c. 2007 Religion News Service

Nigerian Bishop to Install U.S. Missionary Bishop in Virginia

(RNS) Against the wishes of the Episcopal Church’s top bishop, the Anglican Church of Nigeria will install a missionary bishop in Virginia on Saturday (May 5) to oversee conservatives who’ve broken with the American church.

Bishop Martyn Minns will be formally installed as missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America in Woodbridge, Va., by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola.

Minns had been the rector of Truro Church, one of 11 parishes in northern Virginia that left the Episcopal Church to join CANA last year because of differences over homosexuality and biblical interpretation.

“In many ways CANA is really the result of the brokenness of the Episcopal Church,” Minns said Thursday. “A lot of people couldn’t go where the Episcopal Church is going.”

With about 30 churches and 50 clergy, CANA is one of several fledgling conservative groups that have walked away from the Episcopal Church since it elected an openly gay bishop in 2003. Formally aligned with the Anglican Church of Nigeria, CANA’s churches are sprinkled throughout the U.S., particularly in urban areas with Nigerian immigrants such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago, Minns said.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the installation would “not help the efforts of reconciliation that are taking place in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion as a whole.”

The Anglican Communion is a global fellowship of 38 autonomous national and regional churches derived from the Church of England. The Episcopal Church, with 2.2 million members, is the U.S. branch of the communion.

In a letter to Akinola, Jefferts Schori also said installing Minns in the U.S. “would violate the ancient customs of the church which limits the episcopal activity of a bishop to only the jurisdiction to which the bishop has been entrusted.” Virginia Bishop Peter Lee has also spoken out against the installation.

Akinola fired back Wednesday, saying “I … find it curious that you are appealing to the ancient customs of the church when it is your own deliberate rejection of the biblical and historical teaching of the church that has prompted our current crisis.”

_ Daniel Burke

President Bush Marks National Day of Prayer

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush hosted an interfaith observance of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 3), citing several reasons why he believes Americans are drawn to prayer.

“We’re a prayerful nation,” the president said in remarks in the East Room of the White House. “I believe that makes us a strong nation.”

Bush said people pray to give thanks, to gain strength to follow God’s will and to yield to God’s authority, but he said the last reason can be the most challenging.

“We pray to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in our lives and our complete dependence on him,” Bush said, speaking to a crowd of 200 that included Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus.

“This is probably the toughest prayer of all, particularly for those of us in politics. In the humility of prayer we recognize the limits of human strength and human wisdom.”

The National Day of Prayer has been observed since 1952, when it was established by Congress. It is marked each year on the first Thursday in May.

Shirley Dobson, the chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, thanked Bush for holding a White House prayer event for the last six years.

“Thank you, Mr. President, for honoring God through your consistent support of the National Day of Prayer,” said Dobson, the wife of James Dobson, the founder of Colorado-based Focus on the Family.

In addition to her remarks, the White House ceremony included prayers and readings by a rabbi, a Southern Baptist minister, a bishop of the Church of God in Christ and a cadet chaplain from Virginia Tech.

Beyond the White House, Washington observances of the day included prayer gatherings and Bible readings on Capitol Hill. Across the country, people marked the day with events at state capitols, community rallies and Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota and Pikes Peak in Colorado.

Some advocates for church-state separation criticized the observances.

“A church-sponsored day of prayer would not be a problem,” said Dan Barker, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, in a statement. “But it is inappropriate for the president and governors to be dictating that citizens pray.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Alabama Church Arsonists Plead Guilty to More Fires

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ Two church arsonists pleaded guilty Wednesday (May 2) to burning churches in two Alabama counties and will serve two-year sentences in state prison, running concurrently with a previous two-year sentence that was handed down last month.

The men, Matthew Cloyd and Benjamin Moseley, pleaded guilty to setting fires in Sumter and Green counties last year. The two-year sentences will begin after they complete separate eight-year federal prison sentences.

Cloyd, Moseley and another man, Russell DeBusk, earlier admitted in federal and state court to burning four churches in Bibb County. Cloyd and Moseley, however, set five additional fires in Sumter, Green and Pickens counties as a decoy.

In all, seven rural churches were destroyed and two more were damaged in the arson spree.

On Wednesday, they entered guilty pleas to the fires in Sumter and Green counties before Circuit Judge Eddie Hardaway.

Last month, the three men entered guilty pleas for the fires in Bibb County and were sentenced to serve two years of a 15-year sentence in state prison.

_ Val Walton

Quote of the Day: Episcopal Priest Louis Braxton Jr.

(RNS) “We’re their last hope. I can’t throw them back on the street.”

_ The Rev. Louis Braxton Jr., an Episcopal priest who runs a shelter in Queens, N.Y., for young transgender prostitutes. Many of the young prostitutes are runaways. He was quoted by The New York Times.

KRE/PH END RNS