11/10/2009
By Janita Poe
Christians must fight modern forces that “diminish dignity” in the same way Jesus combated poverty, slavery and the exploitation of women in his time, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told more than 750 parishioners on Nov. 8 during a visit to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
“The freedom we have in Christ is about hope,” Jefferts Schori, who was concluding a four-day visit to the Diocese of Atlanta, told members and guests of the burgeoning 129-year-old parish. “Jesus’ way insists that all God’s people are created for dignity, and each one has meaning and value from being made in the image of God. No one is a commodity to be bought and sold.”
Jefferts Schori, the first woman to hold the top post in the church's nearly 400-year history, said she was invited to St. Paul’s – a predominantly African-American and Caribbean-American parish – by Atlanta Bishop Neil Alexander and St. Paul’s Rector Robert Wright because the two wanted her to witness an example of an Anglican church adhering to liturgical guidelines and tradition while simultaneously reaching out to the community with the infusion of traditional hymns, classical compositions, Negro spirituals and contemporary gospel music.
“The story of change is what I have heard the most about,” Jefferts Schori said during a coffee-hour break between presiding over a morning service with 295 congregants and a later service with 490 people. In between shaking hands with St. Paul’s members and talking to visitors from throughout the diocese, Jefferts Schori said she found St. Paul’s to be “a very vibrant congregation.”
As the 26th presiding bishop, Jefferts Schori has made bridge-building and urban ministries “to encounter and transform the bad news of this world" as priorities in her nine-year leadership, which began Nov. 1, 2006. She specifically has worked to implement the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of embracing and celebrating diversity, eradicating poverty and hunger, and creating an environmentally sustainable world.
The presiding bishop also has faced continuing church challenges such as boosting declining membership and reconciling the church nationally and globally over issues of human sexuality and mission.
Prior to ordination in 1994, Jefferts Schori was a visiting assistant professor in the Oregon State University Department of Religious Studies; a visiting scientist at the Oregon State University Department of Oceanography; and an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. She is also an active, instrument-rated pilot, who has logged more than 500 flight-hours.
She received a B.S. in biology from Stanford University, 1974; an M.S. in Oceanography from Oregon State University, 1977; a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, 1983; an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 1994; and a D.D. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 2001.
A native of Pensacola, Fla., she has been married to Richard Miles Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician (topologist), since 1979. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, who is a second lieutenant and pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
St. Paul’s was established as a Sunday school in 1880 by a small group of former slaves on the West End of Atlanta, at the corner of Lee and Gordon streets. Under the leadership of Wright, rector since July 2002, the church has more than tripled its membership to over 800. St. Paul’s is now one of the largest historically black Episcopal parishes in the country.
-- Episcopal News Service and St. Paul’s archives were used for this report. Janita Poe is a member of St. Paul’s, Atlanta.
11/9/2009
‘Our job is to help give birth to hope,’ Presiding Bishop says
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