Bishops Maintain Hope They Can Radically Change Style of House of Bishops
Episcopal News Service. April 24, 1992 [92092]
The 160 bishops who attended the special meeting of the House of Bishops in North Carolina have returned to their dioceses in hope that the extraordinary meeting succeeded in making some radical changes.
"The broad consensus of opinion was that the leadership of the bishops has to be grounded in the spiritual, not the political," Bishop Steven Charleston wrote in his diocesan newspaper, Alaskan Epiphany.
As a new bishop, Charleston said that it was apparent to him that "we have a real need for healing, for direction, and for renewal in the House of Bishops." While the bishops shared their frustrations at the meeting, they also agreed that "the old models of both business and behavior had to be changed if the house was to be reformed."
Issues within society and within the church need to be addressed, but "what we have seen now with unmistakable clarity is that these problems, these divisions, must be addressed in a different way than has been the case in recent years," wrote Bishop John Howe of Central Florida.
Howe was among those who pointed out that the regular fall meeting of the House of Bishops in Baltimore will be a test of the new style and commitment to change. He contended that the tension between the consensus model of decision making and the need to honor individual bishops and their consciences will continue. "Living in that tension will not be easy, but it is imperative," Howe stated.
Bishop Robert Hargrove, Jr., of Western Louisiana told his diocese that he found the retreat at Kanuga "life-altering" because it dealt with the "core and critical mass of the Gospel we are compelled to proclaim and how we will lead those entrusted to our care, not into greater disorder and divisiveness, schism and anger, but rather to the mind of Christ."
Hargrove said that he felt that he was experiencing "what the first disciples must have experienced in the upper room when the church was born." Pointing to the phrase in the statement the bishops released, "If we cannot be bishops together, we will not be bishops alone," he said that the same was true on the diocesan level: "If we cannot function as a diocese, we will not function as congregations."
While acknowledging the evidence of the emerging sense of community, Bishop Robert Tharp of East Tennessee said that the changes won't prevent some bishops from still acting as "Lone Rangers." He wrote in his diocesan paper, "There are always going to be mavericks in every portion of society, and I think we are going to find them in the House of Bishops. But I am praying for all of them, that they will stop first and reflect upon the wonderful spirit in which we left [the retreat] as brothers and sister in the House of Bishops."
Prayer had a lot to do with the success of the retreat, according to several bishops -- both the prayer that was part of the retreat itself and the prayer of the "tens of thousands of clergy and laity praying daily for this meeting," according to Bishop George Bates of Utah.
While there are no guarantees that the changes will take hold, Bates shared the optimism of his colleagues that the bishops "made a good start toward reestablishing appropriate leadership in the church."
"We do learn, on the job, how to be bishops in the dioceses," Bishop William Swing of California observed in a letter written to his diocese from the Kanuga meeting. "What we need to learn -- me included -- is how to be bishops in the House of Bishops. How to stay awake, fight fair, listen to personal stories, keep in perspective that the church is more" than our individual dioceses, Swing concluded.