J. Neil Alexander

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The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander

The Right Reverend John Neil Alexander is the 9th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, being elected to that office March 31, 2001. On July 7, 2001, Bishop Alexander was installed as bishop in a service at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, Georgia.

Background

Bishop Alexander was born Jan 23, 1954, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1976 he married Lynn Tesh Alexander, a pediatric nurse practitioner.

He graduated from Moravian College in 1976 with a B.A. in Music. In 1979, he graduated the University of South Carolina with a Master of Music.

In 1980, Bishop Alexander earned a Master of Divinity from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. He was ordained by the North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church in America. His first parish was Faith Lutheran Church in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

From there, Bishop Alexander took up doctoral studies at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (TEC), and in 1984 became Professor of Liturgics and Spirituality and Dean of Keffer Memorial Chapel at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. He returned to The General Seminary in 1987 as Director of the Chapel and Teaching Fellow, and joined the Faculty in 1989 to teach homiletics and liturgics. He received the Th.D from General Seminary in Liturgics in 1993, where he became the Trinity Church Professor of Liturgics and Preaching. While at General, he served in a variety of parish settings in the metropolitan New York area.

Prior to becoming bishop, Alexander had moved to the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee where he served as the Norma and Olin Mills Professor of Divinity. He was also Priest-in-Charge at St. Agnes' Church in Cowan, Tennessee.

In January of 2006, Bishop Alexander was nominated for the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Church.

Consecrators

• The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA
• The Right Reverend Frank K. Allan, 8th Bishop of Atlanta
• The Right Reverend C. Judson Child, Jr, 7th Bishop of Atlanta

J. Neil Alexander was the 968th bishop consecrated in the Episcopal Church.

Publications

Bishop Alexander is the author of a number of publications in the fields of liturgics, homiletics, sacramental theology, and pastoral practice, including a number of his sermons.

• This Far by Grace: A Bishop's Journey Through Questions of Homosexuality, Cowley Publications, 2003

See Also...

• Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta
• List of Bishops in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta
• List of Bishop Succession in the Episcopal Church

References

• Bishop's Page, Diocese of Atlanta website.
• The Episcopal Church Annual. Morehouse Publishing: New York, NY (2005).

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