Emphasis Preaching Journal

In the early '90s, I lived in Santa Barbara, California, and attended a dynamic, renewing, spiritually vital, liberal congregation, Trinity Episcopal Church. There, I was fortunate enough to meet the Right Reverend Daniel Corrigan, an aged Episcopal bishop who was also the first bishop to ordain women to the priesthood. Dan Corrigan was a unique breed: one of those mid-twentieth century liberal princes of the pulpit, a Protestant minister whose stirring preaching and passionate commitment to social justice pushed Christians to enact God's shalom toward the oppressed and the outcast. He was both pastor and prophet. Even at the end of his life, Dan Corrigan wore the Holy Spirit like a mantle around his shoulders, always ready to speak for God.

One year, as Easter approached, I overheard an exchange between this octogenarian liberal lion and a fellow parishioner. "Bishop Corrigan," the person asked, "Do you believe in the resurrection?" Frankly, I could not wait to hear the answer -- like most of his generation, there was no way that Bishop Corrigan believed in a literal resurrection. He looked at the questioner and said firmly, without pause, "Yes. I believe in the resurrection. I've seen it too many times not to."
(from Diana Butler Bass, online in the God's Politics blog, Wednesday, April 04, 2007, http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2007/04/diana-butler-bass- believing.html)