Kevin Bond Allen

Allen was born in 1954 and raised in Silverdale, Washington. He graduated from the University of Washington and completed his graduate studies at Seattle University. He served as a youth leader during his college years and, determining a call to ministry in the Episcopal Church, he went on to complete an M.Div. after studies at both General Theological Seminary and Ridley Hall, Cambridge.^[1]

Allen served as a lay missioner in a Church of England inner-city London parish serving low-income multi-racial communities. He also served as a missioner in Bangladesh with the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1988, over the next two decades Allen served as vicar of a Cambodian refugee church in Tacoma, an associate rector in Bellevue, as a rector in Puyallup, Washington, and as rector of the historic All Saints' Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas,^[1] where he founded and chaired Senior Pastors of University Congregations^[2]). In 2002, Allen returned to Washington state as rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bellingham.^[1] St. Paul's was the second-largest parish in the Diocese of Olympia.^[3]

In late 2007, amid a broader realignment within North American Anglicanism over issues of doctrine and human sexuality, approximately 30 of the 1,400 members of St. Paul's left the church and planted St. Brendan's Anglican Church in Bellingham.^[4] In early 2008, Allen stepped down as rector of St. Paul's and became rector of St. Brendan's, telling St. Paul's members that "During the last few years, our (national) Episcopal Church has continued to embrace a wide range of and often conflicting teachings regarding scriptural authority, the divinity of Christ, and affirming other religions at the price of evangelism. . . . Since I do not agree with their direction, my leadership as a rector would become a divisive issue rather than a reconciling blessing in future parish discussions about how we should participate with and support our diocese and national church."^[4]

As rector of St. Brendan's, Allen became a leader among a group of disparate Anglican realignment congregations in Washington state, including St. Charles in Poulsbo and St. Stephen's in Oak Harbor, both of which had left the Episcopal Church, as well as Reformed Episcopal congregations and unaffiliated Anglican-tradition churches.^[5] In 2009, the group of churches formed the Diocese of Cascadia, under Reformed Episcopal Church Bishop Richard Boyce as vicar general, and the diocese-in-formation was admitted to the newly formed Anglican Church in North America.^[6]