Marc Nikkel

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Marc Nikkel (1950-2000) was a U.S. Episcopal priest and missionary in the Sudan. Born to Mennonite parents in Reedley, California, Nikkel studied at the California State University School for the Visual Arts and at Fuller Seminary before converting to Anglicanism. In 1981 he began teaching at Bishop Gwynne College in Mundri, Sudan. In 1984-1985 he studied at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Chelsea, New York, being ordained to the diaconate by the Bishop of Southwestern Virginia and to the priesthood on his return to the Sudan.

Nikkel was kidnapped by the Sudanese Liberation Army in July 1987 along with several other Americans. He was later released in northern Kenya. From 1987-1988 he taught at Saint Paul's United Theological College in Limuru, Kenya. He next left Africa to begin doctoral studies at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World in Edinburgh, Scotland. After doctoral work, Nikkel served as an advisor to several Sudanese Anglican dioceses, working in partnership with the English Church Missionary Society and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. His primary work was in theological education among the Dinka or Jieng people of the Nile basin.

He was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, and died in California in 2000.

[edit] Selected Bibliography

• The Outcast, the Stranger and the Enemy in Dinka Tradition contrasted with Attitudes of Contemporary Dinka Christians (unpublished Master's thesis, General Theological Seminary, 1988)
• Dinka Christianity: The Origins and Development of Christianity among the Dinka of Sudan, with Special Reference to the Songs of Dinka Christians
• Why Haven't You Left? Letters from the Sudan, edited by Grant LeMarquand ISBN 0898694728

[edit] External links

• Entry from the Dictionary of African Christian Biography
• The Crosses of Dinka Christians from Fox Video
• Editorial reflection on Marc Nikkel from Anglicans Online