Tag: Anglicanism

The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and the real reason we’re having this debate

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So, we’re suspended.

Or not.

Plenty of commentary has already been written about what the primates did, what impact it could have, and what’s in store for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. (This is probably one of the more helpful summaries I’ve read, BTW.)

Some have questioned the primates’ selective application of punitive measures—penalizing Episcopalians for their decision to bless same-sex marriages, while neglecting to penalize Anglican church leaders who have promoted state-sanctioned persecution of gays in countries like Uganda—contravening Jesus’ command to love your neighbor. (I’m pretty sure he DIDN’T say, “Unless they’re gay, ’cause gross.”)

But let’s not retread those paths. That ground has been well covered already. Let’s talk about the real reason we’re having this debate. Sometimes it gets obscured in all the bluster, finger-pointing, and Twitter wars.

In his address to fellow primates—moments before the vote was cast—Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry cut to the heart of things:

Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.

That’s why we’re having this debate. Whatever side you may be on, that’s why this conversation is so important. That’s why some of us feel called to open our arms—and our church doors—to those of other orientations and gender identities.

The question we’re all wrestling with is this: What does it mean to be Jesus to the LGBTQ community? 

It’s not about trying to appease culture.

It’s not about craving public approval.

It’s not about being afraid to take a stand that might be divisive or unpopular. (Have you seen what’s happened to attendance figures since the Episcopal Church began moving in this direction?)

Whenever a church or denomination takes an affirming stance, the response is always the same.

Their motives are questioned.

Someone accuses them of “cultural capitulation.”

They’re labeled “cowards.”

No, really.

The possibility they might have other motives for rethinking long-held convictions isn’t even considered.

And to be fair, at times proponents of the affirming view have opened themselves to this line of criticism—for example, when they frame the debate as a matter of being “on the right side of history.”

History be damned. This is about being on the right side of people.

For Christians, this is about being on the side of Jesus—or rather, being on the same side of people that he is on.

Presiding Bishop Curry’s statement calls us back to the real reason for having this debate. He understands what some on both sides have missed.

Curry went on to say: 

While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ.

We may disagree with one another on sexuality. Some will celebrate same-sex marriage, while others see it as an unacceptable compromise. But let’s never forget why we’re having this debate.

It’s not about accommodating cultural whims. It’s not about being afraid to take a stand. It’s not about pleasing the crowd or making the church seem more relevant or palatable. (Again, see the Episcopal Church’s attendance figures.)

This is not about cultural capitulation. It’s about asking, “What does it really mean to love my neighbor?”

The real question for us to wrestle with is whether this might be the 21st-century church’s “Gentile moment,” a moment when God does something new and extraordinary and unexpected in our midst—like he did two thousand years ago when, to everyone’s surprise, he declared “unclean” Gentiles to be “clean,” without requiring them to renounce their Gentile identity first. (It was this last bit that came as a particular shock to first-century Jewish believers.)

The question to ask is not, “Where is the culture moving?”

The question to ask is, “Where is God moving”?

We may not all agree on the answer. Indeed, it can be dangerous to even ask this question. People I know have been lost friends for asking it. They’ve lost jobs. They’ve been estranged from their families. None more so than members of the LGBTQ community.

But whether or not you draw the same conclusions that many in the Episcopal Church (and other Christian traditions) have, please don’t misunderstand what has prompted this line of inquiry.

To say that it’s capitulation or cowardice is to presume authority to judge someone else’s motives—to judge others in precisely the way Jesus forbade.

Worst of all, to write it off as cultural capitulation is to miss the bigger question:

Where is God moving in this?

Image: Lift Every Voice: Freedom Ride 2015

Four things I want for the Episcopal Church

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The Episcopal Church breathed new life into my faith. The Eucharist, the liturgy, the people—I don’t know where I’d be in my journey without them. Most likely untethered, without a spiritual home.

Judging by the reaction to my last post, I’m not alone.

I’ve been part of this community long enough now that I should probably stop thinking of myself as a newbie. It’s been long enough for me to know there are challenges ahead. For all the good there is, we’re an imperfect community.

I don’t have answers to the challenges facing the Episcopal Church. But there are four things I hope will shape our response…

1. Don’t be afraid of the future.

The Episcopal Church is in decline, at least numerically. There’s no point denying or dismissing it. Yes, it’s part of a larger trend affecting all major denominations. No, it doesn’t have as much to do with the church’s position on divisive issues; it’s far more to do with demographic shifts and our failure to keep up.

But the decline is real. It cannot be wished away. My friend and Episcopal priest Nurya Love Parish has plenty of research providing the necessary context.

Decline is painful. We’ll see more churches close in the years ahead. We can either wring our hands about the future, or we can help shape it. Either way, things won’t be as they were before. Episcopalians will no longer enjoy privileged status in American society. And well… good. Privilege has a way of breeding apathy. God, on the other hand, has a way of diminishing the mighty to remind us of our weakness—often (and this is the good news) so he can work through us in new and better ways. We can resist, exhausting our resources to prop up a crumbling edifice, or we can build something new.

Death of one kind or another is coming. It always does. The question, as one of our priests put it, is whether we can “fathom resurrection” on the other side. I think we can.

2. Don’t be afraid to challenge people (as long as you have something worth challenging them with).

One of the things I love about the Episcopal Church is that it gave me space to just be. When I first arrived, there wasn’t a ton of pressure to sign up for this program or volunteer at that event. If you need a place to heal or acclimate or reset your spiritual journey, you can do that here. And you should.

At the same time, some of us have been coming for a while now, and we’re ready to be challenged. There’s a caveat, however: if the challenge you have for us is all about maintenance or survival, then we’re probably not interested. But if you have a vision for the future, a way to be part of what God is doing to renew and remake the world—then sign us up. We’re ready to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

Just ask. 

3. Don’t be afraid to proclaim the gospel.

OK, I’ll admit… I hate it as much as you do when the subject turns to evangelism. For me, it brings up too many memories of going door to door, handing out tracts and peddling Jesus to strangers. Episcopalians have good reason to be skeptical of much of what passes for evangelism.

We don’t have to manipulate people into the kingdom. We don’t have to be like Sandwich Board Guy outside Westlake Center in Seattle, with just about every doom-laden Bible verse scrawled onto his placard.

But evangelism, whatever else it may be, involves proclamation. Granted, announcing that a Jewish preacher came back from the dead doesn’t carry the same shock or novelty it once did. The proclamation that “Jesus is risen” doesn’t turn heads the way it might have 1,900 years ago.

The real challenge is to demonstrate how resurrection changes things. It’s a challenge that requires us to always move outward, engaging meaningfully with the communities and people around us.

Our proclamation will look and feel different. Thankfully, it’s not the heavy-handed sales pitch that others have used. (What do I have to do to get you into a relationship with Jesus today?) At its best, it’s an invitation to explore, to journey together.

But let’s not hesitate to share it. Let’s not forget, there are lots of people searching for something transcendent. (Check.) There are plenty of people who long to be part of a community where all are welcome. (Check.)

There aren’t many places that can say they offer both. We can. Let’s invite others to share the ride.

4. Don’t mistake “speaking up about injustice” for “standing with the poor.”

The Episcopal Church is not afraid to speak out on difficult and sometimes contentious issues: Ferguson, climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian refugee crisis, domestic poverty. There’s a whole public affairs office dedicated to addressing concerns like these.

I love that about my church. The kingdom of God is every bit as much about life in this world as it is the life of the world to come. We should speak prophetically to our institutions of power, and we should do so in solidarity with the most vulnerable members of society.

But we should not forget that speaking up about injustice is not the same as cultivating justice. Advocating for the poor is not the same as standing with the poor. As my friend Ian (one of my first guides into the Anglican tradition) shared recently:

The Church is called to stand with the poor, to be with the poor and even (as controversial as this may sound in our suburban bubble) to be poor in solidarity with those in need. Leaders in the Church should be modeling what it is to be with those in need.

This is not always easy when you have a reputation for affluence—or in a denomination where, according to the Episcopal Café, churches “that are truly flourishing are located disproportionately in affluent neighborhoods and have affluent members.”

Our best hope for nurturing justice is (again quoting Ian) by “modeling a better way, a new way of living that turns the conventions and values of the dominant society upside down.”

In the process, we may discover that some of our own conventions and values need turning upside down, too. We should remain open to that possibility.

—//—

I love the Episcopal Church. (But then, if you read the last post, you know that already.) I believe there is a bright future for us. But it depends on us seeing church as a movement first and an institution second. It will challenge us to reimage what it means to be the presence of Jesus in the 21st century—as each generation before us has had to do in their own time—without abandoning the traditions and practices that make our church such a life-giving place for so many.

Again, I think my friend Ian put it well: “The church is at its best when it is open, humble, and sacramental.” May we be all of these things and more as we move into an uncertain future.

Photo by Greg Westfall on Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Christmas isn’t over yet

Last year, my wife wanted to celebrate Christmas all the way through to Epiphany. In many liturgical traditions, Epiphany (January 6) marks the official end of the 12-day feast of Christmas.

So the tree stayed up. We carried on with Christmas long after most of our neighbors had returned unwanted gifts and stowed their decorations for another year.

To be honest, I didn’t feel much like extending Christmas that year. My dad had died a few months earlier. We had wrapped up a stressful (and expensive) move to Michigan, returning to our old house… once we’d managed to make it habitable again after tenants who all but destroyed it.

But we extended our Christmas celebrations anyway, ignoring the shopping malls and superstores which had started merchandising Valentine’s Day — and, to some extent, ignoring my own feelings. After reading this post from David R. Henson, I’m glad we did.

The very first Christmas took place against a backdrop of oppression, cruelty, and empire — namely, the all-powerful Roman Empire. We like to think we’ve evolved beyond all that. But the truth is, every Christmas takes place against the backdrop of an equally oppressive regime.

Ours is an empire of commerce, and there’s no letting up after the Christmas season. As David Henson writes:

In our society, our calendars have been molded into seasons of consumerism, each bleeding into the next without pause. As soon as the Christmas wrapping paper is discounted, the candy hearts and paper cards for Valentine’s Day begin to appear, followed quickly by St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks and leprechauns, chased by Easter’s bunnies and candies. Then, it’s on to Mother’s Day bouquets, Memorial Day sales, Father’s Day ties, Fourth of July fireworks and hot dogs, back-to-school sales and Labor Day clearances. Halloween begins in September, Thanksgiving in October, Christmas in November.

Our civil, consumer calendar offers us no break in the buying season, no chance to reflect, to pause, to celebrate, to truly linger over a feast.

Which is why we need all 12 days of Christmas. Continuing to celebrate long after your neighbors have taken down their decorations will earn some puzzled looks — but that’s all more reason to keep your decorations up. While everyone else marches to the drumbeat of consumerism, we need to model another way:

This is the quiet power and justice of the Christian calendar. It offers us a chance to resist absolute conformity to the timetables of consumerism, to push back against a culture that requires us to find our worth in things, to stand defiantly against a calendar that hurries us past meaningful pauses and refuses to let us rest in peace.

So remember, Christmas isn’t over yet. Keep celebrating the revelation of God incarnate, who came into our world to rescue us from all forms of empire — including the empire of consumerism. As David Henson writes, to keep celebrating “is a most basic act of civil disobedience.”

To celebrate Christmas when others are rushing into the false hope of a new year is a reminder that our time is precious and should be savored rather than offered for sale. To continue to celebrate Christmas when it is already being forgotten is to begin to wake from the fog of consumerism to the new reality of the birth of Christ and the Reign of God.