LIBERALS RESPOND

An Open Letter to my Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered

by V. Gene Robinson
June 24, 2006

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

From V. Gene Robinson, Bishop in the Church of God in a blessed place called New Hampshire:

Many of you have been writing to me, in the aftermath of General Convention, to ask what I am thinking, now that the Convention has called upon the Church to deny consent to the consecration of partnered people as bishops. Frankly, like all of you, my thinking is all over the map. But here is where I am, only a few days later.

First, let's give ourselves some time to recover. In the first few moments of having the breath knocked out of us, we struggle just to breathe, unable to think about much of anything other than getting some oxygen back into our lungs.

We have been dealt a blow that has knocked the wind out of us. Let's be kind to ourselves, breathe a little, before we try to move on. Nothing has to be decided or done in the next few hours or days. Let's catch our breath, remembering that breath is a powerful image of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments.

Let's allow ourselves to be re-infused with that Holy Spirit which has never abandoned us, no matter what the Church does or doesn't do. Let's remember what DID happen at the General Convention.

Faithful gay and lesbian Episcopalians showed up and witnessed to the power of Almighty God working in and through their lives. You would have been SO PROUD of Integrity, Claiming the Blessing, the Episcopal Women's Caucus, The Witness, and countless other groups speaking on our behalf. Susan Russell, Michael Hopkins, Carol Cole Flanagan, Elizabeth Kaeton, Bonnie Perry and others too numerous to mention put their hearts, souls and every waking moment into representing ALL of us so very well and so faithfully.

We owe them such a great debt. Faithful gay and lesbian Episcopalians were EVERYWHERE, witnessing to God's saving grace in their lives - being so joyful and filled with God's Spirit, there was no denying God's love in their lives.

We gathered at Trinity Church to celebrate the eucharist as the people of God. Not only were the nave and balconies filled, but the basement and sacristy as well, with gay and straight alike proclaiming God's love for ALL of God's children. It was a glimpse of heaven, and of the Church as it ought to be. Let's not forget that we have been given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where the marginalized are given an honored seat at the table.

The Episcopal Church declared its opposition to any constitutional amendment - federal or state - which would short circuit gay and lesbian couples seeking the civil right of having their relationships legally acknowledged.

On Sunday, we elected a Presiding Bishop who is committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people into the life and work and leadership of this Church. The Spirit was palpable, once again in Trinity Church, as the election balloting unfolded before our very eyes, pushing forward to the election of the first woman as Primate and Presiding Bishop.

If indeed, as I have often said, this fight is really about the end of patriarchy, then that patriarchy was dealt an awesome blow in +Katharine's election. When the primates next meet, it will be a new day, and at the table will be a representative of the world's majority - women - incarnate in our primate. Thanks be to God for that! You go, girl!

To our joy, the House of Deputies refused to give in to threats from within and without our Church, and decisively rejected the call to withhold consent from partnered people elected to the Episcopate. We thought that was the end of it. But alas, it was not.

+Frank Griswold - who, let us remember, has been a sometimes reluctant, but ever faithful champion for us, and who has paid a great price for presiding at my consecration - brought back the "moratorium" resolution in a heavy-handed and inappropriate way (in my humble opinion). He seemed absolutely intent on getting this resolution through as a way of getting us all to the Lambeth table.

I don't know whether or not our Presiding Bishop-elect was coerced or merely persuaded to join in this appeal, but it is clear to me that her support for such an action provided the push needed to convince the Deputies to adopt a resolution more prohibitive than the one they had rejected the day before.

Gay and lesbian deputies, many in tears, not to mention our straight allies, rose to the microphones to pledge their support of our new primate as she goes off to represent us in unfriendly places, to "give her what she needs" to continue the conversation.

The scene of gay and lesbian deputies, willing to fall on their own swords for the presumed good of the Church, voting for this resolution against their own self-interest was an act of self-sacrifice that I won't soon forget. Keeping us in conversation with the Anglican Communion was the goal - for which the price was declaring gay and lesbian people unfit material for the episcopate. Only time will tell whether or not even that was accomplished.

Within minutes - yes, MINUTES - the conservatives both within our Church and in Africa declared our sacrificial action woefully inadequate. It felt like a kick in the teeth to the ones who had gotten down on their knees to submit to the will of the whole, even though the price of doing so was excruciating.

Such a quick, obviously premeditated and patently cruel reaction from the Right can be seen only as the violent and unchristian act it was. So what now? It is too soon to strategize, too soon to know what it all means. But here are a few things I DO know:

The Spirit IS working in the Church. We cannot claim that the Spirit is working in the Church only when we get our way. We must continue to believe that that Spirit is working even when the Church takes an action which hurts us, when it seems to take us in the wrong direction.

We are in this struggle for the long haul, and so is the Spirit. We cannot fathom at the moment how this turn of events serves justice. But God will not be mocked, and God will be our salvation. Let's not forget that. We are STILL loved beyond our wildest imagining. That was true the day before Convention; it is still true.

This vote does not change that. Just because the Church lost its courage, just because the Church was willing to sacrifice US for access to a conversation with Anglicans around the world (which they hardly seem ready to engage in themselves), it does NOT mean that God has changed. If you listen carefully, God is STILL saying to God's lgbt children, "You are my beloved. In you I am well pleased."

This vote may say a lot about the Episcopal Church, but it says NOTHING about you and me as gay and lesbian children of God. Blessed Martin Luther King once said, "Pontius Pilate's sin was not that he didn't KNOW what was right, but that he lacked the courage to STAND UP for right." Pray for the Church.

We are in this for the long haul. OF COURSE there are going to be bumps along the road, perhaps a few places where the road has washed out completely. The journey toward justice is neither a straight line nor easy.

Just ask our brothers and sisters who are people of color, and still experiencing the pain of racism. Just ask our sisters who still pay the price of sexism and misogyny, both inside and outside the Church. We follow a savior who dealt with plenty of setbacks and disappointments - not to mention being "done in" by his friends. We are in good company here. But we won't last for the long haul without Jesus! Let's keep saying our prayers and listening to the One who knows and shares our burden.

We'll be watching.

Now that the Anglican Communion and the majority of Convention have gotten what they asked for, let's see if anything changes. Will the rest of the Communion finally be willing to engage in the listening process promised for the last 30 years? Will anything be done in the domestic dioceses of this Church to move us along, or will this only be seen as a "blessed" respite from this debate?

Will the Network dioceses and parishes give up their blatant drive to split this church apart and join us in our efforts to be reconciled, or will they only cry "not enough" and demand more? We'll be watching - and we'll want the "middle" to give us an accounting of what this Convention vote got them. And we'll be asking, "Was it worth declaring us less than children of God, marked as Christ's own forever?"

We are not defeated, for God is still with us. Let's remember that at its best, the Church has pushed the "pause" button, not the "stop" or "reverse"buttons.

If we continue to make our witness, and if those for whom this sacrifice was made continue to threaten and make one-sided demands, the Episcopal Church will see its mistake and find its prophetic voice again. Maybe it will even repent of the harm done to us in this faithless and fearful act. Time will tell.

In the meantime, we are not defeated, nor will we be paralyzed by this sad and woeful action. Dwelling on what happened and why will not serve us or the Church well. We need to turn away from yesterday and focus on tomorrow. We know how all this is going to end.

It is not arrogant to say that we believe we know how all this is going to turn out. It will end with the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in the life and ministry and leadership of the Church. It will take a long time.

Some or all of us may not live to see it. But happen it will! In a strange way, I think the conservatives know it too. All we're arguing about now is timing. It will be enough for each of us to play her/his own part. Each of us can provide a pair of shoulders for someone else to stand on, just as surely as we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

This is a never-ending march toward justice for ALL, and NO ONE is going to be left behind. In the end, the reign of God will come. And oh what a privilege it is for each of us to play a small part.

We are worthy of God's love - NOT because of anything we have done, but because God has MADE us worthy to stand before God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As I said at Convention, the Gay Agenda is JESUS! If we keep that ever before us, in the end all will be well.

I love, respect, appreciate and honor each of you more than you could ever know. Please keep me in your prayers, as you will be in mine. And to God be the glory!

+Gene

*****

"Peace! Be Still!": Marching Orders from General Convention

By Neil Elliott
June 23, 2006

"Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mk 4:35-41)

Even for those of us who were not at our church's General Convention, who could only listen and read the experience of our lay and clergy deputies and our bishops at second hand, this has been a stormy week.

At first, our diocesan deputies wrote of being overwhelmed by tears of joy and surprise when the House of Bishops -- which some characterized as a group of "old white men" -- elected a woman as Presiding Bishop. Some observers hailed the election as a clear sign that the Spirit was at work (though they didn't venture a similar hypothesis regarding the elections that had put all those "old white men" in office).

But then a "great windstorm arose." After the House of Deputies turned down on Tuesday a resolution that would have urged the church to refrain from electing or consecrating bishops whose "manner of life poses a challenge to the wider church," the House of Bishops passed just such a resolution, the now-notorious "B033."

Efforts to qualify or tone down or limit the effect of the resolution were defeated, at the urging of the newly elected Presiding Bishop who advanced the curious argument that taking what she acknowledged was a profoundly regressive "two steps backward" was the best way.

She then asked for permission to address the House of Deputies and made a similar impassioned plea, asking the deputies to take the extraordinary step of setting aside their own rules and taking up again a matter they had already decisively settled.

The result, some observers rather optimistically now declare, will be a costly but Christlike "renunciation" necessary in order to bring about reconciliation in the wider Anglican Communion. (There is another view: already a minority of bishops have signed a statement of dissent objecting both to the procedure and to the effect of the resolution.)

What's at Issue?

When both Houses of Convention declared an indefinite moratorium on the election or consecration of bishops whose "manner of life poses a challenge to the wider church," they apparently did not think they were talking about bishops who happened to be women -- although in the 1970s, some circles in the American church considered women priests not just a "challenge," but an "abomination."

Nor, evidently, were our bishops and deputies talking about bishops who had been divorced and remarried more than once. And quite clearly, they were not talking about bishops whose actions might signal to gay men and lesbian women that they were second-class members of the church.

They were talking about bishops like Gene Robinson, meaning not caring, charismatic pastors, but gays living in committed relationships. And so they "renounced" -- on behalf of the people who had elected them as deputies or as bishops -- the right of New Hampshire, or of any diocese, to elect another bishop like that.

Now some of those same bishops and deputies urge us to accept these results calmly, to exercise prayerful restraint, to accept this "renunciation" made in our name as a way toward peace.

The difference between this situation and that described in the "Stilling of the Storm" account in Mark 4 is that Jesus did not simply pronounce the storm stilled; Jesus stilled the storm.

We, on the other hand, continue to sail rough seas; the waves beneath our Episcopal boat are getting very high; and already some gay men and lesbian women have been washed overboard, or have jumped off what has become for them an inhospitable craft.

A lot of solemn and soothing talk about the importance of making this "sacrifice" for the sake of "peace" won't bring them back, and it won't quell the nausea rising in the throats of some people still "on board."

Presenting this action as a necessary "sacrifice" sends a clear message, though it's not the ones our deputies meant to send: that the sensibilities of one group -- including some of the most recalcitrantly conservative Anglicans in the world -- are far more important for the future of the Episcopal Church's "peace" than the sensibilities of another group, gays and lesbians, who are expendable.

This action declares that our Church can do nothing but acquiesce in the face of a scolding from the Primates.

"Sacrifice" and "Renunciation"

Already some observers have described this "renunciation" as following Jesus's way to the cross.

But renunciation is not something any of us can do for others. When our bishops "renounce" the means for churches to elect partnered gays and lesbians to ministries and privileges that they themselves continue to hold, it's hard to see how this is recognizably the way of the cross.

By now -- decades after feminist, womanist, and Queer theologians began to ask relentlessly critical questions about the rhetoric at work in our Church -- one might have hoped such language would readily be seen for what it is: mystification for the systemic patriarchalism and heterosexism that pervade our Church and that we cannot admit to ourselves.

Early after the release of the Windsor Report, some bishops advocated a moratorium not just on consecrating gay bishops in committed relationships, but on consecrating any bishops, as a way of responding to Windsor without compromising what many felt were clear and important theological and ecclesiastical principles.

That shared offer of renunciation has now apparently gone by the wayside. Discerning the Spirit. We've been told repeatedly that the Spirit was at work in the actions of General Convention.

But it is always the work of the church to discern the work of the Spirit, not simply to assent when we're told the Spirit has authorized a particular action.

It's simply bad theology to imagine that the Spirit is more present when red-robed bishops gather than when laypeople gather for prayerful deliberation. It's simply bad theology to imagine that the Spirit is more at work when someone holding our church's highest office makes an impassioned plea than when our duly elected deputies reach a decision through careful consideration.

If any part of the House of Deputies' action was a deference to episcopal authority rather than the exercise of the solemn charge to which deputies had been elected, we can certainly recognize an old and familiar Episcopalian habit: but it's simply bad theology to mistake habituated deference (if that was involved) for the work of the Spirit.

On one point, at least, I think our bishops are right. We are being called in this hour to a peculiar exercise of Christian renunciation. We must renounce the false calm of patriarchal order, even if it is the dominant model that saturates our scriptures, and even if it gives soothing familiarity to the rhythms and gestures of our courtly liturgical style.

We must renounce the comfort and familiarity of heterosexist privilege, even if it pervades our tradition, and even if it allows "us" to live in the cocoon of blithe illusion that "we" have the choice of welcoming "them" "in" to our assemblies. We who have a strong sense of belonging in the Episcopal church -- of having stronger stomachs and "sea legs" as the boat rolls and pitches beneath us -- must ask what right we have to feel safe and secure in the midst of a storm that gives such distress to others around us.

Perhaps we have become complacent with the easy language of "welcome." Perhaps the Spirit is calling us to share in the alienation, fear, and betrayal felt by those who have experienced this Convention as profoundly unwelcoming.


--The Rev. Neil Elliott is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, a New Testament scholar, and member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship in Minneapolis, Minn. He may be reached by email at NeilElliott@msn.com.