One Bishop Taught. The Other Presided
The Klink sermon, the Holcomb essay, and the silence from 1047 Amsterdam Avenue
By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org October 27, 2026
There is an unwritten rule in the Episcopal House of Bishops, and it is older and more faithfully kept than most of the written ones: you do not correct another man's clergy. Dioceses are fiefdoms. A bishop may disagree with a brother bishop at General Convention, vote against him, even sigh about him over dinner. What he does not do is stand up and declare that a priest canonically resident somewhere else has preached falsehood.
Bishop Justin Holcomb of Central Florida has just come as close to breaking that rule as any Episcopal bishop in a generation.
The Sermon and the Answer
On October 23 he sent his clergy a 13-page theological essay, The Body of Jesus Christ: Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, Ascended, Returning. He named no one. He did not need to. Everyone who has seen the video knows what he was answering: the sermon preached on March 21 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine by the Rev. Flourish Klink, at the cathedral's Celebration of Trans Joy and Resilience. Klink told the congregation that God is nonbinary, then went further. God, Klink said, is trans. Mary looked at the baby in the manger and assigned him a gender. At Easter the error was corrected: “I think Jesus transitioned.”
Holcomb's reply is not a press release, nor is it a culture-war broadside. It is a piece of catechesis, the sort of thing bishops used to write before they became managers. He grants the premise that God is beyond sex. He then turns it around. The Father has no body. Neither does the Spirit. The Son had none until Mary, and the body he took from her was male. That is not divinity leaking through flesh. It is the flesh itself. To call it a provisional costume is to say some part of his humanity was unreal, which is Docetism. To say his divine nature overrode his human one is to confuse the natures, which is Eutyches. Chalcedon dealt with both in 451. Holcomb's point is that the old heresies did not die. They simply relocated.
He takes the Easter texts one by one. The risen Lord shows his hands and feet. He eats broiled fish. He offers his wounds to Thomas. He cooks breakfast on the shore. The Gospels labor to establish that the one who walked out of the tomb is the one who was laid in it. Where disciples fail to recognize him, the evangelists put the failure in their eyes, not in his face. And then the line every Episcopal priest ought to pin above his desk: “The body is not a prison and it is not a costume.”
That is what a bishop is for.
The Bishop Who Presided
Now consider the other bishop in this story.
According to the cathedral's own service program, the Rt. Rev. Matthew Heyd, Bishop of New York, presided at the service where the sermon was preached. He did not preach. He did not need to. He sat in his own cathedral while one of his own priests told his own people that the Incarnation was a clerical error, corrected at the empty tomb. Seven months later, after millions of views and a tide of public ridicule, there has been, so far as VirtueOnline can determine, not one word from him. No clarification. No pastoral letter. No gentle “that is not what the Church teaches.” Nothing.
At his consecration, Matthew Heyd was asked the question the Prayer Book puts to every bishop: “Will you guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church?” He answered, “I will, for the love of God.” He was asked whether he would “boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience” of his people. He promised that too.
A bishop in Orlando has kept that vow for the people of New York. The bishop of New York has not.
Silence as Doctrine
None of this is new. In 1966 the House of Bishops meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, censured James Pike for doctrinal irresponsibility, and then did nothing more. In 1996 the court in the Righter case ruled that the Episcopal Church had no enforceable “core doctrine.” From that day forward the doors were open. Jack Spong could publish his Twelve Theses denying the Resurrection and the atonement, and his brother bishops would treat it as a matter of taste. The Episcopal Church did not stop believing the creeds in one dramatic vote. It simply stopped defending them, one silence at a time.
That is why the Holcomb essay matters out of all proportion to its length. It shows that the Chalcedonian definition is still on the books, still teachable and still true, and that at least one Episcopal bishop is willing to say so in writing. It also shows, by contrast, what the Episcopal Church's own discipline has become. A priest may tell a cathedral congregation that Christ shed his sex at Easter. A bishop may preside at it. And the only correction comes from 1,100 miles away, from a man with no jurisdiction, who is careful not to name names.
The Right Word
Holcomb ended his essay pastorally, as he should. Many people, he wrote, are worn out from justifying themselves. The gospel does not ask them to find a truer self and submit it for approval. The approval has already been given, in a body, on a cross.
It is the right word. It should have come from New York.
Why it works: Covers all five primary vowels plus Y, alongside four vital structural consonants. 5 Letter Words
The article raises an important question about church leadership, accountability, and the responsibility to address theological disagreements openly. Just as a Neo Trench Coat creates a recognizable image through its distinctive style, public leaders are also recognized by their actions and the principles they choose to uphold when difficult questions arise.
Holcomb emboidies and proclaims the Gospel faithfully, accurately, and passionatly. I've had the joy of spending time with him privately and have found both authentic and humble. Important qualities for a minister occupy the office he stands in at this hour.