An African missionary to America
When I was in seminary, a Nigerian roommate of mine seriously proposed that the day would come before very long when African Christians would be sending missionaries to America.
He was right.
I've already blogged about heroic Kenyan Lutheran Bishop Walter Obare, who lost his position with the inappropriately named Lutheran World Federation for consecrating a bishop to serve members of Sweden's increasingly pagan state "church" who wanted to remain Christians in some reasonably coherent sense. It is no secret that it is the African members of the Anglican Communion who are speaking out faithfully in the face of the increasing apostasy in their own tradition, especially in America's Episcopal Church.
A conservative priest from a church from Fairfax, Virginia- my stomping grounds from my brief period living in the Washington, D.C. area a couple of years back- has been elected by the 18 million member Nigerian Anglican church to serve as bishop to a handful of congregations of Nigerian expatriates in the United States. But Bishop Martyn Minns may turn out to be more than that.
The congregation to which Bishop Minns belongs- Truro Church, has already in formed Virginia's Episcopal Bishop, Peter Lee, that it is entering a forty-day period of "discernment" concerning the compatibility of its continued affiliation with the Episcopal Church with its commitment to Scripture and the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Like the Swedish Bishop Arne Olsson, who was consecrated by Bishop Obare, Bishop Minns may well become the focal point for a the emergence of a faithful parallel church body in the same country as an existing one which has drifted into open apostasy.
My roommate was right. Just as a Kenyan Lutheran came to the rescue of Christ's forsaken sheep in a land which once sent Lutheran missionaries to Africa, so the Anglican Church of Nigeria may well be on the way to founding a missionary church to save the souls of the descendants of Anglicans who once owned African slaves.
He was right.
I've already blogged about heroic Kenyan Lutheran Bishop Walter Obare, who lost his position with the inappropriately named Lutheran World Federation for consecrating a bishop to serve members of Sweden's increasingly pagan state "church" who wanted to remain Christians in some reasonably coherent sense. It is no secret that it is the African members of the Anglican Communion who are speaking out faithfully in the face of the increasing apostasy in their own tradition, especially in America's Episcopal Church.
A conservative priest from a church from Fairfax, Virginia- my stomping grounds from my brief period living in the Washington, D.C. area a couple of years back- has been elected by the 18 million member Nigerian Anglican church to serve as bishop to a handful of congregations of Nigerian expatriates in the United States. But Bishop Martyn Minns may turn out to be more than that.
The congregation to which Bishop Minns belongs- Truro Church, has already in formed Virginia's Episcopal Bishop, Peter Lee, that it is entering a forty-day period of "discernment" concerning the compatibility of its continued affiliation with the Episcopal Church with its commitment to Scripture and the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Like the Swedish Bishop Arne Olsson, who was consecrated by Bishop Obare, Bishop Minns may well become the focal point for a the emergence of a faithful parallel church body in the same country as an existing one which has drifted into open apostasy.
My roommate was right. Just as a Kenyan Lutheran came to the rescue of Christ's forsaken sheep in a land which once sent Lutheran missionaries to Africa, so the Anglican Church of Nigeria may well be on the way to founding a missionary church to save the souls of the descendants of Anglicans who once owned African slaves.
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Sincerely,
Carol Masters
carolmas@yahoo.com