from Africa are portrayed in the West as homophobic fundamentalists whose adherence to biblical truths is born of no more than an ignorance of modern exegesis. “I have been so demonised by the Western media,” says Dr Akinola. “I tell people when they talk about this, Christ had it so much worse. If this is the price I have to pay for leading the Church at this time, so be it. They can punch me here, punch me there, but in the midst of all that are people who say Akinola is the right thing.”
His reluctance to be in the public eye has been perceived as arrogance. The impression in the West has been of a man determined to wrest leadership of the Anglican Church from Canterbury. “I kept on saying you do not have to go through Canterbury to get to Christ.” In the pulpit, few can match his fiery passion. Outside it, he is strangely diffident.
The land in Nigeria is strewn with enormous stones. Massive boulders teeter on top of others. They look as though they could fall at any moment, but have been there for centuries. His friends say of Peter Akinola that, as his name suggests, he is “hewn from the rock”. There is a stubborn stillness about him. His church has broken communion with the Episcopal Church of the US over the ordination in 2003 of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson. Dr Akinola will not contemplate going back into communion with the US unless they abandon completely the liberal gay agenda. It will never happen.
Akin, a common name in the western part of the country, means courageousness, boldness, warlike valour. Ola means wealth and prosperity. With his own business and a Vespa scooter in the 1960s, he was indeed heading for a life of prosperity when he was called to give it all up and follow Christ into the seminary. But he almost had no adult life at all. As a young man, he told me, he narrowly escaped being a victim of a ritual sacrifice. His body parts were to be made into “concoctions”, he said, and sold. He was vulnerable because, when he was 5, his father, who would have protected him against such abuse, died. “Unfortunately my father died on December 12, 1948, before I could get to know him,” he says. “Before he could make any impact on my life he was gone. So my mother had the responsibility of bringing me up.”
He was sent to live with a paternal uncle who was a carpenter, and was not sent to school until the age of 10. “I grew up in a very hard way.” At 16, he wanted to go to secondary school, but was sent instead to northeastern Nigeria to learn a trade. From there he was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in Lagos. He was living with a relative. “Very ugly things happened to me while I was there,” he says. “Another uncle of mine was not thinking well of me. He was going to sacrifice me for a ritual to make money. That is one of the mysteries of my life. God is gracious. It is a very long story. But let me just say I had premonitions. I saw a very clear vision of what was going to happen. The following day, things began to happen the way I saw them. It was not a dream, it was a real vision. It was a serious matter. Frightening. Overwhelming.
“But I came out of the house to go to where I was supposed to be sacrificed and I saw this figure far away at the other end of the road, beckoning me to come. In white. I ran and ran and ran. The faster I ran, the further distance between me and the figure. I never found it. I believe very strongly that the Lord was taking me away from that dungeon.”
When Dr Akinola was growing up it was common, especially in the southern part of the country, for every family to have both Muslims and Christians among their number. On Sunday, the whole family would troop off to church, and then on Friday they went together to mosque. Although in the southern part of the country Muslims and Christians still live together in harmony, there are 12 states in the north where Sharia, or Islamic law, has a hold, and some Christians have suffered.
“We began to see certain threats in the north,” says Dr Akinola. “Religious disturbances, crises, rioting, to the extent that Christians were killed and maimed and properties looted.” His response was informed by his missionary vocation. “By virtue of our religion we cannot fight because we are told, if you are slapped on the right cheek you must turn your left cheek. Love your enemy and pray for him. So how do we respond to these unprovoked attacks on Christians? Evangelism is the answer. Make the Church grow.”
The bigger the Church gets, the fewer conflicts Christians will face. “That is what we believe. So we have put ourselves into the work of mission very seriously.” The era of bishops living like lords in their own little empires has long gone. “Every bishop in his area is an evangelist,” he says.
When his predecessor, Archbishop Abiodun Adetiloye, stepped down, there were 76 dioceses. He had trebled the size of the church by planting a bishop in every city. “I was the Dean then. We did not know who would be Primate. I said, Baba has finished the work, everything is now done, allelujah! He said, Peter, that is a big mistake you are making because the work is yet to begin. As God would have it, I then became the Primate and we set a vision for ourselves as to how to carry on with this great task.”
He decided to aim for doubling the Church. He is nearly there, with almost 130 dioceses and bishops, including Bishop Martyn Minns, consecrated recently to care for conservative evangelicals in the US. His bishops pastor to nearly 20 million practising Anglicans. That compares with an official tally of 25 million in the Church of England, but a paltry one million of these are churchgoers. Dr Akinola points out that the US Episcopal Church has fewer than two millon worshippers, served by 200 bishops. “If I had the means of supporting them I would have 200, 300 bishops,” he says. “We are growing. There are many reasons why we are growing. We believe we have no option but to take the command of Christ very seriously.”
He says the issues troubling the Anglican communion are of no concern to Christians in Nigeria. This does seem to be the case. I asked one Nigerian diocesan bishop whether he would be coming to the Lambeth Conference next year, the ten-yearly gathering of the communion’s 800 bishops. He was surprised by my question: he thought the conference had been cancelled.
Nigeria’s bishops will not meet to decide about Lambeth until September. Dr Akinola says he does not know how they will decide. But at this point, attendance by Nigeria looks extremely unlikely. And if they stay away, this will mark the start of true schism. The Lambeth Conference is one of the communion’s four instruments of unity. For the Nigerians to attend, the Archbishop of Canterbury would have to invite Bishop Minns, which he will not.
And the Episcopal Church in the US would have to backpedal on its liberal agenda, which would be a betrayal of everything it has struggled for in the past two decades.
Dr Akinola does not deny that homosexuals exist in Africa. “All we are saying is, do not celebrate what the Bible says is wrong. If the Bible says it is an aberration, it is an aberration. Do not do it.” He sees no point in his church attending the Lambeth Conference if the bishops cannot share together in Holy Communion. He begins to get passionate, becoming eloquent in his anger. “The missionaries brought the word of God here and showed us the way of life. We have seen the way of life and we rejoice in it. Now you are telling me this way of life is not right. I have to do something else. Keep it for yourself. I do not want it.”
No Nigerian bishop needs to go to Canterbury to learn how to be a bishop, he says. “No Nigerian Anglican needs to go to Lambeth Palace to learn how to become a Christian. It is all available here. We rejoice in our fellowship, we rejoice in our heritage as Anglicans. We celebrate it. But our unity will never be at the expense of truth, of the historic faith.”
In spite of what Western church leaders fear, he has no ambitions to lead a breakaway church. “That has never been on my mind. This is the media thing. You see we have scripture. We have our traditions. We have not broken the law. It is your churches that are breaking the law. You are the ones breaking the rules. You are the ones doing what should not be done with impunity. We are saying you cannot sweep it under the carpet. Maybe in the past you could get away with it, but not any more. We have aged. So we are not breaking away from anybody. We remain Anglicans. We are Anglican Church. We will die Anglicans. We are going nowhere.”
I ask him about his comments a few years ago, when he was reported as saying that homosexuality was an aberration unknown even in the world of animal relationships. He urges me to see these remarks in their context. A diocese in Canada was moving towards authorising the first Angican liturgy for same-sex blessings. “I was shocked to my marrow the very first time I heard the Church is saying a man can marry a man. What? It is from that shock, that surprise, how is that possible? Is it a kind of experiment or something? They are sick or tired of normal heterosexual relationships? How could that be? That is the context in which I said what I said.”
The demand from the West that his Church liberalise he sees as a gross reimposition of an old imperalism. “For God’s sake let us be. When America invades Afghanistan it is in the name of world peace. When Nigeria moves to Biafra it is an invasion. When England takes the Gospel to another country, it is mission. When Nigeria takes it to America it is an intrusion. All this imperialistic mentality, it is not fair.”
He has been criticised for not speaking out against a new law proposed in Nigeria to make it an offence to promote homosexuality. “The Western world does not have a monopoly of homosexuals,” he says. “They are everywhere in the world. But we do not desire to celebrate it. We see it as a problem that can be treated. There have been a lot of importation of Western values and practices in our country. Now the Western world is highlighting the gay issue as the thing. We realise that if care is not taken, our country will be one where you can do whatever you want to do.” The new law was intended to prevent wholesale importation of Western values and practices, he says. He admits to problems with the specific provisions, which are, to Western sensibilities, draconian. “But what you have there is still much less, much softer than if it were to be sharia. This is our context. On the one hand the Christian community is happy that we have this provision. It is just our hope that it will help to preserve the institution of marriage, family life as we know it. But if it is not passed, fine, we will look for something else. It is purely democratic.”
He is buoyed by the fantastic growth of his Church, and cannot help but note the rate of church closures in the US. “I am not God. I keep saying, this is God’s own church. As bad as things are, I can say with certainty that there are still millions of people whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose lips have not kissed Asherah.” (Baal and Asherah are Canaanite deities that feature in the Bible.)
Like me, he has heard the hope that lights up among Western liberals at talk of his pending retirement, as if once he is gone Nigeria will suddenly cease its evangelical mission. “Someone told me they hope when Akinola retires the Church will revert,” he says. “They are making a big mistake. The Church is already receiving hundreds of people who are better, stronger. I can assure you this is God’s own church and the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it. God raised Peter Akinola to what he has done. The same God will raise hundreds of people more gifted than me to get the job done. It is God’s Church not mine.”
He retires in 19 months, and intends to spend his last year as Bishop of Abuja, and then go back home to his village and become a simple preacher again. “I cannot remember God calling me to a position of power. All this stuff about power. It is not me. My motto of life is, the simpler the better. You can ask my colleagues, my bishops, how I operate. Some people say I do embarrass them with my humility.”
Many bishops in the West are looking forward to his retirement, but they might be better sticking with what they know. There are 120 more bishops in Nigeria, all of them with the potential to become the next Primate. If Rowan Williams hopes that by dragging things out, he can delay schism until Akinola retires and then bring Nigeria into line, he’s in for a shock. As Akinola speaks, the fire that has been masked behind his diffidence grows stronger. I get a sense that the battle for the soul of the Anglican Church, for the soul at the heart of Africa itself, has only just begun.
What do you think of the Archbishop’s views? Post your comments below
Archbishop Peter Akinola on child sacrifice: “Sacrifice was common at that time. People who wanted to become rich overnight would go through such rituals. They killed people, some their wives, some their children, some their loved ones. They cut the part they want from the person and make their concoctions ? It was acceptable, traditional. If the king said kill someone to appease the gods, so be it. But in Christianity, no. Christ has died for us once for all so we do not need any more human sacrifice.”
On being selected for ordination: “I said vicar, with due respect your salary is £10 a month. In my workshop I make a hundred or two. What are we talking about? To leave my privileged situation and go and be something else? He said, ‘Go and pray’ ... Now I tell my colleagues and upcoming pastors, ministers of the gospel, that no one who ever leaves anything to serve God will ever regret doing so. In my own case God has been so bountiful, so kind so caring that he’s given to me far more riches than I could ever have dreamed of in my life. Spiritually, materially, just name it he’s given me everything in abundance.”
On Gene Robinson: “The problem is Ecusa and the Western church’s way of seeing and handling Scripture. Gene Robinson is just a symptom ... When you are ordained into the ministry of the gospel of Christ a minister is supposed to be a wholesome example to the whole flock. When you have chosen a particular way of life, a particular orientation, you can only be an example to your own little clique. That in itself negates your ordination. So we have been on this now for so many years, so many meetings, so many committees, task forces, pronouncements, communiques, all to no avail. It is like the harder we work, the more difficult it is. So we have broken communion with The Episcopal Church, not just Nigeria but many provinces in the Global South. Our life together is not what it used to be”
On Church unity: “The condition of having communion together is for The Episcopal Church to return to where we were by giving up its agenda ? Our unity will never be at the expense of truth, of the historic faith.”
On the Episcopal Church: “Has The Episcopal Church ever listened to anyone? They have not listened to the Lambeth Conference, to the Primates communiques. Who’s kidding who?”
Prime minister to opt out of choosing Church of England bishops
London (ENI). The Church of England has welcomed Prime Minister Gordon Brown's proposal to parliament to remove the prime minister from the process of choosing the church's bishops in the future. "I welcome the prospect of the church being the decisive voice in the appointment of bishops, which the [denomination's] general synod called for 33 years ago," Archbishop of York John Sentamu said in a statement. The established status of the Church of England means that the British sovereign is its "supreme governor" and appoints diocesan bishops on the advice of the prime minister. [359 words, ENI-07-0515]
ENI Online - www.eni.ch
Ecumenical News International
PO Box 2100
CH - 1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Tel: (41-22) 791 6088/6111
Fax: (41-22) 788 7244
Email: eni@eni.ch
ENI Online - www.eni.ch
Ecumenical News International
PO Box 2100
CH - 1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Tel: (41-22) 791 6088/6111
Fax: (41-22) 788 7244
Email: eni@eni.ch
Archbishop of York Responds to Prime Minister's Statement
ACNS 4298 | ENGLAND | 04 JULY 2007
The Most Revd and Rt. Hon. Dr. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, has welcomed the announcement by the Prime Minister regarding changes to the process by which diocesan bishops are appointed.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is on study leave, was made aware at the outset of the Government's wish to talk to the Church about its intentions announced today. Archbishop Williams agreed that the Archbishop of York was to deal with the matter and was briefed by Dr. Sentamu in advance of the Prime Minister's statement.
Archbishop Sentamu said: "The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice consulted me about his intentions which I believe accord with the declared wish of the Church of England.
"I welcome the prospect of the Church being the 'decisive voice in the appointment of bishops' which the General Synod called for 33 years ago (in 1974).
"I am grateful for the Prime Minister's thoughtfulness and for his overt support for the role of the Queen and the establishment by law of the Church of England which have been strongly reiterated in the Green Paper.
"The challenge we face as the Church of England is to use the sacred trust, enshrined in law, for the common good of all the people of England. Our vocation is to love God and to love our neighbours as
ourselves: doing to others that which we would wish to be done to us. Our presence in every part of England must be used for bridging, bonding, partnership and friendship for all."
Following the Prime Minister's Statement and the publication of the Green Paper outlining his proposals, the Church of England will also engage in a constructive conversation with the Government concerning the appointment by the Monarch of Deans, Canons and Parish Clergy where the Sovereign has a prerogative.
Ends
Notes to Editors:
A copy of this statement can be found on the Archbishop's website at www.archbishopofyork.org/ The Green Paper can be downloaded from: http://www.justice.gov.uk/
___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is distributed to more than 8,000 journalists and other readers around the world.
The Most Revd and Rt. Hon. Dr. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, has welcomed the announcement by the Prime Minister regarding changes to the process by which diocesan bishops are appointed.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is on study leave, was made aware at the outset of the Government's wish to talk to the Church about its intentions announced today. Archbishop Williams agreed that the Archbishop of York was to deal with the matter and was briefed by Dr. Sentamu in advance of the Prime Minister's statement.
Archbishop Sentamu said: "The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice consulted me about his intentions which I believe accord with the declared wish of the Church of England.
"I welcome the prospect of the Church being the 'decisive voice in the appointment of bishops' which the General Synod called for 33 years ago (in 1974).
"I am grateful for the Prime Minister's thoughtfulness and for his overt support for the role of the Queen and the establishment by law of the Church of England which have been strongly reiterated in the Green Paper.
"The challenge we face as the Church of England is to use the sacred trust, enshrined in law, for the common good of all the people of England. Our vocation is to love God and to love our neighbours as
ourselves: doing to others that which we would wish to be done to us. Our presence in every part of England must be used for bridging, bonding, partnership and friendship for all."
Following the Prime Minister's Statement and the publication of the Green Paper outlining his proposals, the Church of England will also engage in a constructive conversation with the Government concerning the appointment by the Monarch of Deans, Canons and Parish Clergy where the Sovereign has a prerogative.
Ends
Notes to Editors:
A copy of this statement can be found on the Archbishop's website at www.archbishopofyork.org/ The Green Paper can be downloaded from: http://www.justice.gov.uk/
___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is distributed to more than 8,000 journalists and other readers around the world.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
OHIO: Forty Anglican Churches Join in Pan-Jurisdictional Church Planting Event
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
July 2, 2007
TOLEDO, OH. -- Sixty leaders representing forty churches from a dozen Anglican jurisdictions met here recently to examine new methods of church planting in the U.S. and Canada. Two plenary teachings included African and organic church planting styles.
Meeting under the auspices of the Great Lakes Anglican Network (GLAN) the family of churches met to consider strategies "to win the lost for Christ and to feed His sheep," said Doc Loomis, one of the coordinators for the event. This was the second such annual conference drawing together likeminded congregations from emerging Anglican families as well as from non-aligned sacramental churches and individuals seeking to do God's work.
"This work is being accomplished through regular regional networking meetings, and by providing assistance in church-planting, leadership development, and legal resourcing, as we face a diminishing Episcopal Church driven by a different concept of mission. We came together for fellowship, instruction, and for mutual support," Loomis told VOL.
The Network of churches, which includes the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and the Heart of North America Network in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Ontario, and Quebec, all came together for the second annual conference of the pan-jurisdictional Great Lakes Anglican Network. Also present were representative clergy and seminarians from The Anglican Episcopal Church of Bolivia, The Charismatic Episcopal Church, The Apostles Anglican Church, The Great Lakes Fellowship, The Anglican Church of Kenya, The Anglican Coalition in Canada, The Episcopal Church of Rwanda, The United Methodist Church, The International Communion of Charismatic Episcopal Churches, Trinity School for Ministry, and other Great Lakes area regional ministries.
With 40 churches at this church-planting and discipleship training event, co-chair Roger Ames said it was a magnificent place to see the body of Christ in all of its variety of learning and ministering to a common cause.
InJesus co-founder and AMiA Winter Conference presenter David Moore and the President of InJesus Global Missions, The Rev. Dr. Clark Miller, directed sessions focused on church planting. "Their teachings brought into sharp focus the desperate need to plant churches and to effectively disciple those whom God gives us not only in Africa where InJesus ministers, but especially in this country," said Ames. InJesus is currently developing discipleship training schools in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe."
How to plant a church teaching came from Chicagoan Mike Niebauer, who witnessed his work as a Lay Catechist by planting a mission on the campus of Illinois Northwestern University. He is also a member of the AMiA Church of the Redeemer Family of Churches in Chicago. He spotlighted the need for campus ministry and the role of the Lay Catechist as a church planter.
Conference moderator Joe Boysel was ordained to the Diaconate by the Rt. Rev. Thaddeus Barnum of the AMiA to serve Chillicothe Anglican Fellowship in Ohio. At the same service, The Rev. Ken Bieber was received as Presbyter in the AMiA serving as an Associate at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Hudson, OH.
"Bishop Barnum brought the Word of God with special authority and power in a message of confession for our sin of division," said Ames.
Loomis said he was especially encouraged with the denominational diversity and the number of new relationships formed during the two-day conference. "The re-emerging church in America must be a healthy, growing church dedicated to the Gospel, committed to the lost, and willing to put long-held divisions behind us for the sake of this greater purpose. That is what God is asking us to do, and we are making ourselves ready for the harvest by pulling our boats alongside one another and putting our hands to the nets," summarized Loomis. "We are excited to pull together in our ministry to the lost."
More information about GLAN is available at http://www.hudsonanglican.com/hoan/HOAN.html
www.virtueonline.org
July 2, 2007
TOLEDO, OH. -- Sixty leaders representing forty churches from a dozen Anglican jurisdictions met here recently to examine new methods of church planting in the U.S. and Canada. Two plenary teachings included African and organic church planting styles.
Meeting under the auspices of the Great Lakes Anglican Network (GLAN) the family of churches met to consider strategies "to win the lost for Christ and to feed His sheep," said Doc Loomis, one of the coordinators for the event. This was the second such annual conference drawing together likeminded congregations from emerging Anglican families as well as from non-aligned sacramental churches and individuals seeking to do God's work.
"This work is being accomplished through regular regional networking meetings, and by providing assistance in church-planting, leadership development, and legal resourcing, as we face a diminishing Episcopal Church driven by a different concept of mission. We came together for fellowship, instruction, and for mutual support," Loomis told VOL.
The Network of churches, which includes the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and the Heart of North America Network in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Ontario, and Quebec, all came together for the second annual conference of the pan-jurisdictional Great Lakes Anglican Network. Also present were representative clergy and seminarians from The Anglican Episcopal Church of Bolivia, The Charismatic Episcopal Church, The Apostles Anglican Church, The Great Lakes Fellowship, The Anglican Church of Kenya, The Anglican Coalition in Canada, The Episcopal Church of Rwanda, The United Methodist Church, The International Communion of Charismatic Episcopal Churches, Trinity School for Ministry, and other Great Lakes area regional ministries.
With 40 churches at this church-planting and discipleship training event, co-chair Roger Ames said it was a magnificent place to see the body of Christ in all of its variety of learning and ministering to a common cause.
InJesus co-founder and AMiA Winter Conference presenter David Moore and the President of InJesus Global Missions, The Rev. Dr. Clark Miller, directed sessions focused on church planting. "Their teachings brought into sharp focus the desperate need to plant churches and to effectively disciple those whom God gives us not only in Africa where InJesus ministers, but especially in this country," said Ames. InJesus is currently developing discipleship training schools in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe."
How to plant a church teaching came from Chicagoan Mike Niebauer, who witnessed his work as a Lay Catechist by planting a mission on the campus of Illinois Northwestern University. He is also a member of the AMiA Church of the Redeemer Family of Churches in Chicago. He spotlighted the need for campus ministry and the role of the Lay Catechist as a church planter.
Conference moderator Joe Boysel was ordained to the Diaconate by the Rt. Rev. Thaddeus Barnum of the AMiA to serve Chillicothe Anglican Fellowship in Ohio. At the same service, The Rev. Ken Bieber was received as Presbyter in the AMiA serving as an Associate at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Hudson, OH.
"Bishop Barnum brought the Word of God with special authority and power in a message of confession for our sin of division," said Ames.
Loomis said he was especially encouraged with the denominational diversity and the number of new relationships formed during the two-day conference. "The re-emerging church in America must be a healthy, growing church dedicated to the Gospel, committed to the lost, and willing to put long-held divisions behind us for the sake of this greater purpose. That is what God is asking us to do, and we are making ourselves ready for the harvest by pulling our boats alongside one another and putting our hands to the nets," summarized Loomis. "We are excited to pull together in our ministry to the lost."
More information about GLAN is available at http://www.hudsonanglican.com/hoan/HOAN.html
Evolutionists, Creationists Reminded of Darwin's Support for Christian Missions
Tue, Jul. 03, 2007 Posted: 16:54:10 PM EST
The man most often pinpointed as the root of the clashes between atheist evolutionists and Christian creationists was actually a life-long defender of Christian missionary works, reminded the author of a recent report.
Charles Darwin, best known as the father of the evolution theory, was not anti-religion as many nowadays believe, but rather he had planned to be an Anglican priest and was moved by missionary efforts to reach uncivilized people.
“I don’t think Darwin would recognize his defenders today and probably wouldn’t understand his attackers,” said cultural historian Mark Graham of Grove City College in Pennsylvania to USA Today.
Graham is the author of the report “‘The Enchanter’s Wand’: Charles Darwin, Foreign Missions, and the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle” found in the latest issue of the Journal of Religious History.
The report addresses Darwin’s transformation from an uninterested person in religion into an outspoken proponent of missions during his famed voyage around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle where he visited sites like the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, leading him to develop his theory of evolution.
As part of the H.M.S. Beagle voyage, Darwin came in contact with mission activities already taking place at some of the ship’s stops. He was impressed by the good works performed by the missionaries who greeted the members of the ship and became convinced missionaries helped natives to become civilized.
In addition, one of the purposes of the H.M.S. Beagle journey was to return native Fuegians – people from an archipelago off the southernmost tip of South America –trained in England as missionaries to their homeland as a Christianization effort.
Grove City’s Graham pointed out that Darwin’s first publication after his 1831 and 1836 voyage was a defense of missionary work in the Pacific, according to USA Today.
“The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity, through the South Seas, probably stands by itself on the records of the world,” Darwin wrote in 1836 about the sea voyage.
However, his evolution theory has continued to spark opposition more than a century later from many Christians who believe that the Bible’s creation story should be interpreted to mean man and animal have always been in their present form.
However, other Christians, such as prominent geneticist Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project, argue that there is nothing contradictory in believing in evolution and the Bible’s creation story.
Collins, like many other theistic evolutionists, believes evolution is part of God’s creation process. He points to the Bible, highlighting that the same science evolution process in terms of formation chronology is found in the Bible.
“Is evolution really the enemy of faith?” questioned Collins during a recent speech at the famed Washington National Cathedral. “I don’t think so at all! ...Who are we to say that we wouldn’t have done it in quite that way?”
Darwin, despite his support for missionary work, died an agnostic that was never antagonistic towards religion. His wife and children attended church without his objection, according to Graham.
Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
The man most often pinpointed as the root of the clashes between atheist evolutionists and Christian creationists was actually a life-long defender of Christian missionary works, reminded the author of a recent report.
Charles Darwin, best known as the father of the evolution theory, was not anti-religion as many nowadays believe, but rather he had planned to be an Anglican priest and was moved by missionary efforts to reach uncivilized people.
“I don’t think Darwin would recognize his defenders today and probably wouldn’t understand his attackers,” said cultural historian Mark Graham of Grove City College in Pennsylvania to USA Today.
Graham is the author of the report “‘The Enchanter’s Wand’: Charles Darwin, Foreign Missions, and the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle” found in the latest issue of the Journal of Religious History.
The report addresses Darwin’s transformation from an uninterested person in religion into an outspoken proponent of missions during his famed voyage around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle where he visited sites like the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, leading him to develop his theory of evolution.
As part of the H.M.S. Beagle voyage, Darwin came in contact with mission activities already taking place at some of the ship’s stops. He was impressed by the good works performed by the missionaries who greeted the members of the ship and became convinced missionaries helped natives to become civilized.
In addition, one of the purposes of the H.M.S. Beagle journey was to return native Fuegians – people from an archipelago off the southernmost tip of South America –trained in England as missionaries to their homeland as a Christianization effort.
Grove City’s Graham pointed out that Darwin’s first publication after his 1831 and 1836 voyage was a defense of missionary work in the Pacific, according to USA Today.
“The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity, through the South Seas, probably stands by itself on the records of the world,” Darwin wrote in 1836 about the sea voyage.
However, his evolution theory has continued to spark opposition more than a century later from many Christians who believe that the Bible’s creation story should be interpreted to mean man and animal have always been in their present form.
However, other Christians, such as prominent geneticist Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project, argue that there is nothing contradictory in believing in evolution and the Bible’s creation story.
Collins, like many other theistic evolutionists, believes evolution is part of God’s creation process. He points to the Bible, highlighting that the same science evolution process in terms of formation chronology is found in the Bible.
“Is evolution really the enemy of faith?” questioned Collins during a recent speech at the famed Washington National Cathedral. “I don’t think so at all! ...Who are we to say that we wouldn’t have done it in quite that way?”
Darwin, despite his support for missionary work, died an agnostic that was never antagonistic towards religion. His wife and children attended church without his objection, according to Graham.
Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
VIRGINIA: Episcopal Sect to Sue Unpaid Volunteers of Va. Anglican Churches
Virtue Online
CR DailyOnline
http://www.thecronline.com/news_article.php?nid=2713&ndate=02/07/2007
July 2, 2007
The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia are seeking to add more unpaid volunteers to the list of defendants in the case against 11 breakaway Virginia churches. If the Episcopal Church is granted this motion it would automatically add 76 additional unpaid church volunteers to the lawsuit and anyone else who might volunteer to serve as a Vestry member or Trustee of any of the local churches in the future.
Counsel for the 11 churches filed a memo opposing the denomination's motions to add more volunteer trustees and lay leaders (known as "vestry member") as defendants in the lawsuit. Currently, the lawsuit includes rectors, vestries and, in comes cases, trustees.
Jim Oakes: "We remind The Episcopal Church and the Diocese that these unpaid volunteer Vestry members and Trustees have made no individual claims to the church property, and Virginia law grants complete immunity from civil liability to those who serve religious organizations without pay.
The Episcopal Church and the Diocese have already sued almost 100 unpaid church volunteers who are immune from being sued, and now they want to add more. It is unfortunate that they feel the need to involve these volunteers in the court battle when they have nothing to gain by doing so," said Jim Oakes, vice-chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), an association of Anglican congregations in Virginia and a part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).
All 11 churches named in the lawsuit are members of ADV.
"At the core of this case is that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese claim they have a 'trust' interest in the congregations' properties," continued Oakes. "But the Virginia courts have held time and again that denominations cannot claim an 'implied trust' in member congregations' property.
The Episcopal Church even admitted in its complaint that it does not hold title to any of these eleven churches and that the churches' own trustees hold title for the benefit of the congregations."
Oakes doesn't understand why the Episcopal Church and the Diocese wants to add more individuals to the lawsuit.
"It is hard to understand The Episcopal Church's and the Diocese's motivation for attacking these volunteers and our churches. The motivation appears to be intimidation, but we remain open to negotiating a reasonable solution. We are simply remaining steadfast in our faith and have chosen to stay in the worldwide Anglican Communion."
CR DailyOnline
http://www.thecronline.com/news_article.php?nid=2713&ndate=02/07/2007
July 2, 2007
The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia are seeking to add more unpaid volunteers to the list of defendants in the case against 11 breakaway Virginia churches. If the Episcopal Church is granted this motion it would automatically add 76 additional unpaid church volunteers to the lawsuit and anyone else who might volunteer to serve as a Vestry member or Trustee of any of the local churches in the future.
Counsel for the 11 churches filed a memo opposing the denomination's motions to add more volunteer trustees and lay leaders (known as "vestry member") as defendants in the lawsuit. Currently, the lawsuit includes rectors, vestries and, in comes cases, trustees.
Jim Oakes: "We remind The Episcopal Church and the Diocese that these unpaid volunteer Vestry members and Trustees have made no individual claims to the church property, and Virginia law grants complete immunity from civil liability to those who serve religious organizations without pay.
The Episcopal Church and the Diocese have already sued almost 100 unpaid church volunteers who are immune from being sued, and now they want to add more. It is unfortunate that they feel the need to involve these volunteers in the court battle when they have nothing to gain by doing so," said Jim Oakes, vice-chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), an association of Anglican congregations in Virginia and a part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).
All 11 churches named in the lawsuit are members of ADV.
"At the core of this case is that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese claim they have a 'trust' interest in the congregations' properties," continued Oakes. "But the Virginia courts have held time and again that denominations cannot claim an 'implied trust' in member congregations' property.
The Episcopal Church even admitted in its complaint that it does not hold title to any of these eleven churches and that the churches' own trustees hold title for the benefit of the congregations."
Oakes doesn't understand why the Episcopal Church and the Diocese wants to add more individuals to the lawsuit.
"It is hard to understand The Episcopal Church's and the Diocese's motivation for attacking these volunteers and our churches. The motivation appears to be intimidation, but we remain open to negotiating a reasonable solution. We are simply remaining steadfast in our faith and have chosen to stay in the worldwide Anglican Communion."
Monday, July 02, 2007
+Swing: Beware the Evil Englishman and the Savage Negro
Greg Griffith: Stand Firm in Faith
Titling this essay "Power Play will Fail" instantly sets the tone of this piece as something out of a Baghdad Bob speech - "There are no Coalition tanks in Baghdad!"... as they roll through the streets behind him.
Neither was born, schooled, ordained to the priesthood in the United States nor consecrated bishop according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.
True as far as it goes, but The Rev. Minns has spent the last twenty years in America as a parish priest - over twice as long as our presiding bishop Katharine Schori has even been ordained. It's beside the point, though, because there are two bigger problems: Bishop Swing's statement smacks of a desperate and ugly form of Episcopal nativism, and barely-concealed racism; plus it attempts to cast Akinola and Minns as the sole conspirators in a nefarious plot. Swing a) ignores the fact that the global Anglican orthodox movement consists of several more archbishops (Orombi, Kolini, Nzimbi, Gomez, and Venables come to mind immediately), and many more prominent priests, bishops, and bishops-elect (Atwood, Guernsey, Murdoch, Duncan, Iker, Schofield, Ackerman, et al); and b) makes the same mistake as those on the political left who continually try and demonize George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Halliburton as responsible for the direction (presumably bad) America has taken: Ignoring the fact that a majority of voters - over 50 million - elected these men to office... twice. Similarly, Peter Akinola and Martyn Minns would not have met with the success they have, had they not been supported by a large number of orthodox Episcopalians. If the only support Akinola and Minns had gotten was from... Akinola and Minns... then Swing wouldn't be writing about them.
Their aim is not to reform the Episcopal Church or to set up a permanent parallel authority. They intend to become the sole authorized Anglican presence in American. The other side of that coin is that they intend for the Episcopal Church to be cut off from the Anglican Communion and set aside.
This statement is accurate. It is also not a secret. I'm sure Bishop Swing's intention here is to frighten the Beloved Moderates with images of an English interloper and a scary black man "overthrowing" their beloved Episcopal Church, but what Swing perhaps misses is that the Beloved Moderates haven't lifted their heads for three decades while gays, lesbians, and neo-pagans have defiled their once-noble church; what makes the bishop think they'll lift their heads when two men talking about faithfulness to Jesus Christ walk onto the scene and say there's a problem that needs addressing?
It’s quite a bold American strategy for an Englishman and a Nigerian. In a brief time, they want to undo what it has taken many generations of Americans to build.
More ugly nativism and barely-concealed racism. And what has happened to the Episcopal church has indeed taken a long time, but it's not what a critical mass of orthodox Christians would characterize as "building"; it's crystal clear to these folks that what the Episcopal left has been doing lo these many years is destroying: Destroying our witness to seekers and faithful alike, to our children, and to ourselves. It has got to stop, and if it takes an Englishman and a Nigerian to spark the fire, then so be it.
The rest of it is just not worth fisking. Just think Baghdad Bob and you've got the whole picture. Think of Winston Churchill's "we shall defend our island" speech, only with a reversed sense of morality, and you can see what Swing is trying to do. Remember that this is in print in the current issue of Episcopal Life. It is not a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle or even a post to the diocesan web site. 815 has effectively endorsed this letter by allowing its publication. So get ready: the theme of the coming months looks to consist of attempts to scare Beloved Moderates with references to the sinister foreigner and the scary Negro, come to defile our pretty white church.
Disgusting, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted July 02, 2007 at 8:37 am
The URL for this article is http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4124/
©2007 Stand Firm, LLC. All rights reserved. Permission to copy and distribute free of charge is granted, provided this notice, the logo, and the web site address are visible on all copies. For permission for use in for-profit publications, please email contact@standfirminfaith.com.
Power Play Will Fail
Bishop William E. Swing, retired
Episcopal Diocese
of California
Episcopal Life, July 2007
There was the picture in the
newspaper (Sunday, May 6): Archbishop Peter Akinola and Bishop Martyn Minns.
Neither was born, schooled, ordained to the priesthood in the United States nor
consecrated bishop according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal
Church. But here they were, determined to overthrow the Episcopal Church, USA,
and to replace it with themselves and a small number of American colleagues.
Their aim is not to reform the Episcopal Church or to set up a permanent
parallel authority. They intend to become the sole authorized Anglican presence
in American. The other side of that coin is that they intend for the Episcopal
Church to be cut off from the Anglican Communion and set aside.
It’s
quite a bold American strategy for an Englishman and a Nigerian. In a brief
time, they want to undo what it has taken many generations of Americans to
build.
This is way beyond theology or scriptural interpretations. This
is a naked power play that is reminiscent of colonial aspiration in other
centuries. Instead of England colonizing Nigeria, we are looking at a picture of
a Nigerian and an Englishman trying to colonize the United States, with their
unique brand of Anglicanism from an evangelical point of view.
These two
people who have not been part of a longstanding American experience smile
triumphantly as they embark on a plot to take away our birthright, our heritage,
our Anglican connection, our ministries to the poor, our official prayer book
tradition, our schools, churches, agencies and our resources.
These two
bishops and their colleagues are enjoying the first spoils that arise from our
family struggle over human sexuality. But what they don’t realize is that they
have touched and trampled on the taproot of our faithfulness to the mission of
Jesus Christ in the United States that goes 400 years into the earth of this
country. The Episcopal Church will withstand this assault from across the ocean.
And our mission will endure, God being our helper.
Titling this essay "Power Play will Fail" instantly sets the tone of this piece as something out of a Baghdad Bob speech - "There are no Coalition tanks in Baghdad!"... as they roll through the streets behind him.
Neither was born, schooled, ordained to the priesthood in the United States nor consecrated bishop according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.
True as far as it goes, but The Rev. Minns has spent the last twenty years in America as a parish priest - over twice as long as our presiding bishop Katharine Schori has even been ordained. It's beside the point, though, because there are two bigger problems: Bishop Swing's statement smacks of a desperate and ugly form of Episcopal nativism, and barely-concealed racism; plus it attempts to cast Akinola and Minns as the sole conspirators in a nefarious plot. Swing a) ignores the fact that the global Anglican orthodox movement consists of several more archbishops (Orombi, Kolini, Nzimbi, Gomez, and Venables come to mind immediately), and many more prominent priests, bishops, and bishops-elect (Atwood, Guernsey, Murdoch, Duncan, Iker, Schofield, Ackerman, et al); and b) makes the same mistake as those on the political left who continually try and demonize George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Halliburton as responsible for the direction (presumably bad) America has taken: Ignoring the fact that a majority of voters - over 50 million - elected these men to office... twice. Similarly, Peter Akinola and Martyn Minns would not have met with the success they have, had they not been supported by a large number of orthodox Episcopalians. If the only support Akinola and Minns had gotten was from... Akinola and Minns... then Swing wouldn't be writing about them.
Their aim is not to reform the Episcopal Church or to set up a permanent parallel authority. They intend to become the sole authorized Anglican presence in American. The other side of that coin is that they intend for the Episcopal Church to be cut off from the Anglican Communion and set aside.
This statement is accurate. It is also not a secret. I'm sure Bishop Swing's intention here is to frighten the Beloved Moderates with images of an English interloper and a scary black man "overthrowing" their beloved Episcopal Church, but what Swing perhaps misses is that the Beloved Moderates haven't lifted their heads for three decades while gays, lesbians, and neo-pagans have defiled their once-noble church; what makes the bishop think they'll lift their heads when two men talking about faithfulness to Jesus Christ walk onto the scene and say there's a problem that needs addressing?
It’s quite a bold American strategy for an Englishman and a Nigerian. In a brief time, they want to undo what it has taken many generations of Americans to build.
More ugly nativism and barely-concealed racism. And what has happened to the Episcopal church has indeed taken a long time, but it's not what a critical mass of orthodox Christians would characterize as "building"; it's crystal clear to these folks that what the Episcopal left has been doing lo these many years is destroying: Destroying our witness to seekers and faithful alike, to our children, and to ourselves. It has got to stop, and if it takes an Englishman and a Nigerian to spark the fire, then so be it.
The rest of it is just not worth fisking. Just think Baghdad Bob and you've got the whole picture. Think of Winston Churchill's "we shall defend our island" speech, only with a reversed sense of morality, and you can see what Swing is trying to do. Remember that this is in print in the current issue of Episcopal Life. It is not a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle or even a post to the diocesan web site. 815 has effectively endorsed this letter by allowing its publication. So get ready: the theme of the coming months looks to consist of attempts to scare Beloved Moderates with references to the sinister foreigner and the scary Negro, come to defile our pretty white church.
Disgusting, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted July 02, 2007 at 8:37 am
The URL for this article is http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4124/
©2007 Stand Firm, LLC. All rights reserved. Permission to copy and distribute free of charge is granted, provided this notice, the logo, and the web site address are visible on all copies. For permission for use in for-profit publications, please email contact@standfirminfaith.com.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Ugandan Minister Receives Dozens of Threats Daily from Homosexual Activists
With such words and language used, I have noticed that those people are sick. They need help.
By Elizabeth O'Brien
KAMPALA, Uganda, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo admitted that he receives nearly two dozen emails daily from homosexual activists worldwide, reports Uganda's Daily Monitor.
"I receive at least 20 abusive and threatening mails on my life daily," he stated. "As I speak now, I have seen about 11 mails on my email address waiting for me to read."
"The language those people use while writing messages to me is horrible," he added. "I can't read them out because it will be a shame for me."
Minister Buturo referred to the language in the messages again, saying: "With such words and language used, I have noticed that those people are sick. They need help."
At present homosexual marriage is a criminal offense within Uganda. A 2005 amendment to Ugandan law specifically states, "It is unlawful for same-sex couples to marry."
Nevertheless, AllAfrica.com reports, the Minister stated that when dealing with homosexuals the government "does not plan to vilify and criminalise homosexuals," but rather, "It will support measures to counsel and help them understand that their state is not normal or natural but a serious social and psychological aberration in human behaviour" (See http://allafrica.com/stories/200706290189.html).
According to both the Monitor and AllAfrica.com, last year the minister threatened to arrest leaders of a new homosexual church group that was supposedly forming in Uganda. Although this might seem to be a cause for the flood of threats, most of the messages have been coming from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Protects True Marriage and Criminalizes Same-Sex 'Marriage' http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05070805.html
Ugandan Archbishop Warns of God's Wrath in Homosexual Relationships http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07051107.html
*****
UGANDA: Do not yield to gay demands
Editorial
Sunday Monitor http://www.monitor.co.ug/sunday/oped/oped07011.php July 1 - 7, 2007
In our Friday issue, Ethics minister James Nsaba Buturo was reported to have complained that he was being threatened by homosexuals (See, Homos Want To Kill Me - Minister).
These brothers and sisters, who definitely have perverted minds, are constantly sending hate mail and death threats to Dr Buturo. Most of the emails emanated from gays and lesbians in the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
They want the minister to drop his campaign against their sexual orientation! Or to put it better, to nip in the bud their reprehensible agenda of propagating their 'culture' among our school-going youths, and to demand 'recognition' in Uganda.
The head of sexual minorities, Uganda, Ms Juliet Victor Mukasa, is quoted to have said that Dr Buturo was a stumbling block in their quest for gay rights!
For heaven's sake, their sexual orientation is not in consonance with the law in Uganda. Period. And neither is it in tandem with various religions or numerous Ugandan societal norms; the moral code in more than 50 ethnic groups.
And here is another premise for the need to expunge their arguments and demands. The western world is wont to lecture to the second and third world(s) on the need to respect the rule of law. Well, the current legal regime in Uganda dictates that homosexuality is not acceptable. One therefore wonders why these men and women in the UK and the USA would want to break the law in Uganda.
Thirdly, it is arrogance of the highest degree for them to seek to swamp Uganda and the third world with their decadence. Granted, we have been swamped with pop culture, sports, education, technology, etc, but we as a country have a right to filter the chaff from the grain; we are not duty bound to accept whatever information or lifestyle that is dangled before us, just because we are a poor lot who still depend on bilateral and multi-lateral assistance to bridge deficits in our [national] recurrent and development budget(s).
We appeal to our religious and cultural leaders -- in addition to school matrons and teachers -- to enhance the fight against the immoral agenda espoused by gay activists who are in and outside Uganda. Their orientation must not be allowed to take root in our society as is the case in some countries. The custodians of our laws; the police and the courts of law should therefore be vigilant.
---From an independent Ugandan paper. "A Times of London survey (November, 2000), found www.monitor.co.ug to be among the 100 most visited newspaper sites in the world."
By Elizabeth O'Brien
KAMPALA, Uganda, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo admitted that he receives nearly two dozen emails daily from homosexual activists worldwide, reports Uganda's Daily Monitor.
"I receive at least 20 abusive and threatening mails on my life daily," he stated. "As I speak now, I have seen about 11 mails on my email address waiting for me to read."
"The language those people use while writing messages to me is horrible," he added. "I can't read them out because it will be a shame for me."
Minister Buturo referred to the language in the messages again, saying: "With such words and language used, I have noticed that those people are sick. They need help."
At present homosexual marriage is a criminal offense within Uganda. A 2005 amendment to Ugandan law specifically states, "It is unlawful for same-sex couples to marry."
Nevertheless, AllAfrica.com reports, the Minister stated that when dealing with homosexuals the government "does not plan to vilify and criminalise homosexuals," but rather, "It will support measures to counsel and help them understand that their state is not normal or natural but a serious social and psychological aberration in human behaviour" (See http://allafrica.com/stories/200706290189.html).
According to both the Monitor and AllAfrica.com, last year the minister threatened to arrest leaders of a new homosexual church group that was supposedly forming in Uganda. Although this might seem to be a cause for the flood of threats, most of the messages have been coming from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Protects True Marriage and Criminalizes Same-Sex 'Marriage' http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05070805.html
Ugandan Archbishop Warns of God's Wrath in Homosexual Relationships http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07051107.html
*****
UGANDA: Do not yield to gay demands
Editorial
Sunday Monitor http://www.monitor.co.ug/sunday/oped/oped07011.php July 1 - 7, 2007
In our Friday issue, Ethics minister James Nsaba Buturo was reported to have complained that he was being threatened by homosexuals (See, Homos Want To Kill Me - Minister).
These brothers and sisters, who definitely have perverted minds, are constantly sending hate mail and death threats to Dr Buturo. Most of the emails emanated from gays and lesbians in the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
They want the minister to drop his campaign against their sexual orientation! Or to put it better, to nip in the bud their reprehensible agenda of propagating their 'culture' among our school-going youths, and to demand 'recognition' in Uganda.
The head of sexual minorities, Uganda, Ms Juliet Victor Mukasa, is quoted to have said that Dr Buturo was a stumbling block in their quest for gay rights!
For heaven's sake, their sexual orientation is not in consonance with the law in Uganda. Period. And neither is it in tandem with various religions or numerous Ugandan societal norms; the moral code in more than 50 ethnic groups.
And here is another premise for the need to expunge their arguments and demands. The western world is wont to lecture to the second and third world(s) on the need to respect the rule of law. Well, the current legal regime in Uganda dictates that homosexuality is not acceptable. One therefore wonders why these men and women in the UK and the USA would want to break the law in Uganda.
Thirdly, it is arrogance of the highest degree for them to seek to swamp Uganda and the third world with their decadence. Granted, we have been swamped with pop culture, sports, education, technology, etc, but we as a country have a right to filter the chaff from the grain; we are not duty bound to accept whatever information or lifestyle that is dangled before us, just because we are a poor lot who still depend on bilateral and multi-lateral assistance to bridge deficits in our [national] recurrent and development budget(s).
We appeal to our religious and cultural leaders -- in addition to school matrons and teachers -- to enhance the fight against the immoral agenda espoused by gay activists who are in and outside Uganda. Their orientation must not be allowed to take root in our society as is the case in some countries. The custodians of our laws; the police and the courts of law should therefore be vigilant.
---From an independent Ugandan paper. "A Times of London survey (November, 2000), found www.monitor.co.ug to be among the 100 most visited newspaper sites in the world."
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