Episcopal Press and News
Diocese of Michigan to Elect Suffragan Bishop
Episcopal News Service. May 11, 1976 [76165]
DETROIT, Mich. -- Five black priests have been nominated for suffragan bishop in the 80,000-member, predominately white Episcopal Diocese of Michigan.
The Rev. Robert C. Chapman, 51, New York City; the Rev. Canon Theodore R. Gibson, 60, Miami, Fla.; the Rev. Arthur B. Williams, Jr., 40, Detroit; the Rev. Frederick B. Williams, 36, New York City; and the Rev. Lorentho Wooden, 48, Cincinnati, Ohio were named to stand for election as suffragan bishop in the 170-parish diocese which includes the eastern half of Michigan's lower peninsula.
The chief bishop, the Rt. Rev. H. Coleman McGehee, Jr., called last October for the election of a suffragan bishop who, he stated, "ought in my opinion to be black. In the city of Detroit -- the sixth largest city in the country, a city predominately black -- there is not a single black clergy leader of bishop status. We need this kind of leadership."
A nominating committee which included blacks and whites, priests and laypersons from all areas of the diocese, worked for 5 months screening some 25 eligible persons.
It is Bishop McGehee's intention, he has said, to assign the new bishop to administer a 70-parish sector in the metropolitan Detroit area known as the Wayne District.
With that in mind, nominating committee chairman Robert Swint, a black layman from Grace Church, Detroit, said that his committee had decided to seek candidates who "have demonstrated competence for work in the urban environment... and ability to relate to all sorts and conditions of the human experience."
Each of the nominees is skilled in urban work.
Chapman is the rector of All Souls' Church in New York City's Harlem district and a former Detroit pastor. He served from 1966 to 1968 as rector of historic St. Matthew's Church when it was located on lower St. Antoine Street. He spent 6 years with the National Council of Churches in New York as director of its social justice department.
Gibson has been rector of Christ Church, Miami for 25 years. He was recently elected to Miami's City Commission and served a brief term as vice-mayor in 1973. He pioneered housing and school desegregation in Dade County.
Arthur Williams is currently assistant to the Bishop of Michigan for Ministry, Clergy Deployment and Urban Affairs. He is based in Detroit and has been active as a consultant to the Detroit public schools on racism. He was chairman of New Detroit, Inc. Speaker's Bureau and is a director of both the Metropolitan Youth Foundation and People's Community Service. Recently he was appointed chaplain of the Detroit Fire Department.
Frederick Williams, after 7 years as rector of St. Clement's, Inkster, where he started a low-cost housing project, went to New York City to become vicar of the Chapel of the Intercession, of Trinity parish. Before coming to Michigan, Williams was assistant at St. Luke's Church, Washington, D.C., and chaplain to Boys' Village, Cheltenham, Md.
Wooden was recently appointed community development officer of the Cincinnati-based Diocese of Southern Ohio. He served 3 years as urban affairs officer for the Diocese of New York and before that as administrator of Reality House, Inc. in Montclair, N.J., where he counseled convicts.
The priest elected on May 22 must be approved by a majority of all diocesan and coadjutor bishops and by a majority of the standing committees of the dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
The bishop-elect will take office sometime in September.