Search the Episcopal Press and News

Navajoland Bishop Steven Plummer Dies at 60

Episcopal News Service. April 2, 2005 [040205-2]

Dick Snyder, , Deacon in the Diocese of Utah

The Rt. Rev. Steven Tsosie Plummer, the first Navajo bishop in the Episcopal Church, died Saturday, April 2, in a Shiprock, New Mexico, hospital after a heroic battle with cancer. He was 60.

A celebration of his life and requiem Eucharist will be held at St. Christopher's Episcopal Mission, Bluff, Utah, at 1 p.m., Wednesday, April 6.

Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold is scheduled to preside, and Bishop Rustin Kimsey, retired of Eastern Oregon, will assist.

The son of a medicine man, Plummer lived all of his ordained life in Navajoland, and was the first elected bishop of the Navajoland Area Mission.

He was originally diagnosed with lymphoma in 2000.

Soft spoken and with an easy smile, Plummer was well known around the church as an advocate for Native American ministries. He was a shepherd in both a literal and figurative sense. He and his wife maintained a small herd of sheep at their home in Bluff on the grounds of historic St. Christopher's Church.

He led the area mission on a path toward greater incorporation of Navajo traditions into Episcopal Church worship.

He strived constantly to encourage development of indigenous leadership among the Navajo and a more self-reliant Navajo Episcopal church. Those efforts included the development of the "hogan seminary" now known as Hogan Learning Circle in Navajoland. "Hogan" is the word for the traditional Navajo house.

In his convocation address last year, Plummer told the largely Navajo audience, "We are serious about our Christian faith and serious about our Navajo tradition.

"Let us challenge one another. We are the missionaries here on the reservation, and we must go out and proclaim the Gospel to our people," he said.

Plummer was also known as a leader of workshops in several dioceses to introduce Navajo spirituality. There are "many similarities between Anglican and Navajo spirituality," he once noted. "There are some conflicts in the ceremonies."

Born in Coal Mine, Arizona, on August 14, 1944, Plummer said that his first Christian influences came from his mother and from Anglo missionaries. Also key in his formation was Harold Jones, once vicar at Good Shepherd Mission in Fort Defiance and later the first Native American bishop in the Episcopal Church. Jones encouraged Plummer to prepare for training for ordination.

Plummer attended schools in the Navajo reservation, and at 21 entered Cook Christian Training School on Tempe, Arizona. He completed a certificate program at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

He was ordained deacon in 1975, and was ordained priest in outdoor ceremonies in the Canyon de Chelley, at a holy site in the Navajo tradition. He spent his entire ordained ministry among the Navajo, serving in the Utah and New Mexico regions.

He was encouraged to be a candidate for bishop of Navajoland by the late Bishop Wesley Frensdorff, who served as interim bishop of Navajoland.

Frensdorff said he had found "nearly unanimous" support for Plummer among the Navajo people.

"Bishop Wes taught us we had to take risks for the church and for our lives. You have to stand up for yourself and speak for yourself," Plummer said in 1990 when he was consecrated bishop.

The election of a Navajo bishop fulfills "a long-time dream held in a lot of people's minds," said then Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning at the time.

"The Navajoland Area Mission was created in part to help give Native Americans a chance to develop their own direction and fulfillment," he added.

In 1993 Plummer took a voluntary one year leave of absence to evaluate his personal life and ministry. He resumed his ministry as bishop of Navajoland in June 1994 with the support of Browning and the House of Bishops.

The Navajoland Area Mission was created by General Convention in 1977 from parts of the Dioceses of Arizona, Utah and Rio Grande. Its boundaries coincide with that of the Navajo Nation. The only area mission in the Episcopal Church, it functions much the same as a diocese but with more oversight from the office of the Presiding Bishop and House of Bishops.

Plummer is survived by his wife Catherine, whom he married on June 11, 1977. They had four children: Byron Tso, who was killed in auto accident in June 1999; Brian Tso, Steven Jr., and Cathlena.

At a workshop in 1990, he was asked to draw something outlining his life. The drawing showed his life starting at a hogan, tending sheep. The drawing showed him going back on a path guided by a cross to a hogan and to his sheep.

[thumbnail: The Rt. Rev. Steven Tsosi...]