Episcopal Press and News
After a Year as the World's First Woman Anglican Bishop, Barbara Harris Finds the Mantle of History More Comfortable
Episcopal News Service. February 8, 1990 [90041]
James L. Franklin, Religion editor of the Boston Globe
A year after her election was confirmed by standing committees and bishops of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Barbara C. Harris has moved quietly into the role of suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts.
As the first woman bishop among the world's 70 million Anglican Christians, she has withstood hundreds of requests for interviews and outside speaking engagements, choosing instead to concentrate on working out her new role among the people of Massachusetts.
That role includes working out a new form of collaborative ministry with Bishop David E. Johnson, head of the diocese, and Bishop David Birney IV, former bishop of Idaho who became assistant bishop of Massachusetts last year.
"I don't have any great pronouncements, nor do I have a heavy agenda that I want to push," Bishop Harris said in a recent interview with the Boston Globe. "Primarily I want to be the best bishop that I can be. That will determine what I say and do."
One of Bishop Harris's responsibilities is leadership of a new evangelism commission for the diocese as the Episcopal Church enters a Decade of Evangelism in the 1990s.
For this church leader, whose election alarmed church conservatives about the possible loss of traditional standards, evangelism is an unavoidable duty for the church, but one that was never meant to make Christians comfortable. As long as Jesus "was talking about turning the other cheek, walking an extra mile, and loving enemies, he was okay," Bishop Harris told worshipers at a recent service. "It was not 'Behold the lilies of the field' that got Jesus into trouble. It was, 'Behold the moneychangers in the temple.' It is action that is dangerous, but it is also action that has saving power."
Confident, challenging, able to stir the conscience of a congregation and willing to unsettle the comfortable -- those were some of the qualities that attracted interest in Barbara Harris when she was priest at an inner-city Philadelphia parish. But in the process of inventing the role of the first woman in the episcopate, Bishop Harris has had fewer opportunities to show her strong convictions and moving preaching style.
Harris has settled into Foxborough, just south of Boston, where she lives and has a principal office. "I have not found it difficult to make acquaintances, and I have been received very, very warmly," she said of the move. But it was her first move outside of urban Philadelphia, "an experience that while not unpleasant, has been somewhat difficult for me," she said in the deep voice that belies her slight frame. "The pattern of living is totally different. The neighbors were very welcoming when I moved in. I could not have asked for better support. But it is the kind of community where you don't see people. I am not accustomed to the quiet. I am used to boom boxes and people talking in the street."
There are only a few decorations in her office at the diocesan church house in downtown Boston where Harris spends two days a week. One is a certificate studded with the seals of the 62 bishops who took part in her consecration, an extraordinary number. Another is a photograph taken from directly overhead during the consecration last February at the Hynes Convention Center, before a congregation of almost 9,000 people. In it she is almost lost to view in a swirl of red and white vestments as the bishops participate in the ancient rite that makes her a bishop in a church that traces its leaders to the time of the apostles.
She has decided to be "very disciplined about accepting outside engagements because of all the demands that the office itself brings," Harris said. She wishes the interest in her new role had diminished as the months have gone by. "I wish it were not so intense. But I am also aware that this is a unique and historic happening in the life of the church, and I have to acknowledge that it goes with the territory," she added.
Harris did take time to give the keynote address at a national conference of the Episcopal AIDS Coalition in Cincinnati because the issue is one to which she is particularly committed. AIDS is unlike plagues that struck society at an earlier age, such as the Black Death in fourteenth century Europe, she observed. People then felt powerless. "They didn't know where or how" plagues originated, how they were transmitted, or how to prevent them. Today, we know a lot about AIDS but do not have the luxury of arguing about the origin of the disease, Bishop Harris said.
"Let's get on with the more difficult task," Harris continued. "We know how the disease is transmitted and how it can in most instances be prevented. It is difficult to educate and police ourselves, but we know it works. Our brothers in the gay community have proven that, and we can learn from their experience," she said.
"We need to confront both church and society with the responsibility of this nation to mount a sustained national effort -- including needle exchanges where necessary -- and to be in the forefront of an international effort that rivals our commitment to the space program and undertakings of comparable magnitude. There is still time to save a generation -- let's get on with it," Harris concluded.
The Diocese of Massachusetts is in the process of studying the church's teaching on sexuality and recently accepted a report from a special study committee that proposed changes, such as formal liturgical blessing of same-sex couples.
"At this point the church is not of a mind on many issues of human sexuality, with the blessing of same-sex covenanted, unions being just one," Harris said. The recent convention of the diocese accepted the sexuality commission's report "with the intention of continuing the dialogue that the General Convention of the church had asked all congregations and dioceses to do."
"While the dialogue takes place at the congregational level, I think it is important that people have the opportunities to get out on the table as many of their feelings as possible, to examine their feelings and not be swayed by how I might feel or others might feel," Harris added.
"I don't think that any conclusions are going to be arrived at easily," Harris continued. "It would be my hope that there would be a true dialogue where people would be talking with gay and lesbian people in the church, as well as heterosexual people. It has to be a total family dialogue."
Bishop Harris expressed pleasure at the progress other Anglican provinces have made on women's ordination. New Zealand recently elected the first woman to head a diocese, the Rev. Penelope Jamieson, and the Church of England voted to continue the legislative process moving toward the ordination of women. But Harris has avoided efforts to involve her in the campaign for women's ordination elsewhere in the church. "I am encouraged to see it move forward" in the Church of England, she said. "We know it will not happen [as] quickly as some here and there would like to see it happen. But certainly it is an encouraging sign that some of the initial movement has taken place, and I look forward to its ultimate fulfillment," she concluded.
Harris was warmly welcomed as she took her seat in the House of Bishops for the first time at its meeting last September by some of the bishops who do not accept women priests or bishops. But the most satisfying welcome has come from the lay people of the Diocese of Massachusetts.
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