c. 2000 Religion News Service
NEWARK, N.J. _ If the next Episcopal bishop for northern New Jersey has his way, last Sunday’s (Jan. 30) newspaper will be a keepsake. That’s because John Croneberger professes to be so low-key that his elevation at a high liturgy in Teaneck on Jan. 29 might be the last newsworthy thing he does.
Croneberger is kidding, of course _ not surprising from a guy who brought a plastic honking gavel to the diocesan convention instead of the usual wooden hammer. But when you consider Croneberger is replacing the retired Bishop John Shelby Spong, the new prelate’s self-effacing gibe doesn’t seem like such an exaggeration.
During his 24 years as leader of the Diocese of Newark, Spong’s full-throated advocacy of everything from gay rights to his unique brand of theology made him a liberal icon and a headline writer’s best friend, and his reputation tended to overshadow everything else in the Diocese of Newark.
Croneberger, on the other hand, has labored quietly, but influentially, during his church career.
He spent 18 years as the rector of the Church of the Atonement, a relatively small congregation in Tenafly, avoiding the spotlight even as he waged many of the same battles as Spong. It was Croneberger’s church, for example, that hosted the 1990 ordination of Barry Stopfel, a gay priest whose case led church traditionalists to drag the Newark diocese into a bitter heresy trial in 1996.
While Spong was the lightning rod in that storm, it was Croneberger who worked behind the scenes to neutralize the conservatives and help Stopfel’s side win the case.
“I guess I’m kind of a strange person,” said Croneberger, 61 and gray-haired, whose congenial look and soft-spoken manner don’t appear strange at all. “Some people see me as a somewhat laid-back, easygoing person with a bizarre sense of humor. At the same time, I’m very passionate about the church.”
And that combination is just what the diocese wanted when delegates to a special convention in 1998 chose Croneberger, the native son, over five other candidates from around the country. After nearly a quarter of a century of Spong’s high-profile battles, New Jersey Episcopalians were ready for some quiet time with one of their own, without retreating from the stands for women and gays and minorities that they had taken under Spong.
“The diocese felt that with me we’re not going to be heading in another direction,” Croneberger said during an interview in the diocese headquarters. “I think that’s why I was elected.”
“We’ve had 24 years of very strong, prophetic leadership, and I, for one, am very grateful for it. But in the process I am also aware that there is work to be done in building up the congregations and paying increased attention to them, and getting excited again about the mission of the church.”
That is not disloyalty, not when Spong himself calls Croneberger a natural successor _ the Eisenhower to his Roosevelt, he says.
“Of course he’s a different human being,” Spong said. “His style will be his style, not my style. His style will be quieter. He will be more of a unifier than a charger.”
Perhaps the most obvious difference between Spong and Croneberger will be stylistic _ literally. Spong disdains the bishop’s miter and other “Episcopal haberdashery,” as he calls the elegant vestments of high-church Anglicanism.
Croneberger, by contrast, revels in them, though in his quirky way. Croneberger has vestments with birds and landscapes on them, yet he wears the traditional bishop’s high hat. “An informal formality,” is how Croneberger puts it.
The new bishop displayed that mix of tradition and innovation at the installation service in a converted ballroom at the Glenpointe Marriott in Teaneck, where the convention was held.
Croneberger emphasized the need to reinvigorate the church’s prayer and its liturgical life _ old-time themes you wouldn’t have heard Spong addressing. At the same time, Croneberger proposed formalizing the diocese’s widespread practice of offering a service for same-sex couples seeking the church’s blessing, and he preached about the need to associate the church with new imagery.
“Instead of singing `How Firm a Foundation,’ we’re going to be surfing the Net,” said Croneberger, “because in the postmodern culture, life is not as stable or as firm or as clear. It’s more chaotic, it’s more fluid. And the church needs to figure out how it’s going to navigate in those waters.”
Croneberger’s course on this new journey will be characteristically Croneberger: steady, purposeful, grass-roots networking.
He has pledged to visit at least one congregation every Sunday, sometimes two, even though he’ll be the only bishop in the sprawling diocese. Spong is leaving and Spong’s former assistant, Suffragan Bishop Jack McKelvey, won the bishop’s job in Rochester, N.Y., last year.
Listening was never Spong’s strong suit, and as his roles as author and lecturer made greater demands on his time in recent years, he became even less available. Croneberger, during his 18-month transition from bishop-elect to bishop, convened or attended dozens of meetings with clergy and lay leaders, engaging in the kind of conversations he said were “long overdue in this diocese.”
“The new bishop has really created a whole new feeling, a whole new atmosphere of collegiality,” said the Rev. John Negrotto of Holy Trinity Church in Hillsdale. “He wants to make it clear that the office of the bishop is larger than the person itself.”
According to Negrotto, Croneberger espouses the view that “the diocese was made to serve the people and the churches, not the other way around. Right now, there is some good introspection, some navel-gazing. We need to get our act together.”
As much as policy or mission, Croneberger’s approach is a statistical imperative. The numbers are clear and stark: The year before Spong was elected bishop in 1976, the diocese counted 43,135 communicants in 135 congregations. Last year, the numbers were down to 29,691 communicants in 119 parishes.
That 31 percent drop-off is even steeper than the decline in the national Episcopal Church membership during the same period _ 23 percent _ and lends urgency to Croneberger’s task.
Part of Croneberger’s outreach, he says, will aim at unifying the diocese. Despite their liberal bona fides, many New Jersey Episcopalians consider themselves much more traditional than Spong, at least in terms of worship if not church politics. Those moderates and conservatives often felt left out under Spong, and Croneberger wants to change that.
“I am going to try to be as sensitive as I can about seeing some balance in terms of voices,” Croneberger said. “I don’t think I need to defend my positions in terms of the issues that are important to me, but at same time want to do everything I can to create spaces where other people’s voices can be honored and heard.”
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That process was already in evidence at the convention. Spong always used the annual gathering to push one controversial resolution or another guaranteed to bring media coverage. Those issues ranged from the profound _ assisted suicide _ to what many saw as the peripheral, such as the resolution a few years ago to ban the spanking of children as un-Christian.
This year, the resolutions were mainly small-bore by comparison, or dealt with nuts-and-bolts internal issues, such as reinstituting the office of permanent deacon.
“I have to confess that I’m not a person to push for a vote on every issue in the world. I am more concerned that we learn to honor each other’s differences,” said Croneberger.
But the new bishop’s efforts to broaden input may quickly test his renown as a conciliator.
One of the resolutions debated at the convention sought to have the diocese _ whose solid support for legal abortion has been a given for years _ recognize “post-abortion stress” and provide counseling. The resolution was seen as a way for conservatives to reopen the conversation on the volatile subject. It failed in the end, but the message was clear.
“Because Jack Spong is leaving, they figure they can get a foothold,” said one liberal cleric. “Everybody is going to try to stake out an issue and claim some turf. It is a changing of the guard after 25 years.”
DEA END GIBSON
