About a month ago I had an update that included news from the Presbyterian church in northern Sudan, the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church.  There is now news from a General Assembly of the southern branch, the Presbyterian Church of Sudan.  As a brief background, these two branches derive from different histories of establishment, not directly from theological or political differences.  However, each of these branches has split and has had to develop its own complex structure to continue ministry in areas that are on each side of the Sudan civil war.

Now an article from the Sudan Tribune brings us news that the southern Presbyterian Church of Sudan, at their 32nd General Assembly, took action to reunite the church and the church structure of their branch.  With the help of Dr. Riek Machar Teny, a member of the church and the Vice-President of the Government of Southern Sudan, the Assembly reconciled, united, and passed a new constitution decentralizing the church government to the ten presbyteries and establishing a General Headquarters lead by a new Moderator General.  The article makes it clear that additional presbyteries can be added as the church expands into areas of the country currently without a Presbyterian church.  And each presbytery will have equal representation of 34 commissioners each to the General Assembly.  (The article does not say if they will be evenly split between elders and clergy.)

But it is interesting to note that in the election for the four national officers, Moderator General, Deputy Moderator General, Secretary, and Treasurer, each of the two candidates for each office were clergy.  In addition, each election was close and they had almost identical vote counts:  179-161, 175-164, 175-165, and 172-168 respectively.  I don’t know if these are just coincidence, or if these similar numbers represent  particular groups.  The article says that the leaders pledged to work for unity and encouraged the church to do so as well.  They have my prayers for a united witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ for Sudan.

Update (4/9/08):  The Los Angeles Times has published an interesting article about the decision to not ask about religion or ethnicity in the upcoming census in Sudan.  The dynamics are complicated, as you might expect in a country with the civil war so recently halted and so many refugees.  But one dynamic that relates to the PCOS is that the non-Muslim southern part of the country is growing faster than the Muslim north.  It is an interesting article for more detailed background on the current situation in Sudan and implications for the church.