October 1997

General Convention: NEAC Executive in Celebration for Browning

PHILADELPHIA, PA — July 20: The Rev. Ted Karpf, NEAC’s executive director, was among those invited to offer formal tribute to Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning at a Sunday evening gala reception in his honor. The text of Karpf’s remarks follows:

“Like your own experience, Ed, may of us working and living with AIDS have felt the absence of our fathers. But because of you, we have never felt we were without a father in our household of faith. Those of us who are the grassroots response to the bold assertion that “Our Church has AIDS” have taken you at your word and welcomed home those who had been estranged from Church, from family, and from God. Thank you for being the father of this ministry.

“As Bishop Tom Shaw told me last evening of his experience of the Province IV AIDS Retreat at Kanuga, ‘I’ve never seen such diversity at a Church meeting…it restored my soul and gave me hope for the Church.’ Your vision of a Church which welcomes all people in the name of Christ helped make that retreat possible.

“Beginning with the Quilt display at Cobo Hall in Detroit, you’ve hardly ever been seen without a red ribbon on your lapel as a sign of your solidarity with all those suffering due to AIDS. Likewise, the yet-unfulfilled challenge you issued to your fellow Bishops in Detroit to follow your example and be a pastor to a person living with AIDS gave those of us on the frontlines hope. This challenge isn’t all that AIDS requires of us.

“As we stood with Pam Chinnis on the Quilt last fall, you said NEAC had to take on the world epidemic. And then you graciously permitted me to represent you in South Africa. Out of that has come opportunities for mutual ministry with brothers and sisters abroad who are contending with epidemics that dwarf the one in America.

“This Church and that Quilt have changed many lives, and I want to say a word about one in particular. One of our members — the Reverend Anthony Turney, executive director of the NAMES Project Foundation — was called to be a deacon out of his experience in AIDS. Speaking for all of us, he recently said this about his years in AIDS:

‘I am especially blessed to have been able to volunteer and work in this bitter vineyard that is AIDS for over 12 years, especially today when there is growing evidence that our faith has not been in vain, when hope is such an ever-brightening beacon on what was for so long such a dark horizon; when love does seem to have almost conquered hatred, bigotry, and discrimination toward those with HIV/AIDS.’

“While this epidemic has changed and changes still, something hasn’t changed at all. The call of a compassionate Christ for our Church — through NEAC and all the ministries it represents — to be at the Heart of AIDS. We promise to be here so that no one stands alone until there is a cure. Our hearts are full as we stand in hope at the heart of this plague.

“Tonight they are full with the deepest love and gratitude for your witness to Hope.”

More than a thousand Convention-goers attended the two-hour tribute, which featured a new film on Browning’s ministry, singing, story-telling and reminiscences.