https://www.facebook.com/dioala/videos/2294193680593238/?t=3658
The Rt. Rev. John McKee (Kee) Sloan, Bishop of Alabama since 2012, calls for the diocese to elect a bishop coadjutor:
The part of us that is always on the lookout for something juicy or scandalous will have to be disappointed this time: I have loved being your bishop, and I still do. I’m not mad at anybody, I haven’t lost my faith, I’m not quitting in a huff, and I’m not being run out of town. It’s just time. By the end of 2020, I will be 65 years old and will have been ordained for over 39 years, 13 as a bishop. By the end of 2020, I will have been married to Tina, my sweet and patient wife, for 33 years, and we want to have some time for travel and new adventures.
The world is changing quickly, and the Church will either change with it or become a museum. I find myself more and more thinking in terms of The Way We’ve Always Done It, and I have loved the Episcopal Church too much for too long to get in the way now. As I say in the address, “Change looked more fun when I was one of the young priests, leaning into the new Prayer Book, supporting the ordination of women.”
So I guess I’m a Lame Duck now, and there’s not much I can do about that. But it’s not time for goodbyes yet; I’m still the bishop for a while, and I really don’t want to spend the next 20 months saying goodbye every time I say hello. There will be time for goodbyes later, and we have a lot of work to do before then.
Bishop-Kee-Sloan-2019-02-09
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
