By George Clifford
Is the Episcopal Church (TEC) winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?
Recent court decisions in several states have affirmed that assets owned by parishes or dioceses that try to withdraw from TEC remain with TEC or one of its constituent parts. Progress towards reconstituting diocesan structures in Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere continues apace. Conversely, the weight of opinion, even in parishes staunchly loyal to and supportive of TEC, holds that blessing same-sex relationships, ordaining persons who openly live in committed same-sex relationships, and otherwise fully including everyone regardless of sexuality in the Church’s life will cost TEC members, mission momentum, and resources. Is TEC winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?
Phrasing that question posed substantial difficulties. No matter how strongly I believe that God desires to welcome every human, regardless of sexuality, fully, I know that this issue is not a litmus test of anyone’s Christian identity.
That said, opposition to the full inclusion of all people is not simply a matter of people of good will having honest differences of opinion. TEC certainly has members who hold a wide variety of opinions with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics. Diversity of opinion is real within most congregations and does not cause hard feelings, let alone collective angst. Diverse opinions, per se, are neither the source of the current conflict nor inherently evil. TEC welcomes and must continue to welcome people of every opinion.
The evil in this conflict has other roots. First, anyone treating views on sexuality or sexual ethics as a litmus test of who is or is not a Christian or of those with whom one can be in the same Church or parish wrongly assigns these issues a centrality unwarranted by either Scripture or tradition. Congregations that strive for uniformity of opinion with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics – whether within the congregation, the diocese, the national Church, or the Anglican Communion – do so because leadership pushes the issue. Such leaders reject the model of a good shepherd who left the 99 to search for the remaining one, a shepherd who strives to keep the flock together without insisting that all of the sheep look alike or behave alike. Good shepherd leadership affirms and honors diverse opinions and freedom of individual conscience, a defining hallmark among Anglicans whose unity results from common prayer rather than common belief. Leadership that intentionally seeks to divide the Church over an important but not ultimate issue is at best misguided and at worst evil.
Second, sexuality and sexual ethics galvanize opinion and motivate people to act with an energy that other issues lack. Opponents of full inclusion of all in the Church, if they engaged in open and honest mutual introspection, would find their allies subscribe to diverse opinions about the ordination of women, the authority of Scripture, lay presidency at the Eucharist, and other issues. The one and only issue uniting dissidents is their opposition to the full inclusion of all, regardless of sexuality, in the Church’s life. In other words, sexuality affords an unparalleled opportunity for emotional impact that translates into publicity, prominence, and fundraising. U.S. money raised from non-Episcopalians supports the disruptive pronouncements and divisive proselytizing missions of other Anglicans in the States (at the Episcopal Café cf. this story and this one). At best, such Anglican clerics are unintentional pawns manipulated by forces of evil; at worst, these Anglicans clerics co-conspire with forces of evil.
Lest that assessment seem too harsh, TEC represents less than 1% of the U.S. population. If TEC did not retain sufficient public interest (notoriety?) to attract considerable media attention, these non-Episcopalians would choose to wage their war over sexuality and sexuality on different “terrain.” For example, the United Church of Christ years ago decided to ordain clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships and to bless same-sex relationships without the large and continuing furor that TEC’s slow steps have attracted. Similarly, the recent decision by the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with which TEC shares ministry, to allow the ordination of clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships sparked a much smaller media barrage.
Concurrently, other Anglican provinces, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, have actually led the vanguard of the movement toward full inclusion of all in the life of the Church. TEC follows in the vanguard’s rear. Yet the preponderance of public attention nationally and internationally has focused on TEC. As with TEC, the U.S. represents the global target of choice. The United States’ status as the world’s lone superpower and the influence that its media, economy, and culture have on the rest of the world guarantee a higher profile controversy than if the fight occurred in another country or province. (For more information on this, cf. Globalizing the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia by Anglican priest and scholar, the Revd Kapya Kaoma, featured in Pat Ashworth’s report, “Africans suffer from ‘collateral damage’ in U.S. culture clash”, The Church Times, 20 November 2009.)
Consider the shibboleths that TEC blessing same-sex relationships will result in African animists choosing Islam over Christianity or the persecution of African Christians by radical Muslims. How many African animists really care, or even follow, U.S. ecclesiastical news? (Similarly, how many American Christians really care, or even follow, religious news from African tribal areas?) How many radical Muslims will cease to persecute Christians simply because TEC decides not to bless same-sex relationships? Those questions point to a third evil: opponents of fully including everyone in the Church’s life lie. Lying requires intent to deceive. Not every Episcopalian who repeats one of those shibboleths lies. However, the opposition’s leaders want victory in their campaign against homosexuality at any cost. They lie. Yet truth, not lying, is indicative of those aligned with God. The truth, not lies, makes us free.
Fourth, debates over sexuality and sexual ethics within parishes, dioceses, the national Church, and the Anglican Communion progress with multiple subtexts designed by and for various audiences. One of those subtexts speaks to the often-cherished, little thought through, possibility of the Anglican Communion reuniting with the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI contributed to that subtext with his recent establishment of personal ordinariates for Anglicans who wish to affiliate with Rome. A careful reading of the Roman Catholic document emphasizes that Rome offers no compromise or olive branch to its separated siblings. Anglicans are welcome, but only on Rome’s terms, conforming to Rome in all doctrinal matters. These include opposition to the ordination of women, recognition of the Pope as the supreme, earthly source of ecclesial authority, etc. The substantive differences between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism are so great that welcoming all people, regardless of gender orientation, into the full life of the Church will not measurably broaden the chasm that already separates the two Churches. Pretending otherwise is at least naïve and in some cases a deceptive ploy to prevent TEC from welcoming all, i.e., another lie. For individuals who can no longer remain part of the Anglican Communion in good conscience, I wish them God speed as they move with integrity to the Roman Catholic Church.
Another subtext to the debates about sexuality and sexual ethics is that Episcopalians are not Anglicans. Effective communication requires that words have commonly agreed meanings. Anglicans are by longstanding definition members of those Churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, i.e., TEC members in the United States. Splinter groups intentionally incorporating the word “Anglican” into their group’s name, such as the Anglican Church in North America, therefore constitute a pernicious effort to subvert the popular understanding of who is and who is not an Anglican in the hope of creating a new reality. Comments I hear from lay Episcopalians loyal to TEC suggest this tactic is working. Likewise, the Chair of the Presiding Bishops Council of Advice, the Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniels, Bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina, apparently has drawn a similar conclusion. He began a recent letter published in the New York Times by emphasizing that TEC is the sole Anglican presence in the U.S. (“Is This Bishop Catholic?” New York Times, November 17, 2009).
The reading from Baruch for the Second Sunday of Advent (5:1-9) recalls a people led into exile by their enemies who clung to the hope that God will bring them back to Jerusalem in glory with mercy and righteousness.
An older parishioner, now retired and with no family at home in my parish, spends her days and self in caring for others. She has fostered literally hundreds of children, some for a few days and others for months. Race, gender, handicaps, sexual and orientation are all irrelevant to her. Recently, she has daily driven an hour to and from a hospital to hold a shaken baby that is fighting for its life in the hospital’s ICU, selflessly investing love and emotion in this infant. One week she asked me for money from my discretionary fund to help a broken family pay its utility bills. The next week, she solicited Christmas gifts from the parish for four young children who live with their financially strapped grandmother to avoid the state sending them to foster homes. It seems that every time this woman and I chat, she is helping yet another person.
She incarnates the mercy and righteousness of which Baruch speaks. TEC must do the same. TEC could prevail in every court case no pending, and dozens not yet filed, and still be unfaithful. TEC could reconstitute and reorganize every diocese and parish that attempts to withdraw and still be unfaithful. Assets and organizational structures are at best means to an end, not an end in themselves. TEC must focus on ends and not means.
Righteousness necessitates TEC stand firmly for truth. TEC boldly moving ahead in developing rites for blessing same-sex relationships, teaching that permanent monogamy and not a couple’s gender composition exemplifies a wholesome lifestyle, and advocating equal civil rights for all regardless of gender orientation will position TEC squarely in the advent of God’s activity in the world.
Mercy demands that TEC embrace and welcome all of God’s children. TEC needs to regain its momentum as a Church fully engaged in God’s mission: loving the unloved, feeding the hungry, offering the water of life to the thirsty, etc.
Mercy and righteousness are hard tasks, in part because we cannot delegate them to a hireling but must perform them ourselves. Often there are few if any tangible rewards. But in the end God’s mercy and righteousness will prevail, God’s people shall dwell in life abundant, and I, for one (along with my parishioner) want to be part of that scene.
The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh and blogs at Ethical Musings.