c. 2007 Religion News Service

Nigerian Archbishop Calls U.S. Response `Insulting and Condescending’

(RNS) Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who defied the top bishops of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion by installing his own bishop on U.S. soil Saturday (May 5), said “insulting and condescending” American bishops were to blame for the controversy.

“We have developed numerous proposals, established various task forces and yet the division has only deepened,” Akinola said in an open letter to the head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

“The decisions, actions, defiance and continuing intransigence of the Episcopal Church are at the heart of our crisis.”

Akinola heads the 17 million-member Anglican Church of Nigeria, reportedly the Anglican Communion’s second-largest church _ after the Church of England _ and has been an outspoken leader among conservatives.

On Saturday in Woodbridge, Va., he installed the Rev. Martyn Minns as missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. CANA has about 30 congregations of Nigerian immigrants and American conservatives who’ve left the Episcopal Church.

In public letters, Williams and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori urged Akinola not to install Minns.

Jefferts Schori said the installation would hamper reconciliation efforts between liberals and conservatives in the Anglican Communion and urged Akinola to respect the tradition of not interfering in another bishop’s geographical territory.

Akinola answered his critics Sunday in his letter to Williams.

“In the middle of all this the Lord’s name has been dishonored,” said Akinola. “If we fail to act, many will be lost to the church and thousands of souls will be imperiled.”

Moreover, Episcopal bishops’ rejection in March of requests from oversees Anglicans to change the Episcopal Church to accommodate conservatives was “both insulting and condescending and makes very clear they have no intention of listening to the voice of the rest of the communion,” Akinola said.

_ Daniel Burke

Israeli Archaeologists Discover Herod’s Tomb

JERUSALEM (RNS) Israeli archaeologists believe they have discovered the tomb of King Herod, the excavation’s chief archaeologist announced Tuesday (May 8).

Professor Ehud Netzer from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem said his team had discovered the tomb three weeks ago during ongoing excavations at Herodium, a once-magnificent palace located nine miles south of Jerusalem, in what is now the West Bank.

Herod, who was appointed by the Romans, ruled Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. During his reign he undertook numerous monumental building projects, including the fortress at Masada and the reinforcement and expansion of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

The New Testament says Jesus was born during Herod’s reign and that Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt because the king planned to kill the infant Jesus.

Archaeologists have long based their belief that Herod was buried at Herodium on the account of the historian Josephus Flavius, who described the king’s lavish funeral although not the tomb itself.

Pointing to intricately carved remains from the excavation, Netzer said his team had discovered a grave, fragments from a sarcophagus and a mausoleum on Mount Herodium’s northeastern slope.

“It was clear that someone had intentionally shattered the sarcophagus,” soon after Herod’s death, Netzer said, referring to Herod’s many enemies.

Netzer said his team is certain the grave they discovered is Herod’s despite the fact that neither human bones nor an inscription has yet been found at the site.

“It was the quality of the things that were uncovered that led us to understand that this was the grave of a king,” Netzer said of the finely detailed remains of the sarcophagus, which was decorated with rosettes; the beautifully decorated urns for storing ashes; and the well-built podium of the mausoleum.

“The location and the unique nature of the findings, as well as the historical record leave no doubt that this was Herod’s burial site,” the archaeologist said.

_ Michele Chabin

Southern Baptists Consider Round 3 on Public Schools Issue

(RNS) A resolution calling on Southern Baptist churches to “create more Christian alternatives to the public schools” has been drafted and submitted for the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual convention June 12-13 in San Antonio.

Bruce Shortt, a Houston attorney, and Voddie Baucham, a Houston pastor, authored the resolution. The two men have authored an education resolution every year since the 2004 convention.

The 2005 resolution received a great deal of attention because it called on Southern Baptist parents to investigate their school districts for homosexual clubs or curriculum that was pro-homosexual. Delegates to the 2006 convention never voted on the education resolution because it died in committee.

Shortt said it “will be hard for this resolution to make it out of committee. The committee system was added several years ago so the guys (at denominational headquarters) in Nashville can control everything.”

Southern Baptists first approved resolutions supporting home-schooling in 1997 and 1999. Since that time, SBC leaders have been encouraging parents to take a greater interest in their children’s education.

Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, called on fellow Baptists to develop an “exit strategy” from public schools in 2005. Last year in an interview with Agape Press, SBC President Frank Page encouraged affiliated churches to start more Christian schools while making sure that provision is made for people who can’t afford tuition.

Shortt sees that as evidence that momentum is building to remove Baptist students from public schools.

“We’ve had the wrong model of education all along,” Shortt said. “An aggressively anti-Christian institution will produce an anti-Christian worldview.”

The resolution also “applauds the many adult members of our congregations who teach in government schools … and should be construed to encourage adult believers who are truly called to labor as missionaries.”

_ Greg Horton

Quote of the Day: Pastor Dwight McKissic of Arlington, Texas

(RNS) “God just showed up in my prayer closet. I’ve asked the Lord to explain what I am saying, but as of yet I cannot understand it.”

_ Pastor Dwight McKissic, discussing his private prayer language, or speaking in tongues, at the Baptist Conference on the Holy Spirit held recently at his Southern Baptist church in Arlington, Texas.

KRE/PH END RNS