The U.S. Episcopal Church on February 11 consecrated Barbara C. Harris as its first woman bishop in a ceremony in Boston marked by both joyous celebration and dire warnings.
For the 8,500 worshipers in Hynes Auditorium and tens of thousands of sympathizers not present, the admission of a female to the denomination’s highest order of ministry symbolized the culmination of a movement that began in 1974 with the illicit ordination of 11 women as priests at a Philadelphia parish. In 1976, the national church opened all orders of the Episcopal clergy to women.
But the election of Harris as suffragan (assisting) bishop of Massachusetts had wider implications. With her consecration by Episcopal primate Edmond Browning and 54 other bishops, the Anglican communion—a family of 70 million Christians in 28 national churches that grew out of the Church of England—became what church leaders have called an “impaired” communion.
A Church Divided
Last summer, the Lambeth Conference of worldwide Anglican bishops, meeting in Canterbury, England, explicitly but uncomfortably affirmed the right of Anglican churches to name female bishops. The 58-year-old Harris, an activist priest/publisher from Philadelphia known for her outspoken liberal views, became the first, as she knelt before Browning and other senior bishops of the U.S. Episcopal Church for the ancient rite of the laying on of hands, which is believed to date back to Jesus’ commissioning of the apostles. When she rose and donned the cope and miter, signifying her new dignity, she became at once a new focus of unity and a symbol of division among Anglicans and within Christendom.
After the three-hour service that mixed Mozart with Afro-American spirituals such as “Ride On, King Jesus,” Browning said the Episcopal church was greatly appreciative of women’s gifts to the ministry. He predicted others would follow in Harris’s footsteps.
Browning had contended in a letter to “ecumenical leaders” that his church was not scuttling the historic ministry by adding women bishops, but was instead seeking to open it to the other half of the human race. But testimonials read during the consecration service indicated only 61 of the church’s 118 diocesan committees consented to Harris’s ordination as bishop.
Many of her opponents vowed not to recognize her as bishop, and at least two New England parishes staged requiems concurrently with her consecration to mourn symbolically the “death” of the church as they knew it.
Objections Aired
During the service when Browning, in keeping with the ritual, asked if anyone had objections, layman John Jamieson, representing the conservative Prayer Book Society based in Kentucky, stood and said the ceremony over which Browning was presiding would be a “sacrilegious imposture” if it proceded. Jamieson argued that Anglicans lack a worldwide consensus on the theological legitimacy of ordaining women as bishops. He added that Anglicans have no authority to alter the nature of an apostolic ministry they claim to share with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, both of which have repeatedly ruled out changing the 2,000-year tradition of ordaining only men to the priesthood and episcopate.
U.S. Episcopalians, however, have been characterized by a willingness to part with tradition on theological and social issues. Many U.S. priests and bishops have been prominent backers of the black, feminist, and gay liberation movements. Nationally there are more than 1,000 women among the some 14,000 active and retired clergy in the 2.5 million-member denomination. Only a few other Anglican churches—in Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Brazil—have made women eligible for all orders of the clergy.
NORTH AMERICAN SCENE
ABORTION
Prolife Defeat
An emotionally charged abortion case ended last month when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in a legal battle surrounding whether an abortion should be performed on a comatose woman. The Court’s refusal cleared the way for the abortion.
Martin Klein successfully petitioned New York courts to authorize an abortion for his pregnant wife, who has been in a coma since an automobile accident in December. After hearing medical testimony from Nancy Klein’s attending physician and other doctors, a New York Supreme Court judge determined the abortion was not necessary to save her life. However, the judge also ruled that Klein—“not strangers”—should be granted guardianship. Klein authorized the abortion in the hope it would improve his wife’s chances of recovery.
Prolife individuals in New York had sought to block the abortion, claiming it was medically unnecessary. No national prolife groups were involved in the legal dispute. But James Bopp, counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said his group took the position that since “the trial judge ruled as a matter of fact that the abortion was not necessary to save [the mother’s] life, … the unborn child’s life could and should have been saved.”
HUNGER
Bush Urged: End Hunger
The Christian antihunger group Bread for the World has released an open letter urging President George Bush to “make the reduction of hunger in this nation and abroad a major goal” of his administration. “Lead us in bold new efforts to reduce hunger,” said the letter, signed by 49 Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders.
The letter included assertions that:
• no child should go to bed hungry;
• people need jobs with adequate pay;
• aid programs should directly assist the truly poor;
• initiatives for peace can reduce hunger;
• poor countries need debt relief.
“These affirmations do not offer detailed prescriptions for the reduction of hunger,” the letter stated. “They indicate a sense of direction that would yield an immeasurable harvest of benefits in this nation and throughout the world.”
“We realize that our church food banks and soup kitchens alone cannot solve the problem of hunger,” said Bread for the World’s president, Arthur Simon.
UPDATE
Victory for Student Bible Club
The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska, was wrong in forbidding a student Christian Bible study club to meet on school property during noninstructional hours. The decision overturned a lower court’s ruling against the club (CT, Mar. 4, 1988, p. 41).
Last month’s appellate decision deemed the Bible study constitutional, ruling that the school district could not discriminate on the basis of the religious content of students’ speech.
The National Legal Foundation (NLF), which has represented the students throughout the legal battle, called the ruling a “major victory.” Noting the seniority of the three judges on the appeals panel, NLF executive director Robert Skulrood said this was “one of the most clean-cut, straightforward decisions we’ve seen in a religious freedom case.”
At press time, it was not clear whether the school district would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
ENTERTAINMENT
Lighting a Candle
D. James Kennedy, the Florida-based Presbyterian minister and religious broadcaster, says he is now branching into another area of the mass media: the film industry. Kennedy and his Coral Ridge Ministries recently announced plans to launch a for-profit film company. The new company will produce “mainstream movies” containing “morally positive” themes.
Kennedy said the highly controversial movie The Last Temptation of Christ, released last year by Univeral Pictures, was a major factor in his decision to begin his own film company. “We’re tired of sex and blasphemy and immorality, of sadism and influencing people for ill,” lamented Kennedy.
At the same time, however, Kennedy said that the company will not be producing “religious” movies. “Our desire is not to curse the darkness,” he said, “but to light a candle—maybe a string of candles.”
Kennedy has assembled a group of Hollywood veterans to assist with the project. The group includes Tim Penland, a Christian who did marketing consulting with Universal Pictures before leaving during protests of The Last Temptation of Christ.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
Briefly Noted:
Selected: Black theology professor James A. Forbes, Jr., as pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. Forbes, 53, has been teaching at Union Theological Seminary, next door to Riverside. Raised in the Pentecostal tradition, he said he will help bring more of a “multi-ethnic” focus to the church.
Appointed: Donald J. Moore, as executive director of Vision 2000 Canada. Moore will administer the organization’s mandate to revitalize and mobilize the Canadian church for outreach in the 1990s.
To serve Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as dean of the chapel, Paul E. Toms. Toms, senior minister at Park Street Church in Boston since 1969, will retire from that position in June.
Awaiting Schism?
Despite surveys showing that most churchgoers favor women priests, the Church of England is moving cautiously in hopes of avoiding a split by Anglo-Catholics and evangelical opponents, who cite tradition and Scripture as impediments to ordaining women as bishops.
Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie favors women clergy, though he acknowledges that under current English church law he cannot recognize Bishop Harris or any clergy she ordains. Bishop of London Graham Leonard, a traditionalist, says he will not be in communion with Harris or any of the bishops who joined in consecrating her. Australian Anglicans are sorely divided on the issue, while Anglican leaders in Third World countries by and large either vehemently oppose ordaining women as priests and bishops or they do not regard the issue as a priority.
Irish primate Robin Eames chairs a panel of leaders intent on keeping official inter-Anglican relations from deteriorating any further. The U.S. traditionalist minority is moving to consolidate its strategy as well. The Evangelical and Catholic Mission, an Anglo-Catholic group led by a dozen active and retired bishops, has called an “extraordinary synod” for June in Fort Worth, Texas. In calling this synod the bishops said they regard the election of Harris as a sign of the “final crisis of the church.” They said they will try to function as “the church within the church.”
It remains to be seen whether this means formal schism or merely an internal regrouping in which traditionalists seek to create an “island” jurisdiction for themselves. Clearly, one of the purposes of the Fort Worth synod is for traditionalists to gauge their strength.
For her part, Harris has shown restraint in answering critics. But she has given no indication that her views are moderating. A day after her consecration, in her first sermon as bishop, she told a packed sanctuary at Boston’s Episcopal cathedral that avoiding risks is not the Christian way. “If Jesus had played it safe, we would not be saved,” she declared to a standing ovation. “If the Diocese of Massachusetts had played it safe, I would not be standing here today clothed in rochet and chimere [traditional bishops’ regalia] and wearing a pectoral cross.”
By Richard Walker in Boston.
