Outbreak At Church Service Power Struggle Turns Violent from 1991

Outbreak At Church Service Power Struggle Turns Violent

By Terence Samuel, Inquirer Staff Writer Inquirer staff writer Mark Fazlollah contributed to this article

Posted: November 18, 1991

Sunday services at a Philadelphia church turned violent yesterday as warring factions in an intense power struggle at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith clashed inside the sanctuary.
Police, some in riot gear, were called to break up the confrontation, which included a wrestling match near the altar. The clash came during a memorial service for Bishop S. McDowell Shelton, who led the church until his death last month. No arrests were made.
Just after 1 p.m., police cars with lights flashing surrounded the church at 22d and Bainbridge Streets, and inside it seemed like anything but a church service.

The conflict revolved around who will lead the church and control its enormous financial resources.
What was supposed to be a solemn remembrance turned to chaos, with some of Shelton's younger adopted sons - known as princes of the church - trying to prevent an older son, Elder Nehiamiah Shelton, from taking over.
Elder Nehiamiah, as he is known, said that he was the rightful successor to the bishop's post.
Yesterday marked the end of a 30-day mourning period for Shelton, whom the congregation referred to as "His Holy Apostolic Blessedness." During the mourning period, women were supposed to wear white and men were supposed to wear beards.
Shelton's robe hung over his chair near the altar in the middle of the church, a reminder of his rule.
Disciples stepped to the microphone, one by one, to testify to Shelton's holiness, and kindness to them. Most of them wept.
"You were blessed when you were in the presence of that man, whether you deserved it or not," said Prince Omega, one of Shelton's adopted sons and a member of the Royal House of Shelton, as Shelton declared his family, made up of adopted young men from the congregation.
But the end of mourning also signaled the beginning of an open battle for the reins of the church, and its reputed extensive financial resources, which Shelton amassed during his 30 years as pastor.
Shelton ruled with a firm hand. And there was hardly ever any public discussion of his lavish lifestyle, which was paid for with the tithes of the thousands of followers. Members were counseled to live simply and frugally and were required to give 10 percent of their income to the church.
The bishop, meanwhile, rode in luxury cars, lived in a penthouse apartment on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and traveled extensively.
Since Shelton's death at age 62 on Oct. 13, the church has been in turmoil over who among his adopted sons will replace him and who will control church assets.
The divisions were clear yesterday when Elder Nehiamiah Shelton tried to enter the church just after 1 p.m. for the service. He was followed by an entourage of about 20 young men, and he carried what was described as a court order saying that he was the rightful leader of the congregation.
As church guards tried to eject Elder Nehiamiah and his followers, a scuffle started in the aisle after the man refused to move.
The minister at the microphone began screaming, "Stop hitting him! Stop hitting him!"
The congregation of about 2,000 people stood up - some on the pews - and began screaming: "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" Police were called, and several officers, many in riot gear, appeared inside the church.
Elder Nehiamiah and his entourage went to the front of the church amid the screaming.
Prince Omega chastised Elder Nehiamiah for disrupting the "holiest day" of the year, the day of commemoration of His Blessedness. Before turning over the microphone to Elder Nehiamiah, Prince Omega addressed the congregation: ''You want to hear what Satan sounds like, listen to this." He called Shelton and his entourage "reprobates" and "bastards" and then dropped the microphone on the floor at Elder Nehiamiah's feet.
When Elder Nehiamiah tried to speak, the microphone went dead. He never got the chance.
Prince Omega then castigated him for trying to declare himself ''Blessedness II" at a time when all the congregation was trying to memorialize "the greatest man of the 20th century."
Prince Omega stood in front of Elder Nehiamiah, shouting and waving a white handkerchief: "This is a dog, a dog. You're a dog." Much of the audience seemed to approve; others just seemed stunned.
Elder Nehiamiah left the church about 1:50 p.m. The service continued into the early evening.
Even as the conflict grew out of control, members of the insular congregation, who are referred to as "saints," would not publicly discuss it.
"If you're not a member, then you don't need to know," said one woman. ''This is private business."
From the altar, one of the other princes announced that a court hearing on the matter would be held tomorrow. He offered no further detail, but urged as many "saints" as possible to attend.
For all the fireworks yesterday, this is not the first time the church has found itself in chaos. The upheaval that has followed Shelton's death parallels what happened when the church's founder, Bishop Sherrod C. Johnson, died in 1961. At the time, a 32-year-old S. McDowell Shelton, the church's business manager, seized the role of bishop in an atmosphere of intense conflict and heavy infighting.
Yesterday, one of Elder Nehiamiah's supporters seemed to refer to that time, though he certainly was too young to remember.
"They did the same thing to Blessedness, the same thing," he said.

After Theological Split, a Clash Over Church Assets

By SEAN D. HAMILL

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — After an overwhelming vote here over the weekend by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that created the second schism with the national church since the 2003 election and consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, both sides were hoping for a simple resolution.

“If the national church would stay out of it, we could work it out,” said the Rev. Jonathan Millard, who favored secession and led the convention on Saturday. “And I think 90 percent of the churches here would agree with me.”

Mr. Millard was referring to that most secular of issues: resolving who owns what among the millions of dollars’ worth of diocesan and parish property.

It is a huge concern for both sides after the vote on Saturday, which realigned the majority of the 74 parishes of the Pittsburgh diocese with a more conservative branch of the church in South America. On Saturday, 119 of 191 lay members voted in favor of leaving the national church, as did 121 of 160 clergy members.

“The people who have given and sustained these places ought to be able to keep them,” said Bishop Robert W. Duncan, who was deposed last month as Pittsburgh’s bishop because of his push for secession and is expected to be appointed to lead the realigned churches at their first convention on Nov. 7.

Those who opposed secession, not surprisingly, did not share Bishop Duncan’s view.

“The idea that you can vote to leave the church and have the assets and the finances go with you is nonsensical,” said the Rev. Harold Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, a leader of those in the diocese opposed to secession.

Or, as Joan Gunderson, who helped create the group Across the Aisle to fight secession, put it: “Their position is that the diocese left when they did. Our position is that the diocese didn’t leave, individuals did.”

Pittsburgh became the second Episcopal diocese to leave the national church over a theological battle that had been brewing for 30 years and boiled over with the consecration of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire five years ago.

Other issues that have been hotly debated in the church include the ordination of women, which was approved by the national church in 1979, and whether Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation.

The Diocese of San Joaquin, in Fresno, Calif., voted to leave the national church last December. The dispute there is continuing with a lawsuit filed in April by the local diocese and the national church.

The decision to file a lawsuit over church property in Pittsburgh rests with those who have remained with the national church, said the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon to Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the national church.

“We are always hoping to avoid litigation; that is always a last resort,” Mr. Robertson said. “But seeking to be responsible means taking care of the heritage of the church. And we have seen again and again most of the time in our system the courts rule that the property needs to stay with the diocese.”

At least 16 parishes have voted to stay with the national church, and others are likely to decide within the next few months. Some of those 16 — many of which disagree with secession but agree with conservatives on theological issues — could decide to leave the diocese if some changes are not made.

The diocese’s remaining parishes will begin rebuilding this week when a new Standing Committee, the diocese’s lead administrative body, is selected. Just one member of that committee remained after seven of its eight members voted for secession.

The diocese will hold a convention and elect a temporary bishop, probably by the end of the year.

The Rev. James Simon, a conservative who is the remaining member of the Standing Committee, said he had heard from many people who hoped to avoid litigation with a compromise on the property issue, as a symbol of healing after the split.

But Mr. Simon did not sound hopeful.

“I wish it were that simple,” he said.

Anglican conservatives move to form power bloc

International Herald Tribune (NYT Global Edition)

By Laurie Goodstein and Dina Kraft
Published: June 29, 2008

Anglican conservatives, frustrated by the ongoing stalemate over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, declared Sunday that they would defy the church's historic lines of authority and establish a new power bloc within the church that will be led by a council of predominantly African archbishops.

The announcement came at the close of an unprecedented meeting in Jerusalem by conservatives, who contend that they represent a majority of the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion.

They depicted their efforts as the culmination of an anti-colonial struggle against the church's seat of power in Britain, whose missionaries first brought Anglican Christianity to the developing world. The conservatives say that many of the descendants of those Anglican missionaries in Britain and North America are now following what they call a "false gospel" that allows a malleable, liberal interpretation of Scripture.

After more than 1,000 delegates to the meeting at a Jerusalem hotel affirmed their platform statement, African women, Australians, South Americans and Indians danced and swayed to a Swahili hymn and shouted full-throated hallelujahs.

Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who leads the largest province in the Communion, said at a news conference afterward: "It's quite clear we have been in turmoil. With this decision we have a fresh beginning."

He was accompanied by the archbishops of Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sydney, Australia, and a former American priest, David Anderson Sr., whom Akinola made a bishop of the Church of Nigeria.

They insisted that they were not breaking away from the Anglican Communion or creating a schism. But it is clear that, if carried out, their plans would create severe upheaval in the Communion, the world's third-largest grouping of churches after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

A statement the delegates issued in Jerusalem said that it was time to establish a branch in the United States and Canada that would absorb the churches that have been outraged by the American church's consecration of an openly gay bishop in 1993 and the Canadian church's blessing of same-sex unions.

They also challenged the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. The current archbishop, Rowan Williams, has been a disappointment to conservatives because he did not discipline or engineer an eviction of the liberal North Americans. The archbishop of Canterbury historically has not had the power to decree policy in the Communion, but in the past he determined which churches belonged to it.

The conservatives said that while they acknowledge Canterbury's historic position, they did not accept the idea "that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury."

They said that what would determine membership in their conservative alliance within the Communion is a manifesto they issued Sunday, called the "Jerusalem Declaration," which contains 14 principles of theological orthodoxy.

A majority of the conservatives at the meeting said they would boycott the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world that takes place every 10 years in Britain. That conference begins in mid- July.

There was no immediate response Sunday from the archbishop of Canterbury, the Episcopal Church in the United States or the Anglican Church of Canada. Some liberal American bloggers sought to play down the conservatives' actions, dismissing them as an attempt to hijack the Communion when, in their view, there are much more important issues for the church to confront, like poverty, AIDS and global warming.

Laurie Goodstein reported from New York and Dina Kraft from Jerusalem.