News from the Episcopal Church
Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church
Opinion by RNS
(RNS) — Sean Rowe, the newly installed presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, knows a thing or two about austerity.
As a boy, growing up in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, he saw Westinghouse Electric Corp. shutter its plant. Later, Sharon Steel went bankrupt, laying off thousands of workers, among them his uncles.
Now, at 49, Rowe’s been chosen to bring some fiscal and organizational restructuring to a denomination in decline.
The Episcopal Church’s membership dropped just below 1.6 million in 2022, down 21% from 2013. Over the past two years the decline appears to be accelerating rather than slowing, occasioning headlines such as “Episcopal Withering on the Vine,” and “The Death of the Episcopal Church is Near.”
When casting for a new leader to replace Michael Curry, the denomination’s first Black presiding bishop, Episcopalians nominated Rowe on the first ballot. Rowe had been serving as bishop of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and under a novel partnership, he also served as provisional bishop of the Western New York diocese, a collaborative model now being tried in other places.
At the same General Conference in which Rowe was elected, he was tasked with developing a plan to save $3.5 million on staff over three years.
Rowe, who has a Ph.D. in organizational learning and leadership, has already talked about cutting back the church’s hierarchy and moving resources down the ladder to church ministries.
His first two weeks in office have been busy. First, Donald Trump was elected president. Rowe issued a letter saying the mission of the church — striving for justice and peace, and protecting the dignity of every human being — would continue.
Then, Archbishop Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigned over his handling of a child sex abuse scandal. The Episcopal Church is one of 42 autonomous churches that make up the worldwide Anglican Communion, with about 80 million members in 160 countries.
“Abuse in any form is horrific and abhorrent, and it grieves me that the church does not always live up to its ideal as a place where all of God’s children are safe,” Rowe said in a statement Tuesday. He also pledged to address any failures in safeguarding children in the Episcopal Church.
Rowe lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Carly, the executive director of the Cathedral of St. Paul. The couple have a 12-year-old daughter, Lauren. RNS spoke to Rowe, the youngest presiding bishop ever, about the challenges ahead. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
You’ve talked a lot about structural realignment. What does that mean and what do you envision it will look like?
We understand ourselves as Christians to be the risen body of Christ in the world. But we’re also an institution in society and in many ways we’ve atrophied. We should be about the institution not for the institution’s sake, but for the ends for which the institution advocates. We have a particular vision for the world and the people and a relationship with the people around us. A strong institution will help us live into those. What I hope to do is be able to take an institution that was built and designed for a particular time and place to help it adapt to the world in which we live now. I’m hoping to help the church renew its sense of itself in the world, rather than holding on to ways that mean it can’t be as effective. We’re not as effective as we could be.
Could you be a little bit more specific about what changes might be in store for the Episcopal Church?
Our denominational structure would begin to focus its resources and its time and energy in local ministry on the ground. The Episcopal Church has a particular view of the Kingdom of God that is at odds with predominant cultural views, which sees the Kingdom of God as over others, as judgmental, as partisan. We have a very different understanding. And I’m hoping to make that relevant to the world in new ways. It happens by creating an organization that is flat and more able to quickly adapt.
Is the church too top-heavy?
Oh, sure. It was structured for a time when we had a lot more people. In 1965 we were more than double the size we are now. It made sense in that world. It was a large corporate structure, and that’s just not necessary in that way. Also, the culture has shifted around us in ways we couldn’t have imagined then. So it’s really sort of catching up to that. We want to have a compelling relevant voice along with all of our interfaith partners.
How do you understand the decline of the denomination, and do you anticipate it will continue?
I think it gets worse before it gets better. Some of it is related to the changing culture around us. Much of it is institutional. What people sometimes call organized religion has earned its reputation as being untrustworthy or partisan or judgmental or out of touch. Our lack of ability to be authentic and to allow the brand of Christianity to be almost entirely identified with the Christian right. That’s a piece of it. Also, our own failures holding ourselves accountable and our own inability to live up to our own values has cost us deeply. People are just saying, we don’t want to be part of this at this point.
However, it is a powerful tradition that we’re a part of. If we can reclaim that piece of our heritage, and open people up to the wideness and the richness of faith, that is compelling. But it’s not gonna look like it did. The truth of the matter is we don’t know what it will look like. We don’t know what structures we need. We have to experiment. I think this is a season of experimentation. It’s an exciting time, frankly, but it’s going to require us to be honest with ourselves in ways we haven’t been.
Is there a willingness to reexamine the structures and the institutions and pare down where needed?
I think part of the reason I was elected was to help lead some of this particular change. So I think there’s some willingness, but like any other kind of change initiative, it’s about the distribution of loss in many ways. So what happens when it’s going to cost us personally? That’ll be the challenge ultimately. But I think we’re up to it.
You grew up in the Rust Belt as all these factories closed. How did that affect you?
I actually experienced what it is to have things you love and value almost evaporate overnight. For what felt like a period of five or six years in the region where I was, things just evaporated — the major steel employer and the ancillary shops and all the things that support an industry — they just went away. Sharon Steel was a corporate raider who bankrupted it and just siphoned all the money out of it and thousands of people were unemployed. A couple of generations of my family were steelworkers. You could graduate from high school, go to the mill, get a job. My uncles were millwrights. In the hierarchy of the steel world, it’s a skilled worker, somebody who can, who fixes the machines. So you could make a living. You weren’t wealthy but you could raise a family. Then it disappeared. There’s all the reactions to change — the grief, the anger, the vain hope that it’s gonna come back — but ultimately a kind of practicality and resilience says, ‘OK, this is the reality. This is the hand we’ve been dealt. Now we have to do something different with this.’ That has always stuck with me. These men and women figured it out. I think it taught me about resilience and it taught me about the need for change and how when it comes your way, you’ve got choices. That’s why I’m not panicked about where the church is at all. We have a compelling mission and vision and it’s an alternative to the prevailing one.
How do you see the church in the next four years vis-à-vis the Trump administration?
I’m gonna continue to call the church to stand with the least of these. We have for many years had a significant ministry with refugees. We’re one of 13 federal agencies that resettles refugees. We will continue that work. We want to stand with those who are seeking refuge in this country and stand on our record of success, resettling asylum-seekers and refugees. We’re Christians who support the dignity, safety and equality of women and LGBTQ people. We understand that not as a political statement but as an expression of our faith. We may disagree about immigration policy in the pews. We’re largely united about our support of people who are seeking refuge and asylum and inclusion of all people.
Has the church taken a stand on Christian nationalism?
Our House of Bishops has at least a theological report on Christian nationalism, which I think is well done. We’re after creating an inclusive, welcoming church that helps to transform the world. Christian nationalism really has no place. We will bring forth an understanding of the kingdom of God that is entirely in opposition to those ways of thinking and the values of Christian nationalism.
You yourself were once an evangelical. You went to Grove City College, a conservative evangelical school. What happened?
I attended Grove City College but I did not learn Christian nationalism there. I learned about the rule of law as a core fundamental and that’s what I don’t see in a lot of the thinking that is there now. I always struggled with a lack of an expansive or inclusive worldview that did not account for the complexity of human nature and the world around me. It felt limiting and narrow to me. I had friends who came out as LGBTQ, I traveled to see how other cultures lived and thought. As my world expanded, I came back to new understandings. I’ve gone from being an evangelical Christian, as the term is understood today, to someone who understands God as much broader and the world as much more complex than I once thought.
And then you went straight to Virginia Theological Seminary and became a priest at age 25. What was that like?
Yes, at St. John’s in Franklin, Pennsylvania, between Erie and Pittsburgh. I loved the people there. I loved the parish. I was able to connect with that community in really important ways. I ran for the school board and served four years. I had great teachers growing up and I loved school and I really wanted to give back to that and I had a great opportunity to do it. I chaired the housing authority in town. I had a good ministry there. It was only seven years, and then I was elected bishop.
Your predecessor, Michael Curry, is a huge Buffalo Bills fan. What about you?
Carly, my wife, she’s a Steelers fan. That’s not so much my thing. I do enjoy the phenomena of football and sports, but I was never a player myself and not much of an aficionado. My daughter and I like to scuba dive and we’ve taken that up. I also downhill ski. I enjoy that.
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe preaches Nov. 2 at his investiture, as seen in the service’s livestream.
Rowe, 49, was elected in June on the first ballot by the House of Bishops and confirmed by the House of Deputies at the 81st General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. He was partly chosen for his experience overseeing adaptive responses to the challenges of denominational decline, as bishop of Northwestern Pennsylvania and bishop provisional of Western New York. In his investiture sermon, he sought to prepare the church for what is expected to be a time of great change.
Just as Jesus commanded his disciples to unbind and liberate Lazarus, raised from the dead, “this unbinding and liberating of ourselves and our structures and our hurting world will take all the resilience we can muster,” Rowe said. “It will require us to set aside our disbelief and our divisions, our attachments to the things of this world, and maybe our attachment to the way we think things ought to function.
“But if we can be faithful in this work of unbinding, we will find that we can become the stewards that God needs us to be of our congregations and communities across our church.”
The scaled-down investiture was a deliberate contrast to the church’s past tradition of welcoming new presiding bishops with greater fanfare at installations hosted at Washington National Cathedral, the seat of the presiding bishop, in the U.S. capital.
The Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe was consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania in 2007. Since April 2019, he also served as bishop provisional of the Diocese of Western New York.
Rowe was partly motivated by an interest in reducing the service’s carbon footprint while increasing opportunities for churchwide virtual participation. All the church’s more than 100 dioceses were invited to send video greetings for a “roll call” that preceded the investiture. The videos demonstrated the diversity of both the church’s membership and its local expressions of the faith.
“We are excited to join with you in the mission and ministry of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” Colorado Bishop Kym Lucas said during her diocese’s video for Rowe’s investiture. “We will hold you in our prayers and we are thankful that you have answered this call to serve.” She also attended the investiture in person.
The Diocese of Easton in coastal Maryland incorporated canoe paddles as props into its video clip. It concluded with the message “Let’s get Rowe-ing!” The Diocese of South Dakota offered verbal “blessings” in short clips from each of its congregations. Other dioceses offered prayers for Rowe’s new term, while the Diocese of Northern Michigan serenaded him with a short hymn.
And in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, Bishop Russell Kendrick was joined by a large crowd of Episcopalians who wished Rowe well with their feet planted in Gulf waters – specifically Weeks Bay at the diocese’s Beckwith camp and conference center.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” they shouted in unison.
Rowe was greeted with plenty of good cheer in person as well. Some 127 people filled the chapel for the investiture, including Rowe’s wife, Carly Rowe, and their 12-year-old daughter, Lauren.
PROFILE: Rowe’s story is rooted in working-class western Pennsylvania
Lauren read the service’s New Testament lesson, Revelation 21:1-6A. A reading of Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 was presented in the Eastern Shoshone language by Ronald Braman from the Diocese of Idaho. Two deacons, The Rev. Pedro Rodriguez and the Rev. Lillian Davis Wilson, read the Gospel reading, John 11:32-44, in Spanish and English.
The service incorporated a wide range of cultural traditions and languages, most notably in its intercessions, spoken in Spanish, Mandarin, German, French and other world tongues. The intercessors also included interfaith guests, Mohamed Elsanousi, a Muslim who spoke in Arabic, and Rabbi Esther Lederman, speaking in Hebrew.
Music for the service was coordinated by Dent Davidson and the Rev. Lester Mackenzie.
House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris attended, as did representatives from all nine of the church’s provinces. Several ecumenical guests included Anglican Communion Secretary General Bishop Anthony Poggo, originally of South Sudan. Poggo spoke about halfway through the service, offering a celebratory message on behalf of the communion, of which The Episcopal Church is one of 41 autonomous, interdependent provinces.
“Bishop Sean, you bring a wealth of experience and Christian wisdom to this role at a time when careful discernment and confidence founded in the Gospel is so much needed,” Poggo said.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby sent his regrets that his busy schedule prevented him from attending Rowe’s investiture in person. The Very Rev. Sammy Wainaina, one of Welby’s advisers, read the archbishop’s message on his behalf.
“The church has placed a trust and a responsibility on your shoulders,” Welby said. He alluded to global contexts, from the upcoming presidential election in the United States, to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, to violent conflict in Africa and forced migration.
Presiding Bishop-elect Sean Rowe is flanked by 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and 27th Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in June during the 81st General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo: Randall A. Gornowich
The church “is called to respond with hope to the needs of humanity,” Welby said. “I therefore encourage you to rise up to the occasion through the power of the Holy Spirt to lead The Episcopal Church in responding to its ministry context.”
The presiding bishop has a range of responsibilities, as outlined by The Episcopal Church Constitution and Canons. Those include presiding over the House of Bishops, chairing Executive Council, visiting every Episcopal diocese, participating in the ordination and consecration of bishops, receiving and responding to disciplinary complaints against bishops, making appointments to the church’s interim bodies, and “developing policies and strategies for the church and speaking for the church on the policies, strategies and programs of General Convention.”
One of Rowe’s first tasks as presiding bishop is to oversee a “structural realignment” of churchwide operations while developing a plan to save $3.5 million on staff over three years, or about 5% of the church’s total personnel costs. Last month the church, at Rowe’s request, contracted with Compass, a consulting firm with experience in organizational development, to help facilitate engagement with the churchwide staff. Those discussions will continue Nov. 7-9 when Rowe chairs his first Executive Council meeting in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
As Rowe prepares to grapple with weighty organizational matters, his Nov. 2 investiture served as a ceremonial changing of the guard – featuring a literal passing of the staff, as Curry handed his primatial cross over to Rowe during the service. Curry, whose nine-year term concluded Oct. 31, now plans to spend much of his retirement closer to home in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Rowe and his family will maintain their primary residence in Erie, Pennsylvania, though he has already begun traveling around the church and will continue to visit its more than 100 dioceses, as is required of him as presiding bishop under Episcopal Church Canons. His message to those dioceses is that their good work is part of something greater.
“The days are over, if they ever existed, that diocese and congregations and institutions of our church could just go it alone and do it their own way,” Rowe said in his sermon. “For we must acknowledge our mutual interdependence, our need to do ministry together, to share what we have and to sustain one other. Especially now, in this badly hurting world, we need to become one church.”
God has given the church the resources and talents to invest in its ministries, “building communities, advocating for justice and saving lives,” Rowe said. “This work, the work of proclaiming in word and deed Jesus’ resurrection and life, is the work to which God has called The Episcopal Church, now and always, as one church, together.”
Western Oregon Bishop Diana Akiyama was among those attending in person, to represent Province VIII. “My hope and excitement is that we continue to move forward with strength and great faith and as one church, as the presiding bishop said in his sermon, to remember that we are one church that we need to help each other, we need to collaborate,” Akiyama told Episcopal News Service. “We need to try new things as we lean into these next nine years.”
Also in attendance was Nathan Brown, vice president of Province III. Brown, 34, served with Rowe on the General Convention Title IV legislative committees during the 80th and 81st General Conventions, and he also is a member of the Under 40 Caucus.
“He really embodies a lot of the skills that are really needed right now, particularly with administration, and he has such a great vision for the church. He’s led dioceses through very difficult times, and just on a personal level, working with him, he’s an amazing bridge builder,” Brown told ENS. “I’m sure he’s going to bring those gifts to the whole church. I’m really looking forward to that.”
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org. Lynette Wilson, ENS’ managing editor, contributed to this report.