A LETTER TO THE VESTRY

Dear friends,

As most of you know, over the past several months I have been struggling with the decisions reached by ECUSA at the 74th General Convention in August.  This period of prayer and reflection has recently led me to some very painful decisions, which I now need to share with all of you.  As you will see from the attached letter I have sent to Bishop Councell, I have decided to wind up my service as Senior Warden effective at our annual meeting in January.  This decision has nothing to do with issues at St. Andrew’s, but rather with the direction in which the national church is moving.  There is, I suppose, a certain tragic irony for us in this parish in having all worked so hard over the past year to bring St. Andrew’s to the much healthier place it is now in, only to have the national church implode around us.

As I know you’re all aware, I love this parish deeply and I only wish it were possible for me to shut out the issues now engulfing the larger church.  However, as we all know, St. Andrew’s is part of a wider church, and I cannot ignore what is happening in that arena.

As I explain in my letter to Bishop Councell, I do not believe that the great struggle now dividing ECUSA, and the worldwide Anglican Communion, is fundamentally a debate about homosexuality.

Unfortunately, I think it’s about a much more profound issue: the nature and meaning of Scriptural authority for Christians in the 21st century.  I also think that the current struggle is about what it means to be part of a worldwide communion of over 70 million people on six continents.  Having said this from the outset, I still think it’s necessary for me to state as plainly and as completely as possible what my own views of homosexuality are, since many people are convinced that this really is the central issue.

First, I firmly believe that gay people are as fully human and created in the image of God as every other person is.  I also believe that they are no more or less sinful than the rest of us.

Furthermore, no one is beyond the redemptive love of Jesus Christ, including gay people.  I also believe that gay people belong in the Church.  The Church should embrace all people, including gay people.

It certainly has no business excluding anyone, especially people who have been marginalized in the way gay people historically have been. This fact is made clear to us by the earthly ministry of our Lord, who repeatedly explained that the Good News of the Gospel message is for ALL people.  As Christians we certainly have NO business judging others -- that is God’s business, not ours.

I also believe that homosexuality is NOT a lifestyle choice.  I believe that it is a fundamental sexual orientation that is either genetic or established very early in life by environmental factors (or a combination of both).  In this way I feel that homosexuality is like virtually all other human sexual orientations in that it is not self- selected.

Unfortunately, as Christians, I also believe that Scripture teaches us that not all human sexual orientations or desires are beautiful or acceptable in the sight of God.  I believe that other equally basic and primal sexual urges, orientations, and acts are also rejected by God.

Among these are: lust, incest, consensual sado-masochism, bestiality, pedophila, heterosexual sodomy, bi-sexuality, any non-marital intercourse, and masturbation.  These forms of human sexual experience are, like many other basic non-sexual human desires, orientations, drives, and actions, not pleasing to God.  They are instead only signs of the brokenness of the world and of the human condition.

It is, therefore, not possible for the Church to bless what God does not accept.  In fact, I deeply believe that the ONLY model of human sexual union that God accepts is loving and consensual intercourse between one man and one woman within the estate of holy matrimony.  And that is the ONLY form of human sexual union that I believe the Church is permitted to bless.  Most certainly the Church may not bless before the altar of God that which Scripture specifically and repeatedly tells us is not acceptable in the sight of God.

I am convinced that those who support the blessing of same-sex unions are genuinely motivated by sincere commitment to a fundamental and central tenant of Christianity: the inclusiveness and universality of the Church.  That is what makes this whole thing so deeply painful. Unfortunately, however, their desire to be inclusive has led to a terrible distortion and disfiguring of the entire concept of Christian inclusiveness.  There is, and never will be, I would argue, a more radical document of human liberation, redemption, and salvation than the Christian New Testament.

And central to the Good News of the Gospel is a powerful, inescapable, and unrelenting message of self-denial and self-renunciation of MANY basic and fundamental human orientations and drives, including sexual ones.  The Christian message is a deeply mystical message.  It is a message of reunion with God through the struggle to overcome ourselves and live up to the extremely high standard which Jesus set for us.  We are not called to a new life by validating our own broken selves, driven as they are by all sorts of basic orientations, desires, and urges, but rather we are called to transcend our limited selves and live in the image of the God who created us all.

The most powerful agent of idolatry always has been and always will be human desire.  Like sexuality, most desires are basic and integral to our very being.  God calls us back to unity with him, but at a price.

That price has never been easy, but it has always been the same: let go of all loves, desires, and drives except the love of God: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.

Like sexual desires, greed too is basic to the human condition.  Greedy people belong in the Church too, but not so that we may bless their greed, but so that they can hear the Gospel message and hopefully be liberated from the greed that imprisons them.  Jesus accepts ALL of us, broken as we are, but he most certainly does not allow ANY of us to remain, broken as we are.  He calls us ALL to a new and better life in him.

To bless at the altar of God that which Scripture consistently and repeatedly tells us is unacceptable in the sight of God requires that one holds a view of Scripture and its authority that is fundamentally and profoundly different from that held by the vast majority of Christians, living or dead, at all times and in all places.  And this brings me full circle to my original assertion that this whole debate now enveloping the Church is not about homosexuality, per se, but about fundamentally different understandings of Scripture and its authority in our lives.

I am convinced that we are now on the verge of a great global realignment of Anglican Christianity.  My long-term view is very hopeful in this regard.  I am convinced that in a decade the Anglican Communion will look very different than it does today, but that it will also be very much stronger than it is today.  My short-term view of the future of the Episcopal Church, USA is not so sanguine.  I am greatly pained by what I see as a very long and disheartening struggle within ECUSA over the historical patrimony of this church.  Anglican realignment will leave none of us untouched in the end, and ultimately

we must find our own place in that realignment.  Accordingly, I have begun exploring options, both within and beyond the framework of ECUSA. I cannot in good conscience, therefore, continue to serve as the Senior Warden in a church I may no longer be part of a year from now.

During this process of discerning God’s guidance and will for me in the process of realignment, I fully expect to continue to worship with you at St. Andrews.  Although I believe that I must now bear witness to the historic faith and doctrine of the Church by abstaining from partaking of the elements during the Eucharist, please know that during the ministering of the elements I will be praying with you for our Church and for our Diocese.

I have assured our interim Vicar that it is my full intention to make the process of transition to a new Senior Warden in January as easy as possible.  I have absolutely no desire to hurt this parish or anyone in it.  After the transition I will continue to offer my advice and whatever information the Vestry needs, for as long as that help is needed. Please know also that it has been an enormous personal privilege for me to work with all of you over the past several years to revitalize this parish.  If I ultimately do end up leaving St. Andrew’s, I will continue to hold in my heart a great deal of love for this place and all the people who make it what it is.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

-Chris

Dr. Christopher Taylor is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at Drew University in Madison, N.J. He is a specialist in Islamic Studies. He is a cradle Episcopalian. Dr. Taylor has served actively on the Vestry of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New Providence. He has also served on the Cathedral Chapter in the Diocese of New Jersey.  He is currently working with other concerned Anglicans in north-central New Jersey to establish a local lay-led discussion and prayer group that will offer support and an opportunity for ECUSA laity who cannot accept recent theological innovations in the national Church to explore together the options orthodox Anglicans have in the aftermath of the 74th General Convention. He has not formally left ECUSA.