c. 2000 Religion News Service
Archbishop Carey Urges End to Sudan Civil War
(RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey issued a powerful plea for reconciliation in the Sudan on Sunday (April 30) when he preached at the installment of the Right Rev. Joseph Marona, the new Anglican archbishop of Sudan.
The Sudanese primacy has been vacant for two years, largely because of the civil war that has raged for 17 years. Marona, formerly the bishop of Maridi, was elected at a provincial synod that met in Nairobi in neighboring Kenya. Carey is the spritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
“Some people in the West paint the conflict in Sudan as one between Christianity and Islam,” Carey said. “Some in this country claim that Islam is the indigenous faith of Sudan and Christianity is a Western import. Neither view is true.”
“I do not believe there is any reason either here in Sudan or anywhere else in the world for Christians and Muslims to commit violence against one another. There is every reason to hold one another’s faith in the deepest respect _ and even more reason to discover common ground upon which together you can contribute to the peace process here,” Carey said.
Carey said there had been “a distinct growth of concern” in the international community about the persistence of the civil war in the Sudan and the lack of energy among those who were fighting to search seriously for peace.
“The suffering, the poverty, the effects of war do not differentiate between religions. All the people of this beautiful country are suffering, and all deserve peace.”
On Saturday (April 29) in Khartoum, Carey met government ministers. On Monday (May 1), he told BBC Radio from Cairo that he came away from those meetings “feeling a sense of a war-weary country desperately looking for peace, and a feeling that the government is also beginning to soften its attitude to some degree.”
United Church of Christ Urges Pilgrim Church Preservation
(RNS) The United Church of Christ has joined a campaign to halt the demolition of the ruins of a Dutch church that is one of the last surviving symbols of Pilgrim history in Holland.
At issue is what is left of the Church of Our Lady, known as the “Vrouwekerk,” in Leiden, where Pilgrim families worshipped with the Huguenots _ French-speaking Calvinist refugees _ nearly four centuries ago.
American historian Jeremy Bangs, leader of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum Foundation, filed a lawsuit that has halted the city’s plans for demolition, at least until the Dutch Council of State considers the matter, the U.S. church said.
The UCC is asking members to write to Dutch officials and is collecting names for a petition protesting the demolition of the church’s remains.
“The sojourn of the Pilgrims in your city is part of one of the great foundational epics of United States history,” the petition reads. “On its own merits, the Vrouwekerk is an international cultural monument that must not be destroyed.”
Pilgrims escaping religious persecution in their native England fled to Amsterdam in 1608 and moved to Leiden the next year. From 1620 to 1629, they then immigrated to North America on ships such as the Mayflower.
Ahold, a Dutch holding company that owns the Stop & Shop, Tops, Giant and Bi-Low supermarket chains in the United States, is a major investor in the demolition plans for the site, which would become an empty square within an urban development including a shopping center, disco and parking garage.
The ruins consist mainly of a 40-foot wall with the outline of a portal and faint traces of the rest of the foundation.
City officials respond to inquiries about the ruins with a form letter that says most of the church was demolished 300 years ago, the UCC said.
Future L.A. Episcopal Bishop Issues Monetary Appeal
(RNS) The Rev. J. Jon Bruno wasted no time at the April 29 ceremony that named him the future bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. In his first homily as bishop coadjutor, Bruno spoke of a concern on the minds of most clergy _ money.
Included in the ordination program were pledge cards for the diocese’s “2000 by 2000” fund-raising campaign, in which 2000 people each are asked to buy a $2,000 share in the diocese’s permanent endowment fund for missionary work.
In pitching “2000 by 2000,” Bruno said it would make a stronger church for future generations, represented by the children he asked to join him on stage at the Los Angeles Convention Center. “One of my central focuses will be children,” Bruno said. “Only when we put the dignity of them before the dignity of anybody can we be people of God.”
More than 3,000 people attended the ceremony, including at least a dozen Episcopal and Anglican Bishops from throughout North America plus Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Jewish clergy.
Currently provost of the 85,000-member, six-county diocese’s Cathedral Center of St. Paul near downtown Los Angeles, Bruno, 53, will replace Bishop Frederick Borsch, when he retires. Borsch has not said when that will be.
Bruno was elected Nov. 13 after eight ballots in an upset diocesan election which saw his name offered as a from-the-floor nomination by delegates who rejected the four candidates submitted by the diocese’s 24-member search committee. His election was approved by 90 of the country’s 112 Episcopalian bishops.
Like Borsch, Bruno is critical of the Lambeth resolutions condemning homosexual sex, which was passed by the world’s Anglican bishops at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Borsch comes from largely an academic background while Bruno is known as a social activist, prompting Borsch to describe himself and his successor as, “the bishops Mutt and Jeff.”
Texas Pastor Will Run for Stated Clerk of Presbyterian Church (USA)
(RNS) A Texas pastor has announced his bid to become the next stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the highest elected position within the country’s largest Presbyterian body.
The Rev. Winfield “Casey” Jones announced April 21 he will challenge the current stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick. Jones is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pearland, Texas. The vote will be decided during the denomination’s General Assembly in Long Beach, Calif., June 24-July 1.
The stated clerk is responsible for the annual meetings, overseeing church judicial processes and coordinating relations with other churches.
So far, Jones and Kirkpatrick are the only announced candidates for the position. Other nominations could be submitted during the General Assembly. Kirkpatrick has been nominated for a second four-year term by the church’s Stated Clerk Review Nomination Committee.
Jones said he is running for the post because he feels more attention needs to be placed on core doctrinal beliefs, according to a church press release. Jones said special emphasis needs to be placed on the Book of Confessions, 11 statements that describe the church’s doctrinal foundation.
“I believe the clerk, as a defender and preserver of our constitution, has a crucial role to play in helping initiate and lead this return to our Confessions as Part I of our Constitution,” he said.
Jones said the denomination was suffering from “theological and confessional `quietism”’ and that the clerk should take the lead in applying the church’s beliefs on issues like the Trinity and the nature of salvation to rank-and-file congregations.
Jones is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York, and his wife, Vicky, is also a Presbyterian minister.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Concludes Time As U.S. Professor
(RNS) Archbishop Desmond Tutu has finished his two years as visiting professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.
The retired Anglican archbishop of Capetown, South Africa, completed his time of teaching and preaching at the Atlanta school during the last week of April. He will return to South Africa this summer to live in retirement, the school announced.
Tutu won the Nobel Peach Prize in 1984 for his efforts to combat apartheid during the 1980s.
“My time here has been wonderful,” Tutu said in a statement. “My students have been superb. I’ve enjoyed teaching them and have learned many, many insights from them.”
Quote of the Day: Metropolitan Community Churches founder Rev. Troy Perry
(RNS) “We stand here because we know that love makes a family, nothing more, nothing less. We will no longer be silent about the love that dares not speak its name.”
The Rev. Elder Troy Perry, founder of the predominantly gay Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, speaking at a mass commitment ceremony of thousands of gay and lesbian couples gathered at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday (April 29) in Washington. He was quoted in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post.
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