Courage And Grace Mark Bishop's Career -- The Rev. Knutson Retiring As Head Of Lutheran Church

The "stinky" man in rags had come to Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Everett looking for a handout. Six-year-old Kari Knutson eyed him, and was afraid.

But instead of shooing the man away, her father, the Rev. Lowell Knutson, told his children to put on their coats and walk with him and the stranger to a nearby store. Knutson bought the man a loaf of bread and a can of pork and beans.

Now grown and married, Kari Knutson-Bradac says she didn't understand it then, but she would come to see how important it was for her father to walk with people, whether they were down on their luck, in pain, or just plain different.

Wearing his compassion on his sleeve, as one colleague put it, Knutson rose to become bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Northwest Washington Synod, a sprawling territory that stretches from Kent to the U.S.-Canadian border, west of the Cascade Mountains.

The synod takes in 116 congregations with more than 60,000 members. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is the largest Lutheran body in the United States.

On this Christmas Day, as millions of Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Knutson and his wife, Shirley, after Christmas Eve services at their neighborhood church near White Center, will gather with their children and grandchildren for a traditional family get-together.

But today will be different.

It is the last Christmas that Knutson will mark as bishop of the synod. He is retiring at the end of the year.

Friends and family say his leadership and support as bishop will be missed. But he is not about to drop from public view.

Knutson will become a full-time volunteer, as chairman of the board of trustees of Seattle Community College and as a board member of Open Door Ministries, a Lutheran ministry for people living with AIDS and for gay and lesbian concerns.

During his eight years as a bishop and 33 as a parish pastor, Knutson developed a reputation for courage and grace. He remained so down to earth and approachable that one local Lutheran minister said it seemed as if Knutson, a former football star at Queen Anne High School, had played ball or was friends with just about everyone in the synod.

In an interview on the eve of his retirement, Knutson passed on opportunities to wax eloquently about himself. Perhaps his most telling comment came at the end of the conversation when he was asked what his life might have been without Jesus Christ and Christ's message of love, hope and service to others.

"Well, it'd have been a very selfish life. It'd have been a very self-serving life. I don't think I would have had a sense of anyone else's importance other than my own," he said.

Knutson-Bradac, the social-work supervisor for Providence Family Medical Center in Seattle, said she learned from her father that it is within relationships with others that one finds God.

But God and the relationships are not always in safe places, she said.

David Knutson, one of the bishop's two sons, recalled how his father had been a conservative Republican in his earlier years.

But his views changed during the Vietnam War as David and his brother Peter became active in the anti-war movement.

David, a senior research analyst for the state House of Representatives, and Kari said their father eventually joined a demonstration on Colby Avenue in Everett to pray for peace in Vietnam.

"That was not something that was supported by the majority of the community. He felt we needed to get out of Vietnam, that there had been enough killing," said Knutson-Bradac.

A LEGACY OF HELPING

During his tenure as bishop, Knutson lobbied in Olympia for social-service programs and tax reform, including consideration of a state income tax.

He pushed churches to provide emergency shelter for homeless people. He spoke out against Initiative 119, the euthanasia measure that was defeated in 1991.

And he was one of the religious leaders who signed a 1987 statement apologizing to Eskimo and Northwest Indian peoples for the Christian church's participation in the destruction of traditional Native American spiritual practices.

He also encouraged women in the ministry.

The Rev. Anne Morawski Gojio, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Seattle, said when the pastorship at St. John came open 5 1/2 years ago, he made sure a woman's name - hers - was on the list of candidates submitted to the congregation for consideration. Without his efforts, she doubts she would have been on the short list.

`THE BISHOP OF EVERYBODY'

But while he has his convictions, Knutson said he also has been careful to honor other people's views.

"The minute you wake up and find out that you're the bishop, one of the realizations that comes to you is that you're the bishop of everybody," Knutson said.

In that regard, Knutson said his heart went out to his colleague, Episcopal Bishop Vincent Warner, head of the Diocese of Olympia for Western Washington.

Warner recently stopped the blessing of a same-sex union at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, saying the Episcopal Church as a whole had not completed its dialogue on human-sexuality issues, including same-sex unions. Local dioceses were not to proceed on their own in the meantime, Warner said.

Knutson noted that for years people have been taught that the practice of homosexuality is sin.

Now some attitudes are changing. "But you cannot expect the church at large, after members have been taught by their clergy for years that it is a sin, to within a period of two or three years just flip over and say, `Well, that was wrong,' " he said.

In the meantime, Knutson has initiated efforts to minister to people who are gay or lesbian.

Knutson-Bradac recalled how her father stood with her as she cared for one of her closest friends who was dying of AIDS.

Knutson then went on to found Open Door Ministries, which provides pastoral care to people affected by HIV/AIDS; non-judgmental ministry to gays and lesbians, and support to the church as it addresses questions of human sexuality and sexual orientation.

"It was a very hot issue for a bishop to connect his name to," said the Rev. John Lindsay, pastor of St. James Lutheran Church, the congregation to which Knutson and his wife belong.

THE ROOTS OF FAITH

Knutson was born 65 years ago in the tiny North Dakota town of Hannah, population 260.

It was during his junior-high school years, after the family had moved to Seattle, that Knutson began to seriously think about his faith, and about the ministry.

One day when he was in the sixth or seventh grade, the pastor of Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church asked him to give a talk to the youth group about stewardship. Wanting to please the preacher, the Rev. Rudolph Ofstedal, Lowell immediately said yes. He then rushed home to look the word up in the dictionary.

Apparently his talk went well because after it Ofstedal said, "You really ought to think about the ministry."

But he never said another word about it. Instead, he continued to nurture Knutson, and other young people, by being present for them: in Lowell's case by showing up at all his prep baseball, football and basketball games to root him on.

Knutson was the scoring champion of the old City League while playing football at Queen Anne High during his junior year in 1946. He pitched a no-hit baseball game against Franklin High School the year before. But in his senior year he separated his shoulder.

He might have gone on to the University of Washington to play football for his old Queen Anne High coach, John Cherberg, the late lieutenant governor.

But during his time off from sports, Knutson reflected on his future and concluded, "God, if you really want me in the ministry, then I ought to go to PLC."

PLC was Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma, before it became Pacific Lutheran University. He earned a bachelor's degree in history and classical languages - Greek and Latin - in 1952 and received his master of divinity degree from Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., in 1954.

THE EARLY YEARS

He then plunged into parish work at Edison Lutheran Church in Bow, Skagit County. After six years there, he moved to Our Savior's in Everett for 13 years, and then First Lutheran Church of West Seattle from 1973 to 1987.

He was named acting bishop of the old North Pacific District of the American Lutheran Church following the death of Bishop Clifford Lunde in February 1987.

Knutson was elected bishop of the Northwest Washington Synod of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, formed that year with the merger of the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

United Methodist Bishop Calvin McConnell described Knutson as a healer and a reconciler, "a real bridge builder."

The Jewish/Christian Coalition, a Seattle-based group of religious leaders, recently honored Knutson for his interfaith and ecumenical work.

Knutson's successor is still to be determined. The Rev. Paul Bartling, Knutson's assistant, is interim bishop. A new bishop will be elected at the synod's assembly in June.

As he looked to the future, Knutson said he saw hope, even as society was growing more secular. He said people will have to be more personally committed to their faith - and to being witnesses of their faith.

"I think the Christian church needs to be in ministry wherever there is pain in society," he said.

Or, as Knutson-Bradac said of her father, to go to "the scary places . . . where God calls us."