Our next Presiding Bishop

21 Responses

  1. Anna says:

    Great message Scott. I especially appreciate the comments regarding a love of scripture. And I’m not sure if you meant this under the scope of reconciliation, but I think next Pb needs to bring the hand of healing to the church. Many churches are hurting and some rifts go deep. This is the time we should be coming her in the way ahead not feeling divides further. With hope and love for the future–Anna

  2. George Werner says:

    Scott. Please keep commenting. This is another excellent piece.

  3. Thanks for articulating the challenges facing whoever our next PB is. I’ll explore this in my own post tomorrow, but I’m inclined to vote “no” regardless of the choice as long as the process remains unreformed. In short, it makes sense for the HoB to elect its own presiding officer, but they cannot be the only ones to vote for our primate, the CEO of our church, and our de facto spiritual leader. I’m hoping for substantial structural changes, but I’m not holding my breath.

  4. Alan C says:

    I avoid church politics like the plague (maybe more). Is the HoD vote to “confirm” non-binding?

    I absolutely agree that “We need an apostle, not a bureaucrat.”

    • Scott Gunn says:

      No, the HoD must confirm the HoB’s election for the PB to take office. If the HoD did not confirm, the HoB would have to hold another election (and presumably present a different PB-elect). So it’s “binding.”

      • Alan C says:

        OK, thanks. I was skimming the TREC report and see a lot of stuff I like there. What do you think of the idea of making General Convention unicameral?

  5. Celia says:

    Great Post! Thanks for laying out the procedures, theology and spirituality associated.

  6. Thank you.

  7. Roger Dutschke. says:

    Thanks for your thoughts and info, Scott.

  8. John Sorensen says:

    Nice summary. Especially the career climbing insight. Like David Brooks new book, I value character virtues over resume virtues.

  9. Excellent questions and comments! As a member of the JNCPB, I can say that I share your concerns over the financial wisdom of such a committee. Many have questioned the need for assembling such a large group to come up with a list of names for HoB to vote on when the bishops are given more or less sole responsibility to elect. Here’s the thing. As our polity stands today, the depth and breath of this 29-member committee gives a voice to the HoD whose members comprise two-thirds of the membership. I’ll also note that someone needs to do the work of this committee. A lot has to happen and a lot CAN happen to create a healthy forward movement (to borrow a phrase) prior to the selection of the nominees–preparing the profile, vetting the candidates, checking references, and arguably most important of all–participating in careful, prayerful discernment with the candidates over the course of several months. I will add that I am full of hope for the Episcopal Church. And I trust our bishops to prayerfully discern and elect. I pray that all will enter into this phase of our common life filled with hope and expectation, trusting in the process and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  10. Zechariah says:

    A reconciler, yes. And someone who will cease this madness of suing disaffected Episcopalians to the tune of Forty Million Dollars.

  11. Shelly Banner says:

    Nicely done, clear, articulate and to the point. We will all be interested to begin our own internal *measuring ” of the candidate according to these marks of measure.

  12. Thank you. So what do you think of the list?

  13. John Merchant says:

    It’s time for another PB like John Hines, who took us, sometimes kicking and screaming, from a church seen as “The Republican Party at prayer” to a church willing and able, faithfully and boldly, to serve the world in Christ’s name in matters of justice and peace. The new PB will have to exercise genuine courage to lead us out of our institutional stagnation which focuses most of our mission and ministry (read money) on ourselves (read our buildings) and into a renewed understanding that the church’s mission and ministry is first and foremost to those outside the institutional church: the poor, the oppressed, the sick, the homeless, society’s outcasts, prisoners, refugees, and the lost.

  14. Bradford Fisher says:

    Here, let me add a few more things that we don’t need:

    (1) A heretic who gives sermons talking about how exorcising a spirit from someone’s body in the name of Jesus shows a lack of appreciation for “spiritual diversity” and represents an offensive male patriarchal viewpoint.

    (2) A social justice warrior who feels that the purpose of the Church is to promote whatever leftist social justice cause is currently fashionable, rather than to bring people closer to God and to spread the good news of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection.

  15. How about electing someone who ACTUALLY believes in and follows the Bible….you know, someone who teaches that salvation comes by Grace Alone, by Faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone (John 3:16-18). Someone who believes that Jesus is the ONLY way to salvation, that Jesus is the way, truth and life (John 14:6). How about electing someone who will lead the church to be Biblically faithful on the issue of marriage (Matt 19:4-6) as that between one man and one woman. How about electing someone who actually BELIEVES that the Bible is the historically accurate, true, literal word of God…that the first 10 chapters of Genesis is true….that the Church OUGHT to live out what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35….

    Then and maybe ONLY then, will the Holy Spirit return to your apostate church, and you might find yourselves having more than only 600,000 attending on Sunday’s occupying space rather then living out the word of God.

    There is a reason your church is dying….it is because you want to live the way of the world, rather than live out Biblical truths….you have traded in the Word of God for a doctrine that satisfies the world, and justifies sin.

    You need a leader that will call your people to repent, and to get right with God and to begin to follow God’s word. Or you will die out.

  16. D W says:

    Last one out please turn off the lights. It certainly will be a different church in 9 years.

  17. Patricia Nakamura says:

    Again the candidates are all men, probably all white, and all from the eastern edge of the country. All of us from west of the mountains are – flyovers? I seem to recall that last time a dark horse appeared, and became an excellent PB (I still have a pink pin reading IT’S A GIRL.) Let us hope!