Meet Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely
Bishop Knisely became our diocesan bishop in November 2012. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and met his wife Karen while they were both students at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. Later, as a graduate student at the University of Delaware, he decided to leave behind his studies of Physics and Astronomy and was sent to Yale/Berkeley Divinity School to study for the priesthood. He completed his Masters of Divinity and was ordained to the diaconate in Delaware in 1991, then to the priesthood in 1992. In 2013 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity, also from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.
Bishop Knisely previously served as a priest in Delaware, Western and Eastern Pennsylvania, and as Dean of the Cathedral in Phoenix Arizona. He has been active in a number of ministries with particular focus in the areas of homelessness, communications, college and youth, finance, and ecumenical relations. He taught Physics and Astronomy for nearly seven years at Lehigh University while he was serving in Bethlehem PA. He was the first chair of the General Convention Standing Commission on Communications and Technology and was part of the Moravian-Episcopal Dialog that drew up the full communion agreement between the two denominations. Karen and Nicholas Knisely have been married for 30 years and have an adult daughter named Kenney.
Connect with Bishop Knisely
Email: bishopsoffice@episcopalri.org
Twitter: @wnknisely
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BishopWNKnisely/
Personal Blog: http://entangledstates.org
Diocesan Blog: https://www.episcopalri.org/connect/the-bishops-blog/
Instagram: @wnknisely
From the Bishop
- Final Day Reflections from General Convention
The final day of our General Conventions (this is my 10th) is always bittersweet. It’s part legislative body and part family reunion. The final day is when we start hammering away on getting everything bolted down, but i … - God is working out God’s purposes. That’s God’s doing ultimately, not ours.
We don’t know how the Kingdom is emerging, or where or when. But it is. We participate in the Kingdom’s revelation like a small boat moving in front of a great wind on the waves of the sea. We don’t direct the wind, or … - Do we want a King like other nations?
What I think we are to take away from this passage, and from all the related passages is that the more completely we align ourselves with Jesus, with God’s purpose of coming into the world to set things right again, the … - Curiosity is an excellent spirutual tool. It’s worth cultivating.
Because we don’t perceive God’s actions correctly, we end up conspiring to harm, even to kill God in an attempt to protect God. We reject and destroy that which is meant to save us. It’s hard to hear someone pointing out … - What happens if we focus on the relationships, not the persons when we try to understand the meaning of the Trinity?
When I was a graduate student, the hot topic in Condensed Matter Physics was the idea of Phonons. A phonon is a way of looking at vibrations in the lattice of crystal (or anything close to that) and treating the vibratio … - The Holy Spirit drives us out of our intellectual and emotional fortifications
The Spirit took the disciples into the pagan lands, showed them decisively that God was not going to limit God’s love. The Spirit doesn’t just lead us into foreign lands – it leads us into the ways of thinking too. If tr … - Ascensiontide: The Apostles act on their own, taking a step in faith
What I find fascinating in this week’s reading from Acts is the way the gathered Apostles decided to chose the next Apostle, and the faith that they displayed in so doing. First, they began to prepare for the future. (Tw … - The Conversation: Political polarization may resolve itself
Polarization may phase out of American politics as younger generations shift into power: The sharp increase in political polarization in America over the past 50 years has been driven in part by how different generations … - What does it mean to be a Friend of Jesus?
Perhaps you’ve heard someone describe themself as a “Friend of Bill”? That doesn’t mean they’re literally a friend of a person named Bill, they’re not in a relationship. It means that the person is a following the 12 Ste … - The quality of holiness
This surfaced in my daily review of highlights from books I’ve read over the past couple of decades. I hope we still have space in our common life in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion for the irrational hol …