Joel Marcus Johnson has filed candidacy for Judge of the Talbot County Orphans’ Court. A quarter-century resident of Talbot County, the retired Anglican Bishop of The Chesapeake has represented humanitarian, refugee and political asylum cases before the Maryland Circuit Court, United States’ courts and federal hearing agencies. This is the moderate Democrat’s first run for constitutional office.
Three finalists of each party will be drawn from the Maryland primary election in June for the general election in November, in which three judges will be elected to four-year terms on the Orphans’ Court.
Mrs. Lesley Israel of Royal Oak is Johnson’s campaign chairman. Mrs. Susan Johnson of Easton is treasurer. Other committee members include Richard Calkins of Tilghman, Fred Israel of Royal Oak, Constance Morris Hope of St. Michaels, and Kevan and Christine Full of Easton.
Johnson said his mission is threefold.
“First, the Orphans’ Court is a continuation of the many works which I have committed as priest and bishop,” he said, “preserving family unity, looking after justice and equity for all, and especially for the indigent and invisible. Much of my work as bishop and in our courts was under the canon law of the Church, and the laws of the United States and the State of Maryland. There is a remarkable continuity from England’s common law to ours in Maryland. We inherited the orphans’ court from English common law, and it was a good fit for the colonies and then our new states. ‘Common’ is the operative word in Talbot, peer citizens administering Maryland’s probate work.”
“Second,” Johnson said, “I am committed to keeping Talbot’s Orphans’ Court in the hands of the common citizenry, forestalling the fate of most other counties in which only attorneys may sit as judges, whereas one attorney member judge would be helpful to the other two judges. This is no mere local court, but part of Maryland’s constitutions from both 1777 and 1864. Maryland has a centuries-old, fine fabric of case law which well serves rural county common probate courts, such as Talbot’s.”
“Third,” he added, “it’s very personal. I am a first generation American, from my mom’s Swedes and my dad’s Russian Jews. My Swedish physician grandad committed time and wherewithal for Depression and War-time homeless men dragged before North Dakota and Minnesota courts in mid-century – vagabondry in many places a crime. And, my dad immigrated to the United States, becoming a judge. Their legacies run chills up and down my spine, giving me a tall order to follow as an American citizen.”
The Minnesota native was raised in Fargo, North Dakota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. He took his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago; and seminary at Ely in England. For several years leading to his ministry, he was a symphony orchestra executive in Chicago, and was producer and host of the NPR syndicated classical music show, “IBM’s Your Heart of Music, the Program about Life and the Classics that Help You to Live It,” from NPR charter member station WCBE in Columbus OH.
He was ordained in 1991 as deacon in Columbus OH, and priest in Dallas TX, arriving in Easton the same year under the auspices of the Anglican Rite Synod of The Americas (ARSA). With the laity forming St. Andrew-the-Seafarer Chapel in Easton in 1993, they soon found themselves ministering to mission chapels of hispanic H2B visa and other workers in Talbot and other communities on the Eastern Shore. This expansive work prompted the College of Bishops to create the Diocese of The Chesapeake, covering all of the Delmarva Peninsula. Johnson was elected its bishop in August 1996, and was consecrated bishop January 25, 1997, in Christ Church (Episcopal) in St. Michaels MD, attended by over thirty interfaith clergy, including Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews; and 180 lay worshipers. Ironically, among the consecrating bishops, the presiding celebrant was The Most Rev. Herbert M. Groce of New York, descended from a large family of Eastern Shore African American slaves.
During his vocation, he created El Proyecto la Paz de Cristo, Project Peace of Christ, an immigrant inculturation program offering ESOL classes in conjunction with public school systems, and a wide variety of hands-on programs, funded by a state and federal grant administered through the Talbot Partnership. He also formed Project Home at Nazareth, a Delmarva theological curriculum for ministry directed persons unable to leave work and family to attend far away seminaries.
Since retiring his See as Bishop of The Chesapeake, Johnson has re-purposed his vocation, founding The Oaks of Mamre Library and Graduate Center, locating in Easton, which he serves as Chief Visionary Officer – with plans to go under the tent of a major university, maintaining a think tank in Easton. The Oaks is a component project of the Mid-Shore Community Foundation.
Johnson is a co-founder and president emeritus of the Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center, former chairman of Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity, first chairman of the Talbot County Conversation on Race, and former board member of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. He and Rabbi Peter E. Hyman of Easton’s Temple B’nai Israel have conducted sixteen seminars on ancient Near Eastern history and literature in both academic and casual settings, among them Chesapeake College and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
As a retired bishop, he and wife Susan now worship in Episcopal churches locally, in Virginia and Washington. Their son Samuel, wife Alyson and infant son reside in Alexandria VA.
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