The Rev. Ruth Urban, who was ordained an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Bethlehem in the late 1980s, was consecrated Dec. 20 as a bishop of All Nations Anglican Church, which is led by Archbishop John G. Githiga. She became the first woman to be consecrated to the episcopate by a conservative breakaway in Anglican church history.
 
All Nations Anglican Church, which is based in Amarillo, Texas, makes no claim of being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Githiga is the older brother of the Rt. Rev. Gideon Githiga, Bishop of Thika in the Anglican Church of Kenya. John Githiga was a priest in the Diocese of Northwest Texas in 2005, when the Rt. Rev. Wallace Ohl deposed him.
 
About 100 people attended the consecration, which consisted of a mix of Christmas hymns, contemporary praise choruses, and a vigorous Kenyan song. Before the service began, the new bishop’s bright red-and-gold vestments were hanging next to a decorated Christmas tree in the sanctuary.
 
The service occurred at Northeast Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Madison, Miss., a suburb of Jackson. Northeast Christian Church shares its sanctuary with Holy Apostles Anglican Church, which the Revs. John and Ruth Urban founded in 2004 when they retired as priests of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. The couple’s holy orders were accepted on behalf of the Anglican Church of Kenya by Bishop Githiga, who served as their bishop until the Urbans and Holy Apostles transferred their membership to All Nations Anglican Church on Nov. 9. Bishop Githiga wrote a supportive letter read aloud during the service.
 
Both priests retired from The Episcopal Church in response to the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire. They invited members of their congregation at the time, St. Peter’s by the Lake, to join them in founding Holy Apostles, and they did not dispute with the diocese over church property.
 
Both of the Urbans acknowledged the unusual nature of the consecration. In preaching the sermon for his wife’s consecration, John Urban said the history of Christianity has always been a tug of war between law and faith.
 
“One generation’s spiritual revelation seems to always get codified,” and so ends up in law, he said. He also called the law a box: “The box is always being blasted by faith breaking out, because faith cannot be contained in a box.”
 
On the spectrum of conservative breakaway Anglican churches, All Nations is less predictably conservative. It emphasizes multigenerational and multicultural evangelism, celebrates women priests and supports clergy couples, Ruth Urban said in an interview with The Living Church before her consecration.
 
A former member of the board for Anglicans United, Bishop Urban was previously nominated to stand for election as bishop suffragan of Washington in 1992. She was a nominee by petition for the election of a bishop coadjutor in the Diocese of West Missouri in 1997.
 
Holy Apostles originally joined the Anglican Communion Network, and the Urbans are sympathetic to Common Cause Partnership. Ruth Urban encouraged Common Cause to “have a new DNA and not just be The Episcopal Church without heresy,” she said.
 
When contacted prior to the consecration by a reporter for TLC, a spokesman for the Rt. Rev. William L. Murdoch, a missionary bishop consecrated for North America by the Church of Kenya, said Common Cause had not been asked to participate, adding that All Nations was not in communion with Common Cause.
 
“I wanted to be sure that women were protected, that women would not be deprived of their rights to be bishops, priests and deacons,” Bishop Urban said. “My faith and confidence is not in a church and is not in a new province. My faith is in the Lord.”
 
Douglas LeBlanc
 
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