There are numerous articles appearing about the reactions around the world to Tuesday’s presidential election results. The Church Times in the UK has collected a number of reactions from African American leaders in the Episcopal Church and other reactions are being shared from around the world. President-elect Obama is featured on the front cover of the issue.
From the opening paragraphs of the article in the Church Times,
“The Bishop of North Carolina, the Rt Revd Michael Curry, said on Wednesday: ‘This is a day that I honestly never dreamed I would see. I think about my grandmother, who was the daughter of a sharecropper here in North Carolina. My ancestors were slaves here. My daddy went to jail so folk could vote.
‘My great-aunt Callie was a Sunday-school teacher at Sixteenth Street Baptist chapel where the little girls were killed in 1960. Somehow, all the things that people did without knowing how it was going to turn out helped to make this moment possible.
‘But they never dreamed this. Americans have said what we want to be: a country for all. That was the American dream from the beginning. God blesses us sometimes, in spite of ourselves, and, every once in a while, something happens that says that dream is real, and don’t give up on it for America, and ultimately for the whole world.’”
Read the full article in the Church Times here.
The Church Times blog also has this reaction from the Bishop of the Diocese where President-elect’s father’s family lives:
[…]the Rt Revd Joseph Wasonga, told Ecumenical News International: “I want to congratulate Obama. I think his winning will bring hope and healing to the whole world. His election has shown that America is truly democratic. . . I hope he will be able to challenge bad governance in Africa.”
The Bishops of the Church of Canada have released a statement as well.