A New Perspective

My rector, who is technically on sabbatical, offered a prayer today for the gay men and lesbians who have been singled out by Resolution B033. As he is technically on sabbatical, he offered this prayer during the Prayers of the People. During the announcements, he walked to the ambo and, after introducing himself as the rector and explaining why he was not wearing clericals, he gave a short talk on Resolution B033. In addition to explaining what the resolution said, and noting that our bishop stood in support of a statement of conscience opposing the resolution, our rector gave us some very interesting details concerning the passage of this resolution. These are facts of which I was not previously aware. What he said is largely substantiated by this news release.

The House of Deputies had considered a resolution with the same wording as B033, and rejected it. In his desperation to get something passed to appease the global church, Presiding Bishop the Most Rev'd. Frank Griswold implored the HoD to pass a quickly assembled resolution, B033. Several bishops, including Presiding Bishop-elect the Rt. Rev'd. Katharine Jefferts Schori, spoke in favor of passing this resoultion in the House of Bishops, and Bishop Jefferts Schori went so far as to speak to the HoD regarding passage of this resolution.

There's just one little problem though -- the HoD had to suspend its own rules even to consider this resolution. Once a resolution has been voted on by the HoD, it cannot be considered again during convention. Since the wording of B033 was exactly the same as parts of A161, this was essentially an end-run around the legislative equivalent of double jeopardy.

Rather than get even more upset about the injustice that this resolution embodies in light of this new information, I'm trying to take comfort in the words of the Rt. Rev'd. Gene Robinson as conveyed to us today by my rector. To paraphrase, Bishop Robinson said that we must trust that the Holy Spirit is still working in the church, even when the votes don't go our way. Despite our failure to understand how God is advancing the cause of justice through this action of General Convention, He is still our salvation.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can't fully take comfort in that idea.

In passing B033, the Episcopal Church has said that injustice is not too high a price to pay to maintain unity with the Anglican Communion. As I see it, there's only one thing more important than maintaining unity with the Anglican Communion. That one thing is my dignity as a Christian, and the dignity of every other baptized Christian -- gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or straight. Whenever we place the well-being of the institution above the value of the baptized members of the body of Christ, we practice idolatry. As I recall from Exodus, that's a pretty big sin.