Word: carres
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...nearly seven years as general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, the flamboyant Canon Burgess Carr often seemed more interested in politics than religion. The 42-year-old Anglican spoke often of liberation and less often of salvation, and declared: "We have had a British Jesus on our backs too long." Now the conference, which claims a constituency of 68 million non-Catholics, has reluctantly concluded that it has had the burly Carr on its back too long...
...Carr era ended at a tense emergency meeting in Lome, the sweltering capital of Togo. Though the All Africa Conference's board issued statements defending Carr, key churchmen finally concluded that he had brought the young ecumenical organization to the brink of disaster. The board put Carr on leave until May 1979, when his term officially expires. This week Carr becomes a research fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, and in the next academic year a visiting lecturer at Harvard Divinity School. His interim replacement: Egyptian Coptic Layman Sarwat G. Shehata, 39, a quiet management expert...
Most African Christians defended Carr's style of political Christianity, including his support of black guerrillas in Rhodesia and South Africa. But many were afraid that he had made the organization too secular. The conference could "speak with eloquence on political issues, but had no spiritual message," says one church analyst. Nor was Carr above using the most sacred themes for political ends. Defending the guerrillas, he told the last All Africa Assembly, in 1974: "In accepting the violence of the cross, God, in Jesus Christ, sanctified violence into a redemptive instrument." Such comments helped dry up vital funding...
...credit, Carr did not attack just the West. He also denounced Africa's own murderous dictators, self-seeking businessmen and corrupt politicians. This caused trouble in Kenya, where the All Africa Conference is based. Attorney General Charles Njonjo turned against Carr, branding him a meddler. Even though a palatial $2 million headquarters on government-donated land is due to open in Nairobi next October, Carr tried to pull the organization out of the country...
...Carr's conduct got him into as much trouble as his outspokenness. His high-handed handling of his staff produced a ceaseless round of firings and resignations. He acted like the ecumenical Pope of Africa, and grass-roots Christians complained that he paid scant attention to their opinions. Many took offense at the 1974 assembly's proclamation of a missionary-go-home policy (since downplayed) and its declaration of war against "theological conservatism...