I have been kindly asked by Jackie Bruchi to share my thoughts on the past week’s events at General Convention, and it is a sense that I might otherwise be remiss in the discharge of my Christian duties that has prompted me to meet her request.
I find my mind turning to the title of one of the late Thomas Merton’s great works, “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.” Have we done enough - have I done enough - to affect the outcome of what is happening in the Episcopal Church? I also sometimes wonder, is there anything left that is worth doing? But I know that my answer to that last question can only be a loud resounding, “Yes!”
I suppose that I am what is known as a “trusting conservative,” although let no one imagine that the Episcopal Church is where my trust ultimately resides. But trusting soul that I am, at the beginning of the week I actually held out hope that the House of Bishops would hold the line against the depredations of our deputies. Obviously, that did not happen and our “train wreck” convention could not have turned out much worse that it did. There you have it, and so much for bishops.
Strangely, however, I am not dismayed. On one of the threads I posted a lengthy quote from a lament by St. Hilary found in the appendix to Newman’s “Arians of the Fourth Century,” a work which was also on my mind throughout the week. Let me repeat a small part of it here: “We determine creeds by the year or by the month, we change our own determinations, we prohibit our changes, we anathematize our prohibitions. Thus, we either condemn others in our own persons, or ourselves in the instance of others, and while we bite and devour one another, are like to be consumed one of another.” May his words serve as a reminder to us that we have been through all this before.
As many of you know, I am a person of homosexual orientation who was converted to the Christian faith after many years of very active involvement in a gay lifestyle. I was once quite the militant, and you could never have persuaded me to endorse something so hopelessly bourgeois as “gay marriage.” My compatriots and I would actually laugh and scoff at the “gay church” crowd and considered them to be no more than useful idiots in the onward march towards ultimate sexual liberation.
But in His great mercy and compassion, the One who came into the world to seek out and to save that which had been lost came even to me. Through the witness and ministry of some remarkably faithful Christians in the Episcopal Church, I was led to a life changing encounter with our Savior Jesus Christ, and to a confession of faith and a commitment to his Lordship over my life. This was accompanied by a very profound conviction of my own sin and my need for repentance, one certainly not based on my sexual preferences alone. It has left me with an abiding conviction in the truths of Holy Scripture, that our sexual appetites must be rightly ordered in accordance with God’s will, and that they find their proper expression only between a man and a woman united in holy matrimony. It is that ongoing witness and ministry I must now keep in mind, no matter what.
As a Christian, I can no longer think in derisive terms of those who continue to disagree with me, even from within my own Church. The pain and longing that they experience - and, believe me, it is real enough - is one that I have also known, and how can I do otherwise than love them? I also know, in the depth of my being, that there are some among them who will yet experience the calling of our Lord and who will surrender their souls and bodies to His purposes. They are as dear to God as all of His other children and the bells of heaven ring just as loudly when they find their way home.
Very well, where does that leave us in the here and now, after the train wreck? With St. Hilary, we shudder at the fact that once again the message of the Church has been horribly compromised. But we also know that our Lord still calls us to be more than, as one cynic observed, “a dying Church for dying men.” Staunch Athanasians that we are, we will continue to work, and hope, and pray that God’s will for his larger Church will yet be done, and that we can all have a part to play in bringing it about.
The Church’s message to all miserable sinners remains exactly the same: “Repent and believe the gospel, come unto Christ and be saved.” Therefore, we must strive to shore up our defenses where they are the weakest, where the great Adversary of our souls finds his most recent successes. In clear and unequivocal terms, we must affirm the divine inspiration and full authority of Holy Scripture in all matters pertaining to human sexuality. There is no other message we can proclaim, but we must also be sure that when the homosexual person is touched by God’s grace through that message, our local church is a receptive place where he or she is truly welcomed into the company of repentant sinners.
Whether this witness to the world is conducted through the agency of outreach organizations such as Exodus International and the Courage apostolate, or merely through a more informal support ministry of local congregations, regardless of denominational affiliation, I think we will need to do a better job of coming together in spite of some of our differences. We cannot afford the luxury of “majoring in the minors.” This remains true whether we remain in our post-convention Episcopal Church or are already looking beyond it.
I must admit to being terribly pedestrian in my use of terminology at times. I am not greatly exercised over the question of whether or not “homosexual” can be a noun as well as an adjective. I do not spend much time worrying that the labels “gay” and “lesbian” might be fraught with hidden meanings which render them unsuitable for use. A great deal of shorthand has found its way into our vocabularies, but I am not at all certain that it prevents us from finding our way. We must aim higher while understanding that our identity in Christ transcends all human constructs and categories.
We know that our God is the God who raises the dead. He is the God who can cure people from AIDS, and who can restore to a sexually disordered person a healthy orientation which has been obscured by the ravages of time, and trauma, and sin. He is the God who calls us all to healing and wholeness, to repentance and redemption. He is the God who reminds those with a remaining “thorn in the flesh” that His grace is sufficient for them as well. He alone is the God who makes possible that which He calls upon us to do, and He does this for “all sorts and conditions of men.”
In the wake of general convention, I also want to say a few things about what is known as “the Anglican blogoshpere.” Oh, my, it is a wild and woolly place! A place where really angry conservative Christians can go to let off steam over what a bunch of degenerates are trying to pull off in their Church. Of course, it is a great deal more than that, and can be further still.
Have you ever visited some of the revisionist blogs and noticed that they are chock-a-block with those who profess to be gay Christians, decrying everything from “internalized homophobia” to the nefarious dealings of Proposition 8 supporters? They are also busy celebrating their victories and howling to high heaven when a setback does occur. While over here on the conservative side, those of us who understand where they’re coming from but see things a bit differently are . . . a tad underrepresented. Why do you suppose that is?
I may be somewhat biased, but I happen to think that the number of repentant homosexuals, committed to a lifestyle grounded in Biblical faithfulness and sexual chastity, is one of the best kept secrets of the Episcopal Church. We will have to do something about that. One of the things we will have to do is strive to make, not only our local church, but our part of the internet a place where such folks are not afraid to “come out,” to find their voice and give expression to it along with other orthodox Christians. We are members of the Body of Christ and this is our struggle too.
I am sorry for those of you who would rather not have to hear anymore about it, but I am awfully glad that Stand Firm has become a place which offers some idea of what a way forward might look like. A place where some very dedicated bloggers, and some wonderfully kind Christians, nudge us in the direction of a true “rainbow” perspective that may be more in keeping with what God has in mind than some of the alternatives we are offered elsewhere.
And if any of you are not happy with the results, well, don’t just blame me. Blame Greg Griffith. He has it coming.
Thanks be to God.
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Comments:
Thanks, Jackie, for asking Episcopalienated to write this.
And thank you, Episcopalienated. You are very wise.