Simple living — Bishop Irish to head national religious education group

The Right Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish will chair a national standing commission for the Episcopal Church on Life-long Christian Education and Formation, beginning in November, hoping to enhance character formation for young people.

Bishop Irish, who leads the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, supported a measure to create the commission during the American church's 75th annual convention in June and was appointed to her post by the church's new presiding bishop, the Right Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada.

The group will be comprised of about 20 clergy and lay people from across the country and will formulate proposals designed to improve religious education and character formation, particularly for young people within the church.

"It's been my song here as bishop ... that education is critical to religious life," she said, noting the Episcopal Church is "very accepting of scientific, philosophical and poetic work. We never excommunicate scholars or anything like that." Utah's first Episcopal bishop, Daniel Tuttle, worked tirelessly for education in Utah and established Rowland Hall-St. Mark's school as a means of providing an alternative to Utah's LDS-dominated education system.

Bishop Irish said she wants the group to first reflect on what "formation" means in the context of religious education. "I don't anticipate at all that we mean formation of people's opinions or positions on social or religious issues" but rather ways to enhance character formation in young people.

Youths are a high priority for the church, she said. "That's something the LDS Church has focused on forever." Growing up in Salt Lake City as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bishop Irish said she was "blessed by that as a child, where character formation was a major component of their teaching."

"Young people face a totally different world than I did — a world of tremendous challenges," she said. "We are looking to reach out in different ways to youth within the church, and people who engage with us will be in a better position to draw new members," she said.

She's particularly interested in the lifelong adaptation that people make as they go through life, she said. "Experience is our foremost teacher. I like to see people that have managed to let go of one place in their life where they are quite dogmatic to allow a place where they can listen to other opinions and not have it affect their personhood in the church."