Pittsburgh’s Episcopal diocese narrows its search for bishop
[Ed. Note: I attended the Diocesan convention when the diocese of Pittsburgh split into two separate entities. The Passing of the Peace was devastating, as people realized as they hugged each other that the next half hour would sever their relationships, possibly forever. I especially remember the jubilant attitude that began that Passing of the Peace and the tears and weeping that ended that Passing of the Peace. Next month, those who stayed in TEC will choose a new bishop and continue to "get on with it." Each candidate speaks of the healing still needed and Anglicans United hopes that healing is found, embraced and perpetuated. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12064/1214133-455.stm#ixzz1oFyBShCu
Next month the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will elect a permanent bishop to lead it as it continues rebuilding after a split that took the majority of its parishes, clergy and its former bishop.
Its current prelate, Bishop Kenneth Price Jr., is a “provisional bishop” on loan from another diocese.
The Very Rev. George Werner, president of the diocesan Standing Committee, cited a diocesan history of hardball church politics in expressing his hope for the April 21 election. [Ed. note: The Rev. George Werner was a deputy from Pittsburgh beginning in 1985, and was elected President House of Deputies for the General Convention in 2000. He presided at the 2003 and in 2006 conventions. Bonnie Anderson was elected to fill the seat in 2006 after Werner was not elected by Pittsburgh as a deputy and could not retain the Presidents' seat. This was a bitter turn of events for the diocese, already split over the consecration of a homosexual in opposition to the stated words of Scripture. Werner addressed the convention and spoke against the separation of the diocese, blaming a few people for the whole "mess." He was seat in the back of the hall, commenting loudly to TEC press people in that same area. A most unhappy day. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
It’s been 30 years since we’ve been healthy,” he said. “It’s a question of healing, a question of starting to rebuild, of patching up people who are still damaged and finding ways to use people who are still doing good things.”
Last week the diocesan nominating committee added a local priest, the Rev. Scott Quinn of the Church of the Nativity in Crafton, to a slate of four outside candidates announced in January to lead the diocese, which has 32 parishes in 11 counties. His name emerged from a petition signed by clergy and laity from several parishes. All five candidates will tour the diocese March 20-23, taking questions at churches in Franklin Park, Brentwood, Homewood and Ligonier.
The diocese split in 2008, with the majority leaving the Episcopal Church for the theologically conservative Anglican Church in North America. But some of its conservatives stayed. Leaders on opposite sides of divisions over biblical interpretation and sexual morality now serve together in a diocese where more liberal voices were once shut out of power.
There are unresolved issues with the Anglican diocese over parish property. The Episcopalians won a court battle and received about $20 million in centrally held diocesan assets, but parish assets are to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“Our very diverse nominating committee selected people who had worked through difficult situations and helped others work through them,” Father Werner said.
“Each of these five has some special experience and gifts that will be good for us. So we have real choices to make.”
• Father Quinn, 57, became rector of the Church of the Nativity in Crafton in 1983. Before seminary he was on the staff of the evangelical youth ministry. After the split he was in charge of pastoral care.
“I stood by clergy overseeing parishes that were left seriously divided. I met face-to-face with clergy and lay leaders whose voice has long been left unrecognized. My job was to pick up the pieces after the battle and lay the groundwork for the healing to begin,” he wrote in a profile the diocese released Thursday.
• The Rev. Michael N. Ambler Jr., 47, a former attorney and rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Bath, Maine, is often a mediator for congregations in crisis. He grew up with a conservative understanding of the faith and chose the liberal Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., only so his family wouldn’t have to move for seminary, he wrote.
“I learned there to recognize and value the faithfulness of Christians whose positions varied widely from my own centrist understanding,” he wrote. “Now, as rector of Grace Church, it is important to me that we represent many persuasions, from the most progressive right through to the most conservative.”
He described the Diocese of Pittsburgh as a family that had been through a divorce. “Recount the story. Repent the wrongs. Reconcile the estranged. All through the redemptive grace of Christ. That will be our focus as we set out together,” he wrote.
• The Rev. Dorsey W.M. McConnell, 58, rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Mass., wrote of experiencing a wide range of Episcopal theologies before joining an evangelical and charismatic parish. He was a founder of a task force that tried to prevent schism by bringing liberal and conservative clergy together for prayer and conversation from 1999 to 2002.
He described his mother, a refugee from Nazi-occupied France who became the wife of an American general, welcoming German officers to their home in 1962. When he protested that they were enemies, she replied, “They were the enemy. They’re allies now. … Darling, learn this: Life is long, and we need each other.”
• The Rev. R. Stanley Runnels, 59, worked in fields ranging from oil drilling to drug and alcohol counseling before seminary. He is rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and Day School in Kansas City, Mo.
“A historic strength of the Episcopal Church has always been its capacity to be a place where many could gather at the altar of God and be the Body of Christ despite broad differences of theology, ecclesiology, worship styles and even politics,” he wrote. “Sadly, the modern obsession … with conformity and absolute allegiances threatens this vision of the church as a safe haven for all people, no matter our differences, who are seeking to discover God in their lives.”
He promised to work for “the vision of church as a place welcoming and accepting of all God’s people … with whom we have much in common and from whom we have much to learn.”
• The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, 49, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver, is a certified mediator who facilitated conflict resolution in several dioceses. She is an advocate for gay couples in the church but has a brother, also an Episcopal priest, who is an advocate on the other side.
“I believe labels and single-identity politics wound the church. Christ unites us in a truth and love far deeper than what divides us,” she wrote.
She wrote that the diocese’s loss is also an opportunity.
“You have a new beginning. How you begin is everything. I believe I am called to you because I have gifts and passion for two areas you most need: healing, skillful mediation across lines of difference and radical re-visioning of how to be the church.”
An overarching debate among local Episcopalians is whether it’s better to choose a bishop from inside or outside the diocese.
Lionel Deimel, a member of St. Paul’s in Mt. Lebanon who blogs on church matters from a liberal perspective, declared his opposition to any local candidate before Father Quinn was named. He argued that all local priests carry factional baggage and that the diocese was too ingrown.
“The nominating committee did a terrific job, and the people of the diocese are eager to meet the candidates they identified. For too long this diocese has looked inward and had limited contact with the wider church. We need a bishop from outside the diocese to draw us out of our insularity,” he said.
The Rev. James Simons, a theological conservative who had a leading role in reorganizing the diocese after the split, hasn’t chosen a candidate yet, and said that the value of an inside candidate depends on the person.
“It can be argued both ways,” he said. “When you elect from within the diocese, the learning curve is less steep. You don’t have to learn the history because you lived the history. On the other hand, sometimes it’s good to have someone looking at things with fresh eyes. It all depends on who that individual is.”
Much reconciliation has already taken place between leaders who disagree over gay ordination and other matters, he said.
“Ironically it was the schism that made those differences much less important to us,” he said. “We became like a band of brothers where we were united in a common task and the things that we thought divided us just weren’t that important any longer. We’ve built relationships. So now that things are fairly stable, those differences aren’t what define us any longer.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12064/1214133-455.stm#ixzz1oFyBShCu
Healing leader is sought after split
Sunday, March 04, 2012
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Next month the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will elect a permanent bishop to lead it as it continues rebuilding after a split that took the majority of its parishes, clergy and its former bishop.
Its current prelate, Bishop Kenneth Price Jr., is a “provisional bishop” on loan from another diocese.
The Very Rev. George Werner, president of the diocesan Standing Committee, cited a diocesan history of hardball church politics in expressing his hope for the April 21 election. [Ed. note: The Rev. George Werner was a deputy from Pittsburgh beginning in 1985, and was elected President House of Deputies for the General Convention in 2000. He presided at the 2003 and in 2006 conventions. Bonnie Anderson was elected to fill the seat in 2006 after Werner was not elected by Pittsburgh as a deputy and could not retain the Presidents' seat. This was a bitter turn of events for the diocese, already split over the consecration of a homosexual in opposition to the stated words of Scripture. Werner addressed the convention and spoke against the separation of the diocese, blaming a few people for the whole "mess." He was seat in the back of the hall, commenting loudly to TEC press people in that same area. A most unhappy day. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
It’s been 30 years since we’ve been healthy,” he said. “It’s a question of healing, a question of starting to rebuild, of patching up people who are still damaged and finding ways to use people who are still doing good things.”
Last week the diocesan nominating committee added a local priest, the Rev. Scott Quinn of the Church of the Nativity in Crafton, to a slate of four outside candidates announced in January to lead the diocese, which has 32 parishes in 11 counties. His name emerged from a petition signed by clergy and laity from several parishes. All five candidates will tour the diocese March 20-23, taking questions at churches in Franklin Park, Brentwood, Homewood and Ligonier.
The diocese split in 2008, with the majority leaving the Episcopal Church for the theologically conservative Anglican Church in North America. But some of its conservatives stayed. Leaders on opposite sides of divisions over biblical interpretation and sexual morality now serve together in a diocese where more liberal voices were once shut out of power.
There are unresolved issues with the Anglican diocese over parish property. The Episcopalians won a court battle and received about $20 million in centrally held diocesan assets, but parish assets are to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“Our very diverse nominating committee selected people who had worked through difficult situations and helped others work through them,” Father Werner said.
“Each of these five has some special experience and gifts that will be good for us. So we have real choices to make.”
• Father Quinn, 57, became rector of the Church of the Nativity in Crafton in 1983. Before seminary he was on the staff of the evangelical youth ministry. After the split he was in charge of pastoral care.
“I stood by clergy overseeing parishes that were left seriously divided. I met face-to-face with clergy and lay leaders whose voice has long been left unrecognized. My job was to pick up the pieces after the battle and lay the groundwork for the healing to begin,” he wrote in a profile the diocese released Thursday.
• The Rev. Michael N. Ambler Jr., 47, a former attorney and rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Bath, Maine, is often a mediator for congregations in crisis. He grew up with a conservative understanding of the faith and chose the liberal Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., only so his family wouldn’t have to move for seminary, he wrote.
“I learned there to recognize and value the faithfulness of Christians whose positions varied widely from my own centrist understanding,” he wrote. “Now, as rector of Grace Church, it is important to me that we represent many persuasions, from the most progressive right through to the most conservative.”
He described the Diocese of Pittsburgh as a family that had been through a divorce. “Recount the story. Repent the wrongs. Reconcile the estranged. All through the redemptive grace of Christ. That will be our focus as we set out together,” he wrote.
• The Rev. Dorsey W.M. McConnell, 58, rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Mass., wrote of experiencing a wide range of Episcopal theologies before joining an evangelical and charismatic parish. He was a founder of a task force that tried to prevent schism by bringing liberal and conservative clergy together for prayer and conversation from 1999 to 2002.
He described his mother, a refugee from Nazi-occupied France who became the wife of an American general, welcoming German officers to their home in 1962. When he protested that they were enemies, she replied, “They were the enemy. They’re allies now. … Darling, learn this: Life is long, and we need each other.”
• The Rev. R. Stanley Runnels, 59, worked in fields ranging from oil drilling to drug and alcohol counseling before seminary. He is rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and Day School in Kansas City, Mo.
“A historic strength of the Episcopal Church has always been its capacity to be a place where many could gather at the altar of God and be the Body of Christ despite broad differences of theology, ecclesiology, worship styles and even politics,” he wrote. “Sadly, the modern obsession … with conformity and absolute allegiances threatens this vision of the church as a safe haven for all people, no matter our differences, who are seeking to discover God in their lives.”
He promised to work for “the vision of church as a place welcoming and accepting of all God’s people … with whom we have much in common and from whom we have much to learn.”
• The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, 49, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver, is a certified mediator who facilitated conflict resolution in several dioceses. She is an advocate for gay couples in the church but has a brother, also an Episcopal priest, who is an advocate on the other side.
“I believe labels and single-identity politics wound the church. Christ unites us in a truth and love far deeper than what divides us,” she wrote.
She wrote that the diocese’s loss is also an opportunity.
“You have a new beginning. How you begin is everything. I believe I am called to you because I have gifts and passion for two areas you most need: healing, skillful mediation across lines of difference and radical re-visioning of how to be the church.”
An overarching debate among local Episcopalians is whether it’s better to choose a bishop from inside or outside the diocese.
Lionel Deimel, a member of St. Paul’s in Mt. Lebanon who blogs on church matters from a liberal perspective, declared his opposition to any local candidate before Father Quinn was named. He argued that all local priests carry factional baggage and that the diocese was too ingrown.
“The nominating committee did a terrific job, and the people of the diocese are eager to meet the candidates they identified. For too long this diocese has looked inward and had limited contact with the wider church. We need a bishop from outside the diocese to draw us out of our insularity,” he said.
The Rev. James Simons, a theological conservative who had a leading role in reorganizing the diocese after the split, hasn’t chosen a candidate yet, and said that the value of an inside candidate depends on the person.
“It can be argued both ways,” he said. “When you elect from within the diocese, the learning curve is less steep. You don’t have to learn the history because you lived the history. On the other hand, sometimes it’s good to have someone looking at things with fresh eyes. It all depends on who that individual is.”
Much reconciliation has already taken place between leaders who disagree over gay ordination and other matters, he said.
“Ironically it was the schism that made those differences much less important to us,” he said. “We became like a band of brothers where we were united in a common task and the things that we thought divided us just weren’t that important any longer. We’ve built relationships. So now that things are fairly stable, those differences aren’t what define us any longer.”
Ann Rodgers: arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.
First published on March 4, 2012 at 12:00 am
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