Religion: Opting for the Browning Version

Hawaii is one of the smallest and most remote dioceses in the Episcopal Church, but its bishop was chosen last week to be the new leader of the 2.8 million-member denomination through 1997. The election, at a convention in Anaheim, Calif., coincidentally fell on the 32nd wedding anniversary of the new Presiding Bishop, Edmond Lee Browning, 56. The fourth-ballot election of Browning over three other candidates* by the 214 bishops present moved the church well to the left of its current leadership. Browning, who has headed the Hawaii diocese for nine years, champions the ordination of women and actively opposes the nuclear arms race. Although in his new post he will not have the monarchical powers of the Roman Catholic Pope or the global influence of Anglicanism's Archbishop of Canterbury, he will serve as his church's spiritual head, public spokesman and chief administrator.

The harmonious balloting was in marked contrast to the tense 1973 contest that elected the outgoing Presiding Bishop John M. Allin. The politically cautious Allin was chosen by fellow prelates as the result of a strong backlash against Predecessor John Hines' program of funding radical secular groups to increase the economic and political power of minorities. Allin's term in office was marked by two ecclesiastical events: the adoption of a modernized version of the venerable Book of Common Prayer, a measure favored by Allin, and the ordination of women to the priesthood, which he opposed.

Browning, by contrast, enthusiastically supported admission of the 559 women now counted among the 12,591 Episcopal priests. He also favors trial use of a controversial lectionary, issued by the National Council of Churches, with nonsexist rewritings of familiar Scripture passages. In 1979 Browning broke ranks with a 99-to-34 majority of the bishops who declared that "it is not appropriate for this church to ordain a practicing homosexual." He was among 20 liberals who filed a fervent dissent, insisting that homosexual behavior should not be an automatic barrier to the priesthood. "I would hope," Browning told TIME last week, "we are not frozen in any kind of set belief about homosexuality."

Browning has also been

outspoken on other social issues. When President Reagan attended an Easter service last year at his cathedral, Browning's sermon criticized the Federal Government for its heavy spending on arms. Last July, after an antinuclear activist was sentenced to three years in prison for violating a Coast Guard safety zone, Browning joined Hawaii's Roman Catholic bishop in protest.