Tag Archives: Episcopal (Anglican)

Vatican call for #Anglicans to join #Catholics revisited

A couple of days ago, I posted on the reaction to the Vatican’s invitation to conservative Anglicans who disagreed with the Episcopal Church’s policy on gay and female clergy.  Here’s more blogosphere feedback.

A press release from Voice of the Faithful asks, IS THE ANGLICAN COMMUNITY GOING TO SOLVE THE PRIEST SHORTAGE?  Voice of the Faithful is a progressive group of Catholics who coincidentally are holding their annual convention this weekend on Long Island.

Susan Russell (recent past president of Integrity USA) links to an NPR audio and quotes Jim Naughton:

I think for Episcopalians, what we need to do in the wake of this announcement is to continue going out there and saying, look, we do offer very traditional liturgy, beautiful music, a style of worship that many people like. But we are a democratically governed church. We think men and women are equal at the altar, and we respect the dignity of gay and lesbian Christians. If that makes us outcasts, I think that that’s a status that we embrace happily. So if what we’re talking about here are people offering alternatives, I think Episcopalians offer that alternative to their Catholic brothers and sisters. 

Is Pope Benedict’s action dynamite under the logjam of stalled ecumenical discussions?  This is the question posted on America, the American Catholic Weekly.  In another post on the same blog, noted Lutheran theologian Martin Marty is quoted:

Bypassing forty years of Anglican-Roman Catholic conversations-cum-negotiations and blindsiding Archbishop Rowan Williams, the head of the seventy-million-member Anglican Communion, Vatican officials announced that they were taking steps to receive Anglican (in the United States, Episcopal) clergy through conversion into the Roman Catholic priesthood.  Headlines had it that Rome wanted to “lure,” “attract,” “bid for” or “woo” priests and congregations to make the drastic move, while the Vatican front man, as he fished for Anglicans, said he was not fishing for Anglicans….

And, a third post on the same blog suggests that the fine print over the acceptance of married Anglican priests into the Catholic church needs some clarification.

One Anglican cleric who blogs as Madpriest, dismisses the Anglicans who are receptive to the Pope’s invitation as “The Dying Gasps of Anglican Misogyny.”

Religion writer Julia Duin at the Washington Post raises lots of questions:

And which elements of the Anglican liturgy will these converts will be allowed to retain? Anglicans have multiple versions (1662, 1928, 1979 to name a few) of their Book of Common Prayer. Will they have to accept Roman Catholic theology on transubstantiation (the bread and wine really becoming the body and blood of Christ), on papal infallibility, on the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, not to mention the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary was born without sin?

Finally, Minnesota blogger, progressive Catholic Michael Bayly, dares to speak that which must not be spoken.  In a post entitled Keeping All the Queens Under One Roof, Bayly suggests that there is a subtext of closeted and repressed gay clergy in both the Anglican communion and the Catholic communion.

We’re not supposed to talk about this aspect of the drama in the Vatican. But there is as much an overlap of closeted gay priests and bishops with liturgical and theological orthodoxy as there is of closeted gay politicians finding ways to oppress other gays who are out and open.

Bayly quotes Chris Dierckes:

If personal experience and lifelong immersion in a sub-culture is any form of persuasive evidence, I can tell you that conservative Anglo-Catholicism — at the clerical level — is totally dominated by gay men. Mostly repressed. What used to be called when I was in seminary, the pink mafia. And the thing that is the initial trigger for this decision is the upcoming very likely to happen decision to ordain women as bishops in the Church of England (there have already been women priests there for about 15 years or so). Which has a certain irony in this case. If these Anglo-Catholics join the Roman Communion they can join up with very conservative Roman Catholic groups like Regnum Christi and The Legionaries of Christ, also totally dominated by closeted gay fellows. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to see the awesome tragic humor in a bunch of non-wife-having grown men wearing pink dresses (and in the Pope’s case super expensive fabulous Prada shoes!!!) telling everybody else they shouldn’t be gay.

Integrity Eucharist on eve of Minnesota Diocesan Convention #Episcopal

Last night I walked with Integrity.  I was blessed to participate in the Integrity Eucharist at historic St Paul’s Episcopal Church on-the-Hill on Summit Avenue in St Paul, Mn.  This weekend, the Minnesota Diocese of the Episcopal Church will choose it’s ninth Bishop, and Integrity USA, the LGBT Episcopal advocacy group, celebrated Eucharist with the local LGBT community and allies on the convention’s eve.

St Paul’s dates back to 1854, four years before Minnesota was granted statehood.  It has a long and proud history that includes hosting the first electing convention when Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple became the first Bishop of the Minnesota Diocese.  More recently, St Paul’s has been the home to progressive Christians and Episcopalians.  The first woman on a Vestry from Minnesota was elected at St. Paul’s.  The Rev. Jeannette Piccard of Philadelphia Eleven fame was a longtime member.  Here is a link to her Wikipedia entry:

Jeannette Ridlon Piccard (January 5, 1895 – May 17, 1981) was an American teacher, scientist, priest, and aeronaut who was a pioneer of balloon flight. A member of the famed Piccard family of balloonists and of the International Space Hall of Fame, she was the first licensed female balloon pilot, the first woman to fly to the stratosphere, and a speaker for NASA. Her 1934 flight held the women’s altitude record for three decades. Called a woman of causes and irrepressible, Piccard is remembered as one of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first women to be ordained Episcopalian priests.

David Norgard The homilist last night was the Rev. David Norgard, recently elected to serve as the President of Integrity.  Rev. Norgard, who has served parishes in San Francisco and New York City, returned to his Minnesota roots for the occasion (born in Hibbing, home to Kevin McHale and Bob Dylan).  He told his story of truth telling and coming out to his bishop during his candidacy process, thus becoming the first openly gay Episcopal priest in Minnesota in 1979.  The full text of his homily has been posted on the Walking with Integrity blog.  Here is a portion:

Coming out does not make life easier…but it does unequivocally make life better.  Telling the truth and seeking justice, while painfully difficult at times, are inherently better options for living than their alternatives because they are the constellation that leads us on the path toward integrity.  And as the psalmist says, “No good thing will God withhold from those who walk with integrity.”

I met new friends, including Rev Norgard, and old ones as well, including Ross Murray, the interim Director of Lutherans Concerned / North America.  Ross was a leader of Goodsoil at the recent ELCA 2009 Churchwide Assembly, and I worked as a Goodsoil volunteer.

Our prayers are with the Minnesota Episcopalians as they meet in Convention this weekend.

Vatican actively trolling for disaffected Anglicans #Anglican #Catholic

Last week, the Vatican made a stunning announcement.  Here is the story in the New York Times.

In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.

Anglicans would be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William J. Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.

It was unclear why the Vatican made the announcement now. But it seemed a rare opportunity, audaciously executed, to capitalize on deep divisions within the Anglican Church to attract new members at a time when the Catholic Church has been trying to reinvigorate itself in Europe.

Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is afire with commentary.  A sampling follows.

Here in Minnesota, progressive Catholic blogger Michael Bayly quotes author and Benedictine specialist David Gibson:

While both Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI have been known as staunch conservatives, they have in fact shown a remarkably liberal willingness to bend the rules when it comes to certain groups.

For a church whose leadership has earned a reputation for reprimanding liberal Catholics who color outside the lines, these developments could be more than a bit frustrating. If conservatives can get special consideration, how about Catholics who have divorced and remarried but can’t take communion? Or those who back ordaining women? Or perhaps an exemption for the 25,000 or so priests who left the ministry in recent decades when they married? Many of them are ready, willing and able to return. Priest shortage solved.

In another post, Bayly quotes Mary Hunt:

Let history record this theological scandal for what it is. Touted by Rome as a step forward in ecumenical relations with a cousin communion, it is in fact the joining of two camps united in their rejection of women and queer people as unworthy of religious leadership.

Walking with Integrity, the blog of an Episcopal LGBT advocacy group, suggests disaffected Anglicans who would join the Roman Catholic church will be on the wrong side of history.

“It is also ironic that this announcement comes just days after the Vatican unveiled plans for an exhibit honoring Galileo–who was condemned by the church 400 years ago,” said [an Integrity spokesperson]. “Let us hope for the sake of the gospel we share, that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters don’t have to wait 400 years for their church to get on the right side of history on the full inclusion of women and the LGBT baptized in their work and witness.

Blogger Gary Stern quotes a New York Episcopal Diocese assistant  bishop, Catherine Roskam:

We appreciate the welcome the pope extended to those in the Anglican communion who are disaffected. We for our part continue to welcome our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, both lay and ordained, conservative and liberal, who wish to belong to a church that treasures diversity of thought.

Theolog, the blog of Christian Century magazine, contains blog links covering a spectrum of responses.  Notre Dame professor Cathleen Kaveny wonders about Episcopalians who come over who might bring more liberal attitudes regarding contraception. 

Vox Nova, a Roman Catholic blog, offers a lengthy and thoughtful post that suggests:

It is helpful for a few, meaningless for most and pernicious for those (those in the Anglican communion specifically) who have to deal with the fallout.  Oh, and it has some very interesting, perhaps unintended, possibilities for the future of the Church.

The progressive Catholic group, Call to Action, will meet next week in Milwaukee for their annual convention.  It will be interesting to hear what comes out of the convention regarding this issue.

Bishop John Shelby Spong speaks

Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has been a popular author for a generation.  A review of his 1991 book, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, is posted here.  He has now published a personal Manifesto, which is posted on the blog of the Episcopal LGBT advocacy group, Integrity USA, and reprinted below:

Perhaps many of you are already subscribed to “A New Christianity For A New World: Bishop John Shelby Spong on the News and Christian Faith.” If so you received this note a few days ago, and perhaps shared it far and wide already. We hope that if you haven’t, maybe now you will. As you may know, Bishop Spong is one of the most vocal and passionate advocates of LGBT people everywhere. So when this article came across our inbox well, we knew we had to share it. We do so by permission of Waterfront Media, Brooklyn, NY, Website www.johnshelbyspong.com.

Thursday October 15, 2009

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

 

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.” That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is “high-sounding, pious rhetoric.” The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn’t. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to “Roll on over or we’ll roll on over you!” Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a “new church,” claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by “fair-minded” channels that seek to give “both sides” of this issue “equal time.” I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world’s population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a “mobocracy,” which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture’s various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the “Flat Earth Society” either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church’s participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: “New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.” I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

– John Shelby Spong

 

Integrity USA President Susan Russell honored

Susan Russell The Reverend Susan Russell is one of my favorite bloggers at An Inch at a Time.  Susan is an Episcopal priest in California and a lesbian in a relationship.  Her term as President of Integrity USA, the Episocopal LGBT advocacy group, recently ended, and she was honored by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles:

A past president of Integrity, Susan has appeared on countless panels and national broadcasts, advocating eloquently and tirelessly for the full inclusion of gay men and lesbians in the Church.

Here is a link to her salutatory address which summarizes the history of Intregrity’s advocacy efforts.

Could Gay Clergy be coming to Lake Woebegone?

Of course, Minnesota is home to Garrison Keillor and his mythical Lake Woebegone.  The Lake Woebegone Whippets baseball team sometimes pops up in the skits and monologues of A Prairie Home Companion, including reports of their contests with the Upsala Uff da’s (pronounced oopsala in the show).  Many years ago, when Keillor was still doing the Mn Public Radio Morning Show from St John’s University, I corresponded with him to report that there really was a ball team called the Uff da’s that played in Upsala … it was my University of Minnesota intramural softball team, which we called the Uff da’s, that journeyed to my hometown of Upsala for a weekend tournament. [for any non-Scandinavian readers, Uff da is Swedish/Norwegian for “oy ve!”, or “no s..t!”, etc.]

But I digress…

I have posted frequently about the upcoming ELCA convention in Minneapolis beginning August 17th in which gay marriage and gay clergy will be the hot legislative items.  I will be present during the convention offering “graceful engagement” in the hallways on behalf of Goodsoil, the umbrella organization for a number of LGBT friendly constituencies.  Watch this space for regular blog updates from the convention.

We also have a report that the Episcopalians have chosen a lesbian as one of three candidates to become the IX Bishop of the Minnesota Diocese.

In today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, the leading newspaper of Mn, comes the headline that asks and answers a question: How gay is Minnesota? Really, really gay, according to columnist Andy Birkey who blogs from Eleventh Avenue South:

Folks from out of town are often shocked to find huge and vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities this far from the coasts. It shouldn’t be a surprise given Minnesotans’ long-standing commitment to tolerance and human rights, and the fact that Minneapolis is the last stop before Seattle. Most of us are from small towns in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and the Dakotas who didn’t want the hassle and cost of Chicago or found Madison and Iowa City a bit too "small town."

There are a lot of us.

According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area ranks 8th in terms of LGBT people per capita and Minneapolis is fourth among major cities for percent of LGBT people in the population. Minnesota ranks 10th in the nation for number of same-sex couples, and same-sex couples reside in every county of the state … Each year, Minneapolis’ Loring Park hosts the third largest free Pride festival with over 400,000 attendees.

I think I know what Pastor Ingqvist of Lake Woebegone would say: UFF DA!

Couple meets in Gay Men’s Chorus: LGBT faith story number three

Booklet coverThis is the third of ten installments of LGBT faith stories from the Minneapolis/St Paul area.  These stories are taken from a booklet published by the Joint Synod Committee for Inclusivity of the twin cities metro area synods of the ELCA.  The compiler and author of the booklet is Kari Aanestad, a seminarian at Luther Seminary in St Paul.

These stories are published here in anticipation of the 2009 ELCA convention in Minneapolis that begins August 17th.  Gay marriage and gay clergy proposals will be considered, and the ELCA may become the largest Christian denomination to allow same-gender marriage and to ordain gays who live in an open and committed relationship.  The ELCA consists of nearly five million members in the US.  The United Church of Christ (UCC) with around one million members already allows gay marriage and gay clergy, and the Episcopal Church of around two million members recently concluded a historic convention that opened the doors for full participation in “all the sacraments for all the baptized.”

Here is the story of Karl and Christopher, “so darn happy together” that they inspire a niece in a society of broken relationships.

Karl Starr and Christopher Haug, partners for over 15 years, greeted me together at the front door and welcomed me into their comfortable living room. An upright piano stood against the south wall, surrounded by a pumpkin suede couch and dark wooden chairs. An Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal was propped up in the center of the piano, surrounded by dozens of framed family pictures. Dark wooden shelves housing healthy green plants lined the walls of their dining room. As their surroundings suggested, their stories soon showed that the Lutheran Church and music are important to both of these men.

“We always have done more than sit in the pew,” Karl said.

“Church isn’t just worship for us; it’s also community,” Christopher added.

Christopher was raised in the Lutheran Church of America and was active until a period in college, when he pulled away. Surprisingly, he became involved in the church again after he came out as a gay man. He joined a Saint Paul church where he regularly attended and was actively involved there until he met Karl. Karl is also a lifelong Lutheran. He was baptized at one month old on Reformation Sunday in 1956 and has been a part of the Lutheran church ever since.

“There was a three-week period when I didn’t go to church during college at Saint Olaf,” Karl said. “That was my rebellious phase.”

After graduating from Saint Olaf, he found a new church community in the Twin Cities by September. The two men met in the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus after having both recently
ended relationships. The timing of their meeting was more than serendipitous. They were born three months apart and grew up a mile-and-a-half apart on the same South Minneapolis street. They both moved to different states during their teen years and returned to the Twin Cities area for college, attending private Lutheran schools. After graduating, they both worked for insurance companies for a time, yet they never met until they were 34 years old.

“It seems like the Holy Spirit kept us apart until we were ready for each other,” Karl said.

After attending Christopher’s church for two years, Christopher and Karl began attending a Lutheran church in downtown Minneapolis, chiefly because Karl’s mom was a member there and could not drive anymore. Karl took her keys and promised to get her to church every Sunday. Both men have been significant members of their faith communities throughout their adult lives. Karl’s involvement in church leadership stems from a lifelong calling to serve the Lutheran church, which he has had to fulfill in creative ways.

“The only job I’ve ever aspired to is that of a Lutheran pastor,” he said, “but I realized during my college years that the Lutheran church’s expectations around sexual behavioral norms didn’t square well with me because I knew I was gay.  I don’t know how I could have lived with the tension of either being celibate or being closeted and deceptive — I don’t think I could do either. I consider myself fortunate to have figured that out early on and made the decision to live out my faith as an active lay person.”

He has been able to do so by being involved in Twin Cities Lutheran churches for nearly 30 years. Karl attended one church for 27 years, and during that time he was a Sunday school teacher, a confirmation teacher, a Sunday school superintendent, the church council secretary, the congregation’s treasurer, vice president and president, the stewardship director and the education director. He also helped lead several capital campaigns, call committees and a campaign to make the church handicap-accessible. Karl was especially proud of the success of that campaign.

“When I was in my early 30s, I thought that if we were serious about the church being a house of God for all people, then we needed to make it a house in which all people could come, get inside and have their basic needs met while they were there,” he said. “It took a lot of study, work, and persuading, but eventually our congregation of 500 people raised a quarter of a million dollars for the renovations. We bought a run-down house next door to the church, tore it down, and turned it into a handicap-parking lot. We added a grade-level entrance with an elevator that could go up or down. Both able-bodied and disabled-bodied people went in and out of the same door. In the course of less than 10 years, my pastor went from the point of my being the first person he knew was gay to presiding at my union ceremony.”

Christopher is also serving the church as a team member of the environmental planning committee. He helps decorate the vaulted space each liturgical season and holiday. Karl’s most recent project for his church is to promote hospitality within the community.

“Our church is a really warm and caring place once you crack the surface,” Karl said. “We’re just typical Scandinavian reserved. The longtime members, sweet as they are, are old Norwegian Lutherans. We can’t seem to break out of that reservation and overtly welcome guests.”

Members of their new church have shown their appreciation for Karl and Christopher.

”We are with Karl’s mother every Sunday in church, making sure she gets to the front of the church to receive communion. We’re just doing the things you do for your family, and people compliment and praise us for it. They see that Karl and I are a couple, but any problems with that seem irrelevant because we’re doing all of these other things that impact people’s perceptions.”

“Of course, that’s not why we’re doing all of that for our family,” Karl said. “We’re doing it because it’s the right thing. It’s neat to see how when you do the right thing by being committed, responsible and loyal, you see how it affects other people.”

Karl and Christopher have set an example of what commitment can look like, and they certainly have changed hearts and minds. When they held their blessing ceremony at their Saint Paul Lutheran church, both of their pastors participated. Years earlier, Karl’s pastor had shared with him that Karl was the first openly gay man he had ever known and with whom he had openly interacted.

“In the course of less than 10 years, my pastor went from the point of my being the first person he knew was gay to presiding at my union ceremony — that’s a lot of growth for him,” Karl commented.

Christopher commented that his niece is also inspired by his relationship with Karl.

“Whenever people say that it is impossible to stay happily married, she just points to us. We’re not deliberately trying to be an example of a good relationship. We’re just so darn happy together, and we let that show.”

When asked whether they’d ever faced conflict as outspoken leaders and openly gay men in a Lutheran community, Karl responded, “There are moments when I could conceive of walking away from it all. But then there are people like our pastor and my mom’s friends in church who think the most of us and are working to make sure we’re included.”

“There are lots of reasons to give up,” Christopher added, “but we get lots of encouragement
and reinforcement too.”

“I’m just getting tired of the never-ending debate in the national church regarding the ordination of gay clergy,” Karl said. “All of the announcements, committees, declarations, and studies are exhausting. How much more can they study us? ”

“Gay people are already in leadership and service positions in every direction you can think of,” Christopher said. “Hetero folks are starting to see that and realize that gay people are also fellow redeemed children of God with gifts who also feel called to apply those gifts to service.”

“In spite of the frustrations, there is value for people like Christopher and me to be involved
in the mainstream Lutheran church and to let our lights shine.”

A look back at the Philadelphia Eleven and Women’s Ordination

Yesterday was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the “irregular” ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven, a group of Episcopal women who broke the gender barrier and became priests.  Thanks to Susan Russell who sarcastically reminds us of that earth shattering day that threatened to “Destroy Western Civilization as we Know it.”

Russell’s blog post retells the events of that day and that time, and she recalls the names of the eleven brave women.  One on that list is Alla Bozarth, whose memoir is entitled Womanpriest, a Personal Odyssey.Womanpriest   

“[T]he seeds of Christian feminism were planted in my own soul,” Bozarth writes, “by my Christian urban education in the politics of racism.” 

Bozarth reminds us how the torch is passed from one oppressed group seeking justice to the next, a theme that Russell also touches upon in her blog post.   Russell analogizes to the LGBT breakthroughs (gay marriage, gay clergy) at the recent Episcopal General Convention. 

Bozarth continues,

I [had] heard Christ calling me to lay claim on the dignity that is mine as a human being created in the image of God, female … I [had learned] to expand my vision of God, to recognize that God is more inclusive than any human idea of deity has ever been.

But then she encountered a powerful, angry man, in the person of the Dean of her seminary: “we were greeted with indignation gradually blooming into ripened rage.” Later, she was frustrated by the failure of resolutions to authorize the ordination of women at the General Conventions of 1970 and 1973, even though majorities at both assemblies voted in favor of the resolutions, but procedures required a supra-majority.

I began to question the inconsistencies between the Church’s teaching and practice with regard to women.  I perceived that the Church which had taught me to believe in my human dignity had itself denied me that dignity…

I began to understand that I was unacceptable as a woman by the very Church that had taught me to celebrate my womanhood … Eventually, anger subsided into heartache and deep loneliness.  I had no thought of leaving the Church; I felt that it had already left me.  The denial of my calling to the priesthood was the denial of me as a child of God.

Defying convention and The Conventions, the Philadelphia Eleven, along with a few good men, forced the issue.  “What the Episcopal Church needed was a fait accompli.  God was soon to provide.”

That historic day began like any other summer day in Philadelphia.  It was beastly hot and humid when we met in the vesting room of the Church of the Advocate at ten in the morning.  The eleven of us were vested in appropriate garb for the occasion—white albs and red stoles worn over one shoulder in diaconal style…

As we stood behind the sanctuary with the other ordinands and our priest and lay presenters, we heard spontaneous laughter and then applause coming from inside the church.  The sound was our first clue that there was a mighty and joyous throng on the other side to meet us and celebrate with us.

A black man, Dr. Charles Willie, a Harvard professor, offered the sermon in ringing, soaring tones reminiscent of the finest civil rights oratory of Dr. Martin Luther King.  Earlier, Dr. Willie had offered a sermon in Syracuse, in response to the failure of the Conventions to endorse women’s ordination, in which he said:

And so it is meet and right that a bishop who believes that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, ought to ordain any … person who is qualified for the Holy Orders.  A bishop who, on his own authority, ordains a woman deacon to the priesthood will be vilified, and talked about, but probably not crucified.  Such a bishop would be following the path of the Suffering Servant, which is the path Jesus followed.  It requires both courage and humility to disobey an unjust law. 

The church is in need of such a bishop today.

Not one, but three bishops answered the call, and they performed the rite of ordination on July 29, 1974.  Soon thereafter, the Church officially changed its policies, and today the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is the The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Bozarth later penned the following poem:

Talitha Cumi  Young woman, I say to you, Arise.” – Luke 8:54

Do not send me, O God, for I am only a woman and do not know what to say.

Do not say “I am only a woman.”  Rise up a New Creation and take the name

I Am.

Am I a stone that my body should be turned to bread?  Am I a little one whom others should not offend?  Am I not dumb and immovable and worse than dead?

You are being and motion, fire in the mountain, storm in the sea-deep, vermillion sky-gilding sun.  Rise up a New Creation and take the name

I Am.

Am I a devil, a danger, a soul-dagger-drudge, a babe, a hag, a desert, a plague?

You are a woman a human a person a prophet a sister a creature an icon-breaker/re-maker a judgment a vision a life.

Rise up a New Creation and take the name

I Am.

Lubna Hussein In closing, I ask all to remember the brave young Sudanese woman, Lubna Hussein, who has chosen to forsake the UN immunity offered her and to willingly stand trial for wearing trousers in public in violation of the country’s strict Islamic laws.  She showed up for trial wearing the same outfit, and several of her supporters also wore pants to the hearing. 

She faces forty lashes if convicted, and the verdict was postponed until next week.

The Archbishop of Canterbury pontificates

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, but this is largely a ceremonial position without significant authority beyond the power of persuasion.   Following the actions of the recent Episcopal General Convention that allows for “all the sacraments for all the baptized” (gay marriage, gay clergy), Archbishop Rowan Williams has been spouting off, trying to corral the recalcitrant Episcopalians, the American species of his Anglican flock. 

Although it doesn’t appear that his recent pronouncements were intended to speak ill of LGBT persons within the Episcopal Church, two of my favorite bloggers have jumped all over his suggestion that "their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions."

Susan Russell Susan Russell is the Senior Associate of All Saints Church in Pasadena and the President of Integrity USA, the LGBT friendly organization of Episcopalians that led the fight for gay marriage and gay clergy at the recent convention.  She speaks from her blog, An Inch At A Time.  “We don’t "choose" sexuality but we do "choose" hypocrisy. And at the end of the day, I’m happier facing my Maker claiming the former rather than being accused of the latter.”

My one big disappointment — and a point I think we need to keep arguing — is Rowan’s categorizing TEC’s commitment to full inclusion of the LGBT baptized as a "rights" issue rather than a "theological" issue. I’m frankly tired of being told we "haven’t done the theology" when the truth is those telling us that don’t agree with the theology we’ve "done."

But we can keep doing that. We can keep reaching out. We can keep working together with our communion partners on mission and ministry all over this Worldwide Anglican Family of ours with those who will work with us.

And we can stay in conversation with those who won’t.

Elizabeth Kaeton is Episcopal clergy on the opposite coast, serving as rector and pastor of an Episcopal congregation in northern New Jersey.  Kaeton is even more caustic in her comments in her blog, Telling Secrets:

That poor dear! He really, really, really wants to be Pope, doesn’t he?
Would that be considered, "Miter envy?"

Or, do you think it’s more about the whole infallibility thing?

Personally, I think he’s been drinking his own Lambeth Kool-Aid.

Kaeton And then she offered her own insights into the false notion of a “chosen lifestyle.”

Chosen lifestyle? Why would anyone CHOOSE to be hassled at critical moments in their life? Why would anyone CHOOSE to have your basic civil rights denied? Why would anyone CHOOSE to be discriminated against in the church – by otherwise intelligent, highly educated, seemingly spiritual people?

How do you CHOOSE the person with whom you fall in love? With whom you wish to start a family? With whom you want to spend the rest of your life?

And, why should that choice condemn you to a life of discrimination?

Indeed.  Amen, sisters.