ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606240069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
BISHOP LIGHT will be starting his retirement by helping out in the French West Indies or Alaska.
Bishop A. Heath Light has got used to the heat.
As spiritual head of the 14,000-member Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, Light has sometimes had to deal with problems that make the blood of priests and parishioners boil.
So, maybe it's no surprise that Light may be headed - temporarily - to the tropical French West Indies to serve a small Anglican congregation needing help there. Or he may cool his heels in Alaska, helping with administrative duties left hanging by the unexpected retirement of the Episcopal bishop there.
In either case, he figures he'll stay out of the way for a little while as he begins his retirement and his successor, elected Saturday, moves into the job.
"I'm going to lie very low," Light said with a chuckle during a recent interview.
Though he and his wife are planning to live in Roanoke after retirement - among other things, it's "in the middle geographically of our four children" - they will go "out of town almost immediately, and for some period of time."
The idea is to give the new bishop, Frank Neff Powell, time to establish himself and to make it more difficult for a congregation to turn back to a familiar face if it needs a problem solved.
"I'll still be a priest, a bishop, a neighbor and a friend," Light said, but his professional responsibilities will change and he'll work to follow the example of his predecessor.
Bishop William Henry Marmion, who still lives in the diocese, "was kind enough to live here, and he had the maturity to live four blocks away [from diocesan headquarters] and be an asset."
Light - currently the fifth most senior bishop in the Episcopal Church - came to office in June 1978, just shy of his 50th birthday, following a career served entirely in Virginia as a parish priest. Just out of seminary he led four small, rural parishes as a sort of circuit rider. He moved on to pastor three other parishes, the last in Norfolk before his election as bishop here.
One of the difficulties he discovered in the transition from parish priest to diocesan bishop was the necessity to "develop a method of communication with people who you don't live with week after week, as you do in a parish."
Instead of forming a relatively few intimate relationships, as happens in a parish, the bishop meets "everybody in celebratory times - in hat and white-glove times." The result can be superficial relationships that can make it difficult to develop close friendships, Light said.
"Sometimes you only see the people closest to you once a year."
For a man described by himself - and his friends - as a people person, that could be tough.
Light is known in the diocese as a "hugger" - a man prone to express his affection openly with an embrace during his annual visits to the 60 parishes in his diocese, which includes all of Western Virginia west of a line running roughly from Staunton through Danville to Martinsville.
"I tend to be an expressive and affectionate person. I invite myself into close proximity" with the parishioners he visits. "I've been blessed in that regard," he said. "They've let me be the person I think I am" and returned a genuine affection.
For Light, the model of such relationships is Jesus Christ himself.
Modern-day priests, however, may be "frustrated and frightened" away from such open displays of affection by the spectre of sexual misconduct charges.
"We have learned from our experience" as a church that that problem is real, Light said, but he regrets that it "has led to a greater chasm in the priest-parishioner relationship in our time."
Though the sexual aspect draws much of the attention, Light describes the heart of the issue as the exploitation of power, not of affection.
"There is power associated with the collar," he said. "Many don't take that very seriously, and there may not be as much political clout as some priests might want, but there is power in the role."
The changing expectations of priests and parishioners occasionally lead to conflicts that the bishop must settle.
The Episcopal Church once was a model of hierarchical structure, with power vested clearly in bishops and priests. Increasingly in recent years, some of the role and authority of the priesthood has been shifting to "the ministry of all baptized people."
"I frequently tell young clergy one of the most common mistakes made by new priests is to begin to exercise power you don't have," Light said.
Lay people, he said, take seriously the invitation to exercise their ministries, including in areas such as administration and planning - and that sometimes results in conflict over questions of power and authority.
"Sometimes the bishop becomes the referee," Light said.
Twice during Light's tenure, he's been called on to settle full-blown disputes between a priest and congregation, carried to the full extent of church canon, or law.
Light has tended to try to let such situations settle themselves before becoming involved, sometimes to the frustration of the cleric and the congregation.
When a conflict a few years ago at Christ Church in Roanoke resulted in an unpopular resolution providing a substantial financial settlement to a rector who was forced to resign, Light came in to take the heat for his decision, said the Rev. Deborah Hentz Hunley, the congregation's current rector.
Hunley said she set up a meeting with the vestry, the congregation's governing body, when Light came for his requisite annual visit not long afterward.
Though she and the bishop anticipated that it was not going to be a pleasant experience, they thought it was important to talk about the relationship between congregation and bishop and to allow people "to say anything they needed to say."
As it turned out, "nothing really awful happened, but it was a very courageous thing for him to do - faced with 18 people who might have had a grudge against him. He was willing to take whatever was going to come. It was important in terms of the healing process for him to do that."
It wasn't the only time Hunley remembered Light being present when conflict was possible.
When Light was elected, there were only two women priests in the diocese, one of whom was Hunley. While visiting town one weekend before his installation, Light "made an effort to be present" at a worship service Hunley was leading. "He wanted me to know that he was supportive" of the still somewhat controversial notion of women priests, Hunley said.
She has never forgotten the gesture.
Light's willingness to take a stand even when the cause was controversial also impressed Kathy Haynie Parker as a lay Episcopalian.
Parker, former director of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, said Light "models what I understand Christianity to be about - tolerance and compassion and concern about all people, including those with whom you may disagree or who may be different."
On a personal level, Parker said, she was appreciative of the times Light took a position supporting women's reproductive rights, but she also said she was thankful for the lessons Light taught her about tolerance.
The diocese includes "some people I have a hard time embracing - a very right-wing, charismatic branch of the church. ... He was always very clear that that's part of diversity. ... He challenged me to be a little more inclusive."
Not all Episcopalians in the diocese have been so happy with Light's endorsement of "diversity" in the church. His service on the board of an organization addressing gay and lesbian concerns in Western Virginia drew fire from those who objected to what they saw as an unbiblical stand in support of homosexual behavior.
Light points out that the Episcopal Church has spoken in support of homosexual members, but that it has yet to deal with the more difficult issue of whether or not to allow the ordination of sexually active homosexual priests.
Conflict over that issue is likely to continue for some time, Light said, and probably will lead some people from each end of the theological spectrum to leave the church in dissatisfaction with whatever position it eventually takes.
Though the church has experienced membership losses nationally over the last few decades - and the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia has been stagnant in terms of growth in recent years - Light looks forward with confidence to a new era of vitality. That will be fueled in part, he says, through the increasingly common practice of establishing ecumenical churches that serve parishioners of several denominations.
Light "has always been very supportive of all our work together," said the Right Rev. Richard Bansemer, bishop of the Virginia Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Ecumenical parishes in Galax and Moneta are points of pride for both bishops, who speak glowingly of the future of such cooperative missions.
Nationally, the Episcopal and Lutheran churches appear on the verge of approving a "concordat" that will formally recognize each other's clergy and rites, and that will likely make such ecumenical parishes more common, both men said.
"God is calling us to a unity that is more important than our distinctiveness," Light said.
But even as some melding occurs between his and other denominations, Light said he expects each of those traditions to maintain its individuality.
Despite an increasingly strong demand in society for absolutes to cling to, Episcopalians have always had "an enormous capacity for dealing with ambiguity," Light said.
"I think there will always be a place for the Episcopal Church, but it won't be as the country's major denomination. ... I have such a faith in the church, that it has some degree of holiness and indestructibility, else some of us would have destroyed it before now."
But, Light said, "the existence of the Episcopal Church is not the ultimate thing in the created order. If God has something else in mind, that's OK. I'll take that."
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. Bishop A. Heath Light will retireby CNBafter 18 years of service. color.
CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER