Edward H. Harrison, Jr.
Born: June 30, 1951
Married to Teresa Sanderson; two children
Ordained to priesthood in 1982
BA University of the South; M Div, Yale Divinity School
Canonical Status: Florida
Current Position: Dean, St. John’s Cathedral, Jacksonville, FL
Previous Positions: Rector, St Christopher’s, Pensacola, FL; Rector, St. Paul’s by-the-Sea, Jacksonville Beach, FL; Associate Rector, Trinity, Concord, MA; Assistant Rector, St. Luke’s, Mobile, AL
Question: Why do you want to become a bishop? What special gifts would you bring to this Diocese? What are the pluses and minuses of being a bishop in the Episcopal Church?
Answer: I feel nudged by the Holy Spirit to enter into your search process to discern what God has in mind for you and for me in the future, to see if our lives are to become knitted together. Though I don’t know the Diocese of Southern Virginia well, you have been in my thoughts and prayers during your long transition period. So, I feel I have had a spiritual connection with the diocese long before this opportunity arose to consider entering your search process.
I also believe my ministry experience has shaped and formed me to a place where I am now ready to consider serving as a bishop. During 25 years of ordained ministry, I have served as a parish priest in three very different dioceses—Central Gulf Coast, Massachusetts, and Florida. I know the joys and challenges of serving as the only priest in a small, rural mission; and I know the joys and challenges of serving in mid-size and large, suburban congregations. For the past 7 years I have had the joy to serve as dean of St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida. The cathedral is a vibrant, urban congregation with a distinguished servant ministry to the diocese and city by providing exquisite Anglican worship and dynamic leadership in large-scale community outreach programs. I am also attracted to your diocese because I am a chaplain in the U.S. Naval Reserve and your diocese is home to a large military population. I am interested in learning how the diocese ministers to our men and women in the Armed Forces.
I believe my gifts for ministry are:
1. A pastor’s heart. My first love is being with God’s people—being with them in joyful times as well as painful, heart-wrenching times. I love all the seasons of the human soul and I treasure the sacred trust of being invited into people’s lives to point to God’s fingerprints and His abiding presence in the midst of those seasons.
2. Sound, engaging preaching. I enjoy exploring and sharing the riches of the scriptures in the hope and expectation that we might connect our personal stories to the divine story and come to see God’s redeeming activity in our lives.
3. Visionary leadership. I enjoy creative, collaborative visioning to identify community needs and opportunities for ministry and discovering the resources with which to address those needs so that human need may be met and God may be glorified.
4. Transparent, accountable administration. In large congregations, and certainly at a diocesan level, trust, pastoral care, and collegiality are communicated through open, clear, and responsible administration. I try to surround myself with able, competent people to assist me in that ministry.
The main aspect of the episcopate that I would enjoy is that of serving as chief pastor to the clergy and their families and to the diocesan family. I know well the difference it makes in a priest’s life and ministry to have a bishop who genuinely cares for his or her clergy and people. I would enjoy capturing a shared vision for the diocese in concert with the clergy and people, of articulating that vision both within and outside the diocese, and of working toward implementing the vision. I would enjoy supporting the strengths and ministries of each congregation, and of sharing them among the diocese, so that we might celebrate our individual giftedness as members of Christ’s body who are knitted and working together. Finally, I would enjoy representing you in the councils of the Church, to serve and speak for you in the House of Bishops, at Synod meetings, General Convention, and at the Lambeth Conference.
What I think I would miss most in being a bishop would be the familiarity and intimacy of daily parish life, of sharing our lives and our faith journeys on a daily basis with our parish family. It feels a bit overwhelming and difficult to know and be known among 123 congregations whom you see and visit briefly on occasion.
Question: What are you passionate about in you ministry, your personal life, and in the world around you?
Answer: In my ministry I am passionate about building up the body of Christ through sound preaching and teaching. I do this by pointing to the crucified and risen Christ working in and through the church. By virtue of our baptisms, we are individually and corporately God’s crucified and risen offering to a world trapped in self-deception and alienation. I believe the meaning of life lies in the paschal mystery: that in giving we receive, in pardoning we are pardoned, and in dying we are born to eternal life. It is God who reveals this mystery to us by cracking us open, lifting us out of our isolated, self-made worlds and drawing us into his larger, more inclusive kingdom. I am passionate about helping people identify the paschal mystery in their personal lives—of connecting Jesus’ story with their story—and helping them discover for themselves that the way of the cross is, in fact, the way of life. I enjoy watching people wake up and come alive in Christ. And I am passionate about helping them discover their gifts for ministry so they may go into the world in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In my personal life I am passionate about my love affair with my wife who has been my soul mate and companion in ministry for 32 years. We delight in our deepening love and friendship with each other and with our two children. I strive to maintain a healthy balance between my work life and my family life through which God nurtures and restores me. I am passionate about having personal time with God, so a part of my daily discipline is prayer, scripture reading, and meditation. Recreation in the outdoors has always been a rich source of spirituality and renewal for me, and Teresa and I are avid backpackers and nature enthusiasts. I enjoy playing tennis, reading, cooking for and being with friends.
In the world around me I am passionate about promoting tolerance and understanding among different religions, cultures, nations, and ideologies. I am a member of the Jacksonville Interfaith Council bringing together clergy and laity from the various world religions each month for discussion, fellowship, and understanding. I am convinced that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists can share and learn much from each other without compromising or diminishing the core beliefs of their own faith tradition.
In recent years I have become passionate about working toward reconciliation within the Anglican Communion. Last year I took a sabbatical study to visit dioceses in South Africa, Peru, and the Caribbean. These are all areas within the Sothern Cone where relations with the Episcopal Church have become strained. I met and spoke with many clergy and laity, visited congregations, and participated in worship and ministry with them. I am convinced that if we spend time getting to know one another, sharing our stories, worshiping and engaging in ministry together we will discover that we have much more in common than our differences. I am passionate about the work of reconciliation, not for the sake of the church alone, but because I believe the world desperately needs a model for reconciliation. God’s people everywhere need to see and know that it is possible to have unity in diversity, to hold strong convictions and beliefs in opposition to others while still regarding the others with respect, dignity, and love. I believe this work of reconciliation within the church may be the Anglican Communion’s greatest opportunity in our time to witness to the world that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.
Question: Please share 2 or 3 critical moments from your spiritual journey that helped you become the priest you are today.
Answer: Perhaps the foundational moment in my spiritual journey was one of personal failure and being stripped clean of my identity. I entered my first semester of college having bluffed my way through high school without really developing any study habits. I enjoyed a wonderful semester of socializing and making friends but my grades were pitiful. My father and mother, aware of my behavior, decided not to finance my second semester, which meant that I would be drafted into the Army. I knew that I had disappointed my parents, had disappointed myself, and at 19 years old, felt that I had utterly failed in my life and had completely lost the sense of who I was as a person.
I entered All Saints Chapel at Sewanee, not a place I frequented in that first semester, humiliated, embarrassed, and scared about my future. I had grown up in the church and believed in God, but I had not had a personal encounter with him that I could remember. I knelt alone in the chapel filled with self-loathing at having wasted my opportunity at college, humiliation in the presence of my peers, filled with fear about Viet Nam and my future. I wept and asked God to simply come and watch over me. I can’t explain what happened, but I sensed for the first time the Presence standing behind me saying, “You are mine. I have you. All will be well.” That was all, but it was enough. It was a turning point for me in my relationship with Christ. And there is special meaning for me in the words of the General Thanksgiving: “We thank you for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone (BCP, p. 836).”
A second moment in my journey took place in seminary. I was eager to learn about God, to gain academic, theological language about who God is and what God is like. But I began having a hunger for knowing God, for living more intentionally in the Presence I had encountered in All Saints’ Chapel. I took a course in Christian Spirituality taught by Henri Nouewen focusing on praying with the scriptures. This was a new approach—the other courses taught me how to use analytical tools to understand and interpret the Bible. This new way was teaching me to empty myself in order to let the scripture speak to and illuminate me. Centering prayer with a passage of scripture continues to be my way of availing myself to the One to “whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” It is my way of listening for and seeking God’s will, God’s prompting, God’s leading rather than my own.
A third and continuing experience for me is one of trusting God in taking risks. When I arrived at the cathedral, we had a fledgling outreach program offering after-school instruction in the performing arts to 200 students in a few of the city’s poorest schools. Some members of the vestry and congregation thought it was costing too much money, not making enough impact, and needed to be dropped. Others thought it should be broadened and expanded. I knew in my heart that this was a good and desperately needed ministry. Results showed a dramatic improvement in the behaviors and grades of the students in our program. So, I called together a group of cathedral members who understood business, finance, organizational structure, and who had a heart for outreach ministry. After a period of research and study, the group became convinced that under the right leadership the program could grow into an independently funded and meaningful city-wide offering. It meant, however, that we needed to step up and fund a position for a top-notch executive director who would implement our vision. We did that. And today the Cathedral Arts Program provides instruction to 1200 students per week in 25 of our neediest schools. It is well funded by individuals, businesses, and foundations because they see the difference it is making in children’s lives. I continue to learn that God blesses those things that serve his people.
Question: Describe how you have displayed respect for the dignity and worth of every human being.
Answer: Not far from the cathedral is a homeless shelter called the Claire White Mission. In addition to offering shelter, the mission runs a culinary arts school designed to provide job training and skills for their residents and for unemployed citizens. I had read about the program and was greatly impressed by its vision and practicality of helping to restore dignity for people who had lost theirs.
The Spirit worked on me for over a year intriguing me with questions of how we might support Claire White’s Culinary School. Finally, as I walked through our vacant parish hall one weekday afternoon, it dawned on me that we had a perfect venue in which the mission might open a restaurant so that student chefs could get real-life experience of operating a restaurant. I spoke with the vestry about it and they were encouraging. So I phoned the director of the mission and shared my vision to her. There was a long silence on the phone during which I began thinking, oh no, she thinks I’m nuts. Finally, after several moments, she said that she had been praying for just such a place to do exactly what I was suggesting.
It took several months to navigate the state licensing agencies, obtain the necessary permits, and perform upgrades to our kitchen, but Claire’s Cathedral Café has been serving fine dining to downtown business men and women for over a year. It is open one day a week—on Fridays for lunch. The student chefs do everything—the newer students serve as waiters while the senior students prepare the meals in the kitchen. They also run the cash register. In their language, they are learning “both sides of the house.” The servers dress in white shirts with ties and black trousers and the cooks are in full chef dress. It is a classy joint, they say.
What is most gratifying to me is the look of pride and self-respect the students have as they serve an upscale lunch to Jacksonville’s business community. The students’ smiles, their personal bearing, their sense of accomplishment at providing a service to others—it is holy to behold.
The cathedral has built a close relationship with the Claire White Mission. We clergy have come to know the students and one of us give the invocation at the graduation ceremony held every 3 months in our parish hall/cafe. It, too, is a classy affair with cap and gown and delicious hors’deurves. The graduates have an opportunity to tell what the program has meant to them and there is never a dry eye. The last ceremony I attended one graduate said as she clutched her diploma, “I’m 39 years old, and this is the first time I’ve ever completed anything.” She repeated it a few more times…“the first time I’ve ever completed anything.” The beaming pride in her face at her accomplishment and the cheering applause of her classmates touched me deeply and made me thankful to be part of a church community which would invest in such a noble undertaking.
St. Ireneaus, a 2nd century bishop, once said, “The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.” He is right. And my great learning in this experience is that respecting the dignity of human beings—one of our baptismal promises—is not something we do alone. We do it in community as the Body of Christ. Had the vestry not been willing to support my idea, had we not had parishioners helping get the permits and licenses, had we not had some people helping to finance the kitchen upgrades, had the congregation not been excited and supportive, Claire’s Cathedral Café would not be in existence. Thankfully we all honored our baptismal vows to “respect the dignity of every human being” and in so doing God blessed us to behold his Glory becoming fully alive in these students’ faces.
Question: Please describe how you have responded personally, and in you ministry to decisions made at the 74th and 75th General Conventions?
Answer: I attended the 74th General Convention as an alternate deputy. There were many decisions made at that convention, but I think you are asking about the consent to the consecration of Gene Robinson to become Bishop of New Hampshire. Prior to convention I communicated with my congregation about the likelihood of his being approved, knowing that would cause great joy for some and great distress for others, and I reminded them of how bishops are elected within the Episcopal Church’s polity. At convention, I attended the confirmation hearings and became persuaded that Father Robinson was called, gifted, and worthy to serve as a bishop in our church. But I was not sure that the church had done the necessary work to receive the gifts a homosexual person would bring as bishop. Since I was an alternate deputy, I did not vote on the consecration, but I must say that the extended time of silent prayer prior to the vote was one of my deepest experiences of being in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Upon returning home, I told the congregation that we had members who were rejoicing and members who were extremely disappointed and that we would continue to walk together honoring one another and reaching across the isle to support and care for all. I called a congregational meeting at which parishioners were invited to express their reactions and opinions in an atmosphere of personal respect, openness, and honesty. We began an educational process to discuss how Christians of good faith can hold divergent views on issues of scriptural interpretation and human sexuality. The cathedral clergy intentionally practiced a non-anxious ministry of presence, faithfully preaching the Gospel, and focusing the congregation’s attention on continuing our ministries. We said farewell to some 50 people who felt they could no longer be Episcopalian and we welcomed new people who came from parishes where rectors and vestries were preparing to leave the church. As dean of the diocese, I checked in with clergy, particularly those in smaller congregations, who were struggling with irate parishioners to offer support and a listening ear.
At the 75th General Convention, I served as a deputy, and was very surprised by the election of Katharine Jefferts-Shori as Presiding Bishop. It only took a few minutes of listening to her speak to realize that God had indeed called her to be our new Presiding Bishop. I had concern over how her election would be received by the Primates who are in strained relationship with the Episcopal Church. But I have come to admire and respect her intelligence, her personal integrity, and her commitment to the Windsor Process.
I felt frustration and apprehension over convention’s inability to articulate a meaningful response to the Windsor Report as requested by the Primates. Given our polity, I knew the House of Bishops must exercise strong leadership in crafting a statement honoring both our governance and expressing our commitment to be in communion with the larger church. I am thankful the Bishops were able to do that by pledging themselves to refrain from future consecrations of homosexual persons until further discussion within the communion has taken place.
There was very little reaction back home from the 75th Convention—sadness and disappointment, yet a resigned understanding among our gay/lesbian brothers and sisters. We have extended an invitation to Bishop Jefferts-Shori to visit the cathedral and diocese and the cathedral vestry voted to contribute .7% of our budget to assisting with the Millennium Development Goals.
Question: As a bishop, how would you respond to the controversies of the church today?
Answer: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said, “At our baptisms, we form solidarities not of our own choosing.” That statement resonates deeply for me. That is, when we were baptized (many of us as infants), we formed solidarities with the worldwide family of Anglican Christians not because we share the same geo-cultural backgrounds or political-economic ideologies or skin color or sexual orientation, but rather because “in Christ God was reconciling himself to the world, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us (2 Cor. 5:19).”
Today’s controversies in the church are a microcosm of the larger tensions and polarization we are experiencing in our world. A strong temptation in such times of conflict and confrontation is to simply cut off, to splinter, to fragment, to form solidarities of our own choosing rather than to work through the issues and disagreements with those solidarities given to us by God. We should expect differences among us. For just as there is distinction and diversity among the three persons of the Holy Trinity, so we find distinction and diversity among the Body of Christ. In fact, we have in our understanding of the Trinity a divine model for living in community—one in which there is full differentiation and individuality of personhood yet perfect union in love.
I believe the church today is called to extraordinary servant leadership in terms of listening to one another with respect, of honoring our deeply held differences, of discovering anew that in Christ we are one in spirit, and of living into our ministry of reconciliation. This requires great effort, work, and a willing self-surrender on the part of individuals and groups to stay in fellowship and communion with one another while we listen to each other and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It also requires we understand, and understand deeply, that those with whom we disagree are just as good and faithful Christians as we, and are just as valued in God’s sight as we are valued.
I am committed to work toward the reconciliation of our church. Part of that work is to continue in dialogue with those provinces of the Anglican Communion who do not understand our democratic polity and governance. I believe the Episcopal Church is called to bear witness that God is doing a new thing among us, to share our experience of God’s blessing through the gifted ministries—both lay and ordained—of our gay and lesbian members. And yet, both scripture and history teach us that whenever God does new things, we mortals are slow to learn.
In order to bear our witness, we must be at the table as full partners in the conversation. As a bishop, I would be honor-bound to live by the councils of our church, by the decisions of General Convention. That means I would not now give consent to the consecration of a bishop who is a homosexual person. It means I would not now give authorization for blessings of same-sex unions. Neither would I welcome nor allow bishops from other provinces of the communion to provide pastoral oversight to congregations within the diocese of Southern Virginia.
Let me end by restating that the controversies in our church are a microcosm of the larger cultural wars threatening our global society. We work for the reconciliation of a broken world not for our own sakes, but because in Christ we have already become reconciled to God. And let there be no mistake that the world is watching how we will conduct ourselves. The world looks at us with tired skepticism, yet with hope, that maybe…just maybe…it is possible to live together in diversity with understanding, unity, and peace. May God bless us to live into that high calling.
There is bitter irony here. In Massachusetts, I once blessed hounds before a fox hunt. How absurd that seems now! There are provinces in which such frivolous activities still receive the Church’s blessing. Yet we abstain from the more serious business of conferring God’s blessing upon committed, monogamous human relationships. I humbly ask God’s forgiveness and compassionate understanding from my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters whom these prayerful decisions directly impact while we seek consensus as members of a larger, trans-cultural church.