Bishop Charleston of Alaska Announces His Intention to Resign by End of the Year
Episcopal News Service. August 31, 1995 [95-1211]
(ENS) In a letter to the president of the diocesan standing committee, Bishop Steven Charleston of Alaska has announced his intention to resign by the end of the year.
"For several years I have been struggling to care for the special needs of my family while trying to maintain the intense workload of bishop for a diocese as vast and demanding as Alaska," Charleston said in his resignation letter dated August 21. "I believe it is a tribute to God's grace that I have been able to do that as well as I have over the years."
Charleston said, however, that he now faces "a new set of challenges." In recent months he has been "trying to be both a full-time single parent and a full-time diocesan bishop. I have sought to be faithful to my family in their time of need and to Alaska in its time of growth and change. Trying to fulfill both expectations has not been easy," he said. "The strain of travel alone in a diocese like ours makes it almost impossible."
In struggling with what he called "a very difficult personal decision," Charleston said that he found himself "standing in a place where I do not feel I can do justice to both family and job at the same time" and he therefore "had to set a priority for my life as a Christian. That priority must be my wife and my son." Currently Suzanne Charleston is living and working in Hawaii while the family continues to search for healing.
Charleston said that he hoped that the church would "accept the resignation that I offer with understanding. It represents one of the most painful choices I have ever made." But he is convinced that "no job, no vocation, no matter how wonderful or self-fulfilling can replace the intimate bonds of love that hold us to deeper vows. Love is the priority of Christian faith. Therefore, at whatever personal cost, I must stand by my family and show them all the love and support I can," he said.
Charleston said in an interview that diocesan leaders knew he was struggling with family issues and had been very supportive. He added that the timing of his decision was important because the diocese is at a crucial point in its history. As it celebrates its centennial this year, it is developing plans for the future. "If I couldn't be a part of that future it was important that we make some realistic plans," he said. "I'm convinced that the Diocese of Alaska will be fine."
Charleston suggested in his letter that the resignation take effect on Palm Sunday, March 31, 1996, and requested a three-month sabbatical beginning in January "because of the need for transition." Although he has no definite plans for the future, he expressed a hope to "be of continued service in the church."
A member of the Choctaw Indian Nation who grew up in Oklahoma, Charleston was elected sixth bishop of Alaska in October of 1990 and consecrated in Anchorage on March 23, 1991. Before his election he was director of cross-cultural studies and professor of theology at Luther Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.
A graduate of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Charleston served as executive director for the National Committee on Indian Work at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, 1980-1982, and was director for the Dakota Leadership Program in the dioceses of North and South Dakota.