News
By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service
As she is introduced, Elizabeth A. Eaton returns the applause and affection to wor- shipers at her installa- tion as ELCA presiding bishop in Chicago.
“I couldn’t imagine being any- where else today. I’m contemplating seminary and this is quite an event,” said Mike McDowell of Christ the King Lutheran Church, Bentonville, Ark., who attended with friends from Kenosha, Wis. “I’m here because it’s historic and because I’m part of a church where men and women work together,” said Carolyn Heider, who will begin her first call as pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Merrillville, Ind., in January. “Look at all of these peo- ple gathered here, doing God’s work and having fun doing it. There is just so much joy.”
It was indeed a joyful, emotional
celebration. Many of the some 1,500 attendees choked up and became teary, especially when outgoing Pre- siding Bishop Mark S. Hanson took off his pectoral cross and placed it on Eaton.
The nearly two-hour service
Go, sow! T
Eaton installed as presiding bishop in joyful, emotional service
8 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
incorporated global music, beloved hymns, choral classics, prayers and readings in a variety of languages spoken around the ELCA, and the musical gifts of people from across the church, including students from Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill. Eaton had a sense of fun about the
Sow! Go!
he crowd filling stately Rockefeller Chapel in Chi- cago burst into loud and prolonged applause and cheers upon the installation Oct. 5 of Elizabeth A.
Eaton as the fourth presiding bishop of the ELCA. Eaton beamed and clapped back to the assembly as she became the first
female to occupy the denomination’s top office. She officially assumes the post Nov. 1.
day, from the bagpiper she requested to her ready grin as she flung water on those gathered to remind them of their baptism.
The ending hymn and procession from the University of Chicago cha- pel verged on transcendence. It was a formal setting but managed some- how to feel very personal.
Eleven Lutheran and other Chris- tian bodies participated in the laying on of hands, a sign of unity, during Eaton’s installation.
Garbed in colorful vestments,
they were the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, Reformed Church in America, Epis- copal Church, Moravian Church
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