He walks into the waiting room of the diocesan offices in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and looks around. Tall, so thin he appears almost frail, he is wearing a purple polo shirt, with a cross suspended from his neck, and well-pressed gray slacks. A visitor, who has never previously met him, hesitates and then decides this is the Bishop of Port Elizabeth.

The Rt. Rev. Eric Pike likes it that way: low-keyed, informal, with as little pomp as possible. Perhaps it comes from his background as a missionary's son growing up in a remote rural, tribal community. However understated, this is a Christian with a clear and defined mission: to complete the healing in his land and move forward in forgiveness, hope and love.

Settled in his office over a cup of tea, Bishop Pike exudes a quiet commitment to completing the process of reconciliation he and hundreds of South African Christian clergy have been pursuing for decades ... a process that has been crucial to the country's transition from a white minority ruled society to one of the few operating democracies on the continent.

Bishop Pike's diocese, established in 1970, covers about a quarter of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, the stunningly beautiful, southernmost part of Africa. Indeed, Port Elizabeth is the continent's southernmost city, lying further south than the more well-known tourism center, Cape Town. With 40 parishes and many missions, the Diocese of Port Elizabeth is a rich mix of urban and rural, black and white.

Eric Pike grew up on a Church of Scotland mission station in the Transkei, where he became as fluent in the Xhosa language, one of two major tribal tongues (in a total of 11) as in his native English. This background has made it as natural for him to be among black South Africans as white, not a widespread feeling of most whites in South Africa, during or post apartheid.

In fact, his ministry was more among black communities prior to election in 1989 as Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Grahamstown, in South Africa's Eastern Province. As a priest based in East London, he worked for many years planting churches in Xhosa tribal areas in the Ciskei region of the province.

During four years as suffragan in Grahamstown and since becoming the third Bishop of Port Elizabeth, Bishop Pike has focused the church on reconciling various South African communities (in addition to black and white, there are large South Asian, as well as formerly set apart mixed race, communities).

Shortly before Lent, Anglicans from around the diocese gathered at St. Stephen's Church in New Brighton for a great reconciliation service. More than one thousand faithful participated in a three-hour pageant, "Building a United Family under God." The central moment occurred when seven archdeacons from every corner of the diocese moved to the front of the chancel and each lit a candle. Next, the bishop came forward and led the congregation in prayers. He then removed a symbolic coil of barbed wire from a larger eighth candle and ceremonially lit the candle.

While Bishop Pike agrees with many who believe the phase of reconciliation statements and ceremonies is drawing to a close, he continues to feel the need to be a focus of healing, forgiveness, and hope. In the last week of Lent, he walked more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) on a personal pilgrimage that brought him to major atrocity sites in his diocese during the past years of increasing lawlessness.

As he proceeded from town to town on his threefold mission of presence, prayer and protest, Bishop Pike encountered a remarkable series of experiences. "On the first day, a farmer said to me, 'I hope your boots are as strong as your faith.' Well, my boots may have taken a pounding but my faith grew ... carried by the prayers and encouragement of so many people.

"I knew from the start that it would be asking much of people who had suffered as a result of murder, rape and violent crimes to visit with me, but praise God they came. There were often tears, both theirs and mine, but God was present to heal."

Then, as if signaling the need for the nation to move on, "One day, while walking on a long and lonely stretch of road, I was tempted to look back before the crest of a hill, to see how far I had come. However, the Lord seemed to be saying, 'Look ahead, not back!' While I know that there has been a need for us to look back so that the evil of the past would never be repeated, God seemed to be saying 'Now, look ahead,' and I kept seeing the word HOPE reflected in the clouds."

Bishop Pike has high praise for retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu's role in the years leading up to and following the end of apartheid. "He held us together, throughout the struggle, despite all the forces seeking to tear us apart. He has been the very essence of reconciliation.

"Desmond was opposed to apartheid, in every part of his being. It was both a theological and human rights issue for him, of the greatest importance." Over the years, many South African clerics had not seen apartheid's theological inappropriateness so clearly. The Afrikaner government effectively co-opted the Dutch Reformed Church as the national church, and its elders expounded contorted biblical excuses for the separation of the races and subordination of blacks. A verse from the Book of Joshua, chapter nine, was interpreted to serve as the very foundational rationale for the regime:

"Let them live; but let them be hewers of wood and drawers of water into all the congregation."

Fortunately, the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, the dominant branch of the Anglican Communion in Southern Africa, was opposed to apartheid from the beginning and expressed its opposition openly. A smaller arm, the Church of England in South Africa, tended to be less critical of state policy.

If Bishop Pike strongly endorses - even lauds - the conciliatory role of the first black to serve as Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, he is considerably less so concerning Bishop Tutu's position on the burning issues of homosexual ordination and blessing of same-sex unions. "He seems to be looking at the question solely from a human rights perspective; whereas it must be considered on a theological basis," Bishop Pike said. "He appears to support the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of practicing homosexuals."

Not so Bishop Pike: "Lambeth strongly endorsed a traditional, orthodox view in relation to homosexuality. No matter the media saturation, we have to continue to study this issue in the light of biblical theology."

The rush to change long-standing biblical interpretation of such a central issue as sexuality fits the mood of the times, as Bishop Pike sees it. "The advertising line of a well-known brand of sports gear [Nike] sums it all up for millions: 'Just Do It!' That translates into anything goes.

"God's got different standards: the 10 Commandments. He seeks us to be salt and light. If this is so, we can't just do it! The church has a major task to teach that this is a false morality."

Bishop Pike's thoughts are not so tightly fixed on issues of the day as to ignore the significance of our times, however. "I have a clear vision: we are called to hold a celebration of Jesus as the hope for the new millennium."

True to his vision, Bishop Pike called pastors from all Christian denominations in the area to a lunch in March. Some 75 attended and all agreed to hold a massive celebration on New Year's Eve in the largest stadium available. Telkom Park rugby stadium in Port Elizabeth, seating more than 30,000, has been booked and a group of 24 pastoral elders and an executive committee of eight have taken on the enormous task of organizing what Bishop Pike calls "no second rate event, but a great and joyous occasion."

Bishop Pike has a canny, quiet way of seeing beyond the trials of the moment. Working with all his energy to improve the needs of his flock, he nevertheless constantly seeks to show the way down the road, the road of faith, of hope. "We are moving on," he says, "Moving on to seek and find God's purpose for us, and to serve his greater glory." o