March 4, 2007




The Tanzania Follies


By Harry T. Cook






The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America recently dispatched its top leader to a meeting in Tanzania of the archbishops (sometimes called "primates") of the Anglican Communion and watched as she got pretty badly worked over by her male counterparts. The American church's sin and hers? Being inclusive of gay and lesbian persons by having them as priests, bishops and fellow parishioners enjoying the blessing of their relationships on an equal basis with heterosexual couples.


Critics of the Episcopal Church say the Bible mandates that sexual relations be reserved to men and women united in marriage. The Bible can also be read as demanding that all church members give fully 10% of their income to the church. Yeah, that'll happen. Also, priests are not to shave their faces. And there are a lot of other things the Bible supposedly demands, e.g., that men must take to wife the childless widows of their brothers, that (in the Old Testament) a man may divorce his wife by straightaway turning her out with not a shekel to her name but (in the New Testament) that a man must not divorce his wife. Confused yet?


At their meeting in Dar-es-Salaam, three dozen or so of the top leaders of Anglican churches throughout the world gave the backs of their hands to the American church by demanding that it cease blessing same-sex unions by September 30 and never again ordain openly gay or lesbian bishops. It seems that, cravenly, the Episcopal bishops have agreed to the latter at least provisionally. It remains to be seen whether or not they will now forbid the former in their individual dioceses.


If they do, they will meet with stiff resistance, opposition and open rebellion from the likes of me. If fine and faithful gay and lesbian couples come to me (as they have come in the past) seeking blessing upon their unions, I could not and would not refuse. And if that stance, along with my alleged heretical views, makes me unacceptable as a priest of the Episcopal Church, so be it.


The other worrisome thing that transpired at the Tanzania conclave was an arrangement to which Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori evidently committed herself, i.e., to share authority with a functionary called a "primatial vicar" who would be the de facto presiding bishop of those American dioceses and parishes who object to the blessing of same-sex unions and rue the day the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson was ordained Bishop of New Hampshire - Bishop Robinson being and having been an openly gay man living in a long-term committed relationship with his partner of almost 25 years.


It is unclear to me from the communiqué issued following the Dar-es-Salaam meeting if Dr. Jefferts Schori agreed to the primatial-vicar arrangement merely as a stop-gap effort to keep her church from being demoted to second-class citizenship in the Anglican Communion. (I wonder if the famous Groucho Marx quote about club membership has occurred to her.) In any event, there is some fear among her supporters in the greater church that the arrangement may dilute what little authority a Presiding Bishop has in the first place.


Someone will point out to me that I, too, have chosen to dissent from the majority views of the church's doctrine. In fact, I have been threatened with charges of heresy that could be formalized any day. I have explained elsewhere that the term "heresy" comes into English from Greek and means "choice," a heretic being then a chooser.


Those who believe that gay and lesbian persons are, at best, second-class citizens have thus "chosen." From the standpoint of the majority view of the Episcopal Church, they are "choosers." And, despite the obvious unloving injustice of their views, they have as much right to be "choosers" as I have to be a "chooser."


Meanwhile, the answer is not for Dr. Jefferts Schori to dilute her authority by caving into the demands of Anglican bishops both foreign and domestic just to spare the Archbishop of Canterbury a headache. The answer is to say to those who disagree with the American church's position as demonstrated in its enthusiastic support of Bishop Robinson and its pastoral concern and care of its gay and lesbian members, "Leave us, and may you somehow find peace in your leaving us."


In a church that would not want to abide a double standard, it may fall to the local Michigan hierarchy to tell me the same thing - though I would argue that abstract, undemonstrated theological concepts are one thing, and the rejection of well-intentioned, faithful human beings is another.


The fact remains that I have received and will continue to receive the vows of gay and lesbian couples who meet the church's criteria of faithfulness and to whom the church's inclusion of them for who and what they are is important. I cannot imagine not doing so. Also I will also continue to teach and preach as my ongoing research and reason dictate.


Picture me as a dreadnought going down by the bow with all guns blazing, ensign still defiantly flying from the mast.








© Copyright 2007, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.