Unity and Faithfulness

It may have been a “quiet week at Lake Wobegon,” but the last two weeks have not been particularly quiet for the Episcopal Church nor the Anglican Communion. It began with an article in the Washington Post citing the number of dioceses and parishes likely to depart from the Episcopal Church because of their dissatisfaction with the decisions of our General Convention, specifically, the election of a woman, Katherine Jefferts Schori, as our Presiding Bishop, the first female primate in the Anglican Communion, a woman who had voted to accept the election of Bishop Robinson, a gay man living in a committed relationship with another man. Secondly, the article cited the unwillingness of our Convention to say we made a mistake in agreeing to the consecration of Bishop Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire The Post article claimed that ten per cent of the 111 Episcopal dioceses are likely to leave. I had no quarrel with the facts in the article. I did, however, have difficulty with the headline which said, “Episcopal Protest of Top Bishop Increases: More Dioceses Reject New Female Leader,” making it sound as if our church were on the verge of disarray if not total collapse.

Shortly after that article appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times ran an article with a much more temperate headline, “Episcopalians Shaken by Divisions in Church.” I’m not sure how “shaken” we all were. Anyone who didn’t know about divisions in our church just hasn’t been watching what’s going on since the sixteenth century. The genius of our church has been that we have been able to live with the divisions with some measure of love and charity. Anyway, the article was also very factual, and dealt with the struggle of one church in Darien, Connecticut to maintain dialogue between all factions in the church. It pictured what is a sensible Anglican way of dealing with things - not by schism, but by keeping up conversation. What finally got to me was one evening that week when Beth and I were escaping the cares of the world by watching the Comedy Channel, specifically the “Colbert Report,” a humorous parody on news programs, and suddenly they played a clip of our Presiding Bishop Elect saying how the church was open to all people and Colbert quipped something like, “Don’t you believe it.” Of course he was partially correct. As much as you and I work to make the church accepting of all people, there are many places where that is not so.

But, what is going to happen? What can we do? What can we hope for? The resolution in response to the “Windsor Report” asking for us to respond really did not satisfy everyone, and maybe noone. As Frank Wade pointed out to us two weeks ago, the resolution passed at the last moment, and was a compromise. Fortunately we did not apologize for consenting to Bishop Robinson’s election, but on the other hand the caution called for in agreeing to the election of anyone whose “life style” may create problems for other member churches in the Anglican Communion could be interpreted as a rejection of anyone but heterosexual males or females as bishops. Bishop Chane and other bishops have already said that they would not be bound by the resolution, and that “life style,” a euphemism we all understand, would not be a factor in his decision about the worthiness of any priest to be elected bishop. This decision is based on the conviction that I share with him, and that is that being “same sex” or “other sex” attracted is not a moral or life style choice. It is who we are, and why God created us this way, I do not know, but there it is. Hooker pointed out centuries ago that our beliefs are based on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, and it is not reasonable to judge our gay and lesbian friends as moral failures.

Let me just say three things. The first is that I value being part of the Anglican Communion, the association of national churches originating with the Church of England. It reminds us that we did not discover the truth of the Gospel by ourselves, but are debtors to an endless line of faithful forbears, including catholic, protestant, and orthodox Christians. When we travel around the world, there is almost always a church where we can worship that carries some resemblance to the church back home.

My second point is that the unity of the Anglican Communion has never been based on a uniform set of beliefs to which we all must subscribe. Our unity has been in our worship and in our Episcopal structure. When African churches said they would need time to adjust from a marriage pattern that permitted polygamy, we accepted this as well as other cultural differences in other countries. When I first came into this diocese and attended my first diocesan convention I was impressed that Bishop Dun, who was New England low church, could have as his right hand man at the head table the Rector of St. Paul’s Church, K Street, then one of the highest anglo-catholic churches in the dioceses. They couldn’t agree on many things, but they could be friends and love one another.

My third point is that there comes a time when faithfulness to one’s beliefs may cause a break in unity. We saw this in the matter of race in this country, when many white Christians felt they had to worship apart from their black sisters and brothers. There came a time when this approach could no longer be tolerated and when the unity of all people had to be affirmed at all cost. As far as the present situation goes, a good friend who is far from homophobic, recently confessed that he thought perhaps the American church had moved too quickly, and needed to back down for the sake of unity. He may be right, but I believe that the time has come to hold fast, while praying that the unity of the church can still be preserved.


It may not have been a “quiet week” in the life of our church, but we pray that God will guide us through the weeks to come and that our church will be faithful to its faith and mission.