What should we expect from our Bishops?
by Canon Phil Ashey, AAC:
Somewhere tucked away my basement in an old Ashey family album there is a picture of the bishop visiting in our home. It must have been around 1960, when my father was rector in a new posting, and I was just a toddler. In this old black and white photo the bishop is on all fours with me on the carpet, smiling and inspecting one of my toys. In many ways, that picture represents what we would love to expect from bishops: kindness, gentleness and the ability to step down from their office and relate to us on our level. Bishops should demonstrate the love of Christ in a gentle and caring way.
But is that all we should expect, all we should want in a Bishop?
You see, the Bishop in that picture was James A. Pike, Episcopal Bishop of California. He was the bishop whose theology involved the rejection of central Christian beliefs. In his public preaching, teaching, speaking and writing the central Christian beliefs he rejected included the virgin birth, the Trinity and the doctrine of Hell. At that time my father was among the pioneers of the Charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church. He told me how Bishop Pike wrote a pastoral letter to the clergy of the Diocese of California warning them not to associate with any one “speaking in tongues” because glossolalia was associated with the devil. As we later discovered, Bishop Pike was even then beginning to associate with “mediums” to contact and reconcile with the spirit of his son, who had committed suicide. Later, in September 1967, Pike participated in a televised séance with his dead son through the medium Arthur Ford, who was ordained as a Disciples of Christ minister. Pike detailed these experiences in his book “The Other Side.” Tragically, Bishop Pike died wandering in the Judean desert—some say, still searching to contact the spirit of his dead son.
Gentle, kind and caring Bishops can be seriously mistaken. They can be false teachers. They can be so spiritually misguided that they lead themselves and others away from Christ rather than to him.
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