The Most Rev. James Beckman, (61) a priest of the Diocese of Nashville since 1990 was ordained a bishop and installed as the Fourth Bishop of Knoxville on July 26. For reasons I don’t fully understand, his installation Mass took place in a local convention center despite the fact that only a few years ago in 2018 the diocese undertook to build a $30 million dollar new cathedral with an area of 28,000 feet and a seating capacity of 1,358. It begs the question: what was the new cathedral for?

The armorial bearings he assumes upon becoming a bishop are the following. The diocesan coat of arms, designed when the diocese was established in 1988 are a dumpster fire and the less said about them the better. After all, this bishop had no hand in designing them and he wisely conformed to the convention of not changing them since they have been in use for 36 years already.

According to information from the Diocesan website his personal arms contain what they do because…

“Bishop-elect Beckman is an avid hiker and has a deep appreciation for the beauty of God’s creation. His coat of arms reflects this part of his life, in which he has found much solace and communion with God in prayer. His personal arms display a symbolic natural setting on a field of green (vert), which also has ties to the bishop’s heritage, and to Sacred Scripture.

The bishop’s surname is German, and derives from the word beck, which means a stream or brook. This is depicted by the wavy vertical lines (pale wavy) painted white and blue (argent and azure) in the center of the shield. This also recalls the prophecy related by St. John the Evangelist about the City of God, the New Jerusalem, which he sees in a vision near the end of the Book of Revelation: “Then the angel showed me, the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city” (Rev 22:1).  

John also saw, “on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2).  The tree of life and its fruit are alluded to here by twelve leaves of the tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera). This was chosen as the state tree of Tennessee in 1947.  It is an appropriate symbol for the state that comprises both the Diocese of Nashville, where Bishop-elect Beckman was born and served as a priest, and the Diocese of Knoxville, which he will serve as its bishop.

The charges were chosen for good reasons. The coat of arms is clear and uncomplicated. The only real down side is that they are impaled with the awful coat of arms of the See.