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Stone pillars rise in canted angles up to dizzying heights overhead, with buttresses in the hazy distance arcing out walls of stained glass, letting in multi-hued dancing sunshine. The twittering of the congregation stills as the procession begins. A long line of bishops in matching purple cassocks and white chimères, red rochets, and scarfs makes its way like history up the center aisle reaching the place where for centuries, archbishops have sat enthroned on the prayers of the church.
We sing in full voice, and up close, the differences that blend so majestically become nuances of praise, men, and women in every possible hue of skin and even the purples have their shades, some in stoles instead of scarfs and all carrying the weight of the moment in different ways. We lift our burdens in one liturgical act of worship that is both so present and so eternal that time seems heavy and non-existent at the same time.
I am aware as I sit in a contemporary wood and metal chair that the stones under my feet are on pillars I cannot see carved a millenium ago into the valley of Canterbury for an emissary-bishop sent to bring Latin Christianity to England. I feel the presence of the archbishops going back to Augustine sent by Gregory VI. I know he was met by my Celt ancestors who carried a more indigenous faith in Christ carved in other stones across Scotland and Ireland and Wales, Northumbria and the Isles. It feels like the air is old and still carrying praises grown unintelligible but lifted and filled again with new voices, our voices.
We gathered for Lambeth in worship that felt both as new as the chair I sat in and as ancient as the stones of the great cathedral. But we also met for meetings, Bible Studies, presentations, and meals in college conference halls and huge semi-permanent venues at Kent University up the hill from the town. We slept in dorms and ate in cafeterias for the most part. We took buses into Canterbury for worship and into London for lunch in the forest garden at Lambeth Palace.
We gathered from 165 different countries as bishops from the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church in the United States is but a single member. We gathered with bishops and spouses from every language and ethnic group imaginable as one body in Christ, united by our Anglican Church heritage but even more by our faith, expressed in worship and praise, study, and proclamation.
There is always a lot of talk about divisions in the Anglican Communion, I will say my piece in a moment, but I want to impress on you the deep ties we shared and still share with our siblings worldwide.
When I was a young baptist youth minister, I had this revelation while worshiping alone between youth group and Sunday service in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Buckeye, Arizona. I was kneeling in the church, praying the Lord’s Prayer, when I heard the voices of the saints praying around me in a chorus of languages that I knew somehow came from around the world and across history. That moment opened me to a larger sense of the Body of Christ as global and eternal. We never pray alone.
At Lambeth, that experience risked becoming mundane! We were constantly surrounded by the voices of those serving Christ around the world in places I only know from the news and National Geographic. They serve in places of natural beauty and natural disasters, prosperity and peace, and war and tribal conflict.
At the first Bible Study group, I was assigned to a random group of those unable to be at the online studies in preparation for the Lambeth Conference, some because of location, and me because I am so new. A bishop from Sudan said with tears, “I was born in war, I grew up in war, I married in war, and I fear I will die in war.” He described how all the Christians in his diocese were sent into exile in a neighboring country to a refugee camp. They ordained an assisting bishop to minister to them so that he could stay in the diocese with three ecumenical volunteers and preach the Gospel. “If we were to leave, the four of us, there would be no one in my diocese to preach the Gospel!” Another bishop from the Solomon Islands stopped our group to pray powerfully together that this bishop would not die in war because “we serve the Prince of Peace! Peace will come!”
The faith and worship of our siblings worldwide invoked a constant sense of awe and humility for me. As we studied First Peter together, in sessions led by Archbishop Justin Welby and in small groups, we were called to both our duty as bishops and Christians and to a deep unity.
I strongly commend the Bible Study materials we used, but also I would commend your study of First Peter. It is not the easiest book to begin with, and Welby admitted that none of the conference planners understood why he chose it, but it became clear as we studied together. First, Peter deals with the world in immediately relevant ways today.
The conference was held on the campus of Kent University, and we slept in un-air-conditioned dorms, Amy and I on the fourth floor, and ate most of our meals in cafeterias. But we also walked and bussed down to the town of Canterbury. Amy walked one afternoon to the seaside town of Whitstable. But most of our time was planned for us from six in the morning to eight or nine at night. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I was particularly inspired by the work in England to reach the increasingly secular culture and revitalize churches.
The Lambeth Conference is only held once a decade, and most bishops only get to attend one or maybe two in their life. Because of the delays of this Lambeth, Bishop Andrew Waldo did not get to attend one. I am grateful to begin my ministry with such a huge event. Your generosity as a Diocese, saving up for years, makes it possible for us to attend and to give generously to others. Thank you.
There are stories to tell and insights to glean that will continue to fill sermons and bear fruit for the years to come. But, right now, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to join such a line of bishops stretching around the world and back in history. I am grateful to be able to study and worship with the global body of Christ and finally to come home where the body of Christ is lived in Upper South Carolina.
I came home to questions about why I did not sign a statement released during the conference reaffirming our commitment to LGBT members of the church. It was not a hard decision, though a frustrating one. The statement was released immediately after the Call for Human Dignity was discussed by the bishops.
Two bishops from my Bible Study came to our table warily because their provinces are deeply divided, and they face real threats from other tribes in one country and Muslim clerics and police in the other. One of our Bible Study members could not come at all for fear that even being at the table or seen online as part of the conversations about the Calls for Human Dignity would mean persecution and possible death for his family.
The American Episcopal Church, along with other western churches, had already begun Lambeth Conference, frustrated that we were being asked to affirm these statements on major issues, which felt a lot like resolutions of Lambeth Conferences of the past. The Church was also frustrated that the Call for Human Dignity had invoked and quoted from the 1998 resolution condemning homosexuality and same-sex marriage as incompatible with Scripture. Under pressure from our Western churches, the Call language was changed and softened.
Then, with the conference’s unity barely holding as we prepared to discuss the Call on Human Dignity, Archbishop Justin Welby got up and addressed the gathered bishops citing a letter we had received that morning. In the address, the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged that our Anglican Communion has two responses to the sexuality debates. It was an amazing moment of clarity in leadership. It was, as Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry noted, “the first time a document in the Anglican Communion has recognized that there is a plurality of views on marriage and that these are perspectives that reflect deep theological and biblical work and reflection.”
We were called in the midst of our differences to a deeper unity. This should feel familiar in a diocese like ours that chose to stay united while our neighbors have split. Unity requires humility and sometimes giving up our ambitions to stay together.
Given that call to unity and the context of the relationships with those around me at the table, signing any statement that reaffirmed our differences and could cause real-life and death consequences for our siblings around the world was wrong. I know that will not satisfy some who have reached out to speak openly about the comfort and reassurance they got from reading the statements and seeing so many bishops’ signatures. But, if it is any comfort, I have not signed statements from either side of the debates within the Episcopal Church over issues of sexuality.
The unity of the church is not found in our agreement. Saint Paul wrote that “each should be firmly convinced in their mind.” But Paul also wrote that we should have the mind of Christ who humbled himself, even to the point of death, death on a cross.” At Lambeth, I watched those giving their lives to preach and proclaim the Gospel, fight for the rights and religious freedoms that we enjoy, and to serve in places where there is no safety except the safety of the cross.
It humbles me to think of them as I get back to work. Your generosity and faithfulness, the safety, and even the debates of our nation are gifts to be treasured even as we work to keep them and ensure that others have access to them. But the simple faith that makes us one body in Christ is above all and the fount of all.
As we sang along to the words of Jonas Myrin and Matt Redman in the dancing light of those magnificent walls of stained glass bouncing off ancient pillars of stone, I saw bishops and archbishops with their heads back and their hands raised,
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
O my should worship his holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul,
I’ll worship your holy name.
I was filled with hope for the church. Men and women of every people, language, and nation gathered as a foretaste, a hint of that day when we will all raise our voices in that New Jerusalem. I want you to be there with us. I want to rejoice with you. I want no one left out. Not one.
Some have gone on before us; I especially remember Bishop William Franklin Carr, Sr.
The following is from his family:
Frank was born on January 21, 1938, in Alexandria, VA, and was baptized at Christ Church. He died peacefully at his Murfreesboro home, surrounded by family, on August 7, 2022.
Frank was preceded in death by his parents, Franklin Lee Carr and Virginia Lorraine Ford Carr, sister Virginia Lee Carr Chinn, and brother-in-law Chester Swanson Chinn. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Lena Mae Herman Carr, son William Franklin Carr Jr., daughter Christina Virginia Carr, daughter Sarah Elizabeth Ford Carr Hardee, and son Joshua Michael Owens Carr. Frank loved his family, including three grandsons, a granddaughter, and a great-grandson.
Frank earned his Bachelor of Science in 1961 from East Tennessee State University. He began his working life as a regional manager for American Oil Company but quickly realized his desire to serve the church. He earned his Master of Divinity in 1970 from Virginia Theological Seminary and was later granted an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1980.
Frank was ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church in 1971 by Bishop Wilburn Campbell in the Diocese of West Virginia, where he spent 20 years. He served as Vicar of Olde St. John’s Church in Colliers and Church of the Good Shepard in Follansbee from 1970-1972, Vicar of St. Barnabas in Bridgeport from 1972-1975, then as Rector of St. John’s Church in Huntington from 1975-1981. Frank was honored to serve as The Assistant to the Bishop, Robert P. Atkinson, from 1981-1985 when he was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of West Virginia - a position he held until 1990. That year, he gladly accepted an invitation to become Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, with Bishop William Beckham, until his retirement in 1994.
Upon retiring, Frank and Lena moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to be near their first grandchildren. They enjoyed their time raising miniature horses, caring for grandchildren, and making many wonderful friends. Frank served as president of the Middle Tennessee Miniature Horse Club for several years.
Frank was a compassionate leader who turned struggling churches into thriving congregations. He was a magnificent public speaker and storyteller. His sermons were full of engaging and humorous stories that related to the gospel message and offered meaningful guidance. He was a natural pastor and impacted many people personally and in his professional ministry. A warm and caring demeanor defined his personality throughout his life.
Condolences and memorials may be sent to the Carr family in the care of Holy Cross Episcopal Church, 1140 Cason Lane, Murfreesboro, TN 37128.
We are grateful for his service.
Here in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina this past week, we are getting back into the swing of things as school starts back up and church programs are picking up. I am with St. Francis in Greenville this weekend. This past weekend I joined the Rev. Raphiell Ashford and clergy and people at St. Luke’s here in Columbia for the funeral of the Rev. Calvin and Mrs. Regina Griffin. The Rev. Mark Abdelnour preached, and we were all moved to worship by the witness of the Griffins to the love of Christ and faithfulness to ministry.
The Diocesan House is still under reconstruction, and our office availability is not always consistent, but we are here to serve you. We are working on Diocesan Convention and the upcoming Clergy and Spouses Retreat at St. Christopher’s Camp and Conference Center.
I am glad to be home in the Diocese. I will see you along the Way.
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