A Profile of Episcopal Priest Edward Harrison in Coronado, California

Posted by Kendall Harmon

[The] Reverend Edward Harrison grew up all over the United States – including Florida, Ohio, and Mississippi. “My dad was an Episcopal priest, and growing up as a clergy kid I swore I would never work in the church.” Throughout his early life, Rev. Harrison wanted to be a lawyer. “If I wasn’t serving in the church, I probably would have gone to law school.” During his senior year at Yale University, he started thinking about going to seminary to get his own questions about God answered. It was there that he started to think that he might want to serve in the church.

Harrison’s Coronado Story begins over fifteen years ago when he was living in Jacksonville, Florida. “I also was a Navy Reserve Chaplain, so back in 1995 I spent two weeks at the Amphibious Base doing my summer training. I fell in love with Coronado -- I remember driving by the church here and thinking ‘whoever has that job has really sweet place.’” He went back home and forgot all about Coronado. About three years ago an opportunity in Coronado arose, and he started an interview process with the church here.

Read it all and note that the parish has a behavioral covenant.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

9 Comments
Posted March 26, 2012 at 4:40 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Pageantmaster [KJS to Coventry] wrote:

Interesting, a Christian Episcopal priest; and the writer’s profile is also interesting having had the benefit of a British education.

March 26, 6:22 pm | [comment link]
2. Ralph wrote:

Perhaps.

The parish is on a list of “Gay Affirming Churches” in California.

See:
http://www.gaychurch.org/Find_a_Church/united_states/us_california.htm

March 26, 6:49 pm | [comment link]
3. Pageantmaster [KJS to Coventry] wrote:

Ah - it sounded unlikely in the diocese of San Diego, but there we go.

March 26, 6:54 pm | [comment link]
4. Pageantmaster [KJS to Coventry] wrote:

My Gaff - but not as big as this one was.  Oh well!

March 26, 6:59 pm | [comment link]
5. Teatime2 wrote:

I really don’t think the “gay affirming” list amounts to much. Churches in my city are listed and the ones I’m familiar with don’t talk about, let alone get involved in, the gay issues. Except for the MCC, of course. There are even some Baptist churches named.

The “behavioral covenant” isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, lol. I rather like the last statement. The only one that could be loaded is the bit about accepting all of the decisions that were made through the usual processes.

March 26, 7:50 pm | [comment link]
6. jamesw wrote:

I can tell you quite plainly that this “Gay Affirming Churches” list is wildly inaccurate.  Our parish is on it, but we have requested time and again to be removed over the course of several years.  They simply won’t remove us and their only response to our requests has verbal intimidation and harassment.

My suspicion is that a pro-gay priest in the past agreed to have the church listed on the site, and as the site is intended primarily as a propaganda tool (i.e. see how many pro-gay churches there are) so they simply refuse to de-list you once you are on.  In the end, we have decided not to ramp things up to the next level to get us off the list.

In contrast, there are several actual pro-gay churches that are not on this list.

Thus, I would take this list with a grain of salt.

March 26, 8:44 pm | [comment link]
7. jamesw wrote:

A Covenent in an Episcopal church?!?!?  Horrors!  It must not have a Section IV!

March 26, 8:46 pm | [comment link]
8. Rob Eaton+ wrote:

jamesw,
Or, rather, a grain of Galt.

March 27, 3:43 am | [comment link]
9. Ralph wrote:

#6, I certainly hope that the listing among “Gay Affirming Churches” is inaccurate. I didn’t see anything about that, one way or the other, at the parish website.

#4, I can see how someone could have googled Kazakhstan national anthem, gotten the Borat version, and assumed it was the real thing. The Internet is a dangerous place, isn’t it? Obviously (in retrospect), Kazakhstan officials ought to have provided the organizers with an authentic copy. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the Borat film, and I suppose I’ll rent the video some day. That kind of adolescent humor, at the expense of innocent people, troubles me. But, it sure is funny…

There’s a series of films called “Porky’s”...

March 27, 9:02 am | [comment link]
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