Presiding Bishop: "The church in most places is healthy and vital"

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, visited Arkansas, presiding over the consecration of the Right Rev. Larry Benfield as bishop of Arkansas on Saturday. She also preached in Pine Bluff at a joint service Sunday uniting two parishes -- one conservative and one liberal. Laura Lynn Brown of the (Little Rock) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette interviewed Jefferts Schori.

While the media focuses on the denomination's declining attendance (down 8.3 percent between 2001 and 2005), Jefferts-Schori said they're not telling the whole story.

"The church in most places is healthy and vital and doing good and creative ministry. And that’s not the kind of story that sells newspapers. But it’s real. The church is thriving in so many places. And yes, there’s some conflict, but it’s a very tiny piece of the whole," she said.

In the interview, Jefferts Schori also said she can "affirm" Jesus' statement: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." But she does so with caveats.
"I certainly don’t disagree with that statement that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

But the way it’s used is as a truth serum, or a touchstone: If you cannot repeat this statement, then you’re not a faithful Christian or person of faith. I think Jesus as way – that’s certainly what it means to be on a spiritual journey. It means to be in search of relationship with God. We understand Jesus as truth in the sense of being the wholeness of human expression. What does it mean to be wholly and fully and completely a human being? Jesus as life, again, an example of abundant life. We understand him as bringer of abundant life but also as exemplar. What does it mean to be both fully human and fully divine? Here we have the evidence in human form. So I’m impatient with the narrow understanding, but certainly welcoming of the broader understanding."

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