To the Anglican Communion:
My heart was saddened when the primates of Anglican Communion decided to silence the voice of the Episcopal Church in the United States on matters involving doctrine and polity for three years because the Episcopal Church changed its Canon to permit the marriage of same-sex couples in its churches. Click here to read the Primate's Statement
This imposed ban on the Episcopal Church strikes me as an ill thought act of desperation which unfortunately led the primates of the Communion to abandon its tradition of holding diversity in tension and seeking the middle way.
I understand the idea of same-sex marriages in some parts of the world is beyond comprehension; that its acceptance by the primates of the churches in those areas would risk political and social backlash.
What I don't understand are the primates from those areas who have actually advocated for the criminalization of homosexual individuals, who have backed the imprisonment and the execution of human beings simply because of their sexual identity.
If the treatment of LGBTQ individuals within the Communion was not a concern before the Episcopal Church raised such concerns or, if by the primates' statement, they think they are giving themselves a break from such discussions, they are mistaken and tremendously wrong. It now has become the main issue facing the Communion, and it will require the principled approach of using scripture, tradition, and reason to pave the way to resolution.
SCRIPTURE
Scripture is helpful in identifying the questions that the primates should be asking instead of looking at scripture, the Holy Bible, as if it were an answer book. In a recent post that I wrote on Christianity, I touched upon problem solving from a Christian perspective. (Click here).
The question is does scripture give us anything to reference that would help identify the perceived problem some have regarding homosexuality beyond saying that homosexuality is the problem?
I contend that it does and by someone who actually dealt with sexual identity issues within the early church, a personage no less than the apostle Paul.
The sexual identity issue that Paul dealt with was the question of whether an uncircumcised gentile male could be fully received into the body of Christ without having to be converted, changed (circumcised); to become Jewish in order to be considered acceptable to God prior to being baptized and recognized as a member of the Church.
Some might say, "Wait a minute! Circumcision and same-sex marriage/homosexuality are not the same thing. Circumcision is not a sexual identity issue. Besides Paul speaks negatively about men and women having 'unnatural desires' for their own gender."
In my opinion, they are very comparable and Paul's treatment of the circumcision issue is applicable to the gender identity and same-sex marriage issues of today.
If you want to pursue a fuller understanding of same-sex marriage and of scripture on the topic of same-sex relationships, click, here and here.
To summarize what I have already written on the subjects:
1. The Holy Bible does not define marriage in any prescriptive manner (legal definition).
2. At best, any comment related to marriage in scripture is purely that, commentary,
nothing more.
3. The Levitical law prohibiting male homosexuality was one amongst a number of prohibited
sexual acts related to temple worship.
4. While Paul discouraged what he saw as immoral lifestyles which included male prostitution
and homosexuality (αρσενοκοιται) among a host of other immoral lifestyles
(adultery, drunkenness,thievery, greed, etc.), he did not exclude homosexuals or any of the
others from being Christian. "For such were some of you..." 1Corinthians 6:11
5. The New Testament talks about marriage in terms of honoring, loving, and being committed
to the other which is applicable to any such committed relationship between two people.
6. Things change over time. We have a better understanding and new perspectives about
innumerable things, including race, homosexuality and marriage, and the fragility of all life
on this planet.
That same-sex marriage is never addressed in the Bible does not permit one to utilize the scant, contextual references regarding same-sex relationships in the Bible to denigrate, in the name of God, those who are gay and lesbian and who desire life-giving, committed relationships that reflect the love of God in Christ
Jesus does not address homosexuality or homosexual relationships. This omission, alone, speaks loudly and gives space and standing to other things that Jesus said regarding our human interactions and the treatment of others.
With regard to marriage (understood in context of the question posed to Jesus about a man divorcing his wife), Jesus' point was in honoring the commitment made in marriage as a loving, life-giving, and lifelong relationship between a man and a woman, rather than making a law about marriage being between one man and one woman.
Paul certainly saw the Gospel of Christ crossing every barrier known to the people of his time.
Faith in Jesus as the Christ was, in Paul's opinion, all that was needful for salvation. Paul's radical understanding of faith in the faithfulness, the hopefulness, and the love of God as found in Jesus; surpassed any legal mandate or test that one could think of as standing in the way of God's unmerited grace. Faith in Jesus as the risen Christ, for Paul, is the only measure by which one is deemed justified in the eyes of God.
This is something many churches agree with, but then, through their mountains of doctrines and dogmas, their traditions of form and structure as opposed to the deeper traditions of function and substance, render it so conditional as to make it irrelevant.
I find it ironic that sexual identity, once again, is at the center of defining what is meant by God's unmerited grace. Paul sums up unmerited grace in his Epistle to the Galatians:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27&28
There is a saying in the LGBTQ movement that paraphrases what Paul said, "Love knows no gender."
God is love, and God's love is not based on gender, race, religion, species, planetary system, solar system, galaxy or universe. "Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:39.
How then has the mote of sexual identity become such the beam, such an obstacle, in the eyes of some Christians?
TRADITION
The previous quotation from Galatians brings me to the issue of tradition, "For as many of you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." The sacrament of Holy Baptism is one of the church's oldest traditions.
To my mind none of the interrogatories associated with baptism ask about one's sexual identity. There is no sexual test to becoming a Christian - that was done away with during Paul's time.
There is no way of knowing when the mark of Christ is placed on one received in baptism, someone declared and embraced as one of God's own, whether that person is or will grow up to be homosexual, bisexual, transgendered, queer, or heterosexual.
To my knowledge there is no litmus test or requirement for receiving the body and blood of Christ. These are the two oldest traditions specific to the Christian Church. None have been more enduring, and no other sacraments supersede them. These are the greatest signs and symbols of God's grace the Church is entrusted with and they are meant to offered to all just as Christ died for all.
They are the sign and symbol of God's embrace of us as individuals and as members of the body of Christ. They set aside any sense of qualification our limited minds can conceive that could separate one or any from God's love - "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."
The sacrament of marriage is at best an amalgam of historical and social conditioning, mixed with the church's understanding it as a symbol of Christ's love for his church - "And in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free man, no male or female."
That the issue of same-sex marriage has never been addressed before does not mean that concept of marriage has never changed or evolved. It has throughout the ages. The union of same-sex couples in marriage does not diminish the bonds matrimony, does not diminish its sacredness, and does not diminish its being a symbol of Christ's love for his Church. Nothing has changed about marriage in that regard. As a sacrament it is open to all, just as Baptism and Holy Communion are open to all.
REASON
What frequently seems so reasoned and reasonable at the time can prove to be anything but. For example, take Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin. When Caiaphas declared it was better that one person, Jesus, die rather than the many, to preserve the status quo rather than risk a massacre, it made immense sense. He had good reason to base that on. He knew what the Romans were capable of doing, what they had done before, and what they would do again if what Jesus said or did would cause a raucous in the Temple precinct.
In like manner, it seems reasonable to calm the waters that are stirring in the Anglican Communion by silencing a relatively small fraction of the Communion, who seemingly break the rules by ordaining an openly gay bishop in a committed relationship, electing the first female primate, and permitting same-sex marriages to be performed. Better to silence them for three years than to risk a massive walkout by other, much larger groups within the Communion.
The parallels between Jesus's trial, his resurrection on the third day and the decision to ban the Episcopal Church from active participation in the Communion by imposing a three year period of silence is hard to ignore. Carrying this "coincidental" comparison to its conclusion could lead one to think that the Episcopal Church is poised for a resurrection.
The Episcopal Church in the United States is a responsive and responsible church in the face of a changing world, a world of changing perspectives and better understanding.
It has demonstrated a realization that amongst its membership are LGBTQ individuals who are committed to Christ and his Church, who are loved by God and who bear God's image as everyone else does. There are also same-sex couples who are committed to Christ and who seek to live in recognized committed loving relationships within the bonds of marriage, who desire nothing more than to grow in their love for one another, to live in peace, and contribute to wellbeing of their churches and society.
The Episcopal Church is responsible and responsive to the Gospel of Christ and to what our presiding bishop, Michael Curry, calls the Jesus Movement; the ongoing ministry of Jesus left to his mystical body, the Church.
The Episcopal Church in the United States gets what so many other Christian denominations don't get; the wide embrace of God's grace and unconditional love - Not that God's grace for all is something new. It has always been there, but rather that our limited, linear minds take time to wrap themselves around the limitless grace and unconditional love God has for every single person that has ever lived, lives today, and will live in the future.
That some within the Body of Christ are seeing the amazing fullness of God's grace and unconditional love is something to rejoice, not silence. It may take time for others to get there, and I firmly believe they will, but the road may be long an arduous for them. Trying to silence those who are further down the road in seeing God's Kingdom in our midst, who are in the midst of celebrating the fullness of God's grace will not stop the fullness of that Kingdom, that grace from emerging for all.
I'm not sure what three years of silencing the Episcopal Church's voice in the Anglican Communion is supposed to do. If it was designed to cause the Episcopal Church to change its overwhelmingly supported stance on being fully inclusive by permitting same-sex marriages, that seems very unlikely.
I do not understand how silencing one member of the Communion holds the Communion together when, in essence, what is now holding it together is the willingness of the Episcopal Church to hold it together by staying. I am mindful as I write this of today's Epistle reading from 1 Corinthian's 12.
What the primates' statement has demonstrated, to me, is how insecure, tenuous, and fear-based the primates and by extension the Communion is. A three year hiatus from having to function in the Communion may prove to be a blessing to the Episcopal Church. It has other work to do here at home, and throughout the world. If it cannot do so in the name of the Anglican Communion so be it, but the Episcopal Church has a far greater obligation to continue the ministry of Christ here in the United States and throughout the world than it has to the primates of the Communion.
A FINAL OBSERVATION
God's Spirit cannot be bound by dogma, doctrine, or the leather bindings of any holy book. The Communion and any ecclesiastical body that thinks the Spirit of God is bound by such things suffers from a form of idolatry, bible-blindness. The Word of God is alive and God's Spirit moves like the wind and it stirs the waters that heals the brokenness within our world. Churches so often are the least apt to feel the direction of God's Spirit, and so often perturbed by waters that stir change, rejuvenation, and new perspectives in their midst.
When a church closes its windows and doors to wind of the Spirit and tries to ignore the stirring of the waters in its midst, the Spirit completes its purpose through other means. It did so in the Republic of Ireland (Click here) by moving a majority of its citizens to approve same-sex marriage. It did so in the United States through the decision made by its Supreme Court (Click here). God's Spirit is not bound by religion, politics, bricks and mortar, or by leather bindings.
God's Spirit is on the move to invite the least considered, the ignored, the dismissed, the unwelcomed to the feast. It does not take much imagination to know who is being invited. All that is necessary to find out who is on the invite list is to poll one's mind to find who is the least, the ignored, the dismissed, the unwelcomed in one's life and there one has it; God's invite list.
The Episcopal Church gets this. Its numbers may have dwindled. It may be shunned by members of the Communion, ridiculed by other Christian denominations for being morally lax in its practice of inclusion, but it is faithful in carrying out the ministry of Christ, and its doors are always open to all who seek a home in God, its windows are wide-open to God's Spirit, and it cherishes jumping in and getting wet by the stirring waters of rejuvenating change.
Our presiding bishop spoke eloquently about the primates decision, our commitment to be patient and remain in the Communion, and our commitment to further the ministry of Jesus.
I pray that Episcopal Church stays strong in its commitment to serve all people in the name of Christ; that it will continue to be moved by the wind of God's Holy Spirit, and that it continues to splash about in the stirring waters that revive our souls and heals the brokenness of our world
I also pray that this breakdown will lead to a building up and a resurrection moment for the Anglican Communion; that its primates may find the strength to fully open its doors to let all who seek a home in God, to open wide its windows to let the winds of God's Spirit guide them, and to cherish the stirrings of the waters that will ultimately heal those who commit to jumping in and getting wet.
+ In Jesus name +
Norman Wright,
Member of the Episcopal Church, United States
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, 2016
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