c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The Rev. Vashti McKenzie, pastor of a prominent Baltimore church, was elected Tuesday (July 11) as a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church _ the first woman to hold the post in the denomination’s 213-year history.

“The stained glass ceiling has been cracked, has been broken,” McKenzie said in an interview with Religion News Service shortly before her consecration Tuesday night at the quadrennial General Conference of the 2.3 million-member denomination.

“Women are considered by gifts, talents, skills and what we call `the call of God’ and our gender just happens to be a part of who you are. It’s not a barrier. It’s not a limitation to your leadership.”

The Baltimore pastor, about to don a black robe with purple and gold inlay, said she was still adjusting to the idea of being a bishop.

“It hasn’t really sunk in,” she said. “We’ve been pushing and working so hard over the last four years. … Is it really true? Is it really true? I feel really good.”

McKenzie, one of four bishops elected at the meeting in Cincinnati, received the second highest number of votes in the second round of balloting in the bishops’ election. The Rev. Richard Norris of Philadelphia received the top number of votes _ 874 _ to be the first elected as bishop.

McKenzie received 847 votes. A minimum of 767 votes was needed for election, which occurred at a more rapid pace than in the past due to the first-time use of electronic voting.

The remaining two bishops were elected in the third round of balloting. The Rev. Gregory Ingram of Detroit received 999 votes and the Rev. Preston Williams of Atlanta received 960 votes.

Bishop Vinton Anderson of the Second Episcopal District, which includes McKenzie’s church, called her election an “exciting time” for his denomination.

“I’m not surprised because she has a good reputation,” said Anderson, who appointed the church’s first U.S. woman presiding elder. “She’s done serious work. Her ministry is celebrated in many, many ways. … She’s had a strong cadre of women supporting her and men who decided it’s time to elect a woman.”

McKenzie, is pastor of Payne Memorial AME Church in Baltimore, a congregation with 1,700 members. During her 10 years as the church’s pastor, McKenzie has overseen the development of a faith-based nonprofit agency that offers community service projects that include job training for people on public assistance and technology courses for youth.

Among her campaign goals were to encourage “reaching beyond our sanctuaries” to encourage evangelism, spiritual renewal and the use rather than the fear of technology.

She has been in ministry for 25 years, previously serving in other preaching and gospel broadcasting capacities.

McKenzie was one of two women among the 42 candidates for bishop considered by more than 1,800 delegates attending the meeting, which ends Wednesday.

The Rev. Carolyn Tyler Guidry, presiding elder of the Los Angeles-Pasadena District in the church’s Southern California Conference, received the fifth highest number of votes in the first and second rounds of voting. She oversees 19 pastors and their churches, whose total membership is between 6,000 and 8,000 members.

Prior to the start of the election, Guidry said she hoped her name recognition from her run for bishop in 1996 would help her win this time around.

In a concession speech after the final round of balloting, Guidry voiced her pride in the AME Church and in its historic election of McKenzie, said Mike McKinney, spokesman for the General Conference.

“She supports her sister, the Bishop McKenzie, and felt that her campaign of 1996 helped make this happen,” McKinney said.

In remarks just after the election results were announced, McKenzie remembered the women who had been “rejected” before her when seeking ordination as pastor or election as bishop.

“I stand on the shoulders of the unordained women who serve without appointment or affirmation,” she said. “I don’t stand here alone but there is a cloud of witnesses who sacrificed, cried, died and gave their very best _ the women who took the heat.”

And McKenzie also recalled the men who have supported ordained women and hoped for a female bishop.

“God desires that we partner in the plan of salvation for he has mandated it from the very beginning and he needed both men and women to be faithful,” she said. “And because men and women have been faithful we are here today.”

Some church members had predicted the election of a woman bishop was likely with four slots open.

The denomination has 20 bishops, 19 leading regional districts and one serving as the church’s ecumenical officer. Often, newly elected bishops are appointed first to one of the denomination’s five African districts.

On Saturday (July 8), delegates to the meeting narrowly rejected a resolution that would have guaranteed the first woman bishop would be elected.

After the vote _ 667 yes and 716 no _ Bishop John R. Bryant of Texas, who presided over that session, said: “The results of this vote mean there is no set aside or automatic election. Women are free to run and this delegation is free to respond to each candidate irregardless of gender.”

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Several individuals and entities within the predominantly African-American denomination have been outspoken about the need for a woman to be chosen as bishop.

Jayme Coleman Williams, the former editor of the AME Church Review and the first female to serve as a general officer of the AME Church, mounted a campaign to encourage the election of a woman bishop at the church’s General Conference.

“It is time to eliminate gender bias in the African Methodist Episcopal Church,” she wrote in an essay headlined “It’s Late! It’s Time! Let’s Do It! in the quarterly newsletter of the AME Church Connectional Lay Organization published just before the quadrennial meeting.

The denomination’s General Board passed a resolution in 1995 urging a woman be elected in 2000. The Connectional Lay Organization of the AME Church passed a resolution in 1999 affirming the board’s action and seeking a commitment to elect a woman at this year’s General Conference.

At the start of the meeting, it was known that there would be two open positions for bishop, due to the retirement of Bishop Robert Thomas of Michigan and Bishop Harold Senatle of South Africa. But two more bishops were “located,” the word AME church officials use to describe the removal of a bishop from active service for a four-year period.

One of the located episcopal leaders is Bishop Vernon R. Byrd of the church’s Arizona-based Fifth Episcopal District, who was among the plaintiffs found liable in a sexual harassment judgment against the church. The church posted a $4.5 million appeal bond in the case in May.

But McKinney, spokesman for the General Conference, said both Byrd and Bishop H. Hartford Brookins of Tennessee, were located “for health reasons.” He said Byrd’s location had “no relevance” to the suit but he is, in effect, retiring early because he originally was scheduled to retire in 2004.

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