Tuesday, August 4, 2009

TEC will have to make a decision how far down the track it goes

Here is one scenario for the future of TEC.

In 2020 its House of Bishops consists of 20% bishops in same-sex partnerships. This group, with counterparts in the House of Deputies makes a move to end "heterosexual privilege" in TEC through revision of the gender specific language of marriage services, and through modification of the role of Scripture (in which hetero-normativity is pervasive) in the life of the church. Hints of this future point of consideration were present in some talk I noticed at GC 2009 (but not in any actual resolutions passed), and is present in the address of one of the candidates for the Los Angeles episcopal election, mentioned in the post below.

Would the TEC GC in 2021 say "no" or "yes" to such a move? If it said "no", on what grounds would it do so? If (as I think likely) it said "yes", it would represent the seal on Bishop Gene Robinson's description of TEC as 'the gay church'. Would this seal be part of the growth or decline in numbers of members of TEC?

That last question is important. I suspect it has been considered by ++Rowan and the answer he has arrived at is "decline". He is simply too smart not to have worked out that the church which centres its identity around its gay and lesbian (and transgendered and bisexual) membership is a church with a fast shrinking membership as "hetero-normative" members peel away, or do not join as new members. Both in his own person, and as a responsible bishop, he cannot endorse the track TEC is on. When the Presiding Bishop of TEC does not understand the missional imperative of the gospel to convert people to Jesus Christ, ++Rowan knows that TEC is unlikely to grow through evangelism. He also knows that once Scripture is played fast and loose through revisionist reading (such as the episcopal candidate does in the link in the post below) it has no power to fuel the church. TEC's train is unlikely to crash. It will slowly come to a halt. Its track will have become a siding.

Far from "betraying" the partnered gay and lesbian clergy in the C of E, ++Rowan is doing them the great favour of working to ensure there is a viable church for them to belong to!

In love for TEC we must allow it the opportunity to take the course it is choosing without expelling or excommunicating it from the Communion (though also without the pretence that "full communion" and "participation" in all Communion events is possible).

I may be completely wrong. TEC's great experiment with a new ethic in which hetero-normativity is deconstructed may be a great success. I hope I live long enough to see which of ++Rowan's tracks proves to be the main trunk line. If it is TEC's track then I shall be the first to congratulate it.

3 comments:

Howard Pilgrim said...

"TEC's train is unlikely to crash. It will slowly come to a halt. Its track will have become a siding.
Far from "betraying" the partnered gay and lesbian clergy in the C of E, ++Rowan is doing them the great favour of working to ensure there is a viable church for them to belong to!"


Come on Peter, you can't have it both ways, even if you are assiduously practicing your fence-sitting skills. Is TEC coming to a non-evangelising halt, or is it viable? It can't be both!

Here is my own belief. TEC, just like ACANZ, already has a significant proportion of gay people among its baptised members, both lay and clergy, whose God-given ministries have long been essential to the well-being of the whole.

What is now changing is our recognition of, and adjustment to, this God-given fact. Some believe that this process will derail the train; others like yourself that it may drain its fuel; but I think it may be more like a paint job that could just possibly make a new generation of customers consider taking a ride... The metaphor just ran out of steam I think.

Honesty has always been one of the foundational principles of my faith in God - that I get nowhere if I try to hide anything from God, and that no attempt at honesty before God will be counted as impiety. Correspondingly, I also believe that public honesty about who we are is a fundamental requirement in our evangelism. We may disagree about who we should include, as we obviously do, but we can no longer hide our defacto inclusiveness without destroying the credibility upon which all evangelism depends.

The secret is out ... some of our companions are gay. There is no going back to our former blissful(?)ignorance. Where we go next with this knowledge is scarily unknowable, but known to God... Oh yes, did someone mention there is a driver on this train?

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Howard
I think TEC could come to a halt; and I think the C of E could avoid doing so. The key is whether the trajectory moves from honesty and acceptance of gay and lesbian people in each church, to a place in which hetero-normativity is deconstructed to the point where heterosexuals no longer wish to belong.

I do not wish to hide the inclusiveness we already have in our church (ACANZP), but I wonder what you mean by "significant proportion" as I would estimate the involvement to be a "small proportion"?

Anonymous said...

"I think it may be more like a paint job that could just possibly make a new generation of customers consider taking a ride..."

Wow, nothing like the firmness of faith! Howard, I fear you speak from Long White Cloud Cuckoo Land. I do not think Tec will die in 20 years (cue John Cleese: ''I'm not dead yet!') - it stil has too much money for that - but rather that in a country with 305m+ people with a plethora of strange sects, there will still be enough divorced Catholics, liberal Baptists, gay Mormons and transgender Pentecostals to take what Vance Packard called 40+ years ago 'the long road from fundamentalist to Episcopalian'. But it may be closer to a Ghost Train than a Holy Roller - which is to say that the religion of Tec is getting stranger and more post-Christian with each succeeding year. Actually, Tec has long been a strange religion in many places(psychotherapy in a cassock) catering to the well-heeled and biblically ignorant. It will only become more so. A Tec track will not be able to stay parallel with the Anglican line, for the simple reason that endorsing homosexuality radically reconfigures make-female relationships and family life. Heck, even the pederastic/ephebophilic ancient Greeks understood this! Look at the 'theology' emanating from the Metropolitan Community Churches and you'll grasp my point. (Polyamory, anyone?)

And maybe in another post I can share something abotu the impact of homosexuality on churches I know of ...

Public honesty about who we are? Amen, brother - shout it from the roof tops - we are sinners saved by grace and called to live by God's commandments.
If you are quite convinced that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is NOT sinful but God's god gift to some people, then shout that out too! But I fear we won't be reading the same Bible.
I have no fear at all of what would happen to Christ's Church if every "partnered" gay clergyperson were to leave. It's God's church - He will provide shepherds and evangelists.

Anon1