Is the press ready to cover the first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America?

By Diane Winston

Perhaps a yet-to-be-found cosmic equation explains the inverse relationship between religion and sex. More where there should be less, less when there could be more, and an incalculable amount of time debating who can do what to whom with whose blessing. The recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church, USA held true to the rule as well as its corollary: Keep your options open. The tepid acceptance of the Windsor Report–which sought a “moratorium” on ordaining gays and lesbians as bishops–commits the American church to exercising “restraint” with regard to on whom it elects to the episcopate.

In the words of the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the denomination, that language “leaves the door open” for changes that would lead to the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians in the church. (The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, may have checkmated Schori with a new proposal for a two tier membership system within the Anglican communion. Church bodies that rejected a common “theological covenant”–which would certainly forbid gay and lesbian ordination–would be non-decision-making members.)

Schori’s remarks explain why secular pundits and church commentators have cast Katharine Jefferts Schori’s election as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA as the latest installment in the culture wars. Not only is Schori a theological liberal, but since only three of the 38 Anglican communions worldwide have consecrated women bishops (the U.S., Canada and New Zealand), elevating a female to the top national spot must augur revelation or revolution.

But the conflict narrative misses an equally significant story. Schori’s lasting impact may stem not from her sex but from the complex mix of personal qualities and life experience that equip her for leadership in a deeply divided society and the communion that reflects those conflicts. In the course of her odyssey to ecclesiastical leadership, Schori has taken on three of the nation’s most pressing issues: the growing gap between science and religion, the surge in the religiously unaffiliated Americans, and the swelling numbers of Hispanic immigrants. If she can convince her co-religionists to meet these challenges, Schori could move the church from debilitating internal debates over sexuality to reengagement with the larger society.

As a Stanford University undergraduate, Schori’s first love was science. She parlayed her degree in marine biology into graduate studies in oceanography. After earning a doctorate at Oregon State University, Schori worked as a researcher, including a stint at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. She recently told the Los Angeles Times that her journey “as a person of faith and a trained scientist begun in some struggle over how to understand the two of them together.” Her experience taught her that both paths were valid. Scientists want to understand life and believers want to know the meaning behind it, she told the newspaper. “I don’t see why there has to be a conflict.”

Then again, conflict between the sacred and secular may have been less an issue in Schori’s corner of the world than in other areas of the U.S. A Seattle native, she spent much of her adult life and ministry in Corvallis, Oregon. The country’s most secular region, the Pacific Northwest has the largest percent of residents (25 percent) claiming “none” as their religious identity. Fewer residents affiliate with a religious institution (37 percent) than anywhere else in the nation. When Schori left Corvallis to become the Episcopal Bishop of Nevada, she remained a minority–a believer among the unchurched. Episcopalians in both places represent 0.7 percent of the total population and overall religious adherence is almost the same.

According to social scientists, areas like Nevada and the Northwest are the leading edge of a national trend. In a 2004 study, the Institute for Jewish and Community Research found that 16 percent of Americans were unaffiliated, twice the number from a decade before. Trends notwithstanding, Schori believes the church must be a symbol of hope and justice for all people. In comments to the Corvallis Gazette-Times before moving to Nevada, she stressed the need for churches whose mission extended beyond their own doors. Schori put her mandate into practice by reaching out to Corvallis’ Hispanic community. Although only 2.7 percent of all Episcopalians are Spanish-speaking congregants, Schori–who is fluent in the language–made community building a hallmark of her vocation.

Schori’s election closes the circle on a generation of sexual politics begun 30 years ago, when the Episcopal Church decided to admit women to the priesthood and a chasm opened between traditionalists who rejected the new dispensation and progressives who affirmed that “in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.” In the years since, the divisions between traditionalists and progressives festered, and the issue of ordaining gays and lesbians has sidelined the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations in an increasingly polarized debate.

While sexual politics has been the defining issue of late 20th century American Christianity, Schori’s ascension in the American branch of the Anglican Communion offers the possibility of a new agenda for a new century. Imagine a faith-based politics built around a different set of questions. Then imagine the reporters who could cover it.

Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California, is the author of Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army.