Nominees for Presiding Bishop Announced
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The Episcopal Church Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop (JNCPB) has announced their nominees for the 27th Presiding Bishop.
They are:
Thomas Breidenthal SOUTHERN OHIOMichael Curry NORTH CAROLINAIan Douglas CONNECTICUTDabney Smith SOUTHWEST FLORIDA
PDF is of Nominating Booklet is here
More news to follow.
UPDATE: From Office of Public Affairs
The 27th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church will be elected on Saturday, June 27 during The Episcopal Church’s 78th General Convention which will be held June 25 – July 3 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, UT (Diocese of Utah).
Posted by Andrew Gerns
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Concerned about +Smith's lack of prophetic voice on marriage equality in the church in SWFL. Prayers for all of the candidates.
Actually I think that Bishop Smith is the one with a "prophetic voice" regarding same sex blessings. If you read the OT Prophets, they were not so much concerned with teaching "new" truths, but with calling the people back to the Covenant they made with God.
We promised (in our Baptismal Covenant) to be continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship. That is our covenant. The prophetic voice is the one that calls us back to our covenant - back to the Apostles' teaching.
But Philip, none of your OT prophets said anything about LGBT people. They hammered the message that Ezekiel expresses as the sin of Sodom, "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy."
Given that most scholars have now concluded that the "clobber passages" in the NT do not actually refer to gay people or equal marriage, it is time to move forward with the prophetic voice of inclusion.
Forward, not back.
Cynthia - "forward, not back" was probably one of the slogans of Ahab and the other kings that slew the prophets of Israel. They wanted to move forward, beyond their covenant to embrace a deeper understanding of God - that He was both YWHW and Baal - that Baal was simply another way of looking at YHWH.
It seems that human beings keep wanting to go Forward. But when you have gone down the wrong path, they only way to get to the right path is to turn around (repent) and go back to where you went wrong.
The prophetic voice calls us to repent, not to go forward. Every one of the Prophets called Israel (or her Kings in the prophets of Samuel and Kings) to repentance. They called Israel to go back, not forward.
Return to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship.
Could you find me a place where the Apostles addressed and excluded LGBT people? You can't, it isn't there.
The church used to justify slavery, racism, antisemitism, witch-burning, misogyny, and homophobia.
The "prophetic voice" is the one that sees all people as created in the Image of God, and sets aside a long and ugly history of us Creating God in our Bigoted Image.
Jesus said that we could tell the real prophets from the false ones by the fruits of their labor. Look around. Look at the damage caused by treating any class of people as dehumanized "others." Those fruits are ugly. So stop it. Just stop it. The churches long "tradition" of oppression on many fronts should give everyone pause before imposing their view, by force, in policy or law.
No one should exclude people.
Likewise, no sin should be blessed.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke in a prophetic voice against racism because racism is unbiblical and does not accord with the teachings of the Apostles. Even at the height of Democratic party controlled racism, no liturgy was ever devised for the lynching of a black man or the burning of his church building.
The Apostles did not exclude any people, but Paul did exclude several sins. Homosexual sex was among those sins. The Church lacks he authority to bless same sex unions because it lacks the authority to bless sin. The Church can no more bless same sex unions as it can bless racism or sexism or theft or murder.
Since you asked me a question on the Apostle's teaching, please answer one of mine. Where in Holy Scripture do you see God blessing same sex unions. Where do you see "marriage" as defined as anything but one man and one woman in the New Testament?
PS - By invoking racism you have baited me. The Episcopal Church condoned slavery from its inception in North America and found Biblical support for its position. And after the Civil War it long Jim-Crowed the church. Vast numbers of whites feared black control of the church; white bishops (among others) openly claimed blacks were not civilized and not capable of leadership. We as a church were still slowing the arc of justice when MLK walked the earth. Consider, for instance, all white church schools. Consider that some dioceses still constitutionally required leadership to be Anglo-Saxon.
The same holds with marriage equality and homosexual sex. Instead of telling me one is not mentioned in the bible and the other is listed as a sin (though I would dispute even that), tell me what about the greatest commandments makes either a sin? It is we who commit the sin when we deny a Loving couple marriage, just as we did when we supported slavery and Jim Crow - and did not speak out against miscegenation laws.
I have no need to justify who I am and the love my husband and I share... a love that was recently expressed in holy marriage in the Episcopal Church. People like yourself, who would maliciously equate marriage equality with racism and lynching, are on the wrong side of history and so far from the God I know... all I can do is pray for your conversion and that you find peace.
John - those bishops and priests and people were all wrong about racism and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King showed them their error - from within the teachings of Holy Scripture. So, can you do the same for me with same sex blessings? Show me where God speaks of homosexual sex in any way other than as a sin. Show me where Jesus contradicts the OT Law on sexual morality - except to make it more strict (lusting after a woman is committing adultery with her in your heart). Speak out of the Tradition as Dr. King did (and as Thomas Aquinas did when he condemned slavery and as all the other clergy that spoke against racism did.
Even those who support women's ordination had recourse to scripture. What is the scriptural warrant for blessing same sex unions? I have never been shown any verse that approves of it - without there being serious other problems present. E.g. the healing of the Centurion's pais. If "pais" refers to Sex Slave and Jesus' healing of the pais is Jesus' approval of homosexual relationships, then the approved model of homosexual sex is master/slave, not two people meeting as equals. Second, Jesus is referred to as God's pais in Luke as well. What does that say about Jesus' relationship with God.
By "prophetic voice" do you mean that someone says what you want to hear? If not, what does the term mean?
Positions / declarations / messages that reveal themselves to people as being divinely inspired... particularly messages calling people to move towards justice. There is nothing bold, just, leaderly, or divine about Bishop Smith's tepid movements on this issue to date.
Chris - how do we know if a message is inspired by the Holy Spirit or some other spirit?
According to the BCP, we know when the "new teaching" accords with the Holy Scriptures. Since Bishop Smith is faithful to the Holy Scriptures and his teaching (on this issue) accords with 2000 years of tradition, I would say his voice is the prophetic one.
Sin cannot be justice. Denying the teaching of the Book of Common Prayer is not justice. The voice of the prophet always called Israel back to her Covenant with God. The "justice" issues of poverty and commerce uber alles were simply symptoms that Israel had broken its Covenant.
I would say that the anger, hatred, lawsuits, impatience, and lack of self-control (on all sides) are signs that we have broken our covenant with God. We need to return to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship.
Hmm, nothing west of, um, Ohio. I guess east coast bias isn't just a sports thing.
The present Presiding Bishop came from Utah - a bit west of the Mississippi. Three of the Nominees come from Southern Dioceses. Connecticut is the southernmost New England Diocese but definitely not of the South. On the East Coast the North differs greatly from the South, possibly more so than the Atlantic/Gulf Coast differs from the Pacific West Coast. Now, how to sort out the Great Lakes, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and points West, but not including the Pacific Coast? Perhaps all sorting is not necessary or possible, given that we are Episcopalians and in my experience tend to move about quite a lot. [Just a quasi-geographical comment with no serious agenda intended.]
I believe the current PB was bishop of Nevada, not Utah. She also has ties to Oregon. Whatever happens, we here in Utah are very excited to have all of you with us for a very unique and wonderful time when there will be more Episcopalians in our state than ever before!
The present PB was Bishop of Nevada, neighbor to Utah, similar in some ways but very different in some important ways. Before that, she was from Oregon and worked in (Pacific Ocean) marine biology before she became a priest. Certainly she is from the West and has a Western sensibility, not to mention a pilot license 🙂
Nevada...
I am suprised that +Tom allowed himself to be nominatied. I do think that he would make a good Presiding Bishop- he is a liberal who can work with conservatives, and his theology is by no means radical. But he's said in the past that he has no interest in being Presiding Bishop. I guess he changed his mind.
It is hard for me to whine about this list.
Let the whining begin ...
OK, I'll oblige: I honestly expect there to be at least 1 female *nominee* EVERY time here on out. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, there should always be a woman on the list. But there also need to be more female diocesans.
Yes, without female bishops you cannot have a female on the slate: we need more female bishops for the nominating committee to consider. (We also, by the way, need greater diversity on many diocesan staffs.)
As it happens, at least one female diocesan declined to stand.
Technically, our current PB could have been on the slate, but she too declined to stand. Also, any bishop (not just diocesans) can be nominees. Likewise, there's misinformation out there about tenure -- you can be in your present position less than five years and move into the position of PB. I don't know whether this nominating committee broke from the tradition of diocesans with 5 years tenure.
Bit of trivia: The current Archbishop of Canterbury was on Bishop of Durham only a short time.