Religion: Episcopalian Backlash

During the past decade, the once conservative Episcopal Church has flowered into one of the most progressive of mainstream Protestant denominations in the U.S. But last week, at their 64th triennial convention in Louisville, the Episcopalians abruptly applied the brakes to innovation. The House of Bishops elected the Right Rev. John M. Allin, 52, of Mississippi—the most conservative of five candidates—as their new Presiding Bishop, the church’s chief executive. Moreover, the lower clergy and laity who constitute the House of Deputies unexpectedly defeated a proposal to ordain women as priests.

The mood of the Louisville delegates was considerably cooler than that of the General Convention in Seattle six years ago, when the Episcopalians ebulliently adopted a controversial special program to aid racial minorities and approved a constitutional change to allow women to be seated in the House of Deputies. The 1970 convention in Houston went on to approve the ordination of women as deacons, a critical step toward eventual ordination of female priests. But such changes did not sit well with many of the church’s 3,400,000 members. Indeed, criticism of Presiding Bishop John E. Hines, an outspoken friend of the progressives, doubtlessly contributed to his decision to retire next May, 2½ years before the end of his term.

Bishop Allin is not exactly a right-winger, although he is known to be critical of several of his predecessor’s policies. Allin is a Southern white, born in Arkansas, who earned his divinity degree at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. His record as Bishop of Mississippi includes the rebuilding of burned-out black churches in the state, but Allin’s Deep South background alienated militant blacks and Northern white liberals at the convention.

Although the House of Bishops chose Allin on their second ballot by a vote of 84 to 58 for the nearest contender, liberals in the House of Deputies took an unprecedented stand against the selection. The deputies’ confirmation has traditionally been pro forma. Debate about Allin’s qualifications, however, kept the bishops waiting in Louisville’s Christ Church Cathedral for 4½ hours before he received the deputies’ mixed approval. Allin tried immediately to reassure the House of Deputies, declaring that “what we have learned in the ’60s we must not forget.” But he also appealed for “reconciliation” in the church—an implication that he intends to soothe conservatives disgruntled by the church’s recent activist past.

A few hours after confirming Allin for a twelve-year term, the House of Deputies took up the proposal to ordain women—a move that Hines had vigorously endorsed in his opening sermon (Allin was opposed). Although a majority of deputies apparently favored the innovation, the complicated system of bloc voting by dioceses resulted in the measure’s defeat. The Episcopal Women’s Caucus reacted bitterly. “We have been turned down not by God,” they said, “but by the Episcopal Church.”