This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

KKEMPER, JACKSON (24 December 1789, Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County,N.Y.–24 May 1870, Delafield, Wis.). Education: Graduated from Columbia College,1809; studied theology with Benjamin Moore and John Henry Hobart, NewYork. Career: Assistant minister, United Parishes of Christ Church, St. Peter’s,and St. James’, Philadelphia, 1811–31; rector, St. Paul’s Church, Norwalk, Conn.,1831–35; missionary bishop of Indiana and Missouri, 1835–38; missionarybishop of the Northwest, 1838–59; bishop, diocese of Wisconsin, 1854–70.Jackson Kemper, the first missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church, was bornin Pleasant Valley, New York, in 1789. After graduating from Columbia Collegein New York City, he studied for the ordained ministry under Benjamin Mooreand the influential high church leader John Henry Hobart.* Ordained a deacon in1811 and a priest in 1814, he served for 20 years as the parish assistant of BishopWilliam White* in Philadelphia. Vitally interested in missions, Kemper was theprincipal leader of the Society for the Advancement of Christianity in Pennsylvania,a diocesan organization that supported missionaries in the more remotecorners of the state. He made missionary tours of western Pennsylvania in 1812and again in 1814, when he also ventured into Ohio, and he accompanied Whiteon a visit to the western portion of his diocese in 1826.In 1835, the Episcopal Church decided to make evangelism a churchwide responsibilityand to create missionary districts to which bishops would be sent.Immediately after that decision was made, Kemper was elected to oversee anddevelop a jurisdiction that eventually included the present-day states of Indiana,Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin—a vast region inwhich Episcopal membership lagged far behind that of other denominations. Influencedby Kemper’s high church beliefs, a strong Catholic ethos soon developedamong the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church in that area. Facing a chronic