California Episcopalians select two bishops

On Saturday the Episcopal Church selected two bishops. Surprisingly, in the more liberal of the two areas, the voters seem to have done the right thing. In the other, voters chose a safe, but, I believe, wrong choice. In the diocese of California (which was the original diocese) they selected Mark Andrus from Alabama. There were three homosexual candidates that were added to the list that totaled seven but Andrus was selected quickly and sexual orientation seems to have been little part of the discussion. The Rev. Katherine M. Lehman of St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Menlo Park. commented "If we are called to elect a qualified nominee who happens to be gay, we will do that based on our discernment of the process and the Holy Spirit." In the end that was not an issue.

This morning our priest, who I think is pretty good, commented that she was thankful that they had not selected a gay candidate. I told her I thought that was odd. If the Episcopal convention that affirmed Gene Robinson (the first gay bishop who helped to cause something less than a schism in the denomination) had done the right thing then sexual orientation should not have been a part of the discussion for that diocese. But, of course, the decision on Robinson was different. At the very least the decision should have taken more effort to come to discernment. (Which is how Episcopalians are supposed to come to a decision.) The Robinson decision was a political and not a theological one. In the end the voters in the California diocese seem to have truly sought what the prayers for selecting a new priest or bishop (to find "a good and faithful pastor"). That seems to have been a good result.

In the diocese of Northern California, the current bishop's assistant was selected. His name is Barry Beisner. During the search process for our new rector, I had a discussion with the Canon during a vestry meeting and was not impressed. From what I heard about the three candidates there was a much stronger candidate which the convention did not choose. I am disappointed in the decision. The current bishop, Jerry Lamb, has been horrible in many ways. His actions were often arbitrary and capricious.

But as an older friend in the congregation said to me this morning - this is really just a continuation of Bishop Lamb - we know how to deal with that. A search should be more than that but what my friend said, makes a lot of sense. The American Episcopal church, when it decided to accept Bishop Robinson, made a pretty radical statement. It said, "Ignore the thoughts and wishes of our sister churches in most of the rest of the world and go forward without regard to the way the denomination is supposed to do things. Forget about the tradition of build concensus when it is something that we think is important." The Americans acted like petulant children. Lamb claimed that he was inspired by the convention to change his vote after he had been about the diocese the year before proclaiming he would vote the other way. Today's lessons were about the good shepherd. Lamb was not a good shepherd. Let's hope that Beisner will learn from his predecessor's errors.