Bishop Spong’s successor elected
Episcopal News Service, July 17, 1998
Faced with the opportunity to make history by electing the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Newark instead chose one of its own priests to succeed its high-profile bishop.
The Rev. Jack Croneberger, rector of Church of the Atonement in Tenafly, was elected bishop coadjutor on the fourth ballot and will succeed Bishop John Spong who has announced he will retire in January 2000.
The Rev. Canon Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who was third behind Croneberger and Suffragan Bishop Jack McKelvey, was open about his sexual orientation during the nomination process and said after the election that “the people in Newark judged me on my merits.” He told the Boston Globe, “My sexual orientation played a small and appropriate role in all of our discussions. They were far more interested in knowing who might best lead them into the next century than my orientation.”
Croneberger and McKelvey, who have been close friends for 18 years, led from the first ballot. When it became apparent on the third ballot that Croneberger had the necessary support from the clergy and was only a few votes shy of the majority among the laity, McKelvey made a dramatic withdrawal, urging the 500 delegates to elect his friend.
Former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, who was chaplain at the convention, called it “a beautiful moment of grace and healing.” In a series of meditations, he said that Spong would be “a tough act to follow for just about anybody.”
While admitting that he and Spong had some disagreements over the years, Browning said that he “always came away from one of these arguments with a renewed sense of the urgency of the prophet’s call, a renewed sense that it really is a call that we all share. One of the things a bishop does is to teach the church that prophetic urgency. You in this diocese are used to that teaching.”
That tradition is likely to continue since all six of the nominees pledged during open meetings in the diocese to follow policies of openness and inclusiveness, especially with gays and lesbians. Following the election, Croneberger introduced his family, including a gay son and his partner, and a lesbian daughter and her partner.
Robinson speculated that his nomination may make it easier for other dioceses to consider gay candidates. He said that Newark, which is “no stranger to controversy, was bold and courageous enough to make the nomination. Now that they have paved the way, maybe it will not seem like such an intimidating prospect to other dioceses.”
Some members of the nominating committee suggested that Robinson himself might be a candidate in other dioceses. “He’s obviously extraordinarily qualified to be a bishop,” said Kim Byham, a member of the committee and former president of Integrity, the church’s ministry with gays and lesbians.
While emphasizing that Robinson was not nominated because of his sexual orientation, Byham said that Newark had the courage to “be the first to nominate an openly gay man. Some other diocese will have the courage to elect the first gay bishop. We have broken a barrier for gay and lesbian people.”