by Mary Frances Schjonberg[ENS] The Venerable Dena Harrison, archdeacon and canon for ministry in the Diocese ofTexas, was elected April 29 as the diocese's second bishop suffragan.Harrison, 59, was elected on the third ballot during the election held at ChristChurch Cathedral in Houston. She becomes the 13th woman elected as a bishop of the Episcopal Church.
She will serve with diocesan Bishop Don A. Wimberly, Bishop Suffragan Rayford B.High Jr. and Assistant Bishop John C. Buchanan.
A bishop suffragan acts as an assistant to and under the direction of the diocesanbishop, and serves as a bishop for the whole church. Harrison will oversee pastoraland congregational development for the 64 Episcopal congregations in the Austin region.
Harrison was born and raised in Texas. She received the master of divinity degreefrom the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in 1987. She was ordained to the diaconate later that year and was made a priest in early 1988. She servedthree parishes in Texas before becoming canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Texas in 2000. Harrison took her present position in 2003.The Episcopal Church's General Convention will be asked to consent to Harrison'selection because it occurred within 120 days of the convention, which runs from June 13-21 in Columbus, Ohio. Her consecration is set for October 7 at Camp Allen.
To be elected, a nominee had to receive a majority of the votes in both the clergyand lay orders on the same ballot. The number constituting a majority was based on actual votes cast. Election on the third ballot required 216 lay votes and 98clergy votes. Harrison received 222 lay votes and 133 clergy votes.
Results of the three ballots are available at www.epicenter.org/edot/Default.asp.
6 comments:
Congrats to the new bishop!
Check out the angry boys over at T19. They are beside themselves about the new WOMAN bishop. You know, it's anti-scriture and all. Only serves to prove their malice goes beyond gays. Once they're excluded, it will be the women next.
Then who???
As a reasserter who finds support in Scripture for women's ordination and who believes "in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity" I have to agree the tone and substance of one poster in particular on T19 was rather harsh. Where reasserters fall on WO seems to depend on their idea of the role, nature, and function of the priest and on whether tradition or Scripture has the primary role in defining belief and practice. But you shouldn't confuse all disagreement with anger. Alice Linsley, a frequent poster on conservative Anglican blogs, was an Episcopal priest. She was inhibited by Bishop Sauls and later renounced her orders, being convinced by her own study and prayer that not only was women's ordination invalid, but perhaps even Anglican orders of men and women are invalid. She has not yet "crossed the Tiber", though, as Al Kimel and others have done for the same reason.
Do not confuse the election of Bishop Payne's hatchet woman as a step twords inclusion.
the time article should be better fact checked. it says (1) there are 18 million anglicans in nigeria and (2) that this dwarfs the CoE. both are incorrect.
rmf, there are quite a few baptized members of the CofE, but only a few million attend with any degree of regularity -- maybe fewer than 2 million. The Nigerian Anglicans are very active and attend regularly.
Compare "on the register" members, and the CofE has more. Compare "in the nave" members, and Nigeria wins in a walk.
like i said, the article has clearly factual errors.
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