Camille Pfister, Staff Writer
Editor-In-Chief Lizzy Donker Contributed to this story
Sewanee’s connections with the Episcopal Church and the Church’s message amid contentious current events were the focus of Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s weekend of services and conversations at the University.
The presiding bishop preached to a large congregation at All Saints Chapel on Sunday and then joined Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen and Chancellor and Bishop Jake Owensby at Convocation Hall to discuss Sewanee’s role as one of the country’s few Episcopal institutions of higher learning.
His visit to Sewanee came only months after he became the youngest elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church at age 49.
During the panel, Rowe said Sewanee is a gift to the church because it is not only dedicated to higher education but also connected to its identity. “It makes a difference to the people on the ground…the congregations who are carrying out the work of the Gospel all across the country.”
Sewanee’s affiliation with the Episcopal church “was rare and now it’s extraordinarily rare,” Rowe said, later adding the uniqueness in “the way in which we have a seminary, a liberal arts college, but also one that leans into the Episcopal identity.” Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen noted that the University is one of six nationwide and is the only one of those with both a liberal arts college and a school of theology.
The afternoon panel and the presiding bishop’s morning sermon included careful but clear references to the past week’s debate over the recent inauguration of President Trump and the comments of the Bishop of Washington, D.C. at the National prayer service.
In his sermon, the presiding bishop noted that in the day’s gospel reading, “this kingdom about which Jesus speaks has different rules. It takes people who have been marginalized and brings them to the center. It turns the world order upside down. It is something that is in the here and now. It is something that is among us.”
During the afternoon session, when asked by Sewanee’s chancellor, Bishop Jake Owensby about his view of Sewanee, the presiding bishop began with a nod at the still reverberating controversy over comments of the Bishop of Washington, D.C. at the National Prayer Service. Preaching at Washington National Cathedral’s Service of Prayer for the Nation on Jan. 21, the day after President Trump’s Inauguration, Bishop Mariann Budde ended her sermon with a direct plea to President Trump. She urged him to be merciful to the marginalized, undocumented immigrants, and refugees fleeing wars and persecution, and Trump’s response and his followers’ reactions have been furious.
Responding to the University Chancellor, Rowe said, “The Episcopal church is a tradition that has always valued learning. And particularly in this time and in this season, we could use a bit more thinking, a bit more reflection, a little less reaction.” His admission drew laughter. He later added, “This can sound cliché, but a church can hold in tension varieties of points of view, and in terms of the faith, the same way. There’s a broadness and a depth of faith.”
Rowe later said the church is called to carry its message of faith in a way “that gets above political ideology, partisanship, opinions, spin, argumentation, all of which are kind of fun…I think we’re uniquely positioned to be a voice in this time if we can avoid being dragged down in the lowest common denominator and being a part of the arguments themselves.”
He noted that ministering to migrants has been important to the Episcopal church for more than 100 years. During World War II, he said, congregations raised money to help refugees flee Nazi persecution. He also pointed out that the Episcopal church membership is “fairly evenly divided across the political spectrum,” adding that about half of the Episcopalians who serve in Congress are Democrats and half are Republicans.
When the audience was invited to pose questions, one student asked the presiding bishop, “How do you maintain the political and nonpartisanship? How do you think the church should maintain that balance?”
“Let’s think of this last week,” Rowe responded. “This is not about Mariann Budde or Donald Trump or the Washington National Cathedral or the Episcopal Church or someone’s opinion on border policy. This is about loving our neighbor and the fact that our first citizenship is in the kingdom. We can debate all those things, and they are important. The politics and the work on the ground are important. I love [politics] and our first allegiance is not to that. That’s why we should be united across the line.”
“Once we set down political ideologies, once we set down our own ways and our own desires, and the way we would like to see it done. That is what really matters is this vision of the kingdom about what Jesus speaks.”
The panel also discussed how Sewanee, as an institution of higher learning, can keep its identity firmly rooted in the traditions of the Episcopal Church while still adapting to the changing world.
Rowe spoke often in the panel about how the Episcopal church is “uniquely positioned” to be a voice, to embrace the world as it is, and to rise above political ideology and partisanship. The Chancellor also added that, by “our deep faith,” we are able to “inhabit spaces with people who don’t agree with us” and emphasized that this included political beliefs or religious beliefs.
“As far as I know [Budde] is doing well, and is continuing to speak truth, and speak to the transformation of the world, and that is something that she has long been committed to,” Rowe said. “I think the Episcopal Church’s role is to continue to put Christ at the center and we’ll keep doing that.”
You can watch Bishop Rowe’s sermon here.