The first woman Episcopal bishop; elevation of Christian social activist Barbara C. Harris causes religious stir

Ebony, May, 1989 by Renee D. Turner

The First Woman Episcopal Bishop

Elevation of Christian social activist Barbara C. Harris causes religious stir

SLIGHT in stature but by no means meek is the Black female minister from Philadelphia whose elevation to Episcopal bishop has stirred ecumenical waters from New England to England. By becoming the first female Episcopal bishop, the Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris broke a 2,000-year barrier to ascension for women in the Anglican Communion of 27 independent churches. The Communion includes the Episcopal Church. Bishop Harris' elevation rekindled a debate about the sanctity of women bishops, and criticism of the new bishop herself -- a skilled urban minister and social activist who spent most of her life as a public relations executive.

The bespectacled, 58-year-old bishop with a gravelly voice and close-cropped hair offers a calm and sometimes comical self-assuredness in the face of controversy. Conservatives say her historic elevation threatens the fragile unity of the Episcopal Church and its possible reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. That's because Anglicans, like Catholics, regard bishops as sacramentally appointed successors to Jesus' 12 male apostles. However, Black Episcopalians, who make up 5 percent of the church population, view the move as a step by the church toward becoming more inclusive.

Bishop Harris wound down her first day as suffragan or assistant bishop for the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese in the borrowed chambers of a Black Cambridge minister. It was nearly 8 p.m. and she had preached two services, had visited a home for unwed mothers where she blessed the unborn and was one meeting away from her first square meal in two days. She quipped, "Even if it's Harry Belafonte on the phone, tell him I'm gone."

As second in charge of the 96,000-member Boston-based diocese -- the largest of the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church of America--Bishop Harris helps parishes develop programs and resources and solve problems. She also sits on diocesan commissions that handle pastoral care, social justice and prison ministry -- many of the issues she had handled as a priest. Like other bishops, she will perform confirmations and ordain new priests. Bishop Harris already has proven she's not one to shrink from a challenge. Fresh out of high school, she was told upon being hired by the firm of Joseph V. Baker Associates that she probably wasn't worth her pay. She left the firm nearly two decades later as its president. Her public relations savvy led to a job in 1968 with Sun Oil Co. When she left 16 years later to direct the Episcopal Publishing Co., she had handled corporate communications for the Philadelphia-area firm.

Her compassion was handed down to her by middle-class parents, who believed, she says, "in the dignity of all people." Over the years, that compassion turned to activism. "I see myself as a Christian social activist following what I believe my Lord would have me do," she says. She picketed for city jobs with the NAACP, marched for civil rights in Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and registered voters in the backwoods of Mississippi. In the late 1960s, she left the prestigious family church near her Germantown home to join the Church of the Advocate, the cradle of Philadelphia's Black activism. She helped bolster services to the impoverished community surrounding the church, where Rev. Paul Washington was pastor. She worked in the church soup kitchen and became a prison chaplain. Still, friends were a bit puzzled by her decision to enter the ministry. They recall how "Babs" enjoyed jazz at the Showboat club, and would "hold forth" during political tete-a-tetes at a popular lunch spot.

Even if she were not outspoken, Black and a woman, they would question Bishop Harris' elevation on other grounds, opponents say. She's the only bishop to have been divorced at the time of her consecration. In some Anglican churches, her marital status alone would have disqualified her from consideration for the priesthood. Some call her training unorthodox. After becoming a deacon, and taking three years of college courses and correspondence courses under a diocese-sanctioned training program for older clergical recruits, she reportedly scored higher on exams to become a priest than others with seminary degrees. Ordained in 1980, she became priest-in-charge of a Norristown, Pa., church and served as interim pastor of the Advocate after Rev. Washington retired in 1987. During eight years as a priest, she supported homosexuals, lambasted apartheid in South Africa and criticized her denomination as a "male-dominated racist church."

As Bishop Harris more subtly urges her church to have greater compassion for the havenots by being "fools for Christ," protests continue. Episcopal clergy in England and elsewhere vow not to recognize her as a bishop or the priests she ordains. An international church commission is studying how to deal with the furor. Meanwhile, supporters say if anyone can weather the storm, Bishop Harris can. Says Philadelphia City Councilwoman Augusta Clark, "If what it takes is to work hard, to background yourself on the issues and to apply yourself for the beneficial outcome, then she can't fail."