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The Acceptance of Gay/Lesbian People in the Episcopal Church in the United States—and What it Signifies for the Anglican Communion The movement toward full inclusion of gay/lesbian people in the Episcopal Church seems to have taken many Anglicans in other parts of the world by surprise. This is probably because it represents a specifically contextual kind of theology. (Many Anglicans have long been urging exactly such theology, but have often thought of it more in terms of areas like Africa where the process of indigenization demands it.) The Episcopal Church has been through a slow and sometimes painful process in which most church people have come to accept that there are lesbians and gay men among us who are faithful Christians and who may experience vocation to ordination. It was the evident faithfulness of such people that finally swayed the church to cease its history of discrimination; and because integrity is an integral part of Christian spirituality, the demand that such persons remain closeted, as in the past, was no longer supportable. Episcopalians on the right wing who are making a fuss over this decision had every opportunity to enter into this conversation as full participants. They failed to make a convincing case for their position that loving, monogamous relationships between people of the same gender are gravely sinful. They have had to give up their appeal to texts like the Sodom narrative (no, a story about rape does not invalidate loving sexual relationships) and Leviticus (no, physical impurity, in and of itself, is not a Christian moral concern). They have fallen back on a strained interpretation of a single text in Genesis 2 and a reading of Romans 1 that would be more convincing if it were not contradicted by the principles Paul enunciates in Romans 14. None of this has persuaded anyone in the Episcopal Church who was not already inclined to believe it. The Episcopal Church had to deal with these issues because of the realities of our culture, not in the sense that we are simply following the culture's lead, but out of the realization that we must always speak the Gospel in terms that can give hope and inspire faith and love in the specific context where we find ourselves. Jesus did not write out his message, but committed it to oral tradition among his disciples for exactly this reason. Had he written out a message that would have been fully satisfactory in terms of his own culture, he would have made the Gospel's subsequent leap into Gentile culture virtually impossible. By committing the Gospel instead to the lives and hearts and converted people, he left them the power to contextualize it in new places and times. This is also the traditional Anglican way of theology. We have resisted the idea that Christian doctrine can be defined once for all in all its details. We rejected the highly detailed theologizing of medieval Catholicism in the Reformation, limiting our commitments to those elements that had the support of the Scriptures and the earliest Councils. We also rejected the highly detailed theologizing of the Puritans, holding instead that not everything in the Bible is directly applicable to later eras and that the church has both the privilege and duty of ordering its own life under scripture. Even though, at one time, it was thought obvious that the Scriptures rejected all same-gender sexuality, in our own context we have been compelled to reexamine that question and to conclude that the previous interpretation was mistaken. There is nothing inherently impossible in such a conclusion. The whole existence of a distinct Anglican tradition assumes exactly this possibility of reexamining what formerly seemed true. The implications of the American decision for the Anglican Communion at large are actually quite minor in the short run. When African provinces began to allow new converts to continue in polygamous marriages because the cultural context was deemed to require it, it did not change anything for provinces where the cultural context did not raise the issue. If same-gender equality is truly not an issue in other cultural contexts, then there would be no reason for provinces in those contexts to concern themselves with it. In a similar way, the ordination of women has been thought of as an issue for individual provinces rather than for the Communion as a whole. On a broader scale of time, however, the shift in North American Anglicanism will indeed put some pressure on other provinces to reexamine these issues. Some may regard this is an act of American imperialism. It is not. We are not trying to give orders to anyone. We are simply trying to resolve significant issues in our own context. At the same time, the decisions of the Episcopal Church will make it harder for other provinces to insulate themselves against all reflection on this issue, just as the Episcopal Church cannot insulate itself on the topic of polygamy. Some African Anglicans, of late, have suggested that polygamy is, in effect, becoming institutionalized in some African provinces and that it is undermining the equal status of women in the Christian community. This would be contrary to the baptismal theology of the church from Paul onward. Both this issue and that of same-gender sexuality will continue to be important topics of conversation for the Anglican Communion. To divide the Communion over the issue of the ordination of lesbians and gay men is without foundation in our theology. The opponents of such ordinations are saying rather that their ministry is unacceptable because they are sinners. That, of course, is exactly the question under debate. But even for those who hold this position, it is not reason for schism. All clergy are sinners. It is axiomatic. And the Articles of Religion specifically reject the Donatist position that the unworthiness of the minister invalidates a sacrament (xxvi). There is no reason, then, to divide the Communion over this issue. We should, instead, continue to talk with each other about it. Those opposed to the ordination of lesbians and gay men are free to continue their effort to persuade the Episcopal Church to rescind its decision, just as advocates of such ordination are free to encourage others to consider it. Efforts to divide the Communion arise not from any theological reasoning but from the desire of partisan groups to insulate themselves from opinions that they find objectionable. This is not only unnecessary. It attacks the whole tradition of Anglicanism, which has endeavored wherever possible to decide difficult issues not by fiat but by maintaining discussion within the broadest possible circle of participants. What is really proposed here is the death of such conversation. Some may say that we already have multiple, parallel communions insofar as many opponents of the ordination of women are unwilling to communicate with those who commend and practice such ordination. While this may be true, it is not something that ought to receive long-term institutional embodiment. It ought to be seen as meaning that we fall short of our norms; it should never become the norm itself. Anglicans of every stripe should continue to meet together and to practice the maximum of interaction that we can possibly manage, no matter how distasteful we may at times find one another. God has not called us into fellowship only with those we like or only with people who agree with us, but with people who are quite different and at times hold views we reject. To be in communion with one another means, among other things, to continue talking about those things. Any proposal to create separate. overlapping jurisdictions based on differences of belief and practice will effectively dismantle the Anglican Communion, whatever good face may be put on it. There is no possible purpose for such jurisdictions other than the exclusion of those with whom one disagrees. And this is precisely what Anglican tradition has been so averse to doing. Some appear to desire an Anglicanism that is as dogmatically uniform as Roman Catholicism or the more conservative varieties of Presbyterianism. One can only ask why any one would think such a phenomenon could be called "Anglican." I do not mean to say that there are no limits to Anglican belief and practice. Of course there are! But we cannot rule out the possibility of new perspectives creating new questions in new or changed cultural contexts. This first happened, for us in the United States, when the American Revolution replaced the monarch with an array of elected governments and abolished all religious establishments. It happened again to us because our nation abolished slavery in the nineteenth century and again because our culture insisted that the equality of women be recognized in active and practical ways. It is happening again now because our culture no longer categorizes lesbians and gay men as evil monstrosities or even as psychological problem-cases. The Christian Right has responded by arguing that such categories should be reinstituted and enforced. Their failure to persuade the Senate to enact a constitutional amendment against gay marriage suggests that the country is rejecting that argument. The Episcopal Church, on the other hand, has begun to ask rather how gay men and lesbians whom God has called to faith can live lives that accord with it. We believe this is the faithful course in our context. If this is of God, the entire Anglican Communion will benefit by our pioneering efforts. If it is not, then we shall benefit by continuing to be part of the same Communion with those who disagree sharply with our decisions and urge us to reconsider them. The Rev. Prof. L. William Countryman |