ACTIVIST NJ LAYMAN AND SCHOLAR RESIGNS KEY EPISCOPAL POSTS

Feast of St. Andrew, 2003

The Rt. Rev. George E. Councell

Bishop of New Jersey

808 West State Street

Trenton, N.J.  08618-5398

Dear Bishop Councell:

It is with the deepest sense of pain and regret that I must resign as a member of the Cathedral Chapter and bring to a conclusion my service as the Senior Warden of St. Andrew’, New Providence.  Over the past few months since the 74th General Convention I have prayed and sought to discern God’s guidance as I have come to these difficult decisions. I still remember the excitement that filled the Cathedral last May when you were elected the Eleventh Bishop of New Jersey, and I believe that it was indeed your sincere desire to be the Bishop of all Episcopalians in this Diocese.  However, your actions since General Convention, I believe, make this vital objective impossible.

Your letter of August 15th to the Diocese, and your decision to participate in the consecration of Gene Robinson only two weeks after your own consecration, make clear that you are decisively and actively committed to one side of a complex theological debate now dividing both the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion.  As someone on the other side of that theological divide, I find that your actions now make it tragically impossible for you to fulfill your express wish to worship and serve our Lord in communion with those who disagree, within the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion.

We need to be absolutely clear what this debate is and is not about. The difference between us is not ultimately about either homosexuality or about the inclusiveness of the Church.  Nor is this even a disagreement about the interpretation of Scripture.  I have yet to see any serious effort to justify either the blessing of same sex unions or the consecration of a divorced and actively homosexual bishop from Scripture.  You certainly offered no Scriptural justifications in your own letter to the Diocese, referring instead only to your belief in the process, that led to these decisions.  What lies at the heart of the current controversy is a much deeper and more profound disagreement about the nature of Scriptural authority, and of Scripture itself, in the contemporary world.

The unique genius of the Anglican witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ has always been intricately tied to the ability of Anglicans to understand Scripture in the light of both tradition and reason.  In steering a middle course between extreme Protestant assertions on the one hand, and equally unacceptable claims extending Roman authority, on the other, Anglican theologians not only bridged the great divide in Western Christianity opened by the Reformation, but also managed to

reconnect the Western Christian heritage with that of the Eastern Church.  These accomplishments have placed Anglicans at the center of important global efforts to reunify the Church as a whole efforts now gravely imperiled by the radical actions of ECUSA.

The tragedy of the current situation is that the leadership of a small but important province of the Anglican Communion, completely convinced of its own moral righteousness, seeks to unilaterally recast the classical triad of Anglicanism, thereby elevating human reason, informed principally by ever-shifting and culturally determined values, to the status of primary vehicle through which the will of God is to be discerned.  Scripture and tradition, meanwhile, are to be relegated to the role of interpretive lenses that anyone is free to employ or ignore as circumstance dictates.  

Fortunately, the historical transformation of Anglicanism into a worldwide communion has made it impossible any longer for a single province, including the original province itself, to define Anglicanism unilaterally.  In fact, the global realignment provoked by the current crisis is almost certainly part of the necessary and historic evolution of Anglicanism on the verge of its fifth century.  Out of the current crisis will surely emerge a revived and stronger Communion, one more capable of guarding the authentic faith and doctrine of the Church in the new millennium than the present arrangement is able to afford.  The decision of at least 20 Primates, representing over 50 million Anglicans worldwide, that a state of impaired communion now exists with you and allied bishops of ECUSA is itself a tragic though ultimately necessary step in this process of realignment and evolution.

One of the great accomplishments of Anglican Christianity has been its capacity to hold together multiple understandings and diverse experiences in a dynamic tension that simultaneously remains firmly rooted within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy.  But that wonderful informative tension is clearly not infinitely elastic, as the current leadership of ECUSA has demonstrated by moving decisively beyond fundamental and widely recognized boundaries of Christian

doctrine and faith. 

Despite the historical failure of ECUSA in this respect, I remain hopeful that the current crisis will ultimately serve to renew the capacity of Anglicanism globally to hold together diverse understandings and experiences within the framework of authentic and recognizably Christian doctrine.  As for the future of ECUSA itself, I am much less hopeful.  It is already becoming difficult for many to feel themselves part of a church articulating and acting unilaterally upon culturally inspired understandings of Christian doctrine and morality that the vast majority of identifiable Christians, across both time and space, would not recognize as genuinely Christian. Unfortunately, the self-assured righteousness of current ECUSA leadership in pressing ahead aggressively with its own post-modern interpretations of Christianity -- even in the face of overwhelming opposition within and beyond the Anglican Communion – while breathtaking in its arrogance and audacity, offers little comfort or reassurance for those of us in doubt.

Anglican realignment is now upon us, whether we want it or not.  The time for difficult decisions is approaching.  In many parts of the Episcopal Church there is substantial resistance to the position and actions that you and other leaders have taken.  Even as hopelessly impractical and ultimately doomed arrangements for alternative, episcopal oversight are explored, lawyers on both sides are evaluating

legal options and refining their strategies.  Clearly a great and completely disheartening fight looms over the considerable material patrimony of the historic Episcopal Church.  I doubt anyone is under the illusion that this process will be resolved either soon or amicably.  In the meantime, those of us who cannot accept the direction in which you and your fellow bishops are leading the Episcopal Church must find our own places in the realignment process.  There are various options, both within and outside the framework of ECUSA, and we must each seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we attempt to discern God’s will.  Although I, like over 50 million fellow Anglicans around the world, now find that communion with you is impaired under the present circumstances, please know that I will continue to pray for you, for your ministry, for this Diocese, and for the Church

Sincerely,

Christopher S. Taylor

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 are 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 21^st 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, pedophilia, 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. Andrew’s.  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.

Andrews 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.