Conscience Without Sunset

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/9/25/conscience-without-sunset

[The Living Church] 26 Sep 2009--Four years ago I wrote an article, “Living With Tares,” responding to an editorial in the evangelical magazine Christianity Today that had described schism as sometimes necessary and offered the Episcopal Church as its primary cautionary tale. I argued that I remain in the Episcopal Church because biblical faithfulness requires me to do so; because Jesus is Lord of the Church, and it’s up to him—and not us—to sort things out in the end.

In light of the actions of the 76th General Convention, I find myself revisiting that article and asking the question again: Why do I stay? Does our Lord have a continuing purpose for people like me, a bridge-building conservative and evangelical Catholic, in the Episcopal Church? If so, what is it? And what are the conditions required for continuing and faithful engagement with the church?

I ask these questions with a heavy heart. The bonds of affection in this church are deep. I minister, and gratefully so, to gay and lesbian parishioners all around my diocese. Many of my most beloved friends are colleague bishops who vote on the opposite side of the issues that divide us. I see Jesus in them, and I pray they see him in me. They are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Yet reality forces hard questions. General Convention took definitive action. Resolutions D025 and C056 answered two questions with clarity. The first has to do with human sexuality. “[S]ame-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships ... have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. ... God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church” (D025). “[T]he Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music ... [shall] collect and develop theological and liturgical resources”; and, in the meantime, “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church” (C056).

We have made our decision. The restraint called for in B033 of the 75th General Convention has been set aside. Bishops may authorize blessings (that’s the clear implication of the “generous pastoral response”), and liturgies are on their way. Our course has been inexorably determined. The conversation about human sexuality is effectively over.