Bishops Atwood, Murdoch Consecrated in Kenya
8/30/2007
The Archbishop of Kenya today consecrated the Rev. William L. Murdoch, rector of All Saints’ Church, West Newbury, Mass., and the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, general secretary of The Ekklesia Society, as bishops suffragan of All Saints Cathedral in the Diocese of Nairobi.
Both bishops were elected in June by the provincial synod of the Anglican Church of Kenya. Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said at the time of Bishop Murdock’s election that the new bishops will “serve the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, including taking responsibility for care for the congregations and clergy in the U.S. under Kenyan jurisdiction.”
Ten Anglican primates or their representatives were reported to have been participants or in attendance at the service, which was estimated to have lasted nearly five hours. Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth were present, as were Bishop Martyn Minns of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) and Bishop Charles Murphy of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA).
In January, more than a dozen American Anglican Church of Kenya congregations petitioned Archbishop Nzimbi to create a missionary diocese for the 25 U.S.-based congregations of Kenyan expatriates and American traditionalists under his care. When he announced the bishops’ elections, Archbishop Nzimbi stated that The Episcopal Church had torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion and the House of Bishops had “exacerbated” the damage by failing to provide adequate pastoral care for the “faithful” and for rejecting the pastoral council “offered through the primates in their communiqué from Dar es Salaam.”
Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies, who preached at the service, told the Associated Press afterward, “The gospel ... must take precedence over culture. Homosexual practice violates the order of life given by God in holy scripture.”
