RWANDA HOUSE OF BISHOPS TO AMIA BISHOP CHUCK MURPHY: RECANT OR RESIGN

From George Conger at Anglican Ink:

The head of the Anglican Mission in America has been threatened with ecclesiastical discipline for contumacy. Unless Bishop Chuck Murphy repents of his disobedience and apologizes for his offensive statements within seven days, the Rwanda House of Bishops will assume that he has “made a de facto choice to withdraw as primatial vicar” of the AMiA.

In letter from the Rwandan House of Bishops to Bishop Murphy dated 30 Nov 2011, the AMiA leader was chastised for disobedience and abuse of office.

Just read Conger's entire article. I am dumfounded.

H/T to Susan Russell at An Inch at a Time.

Update from the same article:

Questions were also raised at the meeting about the degree of accountability the AMiA had towards the Rwandan House of Bishops. Bishop Murphy charged the Rwandan bishops with seeking to impose a “reverse colonialism” on the AMiA. Overseeing a church half a world away had not worked during the age of colonial expansion when London missionary societies oversaw African churches and could not work today, he argued.

Who would ever have expected...? If that is the case, then may we expect problems in CANA and ACNA?

UPDATE: More letters here and here and rumors, but only rumors, as of now, of more resignations of Anglican bishops from Rwanda House of Bishops from Stand Firm.

A ROCKY ROAD AHEAD FOR AMIA?

An interesting post from George Conger via Jim Simons at Three Rivers Episcopal:

The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has denied speculation that its chairman, Bishop Chuck Murphy, has offered to step down in the wake its dispute with its parent church, the Province of Rwanda.

On 28 November 2011, a spokesman for the AMiA told The Church of England Newspaper that a report in the Christian Post that stated Bishop Murphy was going to retire was incomplete.

The resignation of AMiA Bishop Terrell Glenn coupled with a show of no confidence in Bishop Murphy over the planned reorganisation of the American church group by the Rwandan Church had led to speculation the American leader would step down. Sources in the AMiA told CEN they also had been briefed by senior leaders that Bishop Murphy was going to retire, however, the AMiA’s spokesman stated this was incorrect.

“While Bishop Murphy has indicated for quite some time that he plans to step down as Chairman of the Anglican Mission sometime around December 2013, he has not made any ‘formal announcement’ either internally or externally,” spokesman Cynthia Brust said.

Read the rest.

Somehow I doubted that the American bishops who placed themselves under the authority of African archbishops were likely to have an easy journey, and it appears that the road is, indeed, a bit rocky at the moment.

The story was first published in The Church of England Newspaper which requires a subscription to read the online version.

Thanks to Ann V. for the link.

Now there's another letter (pdf) to AMiA signed by all the Rawandan bishops, which seems rather ambiguous to me.