Remembering the Love, Laughter, Legacy of Bishop Oliphint
By Eleanor L. Colvin Family, friends and those inspired by the life of Bishop Ben Oliphint celebrated the humanity and humor that were hallmarks of his ministry on Wednesday, July 11. Approximately 1,000 worshippers gathered at St. Luke’s UMC in “Today, we honor and celebrate the abundant life of Benjamin Ray Oliphint,” said Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, “a man who loved all of us abundantly, extravagantly, passionately, joyfully and completely.” Huie recalled Bishop Oliphint’s laughter and smile, in addition to his firm and gentle spirit. But above all, she recounted the personal support he offered her as a young clergy person, when she began her tenure on the General Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry amid murmurings that as a woman (and a young one) she wouldn’t add value to the group. “He made me welcome – he encouraged me,” Huie said. “He saw that I was inexperienced and what I might become. He mentored and supported me in every way.” She added that his presence on the Council of Bishops made it “a better Council of Bishops.” The council, she said, was more loving, more fun and more faithful to God because of Bishop Oliphint. Friend to all Among those gathered to celebrate their colleague were Bishop Alfred Norris, Bishop Ann Sherer, Bishop Richard Wilke and Bishop Joe Wilson. Wilke praised Oliphint for the ease with which he could “lay aside prestige and rank,” his friendship and his ability to make “crisp, decisive decisions.” Among the decisions he lifted up were bringing the Perkins Theological Seminary extension campus to “I’ve never had anyone ask to do anything like that,” Wilke recalled Oliphint saying. “Let’s do it.” That very well could have been Bishop Oliphint’s mantra – as other bishops and his son, Stuart Oliphint, recalled the numerous times the bishop opposed and defeated sexism, racism and injustice. “He taught the whole cabinet how to speak inclusive language,” said Bishop Joe Wilson, who served as Oliphint’s provost. Born in It was at Union Theological Seminary where Stuart Oliphint said his father heard a young African-American preach. That changed his father’s concept of race as he’d known it and changed the way he would lead a church during the tumultuous civil rights era. “It must have seemed like a little slice of heaven for those families to be a part of a growing church….of upwardly mobile people,” Stuart Oliphint said of his father’s tenure at St. Paul’s UMC in Monroe, La. “That was a veneer. Under the veneer was the ugly legacy of institutional racism.” Bishop Oliphint challenged that legacy in the 1960s, when his church custodian, a black man named Samuel Tucker, asked Oliphint to help him register to vote. “There’s no record of what occurred at the court house that day,” Oliphint said. Oliphint’s actions resulted in phone calls to his bishop, letters to the newspaper, a cross burning in his yard and ultimately the split of his church. “It takes a certain amount of courage to stand up,” Stuart Oliphint said. “Courage not found on the battlefield, but on the golf course between friends. Courage – not from the cockpit, but from the pulpit.” Bishop Norris remembered those times well – having served a separate and segregated “His leadership will be felt for eons to come,” Norris said, “not only in our church, but in all of Christendom.” The legacy Elected a bishop of The United Methodist Church in 1980, Oliphint served the Bishop Oliphint was elected a delegate to seven United Methodist General Conferences, and led the delegation four times. As bishop, he served as President of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, and President of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, and was a member of the Presidium of the World Methodist Council. He was instrumental in founding Bishop Oliphint is survived by his wife of 55 years, Nancy Kelley Oliphint of Houston; daughter Mary Brooke Casad and husband, Victor of Carrollton; son Stuart Oliphint and wife, Cassandra of Fort Worth; son Clayton Oliphint and wife, Lori of Dallas; son Kelley Oliphint and wife, Priscilla of La Grange; grandchildren and a great-grandson. Other survivors include his brother, John Oliphint, and wife Ruth of Colorado Springs. 
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be given to:
The Benjamin R. Oliphint Scholarship of the Methodist Global Education Fund
for Leadership Development
Nancy Oliphint Playground
St. Luke’s
3471 Westheimer
You are invited to share your memories as a gift to the Texas Conference and to the Oliphint family at http://tacblog.org. Unregistered users may make comments. Registered users can start their own blog.
UMNS Article about Bishop Oliphint