Episcopal folks

[violachic]

This just came across my BBC headline feed:


Episcopal church to halt ordination of Gay and Lesbian clergy



Whoa....

Comments

[ironheadjane.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I guess this is to prevent a schism, but wow. How sad.

Unrelated -- well, kinda. A patient was talking today about when she was in jail and a nice lady from the Episcopal church came to visit and invited her to come by. She told the lady that she didn't practice her faith, but thank you (she's Muslim.) The woman apparently told her that she was welcome to visit no matter what. This was all in the context of her finding people who are sober that can help affirm her sobriety. I thought that was cool.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

That is cool, and it sounds like the kind of person I'd like to meet, too.

[spuzbal.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that treating gays and lesbians as equals should be a higher priority than denominational unity. I know it must have been a very hard decision for the bishops, but still.

[phuphuphnik.livejournal.com]

Why?
By keeping the church whole, more good can be done. Like a gradual leaning of the whole towards what is the right thing to do.

[spuzbal.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure I'd have voted that way myself if I'd been a bishop at that meeting, but you do make a good point.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

this makes me want to walk to connecticut and kick my aunt in the shins.

(she's episcopal, and has left her old church to join a new, more gay hating version of the episcopal church. i am bisexual, and while really, my strongest preference for my next partner is that they like me, it would be so satisfying on some levels to shack up with some nice butch dyke and start sending the extended family christmas cards. with pictures. with pictures of us SMOOCHING.)

[orpheus42.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is an answer to this one that's going to make everyone happy. *sigh*

[violachic.livejournal.com]

Me either, but I never expected them to have to revert so far back to not ordaining gay clergy.

[orpheus42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's definitely an unexpected step. Completely. That goes WAY further than the bishop issue.

It would be different, I think, if the Communion was taking the step because of an institutional conviction, but my read on the situation is they're doing it in an attempt to try to make peace with a faction - but it's a move that will undoubtedly alienate another faction. It doesn't make sense to me in terms of ecclesial politics. But I'm not Episcopalian, so my perspective is inherently limited.

I'm not sure if doing it for politics instead of belief is better or worse... either way it's a real shitpile of a situation.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

it wasn't to appease a faction, but to appease their parent, so it really is because of an "institutional conviction." the global anglican church never said it was OK, and has been telling the US church to "quit that" for some time now. it took a "quit that or else" to get them to stop, which does say something good in my book.

FWIW, i'm in agreement that it's better to maintain unity and try to influence the whole, than to break off and get dismissed by the whole and end up not effecting nearly as much change in the long run.

[phuphuphnik.livejournal.com]

This is not being taken lightly by the liberal wing. I don't claim to be an insider, but the general feeling at the meeting seemed to be that a schizm would harm the greater purpose of the church. It was a whole needs of the many yadda yadda thing.
As for alienating the Gay community, I don't know. It is not saying you'll never be ordained, it seems to me to be a
'look, we're working on it, but you gotta be patent...'
situation. Hey we ordain Women, and almost gays. Slow progress is still progress.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

I agree that maintaining the unity is the best thing for the denomination, but I still grieve for those who are suffering from this setback. My Episcopal church has two gay priests and countless GLBT members. I'm sure they're reeling at the moment.

[andelku.livejournal.com]

Great. The bigots won.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

so basically they're saying the american branch of the anglican church (that's what episcopal is) does not have the "autonomy" it thought it did.

disappointing and sad, but not surprising.

[scotmoore.livejournal.com]

I view this as temporary. The truly big impact is the disallowing of new gay clergy. As far as the blessing of gay & lesbian couples, there isn't much mother-church will do to enforce it. Each local parish will keep doing what they've been doing (if they have any balls at all - which since they were doing it in the first place, they do), and will tell their superiors to fly a kite.

It's a setback, yes, but phuphuphnik has an excellent point in that we can exact more change by keeping the church together and maintaining a direct, persistent influence on the gay-haters. I don't know who said it, but it's a great quote, "It's better to have the enemy in your tent pissing out, than outside your tent pissing in."