My Idea of a Genuine Bishop

In my lifetime, I have served under ten different bishops. In the Episcopal Church, a bishop can have a great deal of power and authority. She or he is also the chief shepherd of the flock.

I have admired and respected four of those bishops, primarily because they were more into being pastors than legal beagles. I didn’t know two of them. The other four were more like the gestapo of the flock, in love with their power and fancy vestments.

My favorite was Ed Browning, who served in my diocese in Hawai‘i and had previously been stationed in Okinawa, Japan. He was elected the bishop of Hawai‘i in 1976 because Ed was a great pastor, social activist, humanist, shepherd, and prophet.

Many others thought the same thing because in 1985 he was elected as the presiding bishop (our “pope”) of the Episcopal Church.

Ed was fearless and never afraid to share his faith and compassion with the president of the United States, members of Congress, world leaders, and the press and media. He let the world know where he stood, especially concerning the inclusion of women, minorities, and the LGBTQIA+ community.

Ed was one of my heroes. Jesus would have been proud of Ed.

Thirty years later, I have found another bishop for whom I have a tremendous amount of admiration. Mariann Budde was never my bishop, and I know her only through the media. My first peek at her was when she stood up to the forty-fifth president of the United States, who held a Bible high above his head (was it upside down?) in front of an Episcopal church and pretended that he was a believer as he ordered the police to attack nonviolent demonstrators. Mariann went after him for making a mockery of the Bible, the Episcopal Church, and Jesus. I immediately noticed how petite she was and thought, “She’s a real bishop!”

Mariann is married to her loving, supportive husband, Paul, and is the mother of two adult sons. She is the bishop of the Episcopal diocese in Washington, DC, and cares deeply about social justice issues, inclusivity, and advocating for marginalized communities.

She was the preacher at the National Day of Prayer on January 20, 2025, an event the forty-seventh president and his entourage attended. Her fifteen-minute sermon described the necessary elements for national unity: dignity, honesty, and humility. At the end of her sermon, she added a fourth element, calling on the forty-seventh president to have mercy on those in America, particularly immigrants and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, who are currently terrified of what he’s doing. (Me too!)

She was gentle but forceful, strong, and unafraid. She did not attack him but simply gave a plea for him to be the president of all people in our country.

Since then, she’s been viciously attacked by the forty-seventh president and his groupies, demonstrating how threatened they are by the idea of compassion for all.

If the Episcopal Church had more Marianns, we wouldn’t be driving nails into the coffin of the institutional church. Instead, our churches would be packed because people are starving to hear and live this message from Jesus and the power of agape.

PeaceLoveJoyHopeKindness

Bil

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P.S. People often ask me provocative questions about current events, both religious and secular. I have found that some of these questions are being asked universally. I’ll be periodically alternating regular articles with one of those questions and my answer. I invite you to send me your question to bilaulenbach@yahoo.com.

Photo courtesy of NASA/Paul E. Alers