NOVEMBER 20, 2008 issue
Episcopal Bishop Discusses Controversy, Faith and the Pilgrim’s Role
Story by Kathleen McFadden
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Boone was packed last Thursday morning to welcome Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, who stopped in Boone en route to address the 87th annual Diocesan Convention of Western North Carolina in Hendersonville.
After hearing presentations from staff and clients of the Hospitality House and from students and leaders of an ecumenical college ministry, Bishop Jefferts Schori participated in the presentation of a $29,900 check to Hospitality House Director Lynne Mason. The funds, awarded through the church’s United Thank Offering program, are designated for commercial kitchen equipment at Hospitality House’s new shelter that will be constructed off Bamboo Road.
Then the bishop fielded questions from attendees related to the church’s current and future status, questions of faith and the role of the church.
“Vigorous conversation is a good thing,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said, “and not something to be afraid of.” She said disagreement is to be expected. “The body has many parts with different roles. That’s what unity looks like—people working together in spite of their differences to serve the people of the world.
“If everybody’s a little uncomfortable, I think it means we’re doing our job. We have something to learn from people who are most irritated with us.”
A responsibility of all church members, she said, is “getting outside our beautiful buildings” into the community and “speaking the good news” about Jesus who “is friend, prophet, fully human and fully divine, a challenger of the status quo and of being too comfortable, healer, feeder of the hungry and challenger of the demons who say there is no hope.
“We are a pilgrim people,” she continued, “and not allowed to settle down until all people find a home in God. I think that is the kind of people we need to be, to know we have no permanent home except in God.”
The pilgrimage is ongoing. “We will be on the road for a while until everyone in the world is able to sit down and have enough to eat and be free of fear and violence,” she said. “The Kingdom of God has not yet arrived.”
And despite disagreements, the Episcopal Church “has a lot of room for different theologies, ideas and worship styles.”
Bishop Jefferts Schori is the chief pastor of the Episcopal Church in the United States, as well as dioceses in the Caribbean, Central and South America and in the Far East. She is the first woman to serve as a primate—the highest rank among bishops—in the Anglican Communion to the church’s 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses. She was elected at the 75th General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, in June 2006, and invested at the Washington National Cathedral in November 2006, having previously served as bishop of Nevada.
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