The Bishop Pike Affair

Introducing two Stringfellow/Towne reprints about Bishop Pike:
The Bishop Pike Affair
The Death and Life of Bishop Pike


The Bishop Pike Affair presents the climactic showdown between James A. Pike and his peers at the Wheeling meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops, in October 1966. It dramatized for millions the struggles for reform and relevance within the church in the mid-twentieth century.

This book reveals the whole chronicle of the historic controversy. Thousands of documents were researched. The authors disentangle the web of political, racial, theological, traditional, and personal interests that account for the accusations that Bishop Pike is a heretic and that culminated in his censure at Wheeling.

The authors relate The Bishop Pike Affair to celebrated heresy trials of the past, probe the issues of fairness and due process of law, explore the ethics of the fraternity of bishops, examine the dynamics of the Episcopal Church as an institution, and expose the design of the ""ultra-right whites"" to stage a coup d'eglise in America.



""This book will concern and dismay every thoughtful person who reads it, especially those of the Christian faith. It is dismaying to discover, although perhaps one should not have been surprised, that the ranks of Episcopal bishops contain as high a percentage of clowns and petty, vindictive men as to the organizations of secular professions.""
--Ralph McGill, The Atlanta Constitution

""A shaking and sensitive book of extraordinary power. As a work of prophetic insight and conviction, it will hold a place in history.""
--Malcolm Boyd, author of Are You Running With Me, Jesus?

William Stringfellow was a practicing attorney and a prominent Episcopalian, who frequently contributed to legal and theological journals. After his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1956, he practiced some years in the East Harlem neighborhood in New York City, subsequently moving to Block Island, RI. When Daniel Berrigan was apprehended by the FBI at Stringfellow and Towne's home in 1969, the hosts were charged with ""harboring a fugative.""

Anthony Towne was a poet whose work appeared in such publications as The New Yorker. Best known for Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God, he was a book review editor for Motive Magazine, founder of the Block Island Writers Guild, and collaborator with Stringfellow on a number of book projects.