Dispute between African bishops and Anglican Mission in the Americas prompts U.S. leadership to leave body.
An 11-year-old denomination that has prided itself on its submission to majority-world leadership broke away from that leadership Monday. Amid a dispute over authority, bishops in the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA) resigned from their positions in the Anglican Church of Rwanda.
More than a decade ago, the association of churches launched as an alternative to the Episcopal Church. In 2000, Emmanuel Kolini, the archbishop of Rwanda, and Moses Tay, the archbishop of Singapore, ordained two Americans—Charles Murphy and John Rogers Jr.—as missionary bishops to the United States. The maverick bishops' assignment: to promote orthodox teaching and practice in the wake of infighting among American church members over sexual ethics.
Under the oversight of the Church of Rwanda, the South Carolina-based AMIA has grown to more than 150 congregations in the United States and Canada, with 100-plus additional church plants and mission endeavors in the works, AMIA spokeswoman Cynthia Brust said.
But the 2010 retirement of Kolini—who had a strong connection with Murphy, AMIA's chairman—has precipitated a nasty turn in the relationship between the American association and Rwanda's bishops, said George Conger, a Florida-based correspondent for The Church of England Newspaper in London.
"It's just a sad, sad case all around," Conger said. "There are no doctrinal or theological issues. It's not about women priests or homosexuality or race. It's entirely about egos." To read more, click here.
Has George interviewed the Rwandan leadership regarding how they feel about the major doctrinal changes that Chuck Murphy and Kevin Donlon introduced in the Church of Rwanda with the 2008 canons that Murphy persuaded Kolini to use his influence with the Rwandan Provincial Synod and the Rwandan House of Bishops to secure their passage? Are the Rwandans overjoyed at the substitution of the dogmas of the Council of Trent and Roman Catholicsm as the official faith of the Anglican Province of Rwanda in place of the doctrines of the Anglican formularies and Evangelical Christianity that they received from the Church of England? Are they excited about the teaching of church tradition and the false gospel of good works and sacraments that with the 2008 canons replaced the teaching of the Scriptures and the true gospel of salvation by grace by faith in Jesus Christ? There is a story that is going unvestigated and untold.
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