WCC concern at ‘regressive’ Israeli travel ban
AN ISRAELI entry ban on any foreign activist who has “knowingly issued a public call to boycott the State of Israel or pledged to take part in such a boycott”, approved on Monday of last week, is a cause for “grave concern”, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has said. It is reported that the ban will apply to those who boycott Israeli settlements. The WCC’s general secretary, Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, described the ban as “shockingly regressive” and a “clear violation of freedom of expression” which could result in barring representatives of many churches from entering Israel. The WCC has long invited member Churches to boycott the produce of Israeli settlements.
Sudan to have autonomous Anglican Church
SUDAN is to have an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion, it was announced last Friday. The Archbishop of Canterbury will attend its inauguration on 30 July. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and the title of the Primate, the Most Revd Daniel Deng, was changed to that of Sudan and South Sudan. The first Archbishop of Sudan, the Most Revd Ezekiel Kumir Kondo, Bishop of Khartoum, was enthroned in 2014 for a new internal province that was intended to address the new political reality. The four-and-a-half-million members of the Episcopal Church are mainly in South Sudan.
Bishop Lawrence’s diocese votes to join ACNA
THE Diocese of South Carolina voted on Saturday to join the Anglican Church in North America. It was a unanimous vote in both orders of clergy and laity. The Bishop, the Rt Revd Mark Lawrence, said that he believed that the diocese would find “a deeper richness in our vocation, fuller fellowship in the Spirit, a more zealous thrust in mission”. The diocese “disaffiliated” from the Episcopal Church in the United States in 2012 (News, 19 October 2012) and, in 2014, joined the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, receiving “provisional primatial oversight” from Global South bishops (News, 28 March 2014). It is distinct from the diocese known as the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, which is part of the US Episcopal Church.
