Episcopalians Elect First Woman to Head U.S. Church

RAY SUAREZ: There's also been a significant change for another denomination. Last week, delegates to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention elected a South Carolina pastor, the Reverend Frank Page, as their new president.

The 53-year-old Page has pledged to change the tone of the convention in a kinder and gentler direction. The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination, with 16 million members.

For more on these changes and their significance, I'm joined by Bill Leonard. He's the dean of the Divinity School and professor of church history at Wake Forest University.

And Scott Appleby, a religious scholar and professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.

And, Professor Appleby, the Episcopal Church was already involved in a long and deep family feud over the consecration of an openly-gay man as the bishop of New Hampshire. What's the significance of the election of the first woman presiding bishop?

SCOTT APPLEBY, Professor, University of Notre Dame: Well, to the worldwide Anglican Communion, it may seem to some to be a slap in the face. Of the 38 provinces in the Anglican Church around the world, only three of them have consecrated women bishops, and nine of them don't even ordain women as priests.

And they were, many of them, quite upset when Gene Robinson, an openly-gay priest, was consecrated a bishop in 2003. So there is concern among some that having the first woman prolate or presiding bishop in the Anglican Church will further alienate conservative Anglicans.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, at face value, these are really two separate issues, but do the constituencies line up? Are the ones who are likely to be against the consecration of the gay man also be some of the people who are not in support of a woman becoming the head of a national church?

SCOTT APPLEBY: We find in American religion and across the world the same kind of dividing lines on matters of gender, and sexuality, and abortion, and it's just as true for the Anglicans as for the Southern Baptists, that there seems to be a linkage in the minds of many people between women's rights, or feminism, and gay rights.

And so the ordination or consecration of a gay bishop is linked with the advancement of women in the Anglican Communion by those who see the dividing line that way.

RAY SUAREZ: Could this mean a break-up inside the American church, about 2.5 million strong?

SCOTT APPLEBY: Yes, there's concern already that some diocese will form their own communion now. There are some diocese who don't ordain women priests already in the U.S. Episcopal Church, so there is mounting concern of some kind of schism.

RAY SUAREZ: Dean Leonard, are the Episcopalians alone in this kind of family fighting or have other denominations been quarreling recently over matters of women's rights, gay rights, and other issues?

BILL LEONARD, Professor, Wake Forest University: Yes, there's a great deal of general transition over issues of theology and policy and the way in which denominations organize themselves from -- in some ways, from the Pentecostals across the spectrum to the Episcopalians, with the Baptists somewhere in the middle.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Dean, let's turn to the Baptists. Are Southern Baptist Convention elections normally a hotly-contested affair?

BILL LEONARD: They were for about 15 years, from about 1980 to 1990-1995, when the so-called moderates and conservatives went at each other over issues of denominational control and theological appropriateness.

RAY SUAREZ: So, with three candidates in this election, there seemed to have been a lot more comment, and foment, and communications, and blogging, and all kinds of things going on which must have been a new experience for the Southern Baptists?

BILL LEONARD: For the first time in several years, there was not one lone candidate picked by the group that pretty much runs things in the SBC, and they had to come to terms this year with the fact that a lot of information and even campaigning was done, directly and indirectly, through technology and on the Internet. And this is a pretty 19th-century denomination still in its organizational activities.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, are the kinds of controversies that face the SBC these days about theology or, as the Reverend Page suggested when he accepted the job as president, tone?

BILL LEONARD: I think it is more about tone. I don't think he's changing the direction of the theology of the denomination. They've pretty much purged the moderates and liberals for a number of years.

But I think a good many people, particularly younger Southern Baptists, seem to want a less shrill, less volatile rhetoric from the leaders of the SBC and to be a kinder, gentler denomination in the public square, as well as in their own churches.

RAY SUAREZ: But hasn't volatility worked? It would seem that the SBC has been pretty influential on the national scene. It gets a lot of ink; it gets a lot of attention and I guess, until recently, a lot of new converts.

BILL LEONARD: I think it can only work so long. And when you come together once a year and sort of beat up on particular groups, even out of your own convictions, it may in the public square sound much more strident over a period of time than you might wish it to be.

And there's great concern, I think, among many Southern Baptists that their denominational statistics, a strong sign for them of their growth and continued spirituality, are declining. Their membership is plateauing in many of their churches, and that's a real concern for a great many folks.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Appleby, you've long studied that part of the spectrum of American religion. What do you make of the SBC election?

SCOTT APPLEBY: Well, while the Baptist and the Anglicans and the Catholics and others are fighting with one another, Rome and Canterbury and Greensboro, South Carolina, are burning.

That is to say they're fighting, but the issues are what Bill Leonard just mentioned: declining membership; declining fidelity to these Christian communities; and a need for a change in tone and, if not in substance, at least the orientation of the message to a new generation of leadership and to younger people, people under 55, under 40.

And the churches seem to be, if not declining in this demographic, they're certainly struggling. So the fights of yesterday are a distraction, and I think this is recognized by both the Anglicans and the Southern Baptists.

RAY SUAREZ: So, are we going to see, Dean Leonard, more foment in the American church? What's happening in American religion, that even denominations where a lot of things seem to have been settled and a lot -- a kind of a triumphal takeover from one side or the other completed, the battles are not over?

BILL LEONARD: I think we're in a time of what I'd call permanent transition in American religious life, as loyalties and identities shift.

One thing we have to talk about in this light is the rise of the so-called mega-church or the emerging church movements. These in many ways are little denominations, many denominations in themselves, that inculcate their own identity that is increasingly stronger or at least competing with denominations. Even if they claim a denominational name, they may have much more of an ability to pass on identity to their constituents, apart from denominations.