Pawn to Bishop Six

The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado is electing a new bishop on the 21st, and I’m one of the delegates from our parish who will be doing the electing.

We’ve reviewed written statements, thus far, and last Sunday we got to hear and ask questions of the six candidates (who are doing a week-long whirlwind tour of the diocese doing just that all over the place). Last night, the parish deligates, and a few others, got together to watch the video Q&A of each candidate, too.

There are six, two of whom currently have regional responsibilities in the diocese, two others who have served in the diocese in the past, and one “newbie.” They are all solid candidates, each of whom would have serious strengths to contribute. That is, I suppose, the sort of decision-making problem one wants to have.

The Colorado diocese is an interesting place, ideologically. The Front Range, particularly the Denver metro area, is pretty cosmopolitican and liberal-moderate on various issues (with a few noteworthy parish exceptions). Much of the rest of the state tends to more conservative — either small-town rural conservative, or big city (Colorado Springs) conservative. That’s true politically, and it’s true ecclesiastically — though some of that was “bled off” (almost literally) during the AMiA schism a few years back.

That does make for some interesting debates, though, regarding the next bishop, and various concerns about voting blocs and cabals and hidden agendas, and all that other mucky political stuff that you hate to see related to religion.

That conservative/liberal divide, in Colorado, manifests itself most in issues regarding sexuality, particularly gay priests and same-sex union questions. On the one hand, you don’t want to have relatively narrow issues outweigh the larger questions of the church’s mission. On the other hand, there are a lot of people, on both sides of the divide, who won’t take “no” for an answer, and who will vote on their pet issue. And, to be fair, if you think someone’s mind is already made up, and made up against something you deeply believe in, that’s not necessarily a bad way to go. On the other hand, if you’re only willing to vote for someone who says “yes” to what you believe in, rather than someone who’s willing to try to reach a consensus, a compromise, that’s bad, right? Especially if they are taking seriously the difference between a personal principle and how a bishop needs to behave and lead and guide. Unless you think they are simply being evasive, or are uncommitted to fundamental doctrine, or …

It gets messy.

But it also becomes a practical matter to be dealt with. The vote requires that a candidate get a majority among the laity and a majority among the clergy. With six candidates, it seems unlikely you’d get a single person winning both orders on the first ballot. Still, there might be concerns about some votes being split. For example, three of the candidates seem to relatively liberal-moderate. If there was sufficient campaigning for one of the conservative candidates, he could might well start off with a big lead (or even win), while the moderates had their votes split among them. The same might work the other way, too.

It’s going to be interesting.

It will be more interesting if they can’t get a quorum of the clergy; there are quite a few retired clergy on the roles in Colorado; if a quorum of them does not show up, then the vote has to be a super-majority, which would mean it would be a very long day.

And we’ll be in the cathedral, so I need to remember to bring something soft to sit on. Those pews get to be pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly.

More as we get closer — or, lacking that, on The Day itself. Assuming they ever let us out of the building.