Muslim-majority Sudan declared 39th province of global Anglican Church

The head of the global Anglican church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has declared Muslim-majority Sudan as the 39th province of the church.

The 61-year-old spiritual leader of the Church of England (C of E), said he believed that the declaration will mark “a new beginning” for Christians in this predominantly Muslim country.

Welby was on an official visit to Sudan over the weekend where he met with the faithful exhorting them to make sure the province worked.

e also inaugurated the new leader and first Anglican Archbishop for the country in the person of Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku. “We welcome him with glee,” Welby said during the ceremony at the All Saints’ Cathedral in Khartoum.

Congratulations to my dear brother His Grace Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo, the first Archbishop and Primate of the new province of Sudan! pic.twitter.com/4dmS0ly6nc

— Justin Welby ن (@JustinWelby) July 30, 2017
“Christians in Sudan have a responsibility to make this province work and to make it loved by their brothers from abroad who must support it and pray for it,” he added.

Since mostly Christian, South Sudan, became independent in 2011, the Anglican Church in Sudan has been administered from Juba.

Sudan’s Christian-minority, concentrated mainly in the south of the country, in the region of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, have been long seen as persecuted with some priests having been arrested and charged among others with undermining the state and espionage.

After the secession of the South in 2011, human rights organizations and Christian groups accused the Sudanese authorities of persecuting Christians and even destroying churches in the capital.

The Anglican faith unites an estimated 85 million faithful across the world. Anglicanism was born out of a split with the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century after the then Pope’s refusal to grant King Henry VIII of England the annulment of his marriage.

Structured like the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church is often seen as halfway between Catholicism and Calvinist Protestantism.

White farmers who forced black S. African into a coffin plead not guilty

The two white South African farmers accused of forcing a black man into a coffin on Monday pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, assault and attempted murder.
Theo Jackson and Willem Oosthuizen, both 28, were making their first court appearance after the Middleburg Magistrate court granted them bail in mid-July.
They reiterated their stance that they meant no harm to victim and that they had only acted to deter him from trespassing on their property.

The decision to grant them a $77 (1,000 rand) bail sparked outrage in the court. Their bail came after they had spent eight months in detention.

They were arrested after a video that showed them forcing a black South African, Victor Mlotshwa, into a coffin and threatening to burn him, went viral on social media.

In the said video, the two are heard threatening to burn their victim. They also told a freightened Mlotshwa that they will drop a snake into the coffin. The video cause outrage in the country where racial tensions are very strong.

The victim told reporters of his ordeal at the hands of the two farmers, stating that they had tied him up for hours and would not listen to him despite repeated pleadings for mercy.

“There’s a pathway through the farm to the township where I live and many of us walk through there. I tried to explain to them why I was there and they just kept beating me,” he said.

“They threatened to pour petrol on me, I pleaded for mercy and they wouldn’t listen. I have nightmares about that day. It traumatised me,” he added.