Anglican/Episcopal News

Slated for Justice?: What the Nominating Committee's Report Says about the Church
 By Father Jake
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
 

The nominees for Presiding Bishop have been announced, and photos and bios made available by the Episcopal News Service:

The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander, Bishop of Atlanta
The Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Jr., Bishop of Kentucky
The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada
The Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr., Bishop of Alabama

The election will occur at General Convention in June, which gives us months to ponder what this slate of nominees might tell us about how the nominating committee sees the state of the church, where the church may be headed, and what strengths the next Presiding Bishop needs to serve as an effective leader in the years to come.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss this list of nominees with the Right Reverend Barbara C. Harris, who was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts on February 11, 1989. On that day, Bishop Harris became the first woman to serve as bishop in the Anglican Communion. After many years of faithful service, especially as an outspoken advocate for social justice causes, Bishop Harris recently retired and now serves as Assisting Bishop in the Diocese of Washington. As a veteran bishop who from her election and consecration challenged us to rethink our expectations for that order of ministry, she is uniquely qualified to help us assess and, when appropriate, expand expectations for our Presiding Bishop.

One of the challenges to be faced by the next Presiding Bishop getting the most attention is responding to the Lambeth Commission's Windsor Report and related issues, and this slate of candidates has been active in that arena. Katharine Jefferts Schori gave a lecture entitled "So Where Is the Episcopal Church Headed Now?" at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) on the subject, which was also the subject of her address to the Diocese of Nevada's 2004 convention. More recently, she was appointed to the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, which is charged with preparing the way for General Convention's response to the report. Neil Alexander was one of the presenters at the Nottingham meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council last June, perhaps in part because of his book This Far by Grace: A Bishop's Journey Through Questions of Homosexuality, and his regular column on his diocese's website refers frequently, if occasionally obliquely, to issues raised by the Lambeth Commission.

Edwin Gulick currently co-chairs the Anglican Roman Catholic Dialogue, serves on the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission, and contributed to the study which led to the publication of Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, a document that the two faith communities worked on together for five years. His ecumenical work contributes to his perspective on Windsor, as he emphasizes particularly in his November 2004 interview on Windsor for his diocese's newspaper, in which he notes that putting "a higher premium on remaining in the family" would be a positive and "Biblical" step, quoting Jesus' "Highly Priestly Prayer" that they "may all be one even as I and the Father are One" (John 17:21) as a text central in both considerations of how to respond to the Windsor Report and as "the seminal text in ecumenical life" (Episcopal News, Diocese of Kentucky, page 10). And Henry Parsley has also been perceived as an important voice on Windsor, serving as a panelist in General Theological Seminary's panel discussion in January of last year on the report, which he said was calling the church to a "win/win situation" even as he expressed concerns about the report's "centralizing tendencies."

Indeed, none of the nominees for Presiding Bishop have expressed enthusiasm about greater centralization of authority in the church, and if the slate is any indication, proposals to concentrate authority among the Primates are unlikely to gain much traction in the Episcopal Church. While Barbara Harris noted in my conversation with her that the Presiding Bishop "represents the Episcopal Church among other provinces of the Communion" and therefore needs "a global ... as well as an ecumenical perspective," s/he is "the chief among equals" in our House of Bishops -- a phrase echoing the description of the Archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares -- and spoke against characterizing the Archbishop of Canterbury or any Primate as having authority greater than other bishops. "To put it bluntly," Harris said, "despite being described as an 'Instrument of Unity,' the Primates' Meeting has no authority. It was called into being as a consultative body to take counsel together. Some of the Primates are abrogating to themselves authority they do not and should not have."

The kind of authority for which many are thirsting, Harris says, is that of a prophetic leader: "We need a person of vision who can help this church move away from our continued negative obsession with human sexuality and help us focus more on mission and evangelism in the best sense of those terms." And evangelism and church growth may well have been on the radar for the nominating committee as well. The entire slate is drawn from the top ranks (or the top 20, at least; Atlanta is #5, Kentucky is #11, Nevada is #12, and Alabama is #17) of percentage growth in Average Sunday Attendance, according to Louie Crew's site. Jefferts Schori served on the New Congregations team and the Strategy Group for the 20/20 initiative at last General Convention as well, and that seems to have counted more than seniority in the House of Bishops, as both she and Alexander have served as bishops only since 2001, while bishops Parsley and Alexander were consecrated in 1994. "The nominating committee took the position that any active bishop who met the criteria of being able to serve out the term was eligible for consideration," Harris said; "it was a very open process ... the most open process we have seen in some time." And while three of the bishops nominated came from the South and Province IV, Harris noted, "I tend to think it was luck of the draw" in view of the openness of the process and the geographic range of the wider group considered.

The slate announced may indicate something that many have posited to be the case: that the strategy of the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Communion Network as outlined in the leaked 2004 Chapman memo -- a strategy of "a faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis" while seeking to become "a 'replacement' jurisdiction with confessional standards" -- has backfired, with such free moving "beyond or within the canons" being widely interpreted as indicating a breach not only of the canons, but of the collegial trust required for a Presiding Bishop to function. While one of the nominees, Henry Parsley, voted against consent to Gene Robinson's election, when the slate was announced he was quickly condemned by an American Anglican Council press release for having "strongly  criticized the efforts of the American Anglican Council (AAC) and the Anglican Communion Network (ACN)," and the press release noted disapprovingly that "he continues to increase financial support  given by the  Diocese of Alabama to the national  Episcopal Church." Clearly, the American Anglican Council suspects that their leaked strategy of disregard for both the canons of the church and principles of episcopal jurisdiction held since Nicea may have pushed them to the margins of serious discussions about the direction of the church -- and on that point they may be right. At the same time, it's worth noting that none of those nominated laid hands on Bishop Robinson at his consecration, leading many to conclude that the committee was taking seriously into account the continued sensitivity of Robinson's consecration amongst the Primates in particular -- although the nomination of a woman for the position at a point at which the recognition of women as bishops is less than assured in some quarters within even the Church of England indicates that the committee was willing to assert the importance of nominating highly qualified candidates and the tradition of provincial autonomy as well as independence.

In our conversation, Bishop Harris remarked that "this slate is difficult to read in terms of which direction the person elected might try to guide this church," and beyond the indicators sketched above, I must say that I agree. In some ways, the slate is remarkable for what it does not include. There are no bishops of color nominated. Jefferts Schori has studied Spanish, used it in ministry, and under her tenure as bishop has seen a number of Spanish-language services as well as one African congregation founded in her diocese, but the slate on the whole is not notable for its credentials in multicultural ministry. None of the bishops nominated have been particularly vocal regarding the war in Iraq.

With Harris, who said, "I would hope that the House of Bishops would vote for the strongest nominee on that slate, but I'm afraid they won't," I have to say that considerations other than the strength and vision of each candidate are likely to sway at least some votes, and the committee seems to have kept among its chief considerations the likelihood for broad consensus around each potential nominee. It's unlikely that the next General Convention will see the election of a Presiding Bishop who will save the Church. Fortunately, however, we have a Savior already; what we need from the coming election is a leader who can discern the movement of God, which is always from glory to glory, and can lead us into that dance with strength and grace. The one way to ensure that our next Presiding Bishop is strengthened with our prayers is to pray for all bishops -- especially as nominations by petition could yet come in -- as we seek together to discern God's will and find the strength to stand for God's justice.


Father Jake is an Episcopal priest serving in the Diocese of New Jersey. Visit his blog at Father Jake Stops the World.