KWASHI: Yes. We got to know the ones in the diocese of Damaturu in Yorbe state. Today Damaturu is virtually gone. We only have one surviving church where there once over 47 thriving churches. They have all been destroyed, and the people have either left, been killed, homes destroyed, or simply gone no one knows where. The bishop of Damaturu is now living in Jos with my brother.

SO how has it come about that a thrice married man who says he does not need the forgiveness of God, tells lies about his real wealth, (is it $10 billion or really $4.5 billion as Forbes says?). He publicly humiliated his first wife while having an affair with another woman. His name is all over a casino that features a strip club; and, when he went bankrupt, laid off 16,000 employees in Atlantic City, according to a woman my wife and I met in Mexico.

It's why the insult hurled at the African bishops by Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, touched a nerve and angered African believers, when he said African blacks had "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity," even though more black bishops have PhDs in Nigeria than the US and Canada put together. (Spong has no PhD.)

In a statement from his diocese, the evangelical Anglican primate said the decision not to receive money from TEC is one expression of the reality that the Diocese of Egypt, with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, was (and still is) in an impaired relationship with the Episcopal Church.

One of our clergy in Ethiopia states our situation in graphic terms: "We'd rather starve and not receive money from churches whose actions contradict the scriptures," Archbishop Anis wrote.