The Birth of a Stream III

A friend of mine recently told me that one thing which unites ACNA bishops of the various streams is that many of them have a private “prayer language.” They speak in tongues during prayer, something probably unknown amongst Anglican bishops until the 1970s. I say the 1970s because that is when William Frey became a bishop. Frey is the first bishop I am aware of who himself experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

Frey was a forerunner of ACNA bishops in many ways: he was a celebrity bishop who pioneered global organizations of like-minded Anglicans, mishandled sexual abuse in his diocese, and was rewarded with the leadership of a major orthodox institution. He championed church planting and was hard to pin down. As Mark Michael put it in his obituary, “Frey was an ideological maverick. He used his public voice to oppose abortion, changes in church teaching about homosexuality, and skepticism about core doctrine among fellow Episcopal bishops like John Shelby Spong, who was then the Bishop of Newark. But he also opposed capital punishment, backed gun control, and welcomed an undocumented Mexican family into his own household. He firmly supported women’s ordination and insisted that all his parishes use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, effectively seizing control of St. Mark’s, Denver in 1984, when its rector, Rev. Louis Tarsitano, threatened secession from the diocese over the issue.”¹

Frey had been a priest in Colorado before becoming a missionary bishop in the Diocese of Guatemala in 1967. He became bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Colorado in 1972 until he resigned in 1990 when he assumed the role of dean of Trinity Episocopal Seminary for Ministry. 

In 1971 Bishop Frey was working as a university chaplain at the University of Arkansas and also “curate at the local parish in Fayetteville.”² The parish was St. Paul’s and the rector was the  Rev. Edward Salmon. He relates what happened at that time in a 2014 interview:

And the rector there asked me to visit a small prayer group that had just been born in the parish and see what they were doing. It was a group that had been studying C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm which is about prayer, and apparently one Sunday a lady said, we’ve been talking about prayer for weeks, why don’t we try it and see if it works. I wasn’t there, but they knelt down and began to pray and God showed up. Everybody in the room knew it, and they were overwhelmed by the power and presence of God. So they said, we’ve got to do this again, outside Sunday morning, so they started meeting at a person’s home to pray and share. I got baptized in the Holy Spirit-I guess that is the phrase you use-and experienced an incredible awakening and awareness of God’s love. That has to be the biggest learning experience since ordination. I had seen healing, and I knew about the power of the Holy Spirit to do that. It was like the difference between reading by a 100-watt bulb and having the stadium floodlights turned on.

Bishop Frey’s marriage was struggling and he was fighting addiction at this time. According to his later account:

Bishop Frey revealed that the Holy Spirit came into his life at a time when he had been expelled from Guatemala by the Guatemalan government while he was serving as bishop of that diocese, wrestling with a chemical addiction and attempting to hold together his marriage. After a friend helped him find a position as a college chaplain, the Holy Spirit intervened to heal him of his addictions and help him reach out to his family.³

Author Julia Duin adds detail to Frey’s charismatic experience:

Meanwhile (Frey) was enjoying the freedom that came from nixing his nightly mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills. Soon after counselling a woman, then praying over her, he experienced a feeling of power. On his way from that appointment, he felt so joyful, he began singing hymns in his car. That, both naturally and gracefully, became singing in tongues. So that was it, he thought. One only needed to pray in such a language for a few seconds to perceive the amazing, subtle, and quick mind of the Lord.⁴

Leanne Payne was at the parish at the same time and was also part of this prayer group, in fact, it was her idea to start it at the prompting of her rector. She gives another look at Frey’s experience:

He and his family arrived in our midst badly battered, in great need of prayer, with little more than the clothes on their backs. They came right into our prayer group and received healing and laying on of hands for the release of the Spirit in their lives. 

This bishop then began to lead renewal, not only in that church but later on in the church at large, becoming the bishop of Colorado before being named president of the conservative Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Pennsylvania. Next to the descent of the Holy Spirit on the group of believers, nothing could have been more electrifying for that church body as a whole. Bishop Frey, of course, gave full legitimacy to the prayer group and spread his protection over it. 

Later I wrote to Fr. Winkler, when I was sending out an SOS for his help:

Our Church is shaken to the roots—drastically changed. There aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to minister to all who are coming. Bishop Frey is ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit on Campus and in the Church, and our meetings are so beautiful and fantastic—it’s hard to believe. Dozens more are ready to receive the laying on of hands. Some are being filled as they worship and one as she went to receive communion. I have never seen a renewal of a whole church before—and this is so beautiful. They are stunned and praising God—and are now busy ministering to others. The parish members are beginning to minister on campus—other church members are joining us in the prayer groups. Churches in other cities are wanting us to come help them get started. 

Payne details overflowing services with singing in tongues, presided over by Bishop Frey:⁵

Soon there were glorious Eucharists during the week with Bishop Frey officiating and all of us sitting on the floor. Everywhere renewal occurred in those days, it was like this—never enough room for folk to be seated in chairs. Students from the university were now joining us. I shall never forget the singing at those meetings. While in the presence of the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave us the gift of singing antiphonally in tongues, something too beautiful for words. The classical musicians in our midst were stunned, for the perfection and originality of it and the depth of worship in it are simply indescribable. This is surely how the early antiphonal chants came to be—they were given by the Spirit for the blessing of God’s people and for the enabling of their worship.

Later, Bishop Frey did a very Jesus People thing and had a communal “bishop’s household” in Denver. He said, “…we lived in a kind of extended family household community, very informal kind of community with four generations of people living under the same roof.”⁶ Ann B. Davis, who played Alice on the Brady Bunch joined this commune in January 1976 and lived there until her death 38 years later. Frey got the idea for communal living from visiting fellow Episcopalian charismatic Graham Pulkingham’s Church of the Redeemer in Houston. Kay Ryan, who went on to be the first Colorado woman ordained as a priest lived in this community for a time.⁷ Bishop Frey is pictured at Ryan’s consecration on May 2, 1981.⁸

When the original “Anglican Church of North America” (a continuing body) was formed in 1978 and ordained Bishop James O. Mote, Frey said it was “a disastrous course of action” and “called upon the participating Episcopal bishops to resign.”⁹ In 1984 Bishop Frey also seized the property of St. Mark’s Church in Denver due to Rev. Louis R. Tarsitano refusing to use the new 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Bishop Frey asked Fr. Tarsitano to use the new lectionary and ask for permission to use the 1928. Bishop Frey eventually inhibited Tarsitano for canonical disobedience and refusal to submit to godly admonition and diocesan directives. Tarsitano refused to recant or submit to the discipline, leading to his formal separation and move into the Continuing Church movement. In this it seems that Frey was more of a churchman than anything. He had voted against women’s ordination and had no problem with the use of the 1928, but he seems to have thought that you had to move with what the church taught and work within the system, a very common attitude that resulted in continual loses for the orthodox party for decades. Crucially, Frey was also using the very policy that would later strip realignment churches of their property.  Frey apparently told Tarsitano’s church that if they left the Episcopal Church, they couldn’t take the church building and its property with them, “as the church building belonged to the Diocese. He took them to court to prove the point, but after the Diocese won the case, he sold the church and its property to the parish members for $1.”¹⁰

Bishop Frey participated in charismatic conferences and organizations across the years, such as the Anglican International Conference on Spiritual Renewal Held at Canterbury in July 1978. At the conclusion of this pre-Lambeth conference “25 Anglican bishops danced to the Lord (along with the congregation).”¹¹ This idea of a conference before the Lambeth meeting may have inspired the later Global South initiative prior to Lambeth 98. Michael Harper wrote about the conference: “Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury put his finger on the dilemma when he spoke in Canterbury Cathedral to the Open Conference which followed the Leaders’ Conference. He told us that he prayed constantly for the death of the charismatic movement, because the whole Church should be charismatic. It was not without significance that the “death” of the charismatic movement was greeted with loud applause in the Cathedral. So-called charismatics don’t want a movement, but they do long to see the whole Church charismatic; and until that day there will still be a need for a distinctive charismatic witness.”

In 1987 Frey helped found Episcopalians United for Revelation, Renewal, and Reformation (EURRR or EU): it later became Anglicans United and rolled into ACNA in some measure.

In 1986 Bishop Frey was one of the candidates to be ECUSA’s Presiding Bishop but lost out to Ed Browning. Trouble was brewing for him in Colorado at the same time. In 1984 a parishioner named Mary Elaine Tenantry at St. Philip and St. James Episcopal Church in Denver “sought counseling with Father (Paul) Robinson to discuss her fear that she was responsible for the cerebral palsy that afflicted her youngest child. At the time of these counseling sessions, Father Robinson knew Tenantry and Mohr had been sexually abused as children. Tenantry’s counseling sessions with Father Robinson always ended with a prayer and a hug. The hugs eventually led to fondling, and finally, to mutual oral sex. On at least one occasion, Tenantry and Father Robinson attempted to have intercourse but were interrupted. During the course of the sexual relationship, they never had intercourse.”¹²

This case of sexual exploitation by a priest played out over the next several years. Frey possessed diocesan psychological evaluations indicating that Father Robinson struggled with depression, low self-esteem, and sexual identification ambiguity and failed to disclose this background or the evaluations to the parish vestry when Robinson was hired at St. Philip and St. James Parish.

When Mary Tenantry’s husband confronted church leadership about Robinson’s sexual exploitation of his wife in early 1986, Frey intervened to manage the fallout while safeguarding Robinson’s career. On March 3, 1986, the day before a scheduled meeting to address the misconduct, Frey signed a letter promoting Robinson to pastor of St. Michael’s in Colorado Springs without disclosing the allegations to the new parish. At the subsequent meeting, after Robinson admitted to the relationship, Frey promised to keep the matter concealed from the new congregation if it remained a one-time episode, gave Robinson a copy of the book Affair Prevention, directed him to seek counseling, and persuaded Tenantry’s husband to let the bishop handle the situation internally. Frey told Robinson, “to advise him immediately if the matter came up in the Colorado Springs parish.”¹³ The court notes “Bishop Frey did not inform the vestry of Father Robinson’s newly assigned parish about the allegations against Father Robinson despite the fact that Bishop Frey knew that the prior priest assigned to the Colorado Springs parish had left that church because of his illicit sexual relationship with a parishioner.”

Frey then summoned Tenantry to a private meeting, where he recognized that she was emotionally fragile, struggling with severe mental illness, and burdened with pathological guilt. Although Frey granted her absolution, he provided no counseling, therapeutic assistance, or institutional care. Instead, he commanded her to maintain strict secrecy, forbidding her from returning to the church, communicating with Robinson, or speaking to anyone about the affair, a restriction he explicitly extended to her own sister before reluctantly permitting her to speak with her husband and an outside counselor. According to the court record:

Tenantry explained to Bishop Frey that she still loved Father Robinson. Bishop Frey told Tenantry that if she loved Father Robinson she should not talk to anyone about her relationship with him, never go near the church, and never talk to Father Robinson again. Tenantry received permission from Bishop Frey to speak to a priest or counselor. Tenantry told Bishop Frey that she had discussed the relationship with her sister and asked if she needed to stop talking with her. Bishop Frey stated that the prohibition on talking to people included Tenantry’s sister. Tenantry then asked if she could talk to her husband and Bishop Frey gave her permission to talk to him. The Bishop took no further action to assist Tenantry after this meeting.

Frey took no further action to assist Tenantry, leaving her isolated as her mental health deteriorated, and later publicly referred to Robinson as “a fine priest” and Tenantry as “an unfortunate lady.” The court says:

Soon after her meeting with Bishop Frey, Tenantry started a day-care business and stopped participating in church activities. In 1989, she encountered Father Robinson by chance at Denver General Hospital. Tenantry reported the meeting to her husband. The reoccurrence of contact between Tenantry and Father Robinson resulted in dissolution of Tenantry’s marriage. In May 1990, Tenantry and Moses separated, and in October 1990, they divorced. Subsequently, Tenantry’s mental health deteriorated; she stopped spending time with her family, and her day-care business failed. At trial, mental health experts testified that the discovery of Bishop Frey’s promotion of Father Robinson led to the unraveling of Tenantry’s personality structure. Tenantry was diagnosed as suffering a recurrence of her multiple personality disorder and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

In Moses v. Diocese of Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed that Bishop Frey breached an assumed fiduciary duty owed to parishioner Mary Moses Tenantry. The court determined that Frey occupied a position of superior spiritual authority, took personal charge of resolving the fallout from Father Paul Robinson’s sexual misconduct, and acted as a counselor to Tenantry rather than merely an adverse administrator. The court also sustained the jury’s verdict against the Diocese and Frey for negligent hiring and supervision. Finding that the Episcopal Church’s hierarchical structure gave the bishop and Diocese pervasive authority over clergy screening, compensation guidelines, counseling regulations, and discipline, the court held that an employment and agency relationship existed. 

In October 1989 Bishop Frey was called to become president and dean of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, succeeding future AMiA founding bishop John Rodgers.¹⁴ News accounts indicate that his resignation from Colorado was a surprise.¹⁵ Is it reading too much into events to think that his complete mismanagement of the Tenantry case was a spur to him moving on? ACNA Archbishop Bob Duncan suggests this was a reason for Frey resigning in his book Safe For a Week: “(Frey) was in the midst of lawsuits over some of the very early public cases of sexual misconduct–cases that would come to haunt the whole Christian Church through mishandling and cover-up.”¹⁶ Fitz Allison suggested Frey as a candidate to John Rodgers according to Rodgers’ Zoom Memoirs. Candidates to replace Frey as bishop included Bob Duncan, John Guernsey, and Martyn Minns. 

Frey later supported Jon Shuler’s North American Missionary Society (NAMS), preaching at St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, FL in November 1995. NAMS was holding “a series of four daylong retreats for fasting and prayer, each to be held at a diocesan cathedral.”¹⁷

Bill Frey’s career shows that the charismatic stream of ECUSA/TEC and later ACNA did not necessitate any certain set of theological or social positions. Frey was all over the map. His celebrity, charismatic personality, and failure to act Biblically in the discipline of a deviant priest starkly foreshadow ACNA’s many struggles.

1. Michael, Mark. “A Man Fully Alive: Remembering Bill Frey.” The Living Church, 13 Oct. 2020, livingchurch.org/people-and-places/obituaries/a-man-fully-alive-remembering-bill-frey-1930-2020/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
2. Miller, Duane Alexander, and William Frey. “‘Bringing People in Touch with God’: An Interview with William Frey, First Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala.” Anglican and Episcopal History, vol. 84, no. 3, 2015, pp. 321–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43685137. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
3. https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=92219 accessed 3 Sept 2026. ↩︎
4. Duin, Julia. Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community. Crossland Press, 2009. ↩︎
5. Payne, Leanne. Heaven’s Calling: A Memoir of One Soul’s Steep Ascent. United States, Baker Publishing Group, 2008. ↩︎
6.  Scott Spears interviewing Bishop William Frey on Ann B. Davis death (6/2/14) accessed 3 Sept 2026. ↩︎
7. Link. ↩︎
8. Link. ↩︎
9. Briggs, Kenneth A. “Episcopal Dissidents Consecrate Bishops.” The New York Times, 29 Jan. 1978, p. 24. TimesMachine, [timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/01/29/110781570.html?pageNumber=24](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/01/29/110781570.html?pageNumber=24). ↩︎
10. Facebook comment. ↩︎
11. Harper, Michael. Introduction. A New Canterbury Tale: The Reports of the Anglican International Conference on Spiritual Renewal Held at Canterbury, July 1978, Anglican International Conference on Spiritual Renewal, Grove Books, 1978. ↩︎
12. Moses v. Diocese of Colorado. 863 P.2d 310, Supreme Court of Colorado, 15 Nov. 1993. Justia Law. Accessed 22 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
13. Ibid. ↩︎
14. https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=89188 accessed 22 Sept 26. ↩︎
15. “Frey surprised many by resigning as Colorado’s bishop in 1990 to become the third dean and president of Trinity School for Ministry, founded in 1975 and based in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Trinity, which he then called “the Cinderella of American seminaries,” was in financial trouble. Frey told a reporter it was “poor, new, in an abandoned steel town and has offices in a converted Safeway building with no air-conditioning and classes in a former Presbyterian church.” https://livingchurch.org/people-and-places/obituaries/a-man-fully-alive-remembering-bill-frey-1930-2020/ accessed 22 Sept 26. ↩︎
16. Duncan, Bob. Safe for a Week. Anglican House Publishers, 2022. Page 65. ↩︎
17. “Fasting and Prayer for the Whole Church” by Virginia Barrett Barker, The Living Church. November 26, 1995. ↩︎