Steven Charleston


Steven Charleston is a retired American Episcopal bishop and academic. He was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska from 1991 to 1996, and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, from 1999 to 2008.

Early life and education

Charleston was born and grew up in Oklahoma and is a Native American of the Choctaw people. In 1971 he received a bachelor's degree in Religion from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, followed by a master's degree in Divinity from Episcopal Divinity School in 1976.

Ordained ministry

He later worked in Native American ministries and held various teaching positions.
In 1999, following the divisions exposed by the previous year's, he was the author of the Cambridge Accord: an attempt to reach agreement on at least the human rights of homosexual people, notwithstanding controversy within the Anglican Communion about the churches' views of homosexuality.
As of 2017 Charleston was adjunct professor of Native American ministries at Saint Paul School of Theology, based at Oklahoma City University. Via the web at the same time he described himself as a "Native American elder, author, and retired Episcopal bishop", and maintained a public presence through his Facebook page of daily spiritual reflections. He has self-published several volumes of these reflections, plus two novels of a planned trilogy, through his company Red Moon Publications.