Copyright © 2005 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee

Bishops, women of three state dioceses meet at DuBose

Questions on topics ranging from division in the Episcopal Church to the sanctity of life were candidly and thoughtfully answered by Tennessee’s three bishops during the 2005 Episcopal Church Women’s Spring Conference, which was held at Dubose Conference Center April 29-30 and drew more than 60 women from the three Tennessee dioceses.

Other highlights included the keynote address by Lydia Evans of Charleston, S.C., ECW president of Province IV, and a panel discussion on “ECW Success Stories.”

Nancy Tanner of Knoxville, the East Tennessee conference co-chair, posed questions to Bishop Charles vonRosenberg of East Tennessee, Bishop Bertram Herlong of Tennessee and Bishop Don Johnson of West Tennessee.

She asked Bishop vonRosenberg how individuals can help heal division in the church.

Some people have left the church and others have come to it, he responded. People may find it necessary in their faith journey to go away somewhere that they will feel comfortable, he said, but “we need to make it clear they will be welcome when they return.”

He added that individuals can focus on doing what the church is called to do. “A lot of that has to do with mission,” he said. “We can look outwardly at the world that Christ came to save.”

If his consecration caused division between two million Episcopalians and the other millions of Anglicans in the world, Bishop Johnson was asked, would he resign? He said he would if he felt his leadership was in the way of Christ working in the world. “It would be incumbent on me to go to my diocese and say I could not continue.”

A question to Bishop Herlong dealt with a decision by the House of Bishops not to consecrate any new bishops until the 2006 General Convention in response to a moratorium on consecrating gay bishops, which was requested in the Windsor report until the Lambeth Conference in 2008.

He said the bishops “really wrestled with the issue” for a long time, and bishops from the whole spectrum across the church were involved in the final decision to delay consecrations in order to support the primates and the Windsor report. “Keeping the church in the Anglican Communion was more important than any problems this will create for me in Tennessee,” he said. Bishop Herlong soon will reach the mandatory age of retirement.

Keynoter Evans said women search for perfection in all the wrong places, in her address titled “Jesus loves me … this I know.”

She held up some women’s magazines that “promise all these incredible things,” such as a beautiful body. “The world is telling us that our ultimate goal as women is to have the three Ps: popularity, power and pretty.” The magazine covers tell women they are not good enough and will never measure up, she said.

“God says ‘I have called you by name,’ ” Evans said. “ ‘Nothing will ever separate us, we are one.’ This is the good news. The magazines are a fantasy.”

“I know Jesus because Jesus loves me,” she said. “He completes for us what we cannot do for ourselves,” Evans said. “You can look forward to reaching perfection, not in this life but in the life to come.”

The panel on “ECW Success Stories” was “kind of an experiment,” said Lynn Ragland of Nashville, conference chair. “I personally feel the need to hear inspirational stories and get ideas,” she said.

Panelists Dot Neale of Calvary, Memphis; Katie Piper of St. Timothy, Signal Mountain; and Joann Bryant of Messiah, Pulaski; and Evans reviewed positives in their ECW chapters.

Neale said Bishop Johnson challenged the ECW in West Tennessee to focus on public education as an outreach project. A meeting with the superintendent of schools and the religion writer for the Memphis Commercial Appeal led to a number of ECW projects, including the adoption of schools by some of the largest churches. Parishes honored educators, and communicants stuffed backpacks for students. The effort has given the ECW “a higher level, more meaningful project to work on,” she said.

Piper outlined projects the Women of St. Timothy are undertaking, including a scholarship for Appalachian children to attend camp at Grace Point Camp and Retreat Center and working with Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic in Sevierville, Tenn. The group also participates in an area ecumenical women’s group, and members work in a thrift shop to raise funds.

Although Messiah is small, Bryant said, “we have a very active group of women.” They stage a lunch in the church garden every year to build relationships with one another, have re-established a call tree and initiated a secret sister program. They’ve published a cookbook and held a bake sale that raised $2,700. The women plan to provide baskets for newcomers.

“Success in ECW is not always in numbers,” Evans said. “It is in meeting the needs of women and drawing them closer together.”

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