By Ron Barnett
STAFF WRITER
rbarnett@greenvillenews.com
The bishop of South Carolina's African Methodist Episcopal
churches has been chosen to become the top-ranking bishop of the
nearly 3-million-member worldwide denomination, a state AME official
said Wednesday.
The Right Rev. Preston Warren Williams II, presiding bishop of
the 7th Episcopal District, which encompasses all of South Carolina,
will be invested in June as president of the denomination's global
Council of Bishops, spokesman Benjamin Harrison said.
The denomination has churches in North America and South America,
Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, he said.
South Carolina has the largest number of churches in any of the
denomination's districts -- 634 -- and the largest number of AME
members per capita in any district -- 250,000 to 300,000 -- Harrison
said.
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"The thing that makes it historic is that this is the first time
in the over 200-year history of the AME church that a presiding
bishop in South Carolina will be invested as president of Council of
Bishops," he said.
According to information provided by the church:
Williams was bishop of an AME district in central Africa from
2000 until 2004, when he became bishop of South Carolina.
Under his leadership, the AME church formed a partnership with
the state Department of Juvenile Justice to help at-risk youth, and
he helped successfully lobby the Legislature for passage of a
program that pays teenagers to tutor younger children.
The church also worked with the state Department of Social
Services to provide free lunch in the summertime to 800
underprivileged children.
The AME Council of Bishops, which includes the denomination's 21
bishops, is the executive branch of the church and has general
oversight of the church between General Conferences, which meet
every four years.
The president of the Council of Bishops serves a one-year term.
Williams, who will continue to preside over the South Carolina
district as he takes on the new position, will be invested at the
denomination's General Board and Council of Bishops meeting in
Charleston June 25-29.
Williams is chairman of the board of Allen University in Columbia
and sits the governing board at Wesley Theological Seminary in
Washington, D.C.
He served 19 years on the Atlanta Board of Education and was a
member of President Jimmy Carter's transitional team. |
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