EpiscopalEpiscopal 10 th 10 th YEAR ANNIVERSARY MONTHLY EDITION | $3.75 PER COPY VOL. 10 NO. 1 | JANUARY 2020 JJOURNALOURNMONTHLY EDITION | $3.75 PER COPY AVOL. 10 NO.L 1 | JanuarY 2020 ‘ WE HAVE SEEN HIS STAR IN THE EAST’ Epiphany, traditionally marked on Jan. 6, celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles. It is also 2 known as Three Kings Day, commemorating the visit Remembering Louie Crew Clay’s of the Magi (or Wise Men) to the Christ child. This justice work watercolor on textured wove paper by British artist John Flaxman (1755-1826) is a design for a marble bas NEWS relief. The watercolor is in the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. Photo/Yale Center for British Art via Wikimedia Commons Baptizing child of early enslaved Africans 8 helped tie Episcopal Church to slavery’s legacy ‘God doesn’t hate’ By Mary Frances Schjonberg RE says evangelism campaign Episcopal News Service ATU ollowing this year’s commemorations of the 1619 arrival of enslaved E F Africans to the Jamestown colony, there is at least one anniversary to come that is worth remembering for how it ties the Episcopal Church F to the legacy of slavery. Sometime in the first five years after those Africans were traded to the colony for food by an English pirate who had captured them on the high seas, the infant son of two of the original “20 and odd Negroes” was baptized in an Anglican church in the area, according to the colony’s 1624 census records. Those records say the son of “Antoney Negro and Isabell Negro” was baptized with the name of his family’s owner, William Tucker. It was the first 13 documented baptism of an African baby in English North America. S Harry Potter Day T attracts kids Photo/National Park Service Baby William’s baptism likely took place in the Anglican church near his R to cathedral The enslaved Africans taken to Virginia in 1619 had been master’s plantation on the Hampton River in an area where the Kecoughtan A captured at sea by British privateers and sold for supplies at Point tribe lived. The church was known as Elizabeth City Parish, which is still Comfort before most of them were brought inland to Jamestown. active today as St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hampton, Va. The church’s willingness to perform such baptisms “tells me that sin is very real and RG. that blindness is very real, and we can extend E O In El Paso, border ministry assists G A baptism, which is freedom offered us through T D I #1239 S IT O the power of the Holy Spirit and at the same M PA -PROFIT Mexicans fleeing violence R N US P Bellmawr NJ time, maintain and develop and make thrive a PE NO By Lynette Wilson system of chattel slavery,” Diocese of Atlanta Episcopal News Service Bishop Robert Wright said in an interview with ENS. n informal tent city has taken stake The sin of the church’s approval of and in Cuidad Juárez, Mexico, along- participation in slavery, Wright said, had its side the entrance to the Santa Fe roots in Cape Coast on the western shore of A Street Bridge, one of three bridges Ghana, which was a nexus of the transatlan- that connect the sprawling northern Mexi- tic slave trade. He recalled a March 2017 trip co border city to El Paso, Texas. there during which he toured the dungeons In recent months, Mexican families flee- where captured Africans were held before ing rising violence perpetrated by drug car- Photo/Lynette Wilson/ENS being forced onto ships bound for North tels in the country’s south have arrived at the Tent cities have taken stake at the foot of the America and the Caribbean. U.S. southern border seeking protection in three bridges on the Juárez side of the U.S.- Standing in those “dank, dark places,” the United States via the asylum system. Mexico border where Mexican nationals are Wright realized that “just above those Unlike Central American asylum-seekers, waiting to claim asylum in the United States. dungeons was the Anglican chapel where who have been arriving steadily at the U.S.- people said basically the same words that we’re Mexico border for more than a year, there’s “The people who are living out on the saying now in our Episcopal churches every no “official” system for handling the surge streets by the ports, they are all Mexican; Sunday.” It is believed that many Africans in Mexicans seeking the same protection there is no established system to deal with were forcibly baptized before they were taken from violence and persecution. continued on page 6 to the Americas. continued on page 7 2 EPISCOPAL JOURNAL January 2020 CONVERSatiONS Two paths, one faith By Sharon Sheridan “‘God, I can’t pray just now,’ laments think he had a car. His voice certainly room-only life celebration by people the praying man. ‘Some people/have did not echo across the diocese, let alone gathered from across the country. TraveLING THE been saying/that you/might not even throughout the wider church. And yet, the same God welcomed both NIGHT before Thanks- be a real man,/might be instead an an- And yet, what stands out in my mem- home, inviting both equally to the heav- giving, I opened my drogynous mutation. … It was difficult ory of John is not so different from how enly banquet, just as God invites us all to e-mail to the news that enough/when those black children/start- I viewed Louie. the same Communion table each week. Louie Crew Clay had ed coloring you black./Before long/even He was a Christian. He was kind. He We each receive a portion of talents gone home to God. sissies will be saying/that you lisp/or go served his church. and challenges; we steward the one and I often said that Louie was the most about in drag.”’ While John lived locally, he faithfully battle the other as best we can. In the Christian man I knew. Seven years later, I was thrilled to par- attended worship. He willingly pitched end, it is the faithfulness and integrity of A white, gay Southerner who mar- ticipate in a poetry night in honor of his in when we needed tables moved or other the journey, not the sphere of influence ried a black man and launched the or- 80th birthday. And I was both surprised assistance around the facility. He attend- or scope of worldly accomplishment, ganization Integrity to support and push and touched when he greeted news of ed our first-ever parish-wide weekend that matters. for full inclusion of LGBT people in my progress through the ordination pro- retreat. The last time I saw him, he was I doubt they met on earth. But I the Episcopal Church, he suffered more cess with not only delight but also an ad- visiting my friend at her church during like to picture Louie and John meeting than his share of life’s slings and arrows. monition to keep writing poetry. When Christmastide two or three years ago. now, and going in to sit at the banquet But however much they vilified him, he I visited his church in Newark in 2017, Two different men. Two very different together: unequal in life circumstances, countered his critics with grace and wit. he inquired during coffee hour what po- spheres of influence. but equally loved children of God. He demonstrated how to love one’s en- ems I was working on. And yet, I saw the spirit of Christ Joy anyway, my friends. Joy always. n emies. And he steadfastly signed his mes- Through the years, Louie’s voice within them both. sages: Joy anyway! projected in the halls of General Con- One had what I imagine was a small The Rev. Sharon Sheridan Hausman is Predictably, tributes soon appeared vention and beyond. But he also had a and quiet funeral. The other’s memo- priest associate at Christ Episcopal Church across Facebook and listservs from all knack of encouraging other voices, in- rial service will, I suspect, be a standing- in Newton, N.J. corners of the church he had served as a cluding mine. member of Executive Council, a six-time As I thought and read about Louie, deputy from the Diocese of Newark, In- and prayed for his husband and the many Louie Crew Clay, champion of tegrity founder and tireless advocate for others who loved him, I received word of social justice. another death during that Thanksgiving LGBTQ inclusion, dies at 82 Everyone, someone commented, had a weekend. By Egan Millard Known as Louie Crew until he Louie story. I could tell several, from when He was not a public figure, so I’ll just Episcopal News Service took his husband’s name in 2013, he I first encountered him when I began call him John to protect his family’s pri- was remembered across the Episcopal working as a church reporter in the 1990s vacy. While Louie’s obituary made mul- ouie Crew Clay, a longtime Church as a tireless trailblazer for sexual to when he sent me a gift for my 2018 or- tiple churchwide publications, Google advocate for the full inclusion of continued on page 4 dination to the transitional diaconate. reveals no obituary for John. I learned LGBTQ people in the Some of my favorite memories of this of his death by chance, while visiting the L Episcopal Church, the former English professor involve poetry.