In addition to watching the Oscars this weekend, I spent time both Saturday and Sunday at church.
We’re at a watershed moment in the history of the Episcopal Church and of its flagship liberal congregation, All Saints Pasadena. It is in our parish that the very first Anglican blessing of a same-sex union in the entire Communion took place back in 1991; almost sixteen years later, the global church is on the threshold of schism over this very issue of homosexuality, Scriptural interpretation, and inclusiveness. (I wrote a bit about this last week.)
Here’s a summary of the current debate from the Los Angeles Times.
After a meeting ten days ago in Tanzania, the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion have directed the Episcopal Church USA to stop ordaining gays and lesbians and to stop blessing same-sex unions. The deadline to comply is September 30, 2007.
Though the ECUSA has not yet issued a formal response, at All Saints Pasadena, we’ve done so. Last week, our rector, Ed Bacon, issued this (PDF file) release.
“We have been blessing the unions of our gay and lesbian parishioners for 15 years and we have no intention of denying them blessings in the future”, Ed Bacon said.
On Saturday afternoon, I helped organize our “youth and families” 5:00PM worship service. This week Susan Russell preached; Susan is an internationally recognized spokeswoman for progressive Episcopalians (see her here on the Newshour, for example). Susan also blogs at An Inch at a Time.
Susan was preaching to a congregation of little kids and teenagers; she avoided bringing up the heavy theological issues that are at hand. But she didn’t make the mistake of assuming that children are incapable of understanding the core issue, which is the issue of who is welcome in the church. She unveiled a beautiful indigo prayer shawl, knitted by a group of parishoners who knit as a spiritual disciplne; each stitch and knot is carefully prayed over. The shawl has just been finished, and it will be sent this week to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori. It is Jefferts Schori who must answer to the primates for all of us, it is Jefferts Schori who must choose whether to give in to heavy pressure from traditionalists abroad (and at home) or to, like Luther at the Diet of Worms, stand in courageous defiance.
Susan Russell invited us to pray over the shawl, that it might act as a covering for our presiding bishop, that it might give her strength to make difficult decisions, that it might help her to choose to stand up for the marginalized. I ran my hands over the shawl, remembering my brief sojourn among the Pentecostals, remembering the power of the Holy Spirit ought never be doubted or underestimated.
Susan assured us that whatever the cost, we at All Saints Pasadena will not change our stance on including women, gays, and lesbians in every facet of church life. We’re not going to sell out the most vulnerable among us in an effort to appease. Living in Communion means we have an obligation to listen to each other and pray together, but it doesn’t bind us to submit to what our conscience, our reason, and the Spirit itself tells us is grave injustice.
One reason I like our Saturday service: we often use contemporary praise music in worship, singing songs more often sung in far more conservative congregations. During communion, as the kids raced around the room, we sang that Jesus Camp classic “Every Move I Make”:
Every move I make I make in
You
You make me move, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Every step I take I take in
You
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Waves of mercy
Waves of grace
Everywhere I look I see Your face
Your love has
captured me
Oh my God, this love
How can it be?
Whatever one thinks of the language of contemporary worship music (Jenell Paris, one of my favorite bloggers, has great article on this very subject in the latest issue of Mutuality, alas not online), there’s no question that it puts a personal relationship with Jesus front and center. And what I love about All Saints is that under the leadership of an exciting and dynamic team of professional and volunteer youth ministers, an ever more explicitly evangelical message is being lived out with our children and teenagers. Our commitment to full inclusion for gays and lesbians, our sense that God’s view of sexuality is richer than we had once imagined, in no way vitiates the intensity of our faith in Christ. We can have Jesus and justice.
So we prayed over the shawl, and we danced around during communion, and I left a bit teary-eyed, thankful that God put me in this place, in this church.
Sigh . . . I hate to see the damage this is doing to the Episcopal church. I admire your congregation for its courage and steadfastness. As a gay man, I wonder what kind of world we could create if Christians would spend half the energy of feeding the poor, the homeless, the lost lonely and least that they spend on us. As a gay man, I want to ask “Is this really the most important thing?” As a Christian, I want to ask, “Are the hungry fed? Have those who mourn been comforted? Have the poor inherited the kingdom?”
Sex is easy, and cheap and the politics of the pelvis are convenient. I often think that the reason so many straight people focus on homosexuality because they’ve decided it is the one “sin” of which they will never be guilty. Greed, gluttony, sloth, lust, envy . . . yeah, they’ve done those and prefer not to discuss it. But having sex a member of their own gender? They’re safe on that one (and they’re so pig ignorant about sexuality they figure their kids are safe too). And rather than face their own demons, they’ll tear apart an historic church and worldwide communion.
I’m glad to see that your church is not caving in to the policies set by the parent organization. You must have a strong and supportive congregation.
Though I don’t attend it, I have seen the Pasadena Nazarene church by my house in hastings ranch, get nearly destroyed by the bureaucracy of the national nazarene organization. the issues facing them were not nearly as ‘epic’ or symbolic as what you have described here, but rather things like:
-Board member Bob just ‘doesn’t like’ how Pastor Joe preaches even though church attendance was climbing
-or the nazarene regents want to make sure ’so and so’ gets their pension plan before the church actually makes any decisions about how to lead the congregation
-or they need to hire a pastor who has seniority and who attended the same seminary (ie. fuller) as a board director of the church, regardless of another pastor’s qualifications, references, or past experience building churches from scratch elsewhere
these are the kind of decisions that have brought some of our greatest corporations under. why would it work any different for a church?
‘every move i make’ is a great song btw, I just wish more young people in our congregations paid more attention to the lyrics rather than the hand motions.
Thanks Hugo, you make me feel better about being an Episcopalian. I’d say more but I’m giving up worrying about my church for Lent.
All Saints Pas wasn’t the first parish in the Anglican Communion to bless same-sex relationships — thanks be to God! I personally witnessed a same-sex couple’s blessing at St. John’s parish in the Episcopal Church of Scotland in 1989, I think, and it was not the first such blessing in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I believe many American and English parishes were also blessing same-sex couples before All Saints Pas was, though ASC’s advocacy since then has certainly been important and deeply appreciated.
Blessings indeed!
Dylan
I stand corrected, Dylan; it’s a widely thought mistake, in any case, one I’ve heard repeated from the pulpit at ASC many times by both our current and former rectors.
I asked a friend who knows ASC history, and she conceded that we were not the first in the Communion, but still insists we were by far the first in ECUSA… do you know the specifics of any earlier parishes in the USA?