This post is now "sticky" and will stay at the top. Send your friends!
The short survey asks about same sex blessings and partnered gay and lesbian clergy.
Click Here to take survey
Click Here to Read More..
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friday, September 18, 2009
No Outcasts: Ora Houston
We Who Were Once Excluded Will Exclude No One
Not Even Those Who Exclude Us
By Ora Houston |
| Ora Houston |
At the 76th General Convention, the triennial gathering of The Episcopal Church, some actions left Episcopalians--who have traditionally viewed the Church from positions of power and privilege--feeling marginalized and not heard—again. Faithful Christians described feelings of being pushed to the margins of the Church, and being fearful that the Church they love is changing. They feel forced to choose between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
I empathize with everyone who is experiencing those feelings. The realities of being on the margins of the Diocese and the Church are not new for many Episcopalians. I love the Episcopal Church; it is the denomination where I choose to work out my salvation. During my 50 years in this church, like many Episcopalians, I have struggled to be accepted by the Church. When I learned the Church was silent during the Civil War (scripture was used to support slavery), I stayed. During the civil rights era of the 60s, when the Diocese was mute about my humanity and pleas for justice went unheard, I stayed. While on the margins we stay, we serve and we continue to send our money to a Church that, for decades, accepted our gifts without acknowledging our pain.
It was a privilege to represent all of the people of God in the Diocese. Anaheim Texas
We each experience the love, mercy and grace of God, not because we are faithful, but because God is faithful. God is faithful to people at the center of power and to those gathered at the edges. As followers of Christ we are directed to love God and to love one another. That is an inclusive statement…no exceptions. I am confident that the Church is in good “hands”—God’s.
From Texas Episcopalian, here.
From Texas Episcopalian, here.
Click Here to Read More..
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
More than Justice... Gospel Truth
A great post (from July) from Michael Hopkins (former president of IntegrityUSA):
It's About More Than Justice
One of the caricatures of the movement for full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Episcopal Church is that for us it is all about justice. It is about justice, of course, but it is also about far, far more. It is about the very nature of Gospel.“The Gospel” can be defined in as many ways as there are Christians, of course. Jesus didn’t give us a neat definition with which to work. He did say it was about the ability to change one’s mind, one’s sense of direction (“repent and believe the good news”). But for the content of this good news he used the metaphor of the kingdom of God and told a lot of stories. In the end he acted out one great story with his life and his death. Overall, the good news is about the overcoming of estrangement, reconciliation between God and humankind and between human beings. We all have to trust in his death and resurrection for this reconciliation to be the truth that sets us free. This freedom is grace, as we call it, unmerited favor.
The inclusion of glbt people in the life of the church is a radical sign of this grace. People whom the law separates from the faithful are reconciled by it. And this happens in spite of religious and secular authorities desiring for it not to be so. They fear the breakdown of society if the inclusion goes too far too fast, but it has always been thus with the Church, which at its best has always scandalized the authorities, because Jesus Christ was and is the greatest scandal of them all.
A well-meaning bishop once said to my then Senior Warden (who was relatively new to the parish—it was a small parish, rebuilding) that it was great that she chose to be a member of the parish in spite of the fact that I was gay. My Senior Warden responded, “No, I’m a member of this parish because he is gay. Because if God can love him then God can love me.”
That’s what this is about. This is not about a group of people clamoring for their “rights.” It is about the power of the Gospel to reconcile across every divide that humankind creates.
As a Christian who happens to be gay, St. Paul’s words that we will hear the Sunday after General Convention is over (July 19) ring true and strong.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace… (from Ephesians 2:11-22)
To this truth, by the grace of God, the lives of glbt Christians bear witness.
Michael's blog is here.
Click Here to Read More..
The Canary in the Mine: GLBT Inclusion and Young Adult Ministry
More good stuff from Otis Gattis, who argues that young adults see Christianity as anti-gay, which is increasingly seen as a signal for more subtle forms of oppression and exclusion. According to Gattis, young adults increasingly see opposition to gay rights as equivalent to racism, and reject affiliations that conflict with their values. The full essay is here.
"As people begin to really study young adult views of Christianity and how gay and lesbian people fit into that story, I think we will find that young adults are not rejecting Christianity simply because it is perceived as anti-gay but that they are viewing gay people as the canary in the mine. Culturally, the gay experience has become a metaphor for the journey of self-discovery and a willingness to be true to one’s self in spite of persecution. And this is what young adults are, in part, looking for spiritually, places where they can connect to their true selves. If we listen they might tell us, “If a place is not only safe for gay people but is affirming of them, then perhaps it will be safe for me. Perhaps, I will be affirmed by this spiritual community when I find myself. Maybe this community is capable of helping me get there.”" Click Here to Read More..
"As people begin to really study young adult views of Christianity and how gay and lesbian people fit into that story, I think we will find that young adults are not rejecting Christianity simply because it is perceived as anti-gay but that they are viewing gay people as the canary in the mine. Culturally, the gay experience has become a metaphor for the journey of self-discovery and a willingness to be true to one’s self in spite of persecution. And this is what young adults are, in part, looking for spiritually, places where they can connect to their true selves. If we listen they might tell us, “If a place is not only safe for gay people but is affirming of them, then perhaps it will be safe for me. Perhaps, I will be affirmed by this spiritual community when I find myself. Maybe this community is capable of helping me get there.”" Click Here to Read More..
Monday, September 14, 2009
Inclusion of LGBT persons, young adult ministry, and the challenge of post-modernism
Otis Gaddis is a young adult seminarian from DC. He has been writing some very thought provoking stuff. A taste below. The whole article is here.
"As we start clearing away the barriers that have been keeping people out of our Church we must also do the work of making the Church a place where people are not only safe spiritually but grow spiritually. When that happens, people are transformed and they will get excited and they will want to be witnesses to that they have experienced. Creating that environment for growth is deeply connected to the work we have been doing on LGBT issues. It is through that work that the church as an institution is starting to intentionally respond to the post-modern world that now surrounds us. The fact that we are one of the first denominations to “get it” on LGBT stuff means that we are much, much closer to getting what young adults really want and how to offer them the gospel in their social context. Right now we are focusing on how we include LGBT people in the life of the Church, but as I have suggested in this article, as we theologically and philosophically contemplate what it means that we desire to fully including LGBT people, we will also begin to access new ways of seeing the world that will give us a leg up for evangelism and Christian Formation in our emerging social context. And that is exciting." Click Here to Read More..
"As we start clearing away the barriers that have been keeping people out of our Church we must also do the work of making the Church a place where people are not only safe spiritually but grow spiritually. When that happens, people are transformed and they will get excited and they will want to be witnesses to that they have experienced. Creating that environment for growth is deeply connected to the work we have been doing on LGBT issues. It is through that work that the church as an institution is starting to intentionally respond to the post-modern world that now surrounds us. The fact that we are one of the first denominations to “get it” on LGBT stuff means that we are much, much closer to getting what young adults really want and how to offer them the gospel in their social context. Right now we are focusing on how we include LGBT people in the life of the Church, but as I have suggested in this article, as we theologically and philosophically contemplate what it means that we desire to fully including LGBT people, we will also begin to access new ways of seeing the world that will give us a leg up for evangelism and Christian Formation in our emerging social context. And that is exciting." Click Here to Read More..
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Imaginary Anglicanism
At Episcopal Cafe, Frank Turner posted a very thought-provoking essay about the Anglican Communion and how some seek to transform it into a world-wide church with disciplinary structures (presumably to keep the Americans in line or kick them out). A taste below. It's well worth reading the entire thing.
“The Instruments of Communion,” now being given supposed histories and purposes different from their actual origins and being made vehicles for the controlled invention of identity, are of relatively recent origin. The Lambeth Conference, first convened in 1867 by Archbishop Charles Thomas Longley for providing “Brotherly Counsel and encouragement,” gathered amidst much controversy. Several bishops of the Province of York refused to attend, and Dean Arthur Stanley denied the group the use of Westminster Abbey. In neither its origin nor in its decades of meeting was the Lambeth Conference ever intended as a general conference of the whole church or as a legislative body. Not until 1969 did the Anglican Consultative Council first convene. Only in 1978 did the Primates begin to gather regularly, and they refused to define those meetings as any kind of higher synod. The Lambeth Conference of 1998 (Resolution 3.6) stated that the activities of the Primates should not interfere with the judicial authorities of the several constituent provinces. All of these gatherings were collegial in character designed to further communication and bonds of fellowship among the vastly different churches of what was evolving as an imagined worldwide Anglican Communion.
What most notably demonstrates that the so-called Anglican Communion is merely a still-emerging imagined community is the fact that only in the past few years (really the past few months) have some of its leaders decided that they must construct a covenant determining what beliefs and practices actually constitute its theological and ideological basis. That is to say, the Anglican Communion presumably having existed for its present proponents since the first Lambeth Conference in l867 must now actually figure out what holds it together theologically and ecclesiastically. What the effort to establish a covenant demonstrates is that the so-called Anglican Communion does not really exist but must be forcibly drawn into existence. Radical innovation rather than tradition hence drives the process.
The idea and the effort to establish a covenant that might at great cost of conscience and intellect call into being an actual as opposed to an imagined Anglican Communion unhappily recalls moments in the history of the Church of England that many people have chosen to forget. During most of the twentieth century spokesmen for the Church of England and for those various churches around the world in one way or another derived from that church have emphasized the reasonableness and moderation of Anglicanism, and thus the Church of England displayed itself for most of the past century. But in point of fact, throughout much of its earlier history the Church of England was an actively persecuting church. Under Elizabeth it persecuted recalcitrant Roman Catholics. After the Restoration in l660 the Church of England drove out the Protestant Nonconformists. Thereafter until the late l820s the Church of England benefited from legislation that prevented Protestant Nonconformists and Roman Catholics from participating in English political life. Over the centuries the authorities of the Church of England sometimes on their own and sometimes with government aid excluded or drove from its ranks the likes of John Bunyan, Philip Doddridge, Isaac Watts, eventually the Methodists, and John Henry Newman. In the second half of the nineteenth century the authorities of the Church of England led by its bishops and its Archbishops of Canterbury persecuted and took to court the liberal authors of Essays and Reviews, the pioneering work of Victorian English biblical criticism, and the Anglo-Catholic ritualists including the Reverend Arthur Tooth and Bishop Edward King. The essayists and the ritualists remained in the Church of England but only after intense experiences of persecution.
Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, the present Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to revive this tradition of centralized arbitrary exclusion and chastisement. Edmund Burke, a great friend of the Church of England, wrote that most vices throughout human history were championed on the basis of plausibly attractive pretexts: “The pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of a real good.” The good that the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to achieve is the unity of an imagined Anglican Communion that has virtually no existence in reality. In support of that unity he willingly sacrifices the ordination of women in some dioceses, the appointment of women to the episcopate in some churches, and the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from ordination and the episcopate. For the sake of unity of a communion that does not really exist, he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, dissension, and schism. He has urged the adoption of an ill-conceived covenant for the purposes today of excluding those churches who would embrace as part of the divine creation gay and lesbian people. But whom will the covenant exclude next year? The precedent for exclusion and persecution will have been established, and on the pretext of unity future dissidents and yet to be designated minorities could be targeted. Click Here to Read More..
“The Instruments of Communion,” now being given supposed histories and purposes different from their actual origins and being made vehicles for the controlled invention of identity, are of relatively recent origin. The Lambeth Conference, first convened in 1867 by Archbishop Charles Thomas Longley for providing “Brotherly Counsel and encouragement,” gathered amidst much controversy. Several bishops of the Province of York refused to attend, and Dean Arthur Stanley denied the group the use of Westminster Abbey. In neither its origin nor in its decades of meeting was the Lambeth Conference ever intended as a general conference of the whole church or as a legislative body. Not until 1969 did the Anglican Consultative Council first convene. Only in 1978 did the Primates begin to gather regularly, and they refused to define those meetings as any kind of higher synod. The Lambeth Conference of 1998 (Resolution 3.6) stated that the activities of the Primates should not interfere with the judicial authorities of the several constituent provinces. All of these gatherings were collegial in character designed to further communication and bonds of fellowship among the vastly different churches of what was evolving as an imagined worldwide Anglican Communion.
What most notably demonstrates that the so-called Anglican Communion is merely a still-emerging imagined community is the fact that only in the past few years (really the past few months) have some of its leaders decided that they must construct a covenant determining what beliefs and practices actually constitute its theological and ideological basis. That is to say, the Anglican Communion presumably having existed for its present proponents since the first Lambeth Conference in l867 must now actually figure out what holds it together theologically and ecclesiastically. What the effort to establish a covenant demonstrates is that the so-called Anglican Communion does not really exist but must be forcibly drawn into existence. Radical innovation rather than tradition hence drives the process.
The idea and the effort to establish a covenant that might at great cost of conscience and intellect call into being an actual as opposed to an imagined Anglican Communion unhappily recalls moments in the history of the Church of England that many people have chosen to forget. During most of the twentieth century spokesmen for the Church of England and for those various churches around the world in one way or another derived from that church have emphasized the reasonableness and moderation of Anglicanism, and thus the Church of England displayed itself for most of the past century. But in point of fact, throughout much of its earlier history the Church of England was an actively persecuting church. Under Elizabeth it persecuted recalcitrant Roman Catholics. After the Restoration in l660 the Church of England drove out the Protestant Nonconformists. Thereafter until the late l820s the Church of England benefited from legislation that prevented Protestant Nonconformists and Roman Catholics from participating in English political life. Over the centuries the authorities of the Church of England sometimes on their own and sometimes with government aid excluded or drove from its ranks the likes of John Bunyan, Philip Doddridge, Isaac Watts, eventually the Methodists, and John Henry Newman. In the second half of the nineteenth century the authorities of the Church of England led by its bishops and its Archbishops of Canterbury persecuted and took to court the liberal authors of Essays and Reviews, the pioneering work of Victorian English biblical criticism, and the Anglo-Catholic ritualists including the Reverend Arthur Tooth and Bishop Edward King. The essayists and the ritualists remained in the Church of England but only after intense experiences of persecution.
Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, the present Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to revive this tradition of centralized arbitrary exclusion and chastisement. Edmund Burke, a great friend of the Church of England, wrote that most vices throughout human history were championed on the basis of plausibly attractive pretexts: “The pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of a real good.” The good that the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to achieve is the unity of an imagined Anglican Communion that has virtually no existence in reality. In support of that unity he willingly sacrifices the ordination of women in some dioceses, the appointment of women to the episcopate in some churches, and the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from ordination and the episcopate. For the sake of unity of a communion that does not really exist, he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, dissension, and schism. He has urged the adoption of an ill-conceived covenant for the purposes today of excluding those churches who would embrace as part of the divine creation gay and lesbian people. But whom will the covenant exclude next year? The precedent for exclusion and persecution will have been established, and on the pretext of unity future dissidents and yet to be designated minorities could be targeted. Click Here to Read More..
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Arise my love, and come away ( Lectionary for Sunday, August 30, 2009)
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
By hanging out with people who had been declared off limits or of low value (lepers, menstruating women, children, tax collectors, victims of sexual abuse), Jesus and his friends defied the social and ritual purity laws of their time. Some of the religious challenged him, ‘Why do your disciples not live* according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ Jesus retorted, calling them hypocrites following all the human-made religious rules but staying unchanged inside. The consequence of their unclean insides resulted in unjust actions that all the ritual purity in the world could not wash away. External religious conformity is not the answer. What matters is on the inside and how it changes our relationships to other people and to ourselves. Jesus tells us not to waste energy being socially or ritually correct, but to focus on the state of our hearts. He invites us to seek transformation of the self-seeking, manipulative, scarcity driven, fear-based ego. He asks us to die to the part of ourselves that seeks to take without concern for others, to build ourselves up at others' expense, to persuade us that we know better than God.
The reading from the Epistle of James reminds us of what happens when that healing begins. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."23
Jesus invites us to come away from all the striving to keep ourselves pure, to convince ourselves and others that we are worthy. Christ ends the waiting and depression of our long winter of separation and sadness. It is Easter morning and he calls us to get up, to come away, to get beyond the walls that separate and protect. In the words of the Song of Solomon:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
11for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone." Click Here to Read More..
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)