http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5966
[VirtueOnline] 11 May 2007--For two centuries the West has sent missionaries to covert the heathen in Africa and Asia. Last weekend Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola installed Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, a native of England, as the Missionary Bishop of CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
Why would the United States need a Missionary Bishop?
Frankly, Mainline denominations are dying. In 1965 there were 3.5 million Episcopalians, the American branch of worldwide Anglicanism. Their number has dwindled to 2.2 million. (There are less than 800,000 average Sunday attendance).By contrast there are 18.5 million Anglicans in Nigeria, up from 7 million in 1980.
More important to traditional Episcopalians, leaders of their church have wandered far from the orthodox Christian faith. The denomination voted to elevate Gene Robinson, who divorced his wife and lives in an open homosexual partnership, to be the Bishop of New Hampshire.
Last summer Episcopalians elected Katherine Jefferts Schori as the Presiding Bishop for a nine-year term. In her first sermon she declared, "Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are his children." As one critic observed, "Jesus is not a mother who births us; Jesus is a Savior who redeems us."
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