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Clergywomen look to 2004

BY DEAN SNYDER
UMConnection Staff

A Baltimore-Washington Conference superintendent was one of several people named as potential candidates for bishop during a meeting of some leading clergywomen in the Northeastern Jurisdiction.

According to participants, the Rev. Mamie Alethia Williams, superintendent of the Annapolis District, was one of 10 names that emerged as potential candidates when clergywomen from the jurisdiction met during a break-out session at the 2002 International United Methodist Clergywomens Consultation Jan. 7-11 in San Diego.

After the 1,185 clergywomen who attended the consultation broke up into jurisdictional groups on Jan. 9, Bishop Susan Morrison of Albany, N.Y., raised the topic of the 2004 episcopacy elections in the group.

In the United Methodist Church, bishops are elected at jurisdictional conference by clergy and lay delegates from annual conferences located within the jurisdiction.

I thought it was a time and a place to ask the question: Are there women here who feel some nudging in this direction, not necessarily an absolute call, Bishop Morrison said during a Jan. 23 telephone interview. It was not a time to rally people around certain women as candidates as much as it was a time to raise some women as possibilities.

Bishop Morrison also said that the list of potential female candidates should not be limited to those whose names emerged during the consultation.

The Rev. Michelle Wright Bartlow, a superintendent in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference who was also named as a potential candidate, said the discussion was important because the traditional process of surfacing candidates for the episcopacy might result in some women being overlooked. They might not be considered because they will not have enough visibility to be elected if they wait until the last minute to become candidates, she said. It is like a ripple effect, she said. If you start at jurisdictional conference, it is too late.

It is not so much that we organized politically at that point, although I think that will happen, Bartlow added. But it was a time to let gifts and voices emerge.

Williams was nominated by the Rev. Carletta Allen, pastor of the St. Luke-Mt. Gregory Charge in Sykesville. Ive always assumed that Mamie was going to be my bishop someday; she is qualified to be a bishop, Allen said in a telephone interview. She speaks with God in an intimate way and thats what I want in a bishop.

Bishop Morrison called us to be bodacious and speak what was in our hearts, she added. Thats why I got up. I didnt even know if she wants to be a bishop.

Williams said that she would consider becoming a candidate if she felt it was what God and the people wanted. If this is what God desires, if this is a part of Gods will, and if there is support from the people, so be it, she said. Outside of that, forget it.

Because four of the jurisdictions 10 active bishops, Felton Edwin May, Clifton F. Ives, Neil L. Irons, and Hae-Jong Kim, will reach the denominational mandatory retirement age in 2004, four new bishops are expected to be elected. In 2000 only one bishop was elected. There were four vacancies in 1996.

In 2000 the Rev. Marcus Matthews, now superintendent of the Washington West District, was nominated by the Baltimore-Washington Conference as its candidate for bishop. In 1996 the conference endorsed five candidates for four vacancies: the Revs. Marcus Matthews, Eugene Matthews, Bernard Keels, Donald Stewart and Yolanda Pupo-Ortiz.

No one from the Baltimore-Washington Conference has been elected bishop since 1988 when Bishop Morrison was elected. The last endorsed candidate from the Baltimore-Washington Conference to be elected was Bishop Forrest C. Stith in 1984.

According to Bartlow and Williams, the women suggested as potential candidates are, in the order of their nomination, the Revs. Vicki Woods of the New England Conference, Patricia Byrant Harris of the Peninsula-Delaware Conference, Williams, Minerva Carcano of the Oregon-Idaho Conference, Vicki Miller Brendler of the Greater New Jersey Conference, Heather Murray Elkins of the West Virginia Conference, Bartlow, Carol Keller of the Western New York Conference, Dorothy Watson Tatem of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and Ha-Kyung Cho-Kim of the New England Conference.

It was remarkable the variety and diversity of voices that were speaking, Bartlow said. It (the variety and diversity of voices) is more likely to happen when we have the time and leisure to think about who has the gifts to do this work.

Bishop Morrison said she was impressed by the willingness of women to step forward and offer themselves as potential candidates. What I was most pleased about was that women would envision themselves in this kind of leadership role, she said, And doing it more boldly than Id ever seen before.

We werent conditioned (to see ourselves in church leadership) growing up, she added. If you asked the early women bishops, we will all talk about how hard it was to envision ourselves in these kinds of roles.

In 1980 Bishop Marjorie Swank Matthews became the first woman elected to the episcopacy in the United Methodist Church. Today there are 11 women who actively serve as United Methodist bishops. A total of 14 women have been elected bishop.

Jurisdictional clergywomen are expected to meet again in the fall, Bartlow said.