Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori reflects on the variety of understandings she encounters around the world. The Bible, the Prayer Book, gender and sexuality all are seen through lenses of culture:
The primates’ meeting has come and gone, and I’m sure there will have been abundant commentary by the time this is published. I’d like to reflect on some of the deeper issues behind our conversations about sexuality, particularly the influence of our understanding of gender.
On gender roles she notes:
As I traveled from the airport to the hotel where we met, I noticed that almost every woman on the street past childhood was veiled, with at least her hair covered with a scarf, and in a not-small number of cases, covered head to toe in a long, flowing garment. I even observed a couple of women whose coverings were so thorough that I couldn’t even see a slit for their eyes — the fabric must have been thin enough for them to see through, but not for others to see in. The hotel had only a handful of female employees, mostly professional women who worked behind the desk. Only a couple of them wore no scarf.
The striking thing was that the meeting room where the primates’ deliberations took place, the hotel’s largest and principal conference room, was bedecked with several large paintings of half-naked women. It was a space that, in normal circumstances, apparently was used only by men. I found it striking that public expectations of women are modest dress and covering, yet there is evidently a rather different attitude toward men’s entertainment.
During her visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth she experienced more thought provoking encounters:
I had one other pertinent encounter in Fort Worth, Texas, after the primates’ meeting. I was greeting a long line of people at the end of the day of the reorganizing convention for the diocese. I spoke with a man in a wheelchair who appeared to have had a stroke.
The next person in line began by telling me that the guy in the wheelchair was a retired obstetrician/gynecologist and that “he’s the most interesting gay man I know, and I’m proud to call him a friend.” Rather an unusual conversation starter. And then he went on to say, “All of this is really about male supremacy, isn’t it?” His words, not mine, but worth consideration.
Read it all at Episcopal Life Online.