An Anglican mission

• By MARK H. HUNTER
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Jun 21, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

After years of American churches sending waves of missionaries to evangelize Africa, one mainline denomination is seeing a tide of African missionaries coming here to lead.

Why? Controversies raging in the U.S. Episcopal Church such as homosexual clergy and theological divisions over bedrock biblical doctrines are straining relationships in the worldwide Anglican Communion and fracturing congregations and dioceses in America.

In the past year, about 40 Baton Rouge Episcopalians joined together to form a new congregation. The All Saints Anglican Church of Baton Rouge is part of the Anglican Mission of the Americas, AMiA, a missionary outreach of the more fundamental Episcopal Church of Rwanda.

“When my church, the Episcopal Church, became something I couldn’t recognize, especially when they questioned the deity of Christ, it was a very isolating feeling,” All Saints member Rose-Louise Harrell said. “They went beyond taking the church off the tracks, they hijacked the train and we resent them forcing their heresy down our throats.”

The All Saints Anglican Church of Baton Rouge is the only AMiA church in Louisiana and is affiliated with the Little Rock Network of AMiA, a group of 12 parishes from California to Tennessee, four smaller fellowships and two mission works.

The Baton Rouge congregation has no priest, but is led by local lawyer Robert D. Hoover and is being visited by priests from other areas. On June 8, the church hosted one of those Africa-to-America missionaries, Bishop Alexis Bilindabagabo, of the Anglican Diocese of Gahini, Rwanda.

“We used to be the missionaries and now it is reversed,” said Hoover as he introduced members and guests to Bishop Bilindabagabo during a service at the Ollie Steele Burden Conference Center on the campus of the Rural Life Museum along Essen Lane.

“We meet here (at the conference center), because we’re like the early church where they met under a tree,” Hoover said. “Like the Bible says, ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I’ll be there.’”

Bishop Bilindabagabo greeted each member with a large smile, a firm handshake and friendly conversation spoken with precise British-style English.

“When I learned you didn’t have a priest I knew I had to come here and let you know you belong to a wider family —larger than you know,” Bilindabagabo said before presenting his sermon based on Acts Chapter 2, the story of the Holy Spirit coming like a great wind to empower the church. “Hurricane Katrina was a violent wind, but (the coming of the Holy Spirit) was not a violent wind — it was not destroying houses — but it was strong!”

He encouraged the Baton Rouge congregation to be like the early church — “a worshipping community where you break bread together.” 

He stressed the importance of evangelism because “a church that is not a missionary church is a dying church.” That’s why the AMiA, which has added 100 new churches in 10 years, is committed to reaching out, he said.

After Bilindabagabo celebrated the Holy Eucharist, he changed out of his robes and hosted a casual discussion about the denomination in general and the local situation in particular.