Barbara C. Harris

• Born: 12 June 1930
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Best Known As: The world's first female Anglican bishop

Barbara C. Harris became a suffragan (assistant) bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in 1989 and thus the first woman ever to serve as a bishop in an Anglican church anywhere in the world. Harris was a corporate public relations executive in her native Philadelphia before studying for the ministry. Ordained a deacon in 1979 and a priest in 1980, she served as a parish pastor and prison chaplain in Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1984, then headed the Episcopal Church Publishing Company and The Witness magazine. Her election to the Massachusetts post in 1988 and her subsequent consecration were met with wide news coverage and some controversy in the United States and elsewhere. As an African American woman, she was outspoken on issues of race and gender in church and society but insisted from the start that her work and ministry not be limited to those issues. She retired in 2002 and from 2003 until 2007 she served part-time on the staff of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

Harris's broad education included courses at the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism and Villanova University in Philadelphia; the Urban Theology Unit, an ecumenical school in Sheffield, England; and the Pennsylvania Foundation for Pastoral Counseling.

In 1989, Barbara Clementine Harris (born 1930) became the first woman bishop in the Worldwide Anglican Communion. Prior to this appointment, Harris was a noted social activist, and her views on social issues continue to inform her actions as a religious leader.

Destined never to take the well-traveled or easy path to success, Barbara Clementine Harris made history in 1989 when she became the first woman bishop in the Worldwide Anglican Communion. Harris, an African American Episcopal pastor, had always chosen to be a leader and not a follower, both within and outside her church. Her elevation to bishop amazed many, as it provided a towering example of how far women had come in their struggle for equality in mainline Protestant churches. Harris's goal was to extend the boundaries of her church, continually pushing for a more progressive message from Episcopalians on issues of civil rights, sexism, and fairness. Harris's history as a social activist before joining the priesthood remained ingrained and served as a guide in all her religious actions.

Background

Harris was born on 12 June 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a youth Harris attended Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and developed a strong relationship with her church and its vision. Harris completed high school and enrolled in college, but did not complete her course work. In 1958 a public relations firm, Joseph Baker Associates, hired Harris, believing that she had great potential to enter this field and succeed. Two years later, Harris married. The relationship was short-lived and she was divorced by 1963. Politically, Harris was greatly affected by her surroundings. As a young African American woman, she felt it her duty to be a part of the civil rights struggle. Her participation in freedom rides, voter registration, and marches with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, focused Harris's attention on the importance of fighting injustice and inequality. She went on to work as a chief public relations executive at the Sun Oil Company but always held her interests in the Episcopal Church, religion, and in the struggle for justice. Harris's voice increased in the church in 1974 when she lent her support to a group of Episcopal bishops who defied a ban on ordaining women as priests. Harris became so engulfed in the issue of women's rights in the church that she contemplated becoming a priest herself. By October 1980 her dream became a reality as she was ordained. Harris's early assignments varied from serving as chaplain in a Philadelphia County prison and working in small parishes to becoming executive director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company. While at the publishing company Harris wrote for the liberal Episcopal magazine Witness and began to receive worldwide coverage in the Anglican community.

Election

Harris's ascension as bishop was a major event in the religious world. The Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade meeting of the international Anglican hierarchy, decided in early August 1988 to allow for the ordination of women as bishops in the church, and this decision set the stage for Harris to be elected. Her election in September 1988 to be the Episcopal bishop for the state of Massachusetts occasioned great celebration as well as turmoil. She defeated many prominent candidates, including other female priests, in order to achieve her status. In response to her victory counterprotests were launched. Several conservative priests revolted, some breaking ties with the church completely, while top Anglican leaders, such as Robert Runcie, the archbishop of Canterbury, refused to acknowledge female bishops in England. Ecumenical ties between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church were also strained as the Catholic Church wholeheartedly opposed women entering the priesthood. Harris, for her part, took the controversy in stride and did not let the spotlight detract her from her mission. She had always been outspoken, and she was willing to battle potential challenges to her election as bishop, a stand that won her the admiration of many of her critics.

Aftermath

Once elected and consecrated bishop, Harris continued to advocate for diversity in the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican community. Her command of a 96, 000-member Boston-based diocese made her a powerful force to be reckoned with in deciding church policy and programs. Realizing that with great power came greater responsibility, Harris toned down her rhetoric but did not alter her message. She remains what she always was - an activist critic of the status quo who constantly strives to break new ground.

Further Reading

Larry G. Murphy, J. Gordon Melton, and Gary L. Ward, eds., Encyclopedia of African American Religions (New York: Garland, 1993).

Richard N. Ostling, "The Bishop is a Lady, " Time, 132 (26 December 1988): 80.

bishop

Personal Information

Born in 1930 in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of Walter and Beatrice (Price) Harris.
Education: Attended Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism, Villanova University, Urban Theology School of Sheffield, England; Hobart and William Smith College, STD, 1981.

Career

Worked in community relations department of Sun Oil Company; served as president of Josephine Baker Associates; ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, 1980; St. Augustine of Hippo Parish, Norristown, PA, priest-in-charge, 1980-84; Church of Advocate, interim rector, 1984-88; Episcopal Church Publishing Company, executive director, 1984-89; Episcopalian Diocese of Massachusetts, suffragan bishop, 1989--. Former board member of Pennsylvania Prison Society.

Life's Work

"Our church is notorious for its short lived love affairs with one cause or another. Today it's the homeless. Tomorrow they'll be all but forgotten." The Reverend Barbara Harris preached these words in the Washington, DC Cathedral a year after her elevation as the first black woman--and the first woman--ever to reach the level of bishop in the Episcopal Church. Harris has built a religious career based on the social aspects of the Gospel, her words reflecting the life of one who has not been afraid to heed the call to Christian service.

From a young age Harris felt a call to a life of service to Christ lived out through the established church. As a teenager she founded a youth group at St. Barnabas Church in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, a group that would go on to become the largest such organization in the city. She also found time to accompany the church choir on the piano. When she finished high school, she took some training in advertising and went to work in public relations, well aware that the Episcopalian priesthood was closed to women at that time.

Harris's commitment to active ministry found an outlet with the St. Dismas Society of her area. St. Dismas is the legendary name given to the thief crucified next to Jesus who begged for forgiveness. He is often referred to as "The Good Thief." The St. Dismas Society is an organization that visits and ministers to prisoners. Harris dedicated more and more of her time to this activity, becoming a board member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society and remaining in that grueling position for 15 years. Her colleague, the Reverend Paul Washington, has estimated that Harris was so zealous in this work that she spent enough time in the prisons over that period to have served two years of captivity herself. In the early 1960s she also spent a good deal of time working in the civil rights movement, spending her vacations registering voters in the South and marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

About the time that Harris was looking for new opportunities to serve the church, support in the Episcopal denomination was swelling for the ordination of women as priests. In 1974, without the permission of the Episcopal hierarchy, 11 women accepted ordination from several retired bishops. The women were quickly dubbed the "Philadelphia 11." Barbara Harris was not among the women, but she did take part in the ordination ceremony, carrying the crucifix that led the opening procession. In a hastily-convened session, the American bishops declared the ordinations invalid. Despite the hierarchy's condemnation, four more women accepted ordination the next year in a Washington, D.C. church.

At the regularly scheduled Episcopal convention in 1976, the bishops decided to accept all the ordinations as valid and to allow women to be ordained from that time forward. At the same time they decided to open all ministries to women, including the seat of bishop. This was a momentous step, since in the 450-year history of the Episcopal Church no woman had ever served in that capacity. In fact, traditionalists believed that bishops were the successors of the original apostles, and that their authority was handed down in an unbroken chain of succession from those first followers of Christ. According to these traditionalists, since none of the original apostles were women, neither should any successive bishop be female. The protest over that point was rather moot at first, only becoming a firestorm later when Harris stood prepared to ascend to that rank.

Her days of controversy in the future, Harris was overjoyed at the opening of the Episcopal clerical ranks to women. She went back to school to study theology and to prepare to enter the priesthood. Her studies took her to several well-respected institutions, including Villanova University and Hobart and William Smith College in America, and the Urban Theological School of Sheffield, England. When she came back to the United States, she received her Doctor of Divinity degree and pursued additional studies at Amherst College.

Harris became a deacon in 1979 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1980. Almost immediately upon her ordination, she made a name for herself as a social activist. Besides parish work, she also took on the position of Executive Director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company (ECPC), a liberal organization that published the controversial magazine The Witness. In her regular column in that publication, Harris took on such issues as bombers who targeted abortion clinics--whom she regarded as terrorists--and the politics of AIDS.

According to the rules of the American Episcopalian Church, after a person is elected bishop in her local diocese, she must be confirmed by more than half of the nation's other bishops before being elevated to the chair. As soon as Harris was nominated in her diocese, traditionalists and other opponents launched an intense campaign to discredit her. The issue of her gender could not be held against her, since the denomination had opened the bishop's position to women. However, Harris's detractors attacked her non-traditional training and even her personal life despite the fact that she had demonstrated a deep commitment to her faith. The issue of her race was not raised, but it probably played some part in fomenting opposition to her sitting in the bishop's chair.

Harris's liberal social views were perhaps the strongest cause of the opposition she faced, but they also had proven popular with a large segment of the Episcopal church membership. Her supporters carried the day with force, and she immediately reached out to take a conciliatory position as she was confirmed as suffragan, or assisting, bishop of Massachusetts. Despite a few lingering protests outside the church when she was installed, rejoicing was widespread at her consecration as bishop. The celebration even exceeded the boundaries of the Episcopal Church: other denominations sent supporters to witness the occasion, and among the musicians was the Choir of the African Methodist Church which broke into the hymn, "Ride on King Jesus," upon seeing Harris enter the church.

Since her election, Harris has striven to be a bishop for the whole church, avoiding a concentration on just issues of gender or race. An Ebony magazine reporter pointed out, however, that she remains an "international Symbol of the struggle for gender equality in the Church." Her attitude remains remarkably free and open. Recently when a loyal church member bent over to kiss her ring, symbol of her authority as bishop, she pulled her hand back, saying "Forget the ring, Sweetie, kiss the bishop."

In 1999, Harris spoke at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ordination of eleven women as Episcopal priests. By then there were approximately 3000 ordained women priests in the U.S., and some 6300 in the 26 provinces of the Anglican Communion. In her speech, Harris lambasted the lack of support for women among male bishops at the previous year's Lambeth conference. "Where are the real men--not the ones who don't eat quiche--the men straight and gay who claim to support us; the men who purport to embrace the concept that in Christ 'there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female?'" she asked. Looking back on 25 years of women in the priesthood, Harris noted that "while women, in numbers, still predominate the church and virtually remain its most potent human resource, men still outvote us, whether they are vocal or silent." She urged a commitment to "press forward with a renewed determination to work toward eradicating the sexism, racism and homophobia which continue to permeate and pervade the church and in turn spawn some of the hate crimes we witness. And that includes demanding more in the way of concrete action on the part of the men who say they support us." Harris faces mandatory retirement at the age of 72 in 2003, a date that may not come soon enough for some of her critics.

Awards

Honorary degrees from General Theological Seminary, Episcopal Divinity School, and Amherst College, all 1989.

Further Reading

• Ebony, November 1995, p. 122.
• Harris, Barbara. "Sermon Delivered by the Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris at the Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia." The Episcopal Diocese Of Massachusetts,July 29, 1999. Available from http://www.diomass.org/HarrisSermon.htm.
• Philadelphia Tribune, April 29, 1984, p. D6.
• Washington Post, January 26, 1989, p. A4; September 11, 1989, p. E1.

— Jim McDermott

For more information on Barbara Clementine Harris, visit Britannica.com.

For other persons named Barbara Harris, see Barbara Harris (disambiguation).

Barbara Clementine Harris

Denomination	Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Senior posting
See	Massachusetts
Title	Bishop Suffragan
Period in office	1989— 2003
Consecration	1989
Successor	Gayle Elizabeth Harris
Religious career
Priestly ordination	1980
Personal
Date of birth	June 12, 1930 (1930-06-12) (age 79)
Place of birth	Philadelphia

Anglicanism portal

The Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris (born 12 June 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was the first woman ordained a bishop in the Anglican Communion.

Contents 1 Education 2 Ordination 3 Election as bishop 4 External links 5 Major works 6 Biographies 7 References

Education

Harris attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls (Class of 1948). There, she excelled in music and wrote a weekly column for the Philadelphia version of the Pittsburgh Courier called "High School Notes by Bobbi". After graduation, Harris attended the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism in Philadelphia where she earned a Certificate in 1950.

Harris later attended Villanova University, the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield, England, and also graduated from the Pennsylvania Foundation for Pastoral Counseling.

Prior to her ordination to the priesthood, Harris served as head of public relations for the Sun Oil Company.

Harris has long been active in civil rights issues, participating in freedom rides and marches in the 1960s, including the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ^[1]. Throughout her various careers, she has been noted for her liberal views and her outspokenness.

Ordination

Her rector at the Church of the Advocate on the north side of Philadelphia, the Rev. Paul Washington, became convinced of Harris's serious interest in seeking holy orders, and recommended her to Bishop Lyman C. Ogilby of Pennsylvania. Ogilby ordained her as a deacon in 1979 and a priest in 1980.^[1] She served as an acolyte in the service in which the first eleven women were ordained priests in the Episcopal Church on 29 July 1974. She was the priest-in-charge of St. Augustine of Hippo Church in Norristown, Pennsylvania from 1980-1984, served as chaplain to the Philadelphia County prisons, and also as counsel to industrial corporations for public policy issues and social concerns. She was named executive director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company in 1984, and publisher of The Witness magazine. In 1988 she served as interim rector of the Church of the Advocate.^[2]

Election as bishop

She was ordained Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts on 11 February 1989. She retired from her post in Boston in 2003. She was succeeded as bishop suffragan by another African American woman, Gayle Elizabeth Harris.

Currently, Harris serves as Assisting Bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC, and as president of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company, publishers of The Witness magazine.

External links

• Barbara Harris' oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project

Major works

• Harris, Barbara C.. Parting Words: A Farewell Discourse. Boston: Cowley Publications. ISBN 1561012173. 
• Harris, Barbara C.. Beyond Powershift: Theological questions in a changing world (The Westminster Tanner-McMurrin lectures on the history and philosophy of religion at Westminster College). Westminster College. ISBN B0006PCK34. 

Biographies

• Bozzuti-Jones, Mark. Miter Fits Just Fine: A Story about the Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris: The First Woman Bishop in the Anglican Communion. Boston: Cowley Publications. ISBN 1561012203. 

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Episcopal News Service: Press Release # 88202". Episcopal News Service. http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=88202. Retrieved on 2007-03-27. 
2. ^ "Biography of Bishop Barbara C. Harris". Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Episcopal Diocese of Washington. http://www.edow.org/diocese/bishops/harris_bio.html. Retrieved on 2007-03-27. 

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)