wfn.org | Advocates gather to claim blessing rite

[Daphne Mack <dmack@episcopalchurch.org>]

2002-258

Advocates gather to claim blessing
rite for same-sex couples

by Jan Nunley

(ENS) Nearly 200 advocates of a rite of same-sex
blessing gathered at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis
over Veterans' Day weekend for a part pep rally, part
prayer meeting, part strategy session, preparing for what
will surely be the most controversial issue of the next
General Convention of the Episcopal Church. 

Claiming the Blessing (CTB) is a collaboration between
three groups-- Integrity, Oasis and Beyond
Inclusion--with a primary witness to, by, and for lesbians,
gay men, bisexuals and transgendered (LGBT) individuals
in the Episcopal Church. The group shares partnership
with The Witness magazine as well as other
organizations. 

The gathering included representatives of 38 states, with
almost a quarter of the participants serving as deputies to
the 2003 General Convention. 

The conference opened with a Eucharist at which the
Rev. Susan Russell, executive director of CTB, preached
to what she called "a persistent people [who] belong to a
most persistent God." In a pointed reference to the
American Anglican Council's "God's Love Changed Me"
campaign, launched at the 2000 General Convention in
Denver, Russell said, "Our persistent God does indeed
seek to change us...but the change God desires for us is
not our sexual orientation but our theological orientation.
It's not our gender identity but our spiritual identity." 

Still walking, after Lambeth

In her opening remarks, the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, a
member of the CTB steering committee and rector of St.
Paul's in Chatham, New Jersey, traced the origins of the
gathering to the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which
passed a resolution declaring homosexuality to be
"incompatible with Scripture." 

"We came away from Lambeth deeply wounded and
limping, but still walking," Kaeton said. "We saw what
they did...We came away outraged, and remain outraged,
that some members of this elite group of people in purple
shirts dare to claim that they, and they only, speak the
mind of the world-wide Anglican communion. What
arrogance! What cheek! Last time I read the Outline of
Faith [in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer] there were
four orders of ministry: bishops, priests, deacons, and the
laity." 

"At this moment, we are focused and coalesced around a
single task: to obtain authorization for the development of
a liturgical rite of blessing of the faithful, monogamous
relationship between two adults of any gender at General
Convention 2003," Kaeton said. "Would someone please
tell the bishop of Pittsburgh that we do not bless 'sexual
relationships'? We are blessing faithful, monogamous
relationships!" 

Mutual deference for the sake of unity

The Rev. Michael W. Hopkins, president of Integrity,
said that the shape of the rite of same-sex blessing that
emerges from the next General Convention will not be all
that advocates might hope for. "We know and accept that
such a rite will not be used or even allowed to be used
universally," Hopkins said. "We are quite deliberately
advocating for a rite whose use would be optional for the
sake of the unity of the church we love. 

"We believe in our heart of hearts that our relationships
are equal to heterosexual relationships, whether or not the
term 'marriage' is appropriate for them, and so, in our
heart of hearts, we believe the rite used to publicly
celebrate them should be equal. But that is not what we
are asking for. We are compromising, moderating our
position... in the spirit of a resolution from the 1920
Lambeth Conference (Resolution 9:VIII): 'We believe
that for all, the truly equitable approach to union is by
way of mutual deference to one another's consciences.'" 

Hopkins said he had several messages to deliver. To the
Episcopal Church he said that gays and lesbians "are not
going anywhere...Gay and lesbian Christians make up a
significant portion of the Episcopal Church," he pointed
out. "We will continue to do so after General Convention
2003 no matter what happens. We will not attempt to get
our way by threatening to leave. I ask those on all sides
of this debate to make this commitment as well." 

Hopkins assured conservative Episcopalians that "we do
not desire for you to go away" from the Episcopal
Church. He invited the president of the conservative
American Anglican Council to sit down with him and
"discuss ways we can proceed with the debate about our
differences without tearing each other down or apart." 

"We do not desire to force same-sex blessings on you or
anyone," Hopkins added. "We do challenge you to stop
scapegoating lesbian and gay Christians for every
contemporary ill in the church, particularly for our current
state of disunity or the potential for the unraveling of the
Anglican Communion." He said that "scriptural
interpretation and authority, including the very different
polities that exist in different provinces of the Communion
and whether or not local autonomy is a defining
characteristic of Anglicanism" are "just one tip of that very
large iceberg and if sexuality went completely away
tomorrow, the iceberg would still be there." 

Theology of blessing

Hopkins then presented the gathering with a draft
document addressing the theology of same-sex blessings,
asking that participants critique it in small groups. "The
Theology Piece," as Hopkins called it, is a compilation of
resources designed for use in congregational, diocesan
and community settings. It includes a "Theology of
Blessings" statement and a Q&A pamphlet, and will
eventually include a curriculum exploring the "theological,
pastoral and ecclesial implications of full inclusion of
LGBT people in the life of the church." 

"To bless the relationship between two men or two
women is ... to declare that this relationship is a blessing
from God and that its purpose is to bless God, both
within the context of the community of faith," the
document declared. "If the church believes that same-sex
relationships show forth God's blessing when they are
lived in fidelity, mutuality, and unconditional love, then this
blessing must be owned and celebrated and supported in
the community of faith." 

Blessing promises, not behaviors

In a section entitled "Clearing up some questions," the
document states that in blessing same-sex relationships
the church is "blessing the persons in relationship to one
another and the world in which they live. We are blessing
the ongoing promise of fidelity and mutuality. We are
neither blessing orientation or 'lifestyle,' nor blessing
particular sexual behaviors." 

The church must continue to wrestle with whether
marriage should be limited to relationships between men
and women, the draft document said, adding that "to wait
until it is solved, however, in order to celebrate the
blessing of a faithful same-sex relationship is pastorally
irresponsible and theologically unnecessary." The
document calls same-sex blessing "sacramental" in the
sense that "everything in creation has the potential to be
sacramental--to mediate the presence/blessing of God." 

"We decided on getting feedback and being
collaborative, but we didn't think through how to put it
back together. I'm going to filter it and have a draft ready
for the Claiming the Blessing board sign off on at our
meeting in January," Hopkins said. "The Theology Piece"
is posted at Everyvoice.net, with an online forum to
collect feedback. 

Uniting to get beyond the issue

Participants then broke up into small sessions to address
concerns such as the challenge of preaching an inclusive
Gospel, finding theological resources for gay & and
lesbian "family values" in the church, and doing evangelism
in the gay and lesbian community, including sponsorship
of a gay-friendly Alpha program. 

Organizing for General Convention 2003 attracted the
attention of most participants, as Beyond Inclusion board
member Peggy Adams and Edgar K. "Kim" Byham of the
Diocese of Newark, both attorneys, explained the
workings of the legislative process and led a discussion
on the importance of raising the blessings issue in 2003. 

Joining Hopkins for a session on "GLBT Advocacy at the
International Level" was Richard Kirker, general
secretary of the UK-based Lesbian and Gay Christian
Movement [LGCM], who was raised in Nigeria. Hopkins
discussed the establishment of an Integrity chapter in
Uganda in 2000--a process he acknowledged as fraught
with difficulties, many of them centering around cultural
differences with regard to money as well as sexuality.
Integrity has sent almost $50,000 to the Ugandan
chapter, he said. 

Hopkins pointed out that the experience of Ugandan gays
and lesbians in their own country is parallel to the
experience of Uganda itself under colonialism. "Ugandan
gays enter a subjugated class," he said, cut off from their
society's cultural mainstream. 

"I dream about Integrity being able to send mission teams
to different provinces," Hopkins said, to do mission
projects and "meet people," not to change minds but to
build relationships. 

At a session on denominational politics entitled "Being a
Responsible Church Politician," Executive Council
member Dr. Louie Crew, the founder of Integrity, said
same-sex blessing was "not the cutting edge issue for the
church, nor should it be." "This issue of same-sex unions
is stealing time from our common goal of mission. It's
important to unite to get beyond it," said Crew. 

Crime of silence

At a banquet on Friday night, Washington bishop John
Bryson Chane delivered a stirring after-dinner address
that brought participants to their feet. He blasted dioceses
of the church for not following through on the sexuality
dialogues mandated by several resolutions of General
Convention. "Had open, honest, consistent dialogue,
study, and debate been the norm within the Episcopal
Church over the last 25 years in dealing compassionately,
biblically, pastorally, and theologically with issues of
human sexuality, then I believe we probably would not be
meeting here tonight in preparation for Minneapolis in
2003," Chane opined. "In many ways the Episcopal
Church has been guilty of one of humanity's greatest
crimes...the crime of silence." 

Chane challenged the Episcopal Church to answer three
questions in Minneapolis. First, he said, the church must
decide whether it is "fair, theologically sound, and
pastorally appropriate to inhibit the informed judgment
and pastoral care of good priests" with reference to
same-sex blessings in their congregations. Second, he
asked whether it is "an open and faithful pastoral
response to the gift of the Holy Spirit when a
congregation's discernment of a person's call to the
ordination process is disregarded by a diocese simply
because that person happens to be gay or lesbian and is
living in a monogamous, committed same-sex
relationship." Finally, asked Chane, "is there any grace or
compassion in forcing celibacy upon a gay or lesbian
person as the only option if they are to be ordained to the
diaconate or priesthood?" 

Chane also criticized the Episcopal Church for "centering
its will and vast resources on internal jurisdictional
disputes and canonical conflicts" when the world is
threatened by "pandemic disease, abject poverty,
religious wars, racism, misogyny, and illiteracy." 

"In the last 24 hours, 15,000 people died from AIDS in
Africa. Tomorrow and every day thereafter--another
15,000 people daily will die of AIDS," Chane said. "How
can we as a church be so engrossed in our own internal
battles that we are immune from this horror?" 

Classical Anglicanism

The Rev. William Countryman, professor in Biblical
studies at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, gave
the conference's final address. "I've noticed that people
who object to what we are working toward here often
speak of it as the work of a 'gay/lesbian lobby,' the
functional equivalent of the 'outside agitators' of the not so
distant past," Countryman said. "The church ought to be
delighted, of course, if it found people outside the church
clamoring for its blessing. But I don't see that happening,"
he added, to chuckles from the audience. 

Countryman drew a distinction between the "Geneva
tradition" of Puritanism, whose theological heirs, he
maintained, are modern U.S. evangelicals, and the broad
stream of "classical Anglicanism." "For members of this
theological tradition, purity of doctrine trumps God's
mandate for Christians to stick with one another through
thick and thin," he said. 

"We look to some like radicals. In reality, we are in the
odd position of being the principal advocates of classical
Anglicanism today on this continent," Countryman
proclaimed to applause from the gathering. 

"Well-meaning people sometimes say to me, 'Why can't
the gay and lesbian community just hold back on this
point so the church can get on to more important things in
its mission?'" Countryman continued. "To that, my answer
is, 'Spiritually, there may not be anything more
important'... This blessing of unions is not finally, for us,
about social convenience, or status, or even justice. It is
about our access to God." 

Former Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning was the
celebrant at the conference's closing Eucharist, with the
Rev. Robert Taylor, dean of St. Mark's Cathedral in
Seattle, preaching. Browning was presented with
Integrity's Louie Crew Award at the banquet. 

Pictures from the conference are available on the
Web at:
http://www.integrityusa.org/ctb/ConferencePix/

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of
Episcopal News Service. Sally Sedgwick and Kevin
Jones contributed to this report.