Terrell Glenn

Terrell Lyles Glenn Jr. (born 1958) is an American bishop of the Anglican Church in North America. He is a former Episcopal priest who played an active role in the Anglican realignment in the United States. Consecrated in 2008 to serve as a bishop in the Anglican Mission in the Americas, Glenn is now an assisting bishop overseeing North Carolina congregations in the Diocese of the Carolinas.

Early life, education, and early career Glenn was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Terrell L. Glenn Sr., a former U.S. attorney, and Louise Owens Glenn. His paternal grandfather, John Lyles Glenn Jr., was a federal judge, and his maternal grandfather, Frank Owens, was a former mayor of Columbia.

Terrell Jr. attended St. Andrew's School in Delaware. One summer during high school, he had a conversion experience while participating in the youth group at home at Trinity Cathedral, led by the Rev. John Yates Jr., the future longtime rector of The Falls Church Anglican. He and a group of fellow students sought to hold evangelistic chapel services once the school year began at St. Andrew's, but Glenn has said that the administration stopped the services after two were held.

Glenn married Teresa deBorde; they had three children. After his ordination, Glenn served at a small rural parish in South Carolina, then as assistant rector at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Charleston for six years. In 1990, he was called as rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The statement—drafted at Murphy's church, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pawleys Island, South Carolina—declared the authority of the Episcopal Church and its General Convention to be "fundamentally impaired" because they no longer upheld the "truth of the gospel." Glenn and the statement's other signers also stated their intention to be aligned with Anglican Communion members whose theological principles aligned with the First Promise statement. —Glenn recalled that Global South Anglican primates became aware of the theological progressivism in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. Murphy and former Trinity School for Ministry dean John Rodgers were made bishops by Emmanuel Kolini and Moses Tay. They left the Episcopal Church and founded the AMIA with canonical residence in the Anglican Church of Rwanda —the first significant exodus from TEC since the Congress of St. Louis in 1977. He renounced his ordination in the Episcopal Church in February 2000 and later that year was received as a presbyter by the Anglican Church of Rwanda. That year, he became the founding rector of Church of the Apostles in Raleigh, North Carolina, under the auspices of the newly formed AMIA. Apostles grew to 375 in average attendance and a $1 million annual budget under Glenn. In 2005, Glenn was called as rector of All Saints, Pawleys Island, succeeding future bishop David Bryan as senior pastor. (After All Saints in 2004 changed its articles of incorporation to remove references to the Episcopal Church, the church was involved in a landmark case related to property ownership of Episcopal churches in South Carolina. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the parish, which predated the Episcopal Church, was the owner of its property regardless of the Dennis Canon. )

Episcopacy and transition to ACNA In 2007, the Rwandan bishops elected Glenn to serve as a missionary bishop in the AMIA. He was consecrated in January 2008 by Kolini alongside John Miller and Philip Jones. By the next year, the relationship between AMIA chairman Murphy and the Anglican Church of Rwanda's house of bishops, led by Kolini's successor Onesphore Rwaje, had broken down over questions of financial transparency and collegiality. Except for Glenn and Thad Barnum, the AMIA bishops removed AMIA from Rwandan jurisdiction and restructured it as a "missionary society." "What followed was a season of enmity, demonization, and slander," Glenn recalled. "In one case, bishops turned on congregations and clergy in ways that were worse than anything that had occurred at the hands of TEC when AMIA was formed in the first place. It was the single most painful experience that I have ever had in ministry." Barnum and Glenn were given temporary responsibility for PEARUSA congregations pending the election and consecration of new bishops. That year, the Church of the Apostles, which Glenn had planted in 2000, moved from the Anglican Diocese of Christ Our Hope to Glenn's jurisdiction in the Diocese of the Carolinas. He also served as dean for College of Bishops affairs in the ACNA.