'Holy Twitch' Takes Bishop from Wyoming to Jerusalem
Episcopal News Service. April 18, 1997 [97-1747]
(ENS) It is a long way from the wide open spaces of Alaska and Wyoming to the crowded streets of Jerusalem, a historic cultural crossroads of both the modern and the ancient world. And yet it is all part of a single spiritual journey for Bishop Bob Jones.
"Somehow I knew that something was coming down the road, a feeling, a holy twitch," he said during an interview at St. George's College in East Jerusalem where he has been dean since last fall. "It was the same feeling I had back in Anchorage before I was elected bishop of Wyoming."
So when Bishop Samir Kafity called and asked if he was interested, Jones and his wife, Mary Page, "were convinced that this is what God wanted for us," he said. "We knew that we had to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit -- even if it meant giving up our love of wide open spaces."
Jones first explored St. George's in 1976 when he took a six-week course at the college, known throughout the Anglican Communion for its continuing education curriculum, drawing students from 92 countries and 96 different faith traditions over the years. He has spent time at the college every year for the last 10 years and served on the North American committee that supports the school.
Yet it is an adjustment, going from a diocese of 95,000 square miles to a city that bristles with tension and sporadic violence. That has affected the college which is not operating at its full capacity during this time of uncertainty.
Jones shares with others a deep concern for the future presence of Christians in the region. "The Christian community is dwindling, in Jerusalem and the whole area," he said. "We are only about 1.2 percent of the population now," adding that even Bethlehem, which used to be half Christian, is losing people.
Jones deplores the ignorance in many Western countries that fails to realize that "the indigenous church in this land is Palestinian -- and when they suffer the whole church suffers," he said. And yet in this cauldron of political tension and uncertainty relations among the Christian groups have been improving. "The Week of Christian Unity in this part of the world is wonderful," he added. "There is probably no greater variety of Christians anywhere else in the world."
As he walks the streets in the old part of the city, it feels more like a village where everyone knows each other. "They recognize us on the streets, they know who we are. Apparent strangers sometimes greet you by name. Suddenly we realized that this is now our hometown," Jones said.
When asked about the increasing political confrontation as Israelis and Palestinians continue their desperate search for a viable peace, Jones said that he "tries to keep a balance." He pointed out that both Israelis and Palestinians lecture at the college, for example. "That's our policy."
"In this situation you have two choices -- either you despair and try to ignore what is happening around you or you join those who are working for justice," he adds. "My real desire is that the United States would adopt a more balanced policy in the Middle East, one that is based on sounder principles than its totally naive support for the state of Israel."
He observed that visitors "assume that when they come to Israel they are dealing with the biblical Israel. But they usually leave thinking in a different way. And this college has been an important instrument in that transformation, that revelation."
![[thumbnail: Wyoming Bishop Is New Dea...]](/e-archives/ENS/photographs/thumbnails/97-1747_thb.jpg) |