Welcome to Midwestern Missionary Mahem! Today in the Saintly Smackdown Henry Whipple takes on Jackson Kemper. Two outward-looking nineteenth century American bishops who helped shape the future of the Episcopal Church.
Yesterday, Rita trounced Zita (or was it the other way around?) No, we're pretty sure it was Rita over Zita 79% to 21%. Actually, upon further review, it was Zita over Rita!
Vote now!
Henry Whipple
The westward expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century due to belief in Manifest Destiny carried with it an unstoppable tide of cruelty, dishonesty, and corruption toward Native Americans. Often, we whitewash past actions by arguing they should be judged “in the standards of their time;” yet much like how Bartolomé de las Casas held the Spanish to account for atrocities in the time of Columbus, Henry Benjamin Whipple reminds us that well over a century ago, brave saints spoke boldly against the degradation and maltreatment of indigenous people in the name of Jesus.
Henry Whipple was born in upstate New York in 1822, and became an Episcopalian under the influence of his grandparents and wife. After attending Oberlin College, he worked for a brief time in his father’s business until he was ordained priest in 1850. He would serve parishes in upstate New York and Chicago, gaining a reputation for service to immigrants. It was from Chicago that Whipple was elected as the first bishop of Minnesota in 1859 at the age of thirty-seven, a see he would occupy for 42 years until his death in 1901.
Whipple would eagerly set about planting the church in his diocese, making regular trips across Minnesota, including in the harsh winter. After his first visitation in the nascent diocese, he returned with a commitment not only to establish missions among the Ojibwe and Dakota peoples, but also to advocate for their welfare and well-being.
Bishop Whipple made fierce pleas for clemency for native warriors who fought against the United States in the Dakota War of 1862. On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Dakota were hanged for supposed war crimes in the largest mass execution in American history. Their “trials” lasted mere minutes; the accused were afforded no lawyers. Whipple decried these show trials in the press, pleading for clemency, and opposing mass executions, deportations, and genocide of native people. Whipple’s defense of indigenous people earned him scorn from his white peers; many of his fellow bishops deemed him mad. Whipple would even call to account his own cousin, Henry Sibley, the architect of punitive treaties with native peoples and of the war against the Dakota. Whipple’s pleas had an impact: while 303 had been condemned to hanging, President Lincoln commuted the sentence of 265 of those in a fiercely unpopular decision.
Bishop Whipple’s moral clarity when the powers around him resisted his judgment remains the foremost marker of his ministry, and among his legacies is the ordination of the first Native American priest in the Episcopal Church, Enmegahbowh. His legacy is reflected in the Pauline motto of the Diocese of Minnesota: Pax Per Sanguinem Crucis – peace by the blood of the cross.
Collect for Henry Whipple
Almighty God, you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses: Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of your servant Henry Whipple, may persevere in running the race that is set before us, until at last we may with him attain to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)
Jackson Kemper
The influence and impact of Jackson Kemper reaches across the centuries. His mark on the Episcopal Church – from evangelism and education to the support of Native Americans – still reverberates today.
Kemper, the first missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church, is known as “The Bishop of the Whole Northwest.” And for good reason – most of his ministry years were devoted to the Midwest at a time when settlements were stretching westward.
Descriptions of Kemper range from being kind to being a zealot. Nonetheless, he maintained one focus - to spread the word of God throughout the new regions of this burgeoning country.
Born in New York state on December 24, 1789, Kemper’s father was an assistant to General Washington in the Continental Army and his mother came from an important Dutch family in New Amsterdam. At Columbia College (now University), Kemper studied theology with Bishop Henry Hobart, graduating in 1809. After his ordination in 1814, he served as Bishop William White’s assistant in Philadelphia. Ordained a bishop in 1835, no sooner had a bishop’s miter been placed on his head that he headed west for new regions.
Kemper’s original territory was today’s Indiana and Missouri. From there, he expanded his ministry into neighboring areas: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, as well as points south.
Life was not easy on the frontier, but nothing deterred Kemper. Despite hardships, Kemper trekked thousands of miles utilizing all available travel modalities – ships, horses, and walking.
His accomplishments were astonishing: organizing dioceses, planting churches, ordaining priests and deacons, confirming thousands, founding schools and a seminary.
Dedicated to education and training of much-needed clergy, he founded Kemper College in St. Louis, Missouri. Although financial difficulties closed the school in 1845, his determination was not stymied. His next school was Nashotah House in Wisconsin in 1842, still operating as one of the seminaries of the Episcopal Church. In 1852 he founded Racine College, which closed in 1933.
He was a tireless advocate for Native Americans and promoted mission work among the Potawatomi, Seneca, Oneida, and Huron Tribes. Of significance, Kemper ordained Enmegahbowh, of the Ottawa Tribe, as a deacon in 1859. Later, Enmegahbowh became the first Native American Episcopal priest.
When the Diocese of Wisconsin was formed, Kemper was named provisional bishop from 1847 until 1854, then bishop until his death in 1870.
Kemper was married twice; he and his second wife Ann had three children. He died on May 24, 1870, in Nashotah where he is buried.
His legacy lives on. In addition to Nashotah House, the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry, founded in 2013, is a joint venture of the Dioceses of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, West Missouri, and Western Kansas. Kemper’s feast day is May 24.
Collect for Jackson Kemper
O God, who sent your son Jesus Christ to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that we, like your servant Jackson Kemper, may proclaim the Gospel in our own day, with courage, vision, and perseverance; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and for ever. Amen. (LFF 2022)
— Neva Rae Fox
118 comments on “Henry Whipple vs. Jackson Kemper”
I enjoy the write ups and all the comments. It was a difficult choice and I wish that we had bishops in the same time period in Canada who stood up for the original settlers. Father Lacombe did his best. I was surprised at the comments on Rita and Zita. I think that our wise leaders were having a bit of fun! Also the comments on ordination were surprising as, was pointed out, one ordained a deacon and one ordained a priest. You keep us learning and thinking, thanks.
I graduated from Kemper Hall, Kenosha, WI. Action Jackson always has my vote!
Tried to vote for Whipple. Vote not successful.
Whipple is the Sacred Grounders candidate
Was amazed at the lead H. Whipple had when I clicked "VOTE". I really felt these two were the most evenly matched of all bracket candidates we've had to date.
Oh this is a tough one. They both worked to spread the Gospel amongst all people. They both, as Bishop, laid hands upon Enmegahbowh, one to make him a deacon and one to make him a priest..
Whilst as a young child Kemper might have met President Washington through his father, we know that President Lincoln knew Bishop Whipple. There is a book about Bishop Whipple, the Dakota War of 1862, and Lincoln’s commutation of 265 death sentences entitled Lincoln’s Bishop: A president, a priest, and the fate of 300 Dakota Sioux warriors by Gustav Niebuhr [see https://search.worldcat.org/en/title/857966850 to find it in a library near you or look it up at bookshop dot org to order it through an independent bookstore] which I recommend reading. To read more about Bishop Kemper look up Laura Darling’s previous LentMadness bio of him on 4 March 2015 under Jackson Kemper vs. Margery Kempe (which has a different Collect btw for Bishop Kemper).
I’m going to vote for the Bishop who has a whole office building named after him by none other than the U.S. federal government.
One question: Is LentMadness Celebrity Blogger David Sibley related to Bishop Whipple and his cousin Henry Sibley?
Henry is my father's name. His mother and father were immigrants from Italy. As a boy in NJ, he was thrown into the tracks of an oncoming train because the white boys didn't want any brown boys in their playground. He always took the side of Indigenous people in westerns we watched on TV and praised the black athletes in tennis and golf for beating their fellow athletes in predominantly white "playgrounds". He is a saint in my mind by surviving 3 months in a coma and the loss of a leg.
As a Wisconsinite & someone who has had the pleasure of visiting the GORGEOUS Nashotah House, I had to vote for Kemper.
The Captcha was timing out on my iPhone but worked long enough to let me finally vote on my iPad. So to the others having trouble voting, try again on a different device.
And I know the problem with the Captcha is website-specific because I had no problem on my iPhone with the Captcha on the Forward Movement customer service contact us form. 🙂
Dear God from whom all liberties flow who sent us Your son to set us free, please do not allow our civil elections to have the voting difficulties and impediments that have occurred during LentMadness XV. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with You and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and forevermore. Amen
I wanted to vote for both of them due to their support for Native Americans. So I had to pick. Both are great.
Liz Stevens
Springfield MA
I tried to vote for Whipple but it seemed to not go through.
Afraid to try again and be thought trying to vote twice!
This was a tough one. I enjoye dlearning about both men, though.
AND tey did both work for social justice (as we call it today)
I did recently learn I am 1/32 Native Aemrican, and so I had to vote for Whipple, who sounds like he was a little more proactive aginst the terrible treatment of the "Indians" at that time.
Whipple supported the Native Americans. Also had that neat top hat.
THIS is a tough choice.
But I live in Minnesota.... so....
Foul. Total unfair match. Kemper, Whipple and Grafton were the "Holy Trinity" of clergy that brought Anglo-Catholicism to the Upper Midwest. It would have been better to match them up with some snake-belly low churchmen, so each High Churchman would have had their rightful victory.
Another tough choice. Both seem to have had compassion for the indiginous Americans, but I voted for Kemper in part because the priest at the church in which my husband and I were married had attended Nashotah House. (That priest was NOT particularly rigid!)
Great for Bishop Whipple
Wow! This is a near impossible choice. Both men are fine examples of bishops truly living the call of Jesus to love both God and our neighbor. I admire their defense of Native Americans and inclusion of Native Americans in the clergy and life of the Church. I need to pray about this before I vote.
So many similarities and how does one choose? I ended up going with Whipple—my excuse is because we in the United Brethren in Christ denomination had a bishop Whipple ourselves just a few years back that just happened to be the former lead pastor of the church my pastor boss had been at before he came to us and his son was our Worship Director... plus, I mean, just look at that hat!
It was extremely difficult to choose between "The Bishop of all Outdoors" (Kemper) and the Pioneer Bishop of Minnesota who Indigenous People at the time called "Straight Tongue" because he didn't lie to them, but told truth to power on their behalf. But in the end, I had to go with Whipple. He was, in so many ways, far ahead of his times.
This is so unfair!!! Both of these bishops were incredibly gifted men to those people they served. Jackson Kemper founded my church (Holy Communion) in Lake Geneva, WI in the 1840s so I have to vote for him.
I'm sure rural Nashotah House is lovely, and I have dear and respected colleagues who studied there. But nearly a half-century after we started ordaining women to the priesthood, the board of Nashotah House, fearful of losing some opinionated donors, continues to bar women from celebrating the Eucharist in Nashotah's chapel. If that has finally changed in the last year or two -- and ISTM that the national Church should intervene if it hasn't -- I have not heard about it.
Of course, I don't know what Jackson Kemper, or a Kemper informed by recent history and theology, would have to say about this, but it certainly gives me pause. Fortunately, Henry Whipple's speaking up to save 265 Lakota men from the gallows decided my vote anyway.
The 38 Dakota where hung in Mankato, MN on the banks of the Minnesota River, where it makes it's bend to the NE. Dec. 26, 1862 had to be a bitterly cold day, compounding the suffering of the Native Dakota people. The site is a sacred place, commemoratively restored. If your in the area, visit silently, one can still hear the Dakota people lamenting.
The cure for Captcha not working on iPad seems to be, click “vote” anyway. When it then say, “Captcha required “, it did work, for me at least.
Comments being overwhelmingly for Whipple, I opted to support Kemper, who worked in Kansas where I lived for 27 years. Sibley’s writeup serves Whipple well; I wonder if Kemper had similar opportunities to advocate as strongly for the fellow humanity of native people.
I found the comments of both of these men fascinating... as were their lives. Many thanks for sharing them.
Both amazing men and amazing lives, I did vote for Henry Whipple.
Did anyone notice that both writers claimed their saint had baptized Enmegabowh? That sent me searching, and it was Henry Whipple who actually baptized Enmegabowh.