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Bishop joins Methodist, Lutheran counterparts to address needs

By Melodie Woerman

Editor, The Harvest

Bishop Dean Wolfe has joined forces this spring with the bishops of the Methodist and Lutheran churches in Kansas on a variety of social issues.

A series of letters have been addressed to members of the Kansas Legislature by Bishop Wolfe, Bishop Scott Jones of the Kansas Area of the United Methodist Church and Bishop Gerald Mansholt of the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The three men sent an introductory letter to all legislators in January, noting together they represent some 200,000 Kansas church members. They also spoke out on behalf of adequate funding for several groups of people served through the state’s main social agency.

The three also weighed in on one of the session’s most controversial topics — the bill to permit concealed weapons in the state. The bill made it through the Kansas Senate but without a provision keeping such weapons out of places of worship.

The three bishops sent a letter to members of the Kansas House of Representatives asking that churches be added to the list of locations exempt from concealed weapons, and that provision later was added by the committee considering the bill. The provision remained through final passage by the House and conference committee action by the Senate. The bill later was vetoed by the governor but was passed by the Legislature over that veto.

Had the church exemption not been enacted, signs would have been required at every church building, synagogue or mosque in the state to keep guns off the property of those houses of worship.

Education conference

Now the three bishops have worked together to sponsor a day-long conference on public education April 29 at Grace Cathedral, Topeka. The day will offer more than a dozen workshop speakers and also will feature the three bishops in a roundtable discussion with Dr. Andy Tompkins, former education commissioner for the state of Kansas.

Of this unique emphasis on a public issue, the bishops said, “Education is one of the most important issues facing our state today, and we as bishops want to involve members of our congregations in discussing the many aspects of this important topic.”