Monday, December 10, 2007

PROFILE: ARCHBISHOP JOHN SENTAMU !

The Archbishop of York has taken a pair of scissors to his dog collar, saying he will not replace it until Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is out of office.
Dr John Sentamu said the president had taken people's identity and cut it to pieces, prompting him to do the same.
Britain's first black archbishop is no stranger to making such bold, defiant gestures.
In May last year, he wore a hoodie to a church conference to urge people not to judge teenagers by their choice of fashion.
And in 2004, as Bishop of Birmingham, he took the unusual step of advertising in the local press telling readers: "For God's Sake Birmingham, Use Your Vote!."
Three years later, he did the same before local elections in York, warning people against leaving the way open for politicians who offered "bile and discord".
Celebrity Big Brother
His plain speaking, energy and passion have won him friends in Downing Street and also made him a target for TV producers.
But offers to appear on reality show Celebrity Big Brother and panel shows including Have I Got News For You? were turned down. "We don't do celebrity," his spokesman said.

The Archbishop says 99% of hoodie-wearers are law-abiding.
John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, 56, was born near Kampala, in Uganda, in 1949.
The sixth of 13 children, he was so small that the local bishop was called in to baptise him immediately.
But he survived his birth, a sickly childhood, and a famine.
He studied law at Makerere University and then worked as a barrister, before becoming a judge in the Uganda High Court.
In 1974, his criticism of the Amin regime for its human rights violations led to his arrest and departure from Uganda for the UK.

Route to faith.
He studied theology at Cambridge with a view to returning home after his studies.
But when his friend, the Ugandan Archbishop Janani Luwum, was murdered he vowed to take his place, and was ordained in 1979.
Archbishop Sentamu, who has two grown-up children with wife Margaret, served in parishes in Cambridge and London.
During his 13 years as vicar of Holy Trinity Church, in Tulse Hill, south London, he raised £1.6m to restore the church and its organ, and increased the congregation tenfold.
From 1986 to 1992 he served on the Archbishop's Commission for Urban Priority Areas and he was chairman of the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns between 1990 and 1999.
In London, he had special responsibility for evangelism, minority ethnic Anglican concerns, police and community relations, and social justice.
As Bishop of Birmingham (Bishop for Birmingham as he was often called), he was one of only two senior UK Anglican bishops from ethnic minorities, alongside Bishop of Rochester the Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.
Archbishop Sentamu was an adviser to the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder, and chaired the inquiry which criticised police methods following the stabbing of Damilola Taylor.
He has often attacked the Church of England for being institutionally racist.
But he has also played down his reputation as an anti-racist campaigner, saying: "Yes definitely I am black but what is important is that I have got a living faith in God.
"I would like people to share my life, my faith, my hope.
"That, to me, is the most important."
He has indicated that he would be happy to ordain women bishops if the Church was to change its rules, and has also criticised the way some members of the Church have spoken about gay people.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

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