Opting for the Browning Version

By Richard N. Ostling

Hawaii is one of the smallest and most remote dioceses in the Episcopal Church, but its bishop was chosen last week to be the new leader of the 2.8 million-member denomination through 1997. The election, at a convention in Anaheim, Calif., coincidentally fell on the 32nd wedding anniversary of the new Presiding Bishop, Edmond Lee Browning, 56. The fourth-ballot election of Browning over three other candidates* by the 214 bishops present moved the church well to the left of its current leadership. Browning, who has headed the Hawaii diocese for nine years, champions the ordination of women and actively opposes the nuclear arms race. Although in his new post he will not have the monarchical powers of the Roman Catholic Pope or the global influence of Anglicanism's Archbishop of Canterbury, he will serve as his church's spiritual head, public spokesman and chief administrator.

The harmonious balloting was in marked contrast to the tense 1973 contest that elected the outgoing Presiding Bishop John M. Allin. The politically cautious Allin was chosen by fellow prelates as the result of a strong backlash against Predecessor John Hines' program of funding radical secular groups to increase the economic and political power of minorities. Allin's term in office was marked by two ecclesiastical events: the adoption of a modernized version of the venerable Book of Common Prayer, a measure favored by Allin, and the ordination of women to the priesthood, which he opposed.

Browning, by contrast, enthusiastically supported admission of the 559 women now counted among the 12,591 Episcopal priests. He also favors trial use of a controversial lectionary, issued by the National Council of Churches, with nonsexist rewritings of familiar Scripture passages. In 1979 Browning broke ranks with a 99-to-34 majority of the bishops who declared that "it is not appropriate for this church to ordain a practicing homosexual." He was among 20 liberals who filed a fervent dissent, insisting that homosexual behavior should not be an automatic barrier to the priesthood. "I would hope," Browning told TIME last week, "we are not frozen in any kind of set belief about homosexuality."

Browning has also been

outspoken on other social issues. When President Reagan attended an Easter service last year at his cathedral, Browning's sermon criticized the Federal Government for its heavy spending on arms. Last July, after an antinuclear activist was sentenced to three years in prison for violating a Coast Guard safety zone, Browning joined Hawaii's Roman Catholic bishop in protest.

As a boy in Corpus Christi, Texas, Browning was packed off to Sunday school at a nearby Episcopal church by his parents, who were nonpracticing Methodists. "I probably wanted to be a priest from a very young age," he says. Browning, a congenial and soft-spoken churchman, is married and has five children. He has more international experience than any previous Presiding Bishop. He spent a dozen years as a priest and bishop in Okinawa, was the bishop supervising American Episcopal churches in Europe, and then served as Executive for National and World Mission at Episcopal headquarters in New York City. He is the U.S. bishops' representative on the worldwide council of Anglican and Episcopal churches. A friend of Bishop Desmond Tutu of Johannesburg, Browning has invited the South African black activist to his Jan. 11 installation as Presiding Bishop. Last week's Anaheim meeting ushered in the Browning era by voting for divestment of holdings in firms that do business in South Africa, and by expressing a readiness to have women as bishops.

Despite his deep sympathy for liberal causes, Browning may find it prudent to heed warning signals from a 1985 Gallup poll of Episcopalians. Among the laity, 78% did not think it was the church's place "to be an agent of political change in the United States"; 76% thought the church should concentrate on "worship and spiritual matters" more than on political issues. From 1965 to 1983 the church suffered an 18% decline in membership, and a forthcoming book will warn that the Episcopalians and similar liberal denominations are aging far more rapidly than other religious groups and losing their ability to hold teenagers and win adult converts. Browning, however, thinks that the decline is over. Whatever pollsters say, he is convinced that his church has a responsibility to exercise moral leadership in society. Says he: "Peace and justice concerns will be a high part of my agenda."

FOOTNOTE: *Bishop John T. Walker of Washington, D.C., the runner-up, was the first black ever nominated for the post. The other candidates: Colorado's William Frey and Alabama's Furman Stough.