Courtesy of Claflin University
Claflin University Board of Trustee MemberRev. Dr. Robin Dease, ‘92, was elected a Bishop of the United Methodist Church during the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, on Thursday, November 3, 2022. She will be assigned to an episcopal area by the SEJ Episcopal committee effective January 1, 2023. Dease is the fourth Claflin alum to be elected a Bishop and she is a former chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Claflin University. Congratulations, Trustee Bishop-Elect Dease!
Rev. Dr. Robin Dease, senior pastor of St. Andrew By-The-Sea UMC in Hilton Head Island, was elected Thursday as a bishop of The United Methodist Church by delegates to the 2022 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference.
Delegates elected Dease, 54, during the jurisdiction’s meeting at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, on the 25th ballot after two full days of voting. She received 206 votes out of 343 valid ballots cast – exactly the number needed to be elected (60 percent of valid ballots).
Bishop-Elect Dease – nominated as a write-in on the first ballot on Wednesday – was the third bishop elected by SEJ delegates, following the Rev. Tom Berlin of the Virginia Conference and the Rev. Connie Shelton of the Mississippi Conference. She is the first bishop elected from the South Carolina Conference since Bishop William Willimon’s election in 2004.
“Whenever I had the opportunity to lead or to serve, I would run home to my parents…and they’d say, ‘Now, don’t go down there and make us ’shamed!’” Dease told delegates upon her election. “My commitment to you is: I will never make you ’shamed.”
Struggling to speak through tears, Dease thanked her fellow delegates for the honor, noting that her parents and most of her 13 siblings had all joined the Church Triumphant, with those remaining physically incapable of being there.
“But you are my family,” she said to resounding applause. Then, looking to the Rev. Ken Nelson, the endorsed nominee of the South Carolina Conference, in the audience, she added, “And Ken is my brother and my friend.”
