Episcopal Press and News
The Rev. Steven Charleston, a Choctaw, is Consecrated Bishop of Alaska
Episcopal News Service. April 4, 1991 [91087]
The Rev. Steven Charleston, a Choctaw and a native of Oklahoma, was consecrated as the sixth bishop of Alaska in Anchorage on March 23.
The second Native American bishop of the Episcopal Church to be consecrated within a 12-month period, Bishop Charleston chose as his co-consecrator two other American Indian bishops, the Rt. Rev. Steven T. Plummer of Navajoland -- the first Navajo bishop, consecrated in March 1990 -- and the Rt. Rev. William C. Wantland, a Seminole, of Eau Claire, who ordained Bishop Charleston to the diaconate in 1982.
The presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, was chief consecrator.
Alaska is a uniquely bicultural diocese; 50 percent of the communicants are Alaska Natives. Its diocesan convention elected the 42-year-old Choctaw last October on the first ballot.
"Yours is a challenge to reinforce bridges that span the cultural chasm of a bicultural diocese," said the consecration preacher, Dr. Owanah Anderson, herself a Choctaw from Oklahoma and officer for Native American Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center.
"Acknowledge and honor this cultural diversity," stressed Anderson, "but craft a model for the whole church, which lives into full and equal cultural partnership, with neither dominant over the other."
Affirmation to bicultural aspects of the diocese was evident in the service when the Gospel was read in Inupiaq and Gwich'in Athabascan as well as in English.
Present to lay hands on the new bishop were a total of 15 bishops of the Episcopal Church and two from the Anglican Church of Canada, including the Rt. Rev. Walter Jones who, while bishop of South Dakota, had ordained Bishop Charleston to the priesthood in 1983. Also seated on the stage were three Roman Catholic bishops including the Most Rev. Francis T. Hurley, archbishop of Anchorage, who led the litany for ordinations.
Bishop Charleston's attending clergy were from Minnesota, where the new bishop had resided since 1984. He served as director of cross-cultural studies and theology professor at Luther Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul as well as interim rector of Holy Trinity and St. Anskar parish in Minneapolis.
Following graduation from the Episcopal Divinity School, Charleston served as executive director for the National Committee on Indian Work at the Episcopal Church Center, New York, 1980-1982.