Church replaces stained glass window of Robert E Lee with first Black female bishop

A church in Idaho has replaced a stained glass window depicting General Robert E Lee, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln with the first Black female bishop in the Methodist church.

Bishop Leontine Leontine Kelly died at the age of 92 in 2012 and had lived in the Virginia capital of Richmond where statues of Confederate leaders, including Robert E Lee, previously lined Monument Avenue.

The statue of Gen Lee was removed by the city on 8 September. Governor Ralph Northam recommended the removal of the statue in June 2020 when it became the subject of racial justice protests.

The stained glass window that included Gen Lee was first put up in the Cathedral of the Rockies First Methodist Church in Boise in 1960 and was taken down in August last year.

Bishop Kelly, wearing a scarf with LGBT+ colours, has now replaced the three men. She became the first Black Methodist bishop in 1984, and the second-ever woman to assume the job, during a ceremony in the Cathedral of the Rockies. The glass depiction of her was inspired by a 1985 photo of Bishop Kelly during a protest against nuclear weapons.

The $25,591 window was installed on Tuesday.

“We voted to remove it, not knowing whom we would put in the window, but we would figure out something to represent,” Senior Pastor Duane Anders told the Idaho Statesman. “For a year and a half, the windows have been clear. In a sense, we let some light in.”

Pastor Anders said about 50 names, sent in by members of the congregation, had been considered for the window.

“As we started working through the names, one just kept rising to the top, because of our connection to the person and their connection to Boise,” the pastor said. “And that’s Bishop Leontine Kelly.”

Bishop Kelly’s daughter, Angella Current Felder, told theIdaho Statesman with a laugh that “the Lord finally got it right”.

“He straightened it out,” she added. Ms Current Felder told the paper that the Cathedral of the Rockies was “filled to the brim” and “buzzing with excitement” when Bishop Kelly was elected in 1984.

“Some people were saying it can’t happen, it’s not going to happen,” she said. “So the fact that it happened, for those of us who recognize and believe in the Holy Spirit, it was divinely guided.”

Bishop Kelly worked in the San Francisco Episcopal Area until 1992 when she retired. She was the “chief administrative officer and spiritual leader of more than 100,000 United Methodists in California and Nevada,” according to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

During her life, Bishop Kelly was also a teacher, professor, and social activist, becoming a leader in the church in 1969 after the death of her husband, Methodist minister James David Kelly.

Bishop Kelly was one of few people in Edwardsville, Virginia who had gone to college at the time. According to her son, John Current, the congregation asked her to assume the role when her husband passed away.

“What she inherited there was a wooden church that had been built 100 years earlier, probably right around the time of the emancipation of the slaves, and a hole that had been dug for a new foundation for a new church,” Mr Current told the paper. “She, confronted with ‘Where do I go from here?’ responded, ‘God.’”