ABC … what happened to the Gospel?

I recently finished MacCulloch’s biography of Thomas Cranmer (1996, Thomas Cranmer: A Life, London: Yale Univ Pr.), which I must have bought during seminary but never got around to, its pages properly yellowing even though the binding was untouched. Hoping to make quick work of it so as to free shelf space in my study I wound up reading it for months, a bit at a time. I was alternately horrified and fascinated by the unwinding tale of life in Henry VIII’s England, and it was enlightening about the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury to read of the trials of the first person to hold that post in an independent Church of England. It’s a terrific read, but caveat emptor: they burned and hanged people with horrifying frequency.

All of that led me to joke about the current Archbishop, who frankly, seems not to have a very good grip on things. One of my spiritual companions then brought me an article from The Atlantic (March 2009) by Paul Elie called “The Velvet Reformation,” in which Rowland Williams’ dilemma is outlined fairly faithfully. I’m still shaking my head, very glad they’re through burning people at the stake for differing points of view about Christianity, but also wondering where the Gospel–the good news of salvation–has gotten to in this day and age. Williams sees the via media through his own mirror darkly it would seem, and it reminds me frankly of the nine years of stagnation in the Episcopal Church under Presiding Bishop Griswold. Of course the two of them have roots in Anglo-Catholicism in common, but I’m not sure whether that’s a relevant parallel or not. But since Katherine Jefferts-Schori became Presiding Bishop the Episcopal Church has moved aggresively forward. I think she is demonstrating bold but certain leadership. Much of the good news about the church in general, as well as for lgbt parishioners, comes from the newly reborn dioceses where the Gospel has been rediscovered and the focus is on bringing all of God’s children to the table to partake of the banquet.

The most notable news about the ABC (my affectionate term for Archbishop Williams) of late is his rapid (overnight) negative response to the election of Mary Douglass Glasspool to be suffragan bishop of Los Angeles, and his absolute silence concerning the “death to gay people” legislation being promulgated in Uganda, by Anglican bishops, no less. With all due respect, where is the voice of tradition, scripture, and reason from Canterbury? The Archbishop of York has had no qualms about speaking out in opposition to this horrifying legislation. Has Williams nothing to say? Or is this his “velvet” via media? At any rate, Christians everywhere should declare this silence unacceptable. The legislation is evil incarnate and all pressure available should be brought to bear to stop it.

John 3:8 ” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

In Eucharistic Prayer B (BCP 1979, 368) we pray in the present tense “For in these last days” and yet the next clause is in the past tense “you sent him to be incarnate ….” So it is with these last days in which we live, which are now but yet are just the harbingers of all of the ages past and yet to come. Which is a nicely theological way of saying it seems we hear the wind blowing but do not always know where it is coming from. For GLBT folks it seems the wind is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit itself rearranging human experience by shaping it with God’s grace, even as the wind is shaping the two-foot deep snowdrifts outside as I write this.

On November 15 The Rev. Susan Slaughter became the first woman ordained priest in the Diocese of Fort Worth–a diocese now cleansed and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The next day Bp. Bishop John Bryson Chane of Washington D.C. supported legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_116895_ENG_HTM.htm). November 29 Bp. Tom Shaw of the Diocese of Massachusetts authorized the clergy of his diocese (where marriage equality is the law) to solemnize the marriages of same-sex couples (http://www.diomass.org/diocesan-news/diocesan-clergy-now-allowed-marry-all-eligible-couples).

The following weekend, December 5, the Diocese of Los Angeles in convention elected two women to be their next suffragan bishops–itself a diocesan first–one of whom is a lesbian, The Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_117538_ENG_HTM.htm). While Integrity and most Episcopalians rejoiced that the logjam on the full ministry of lgbt people had finally been broken, the Archbishop of Canterbury was not in a good mood about it. But we’ll return to him in a later post.

In New Jersey both the bishops of Newark and Trenton testified in favor of marriage equality legislation, but alas, the legislature lost its nerve as 2009 drew to a close.

On December 9, as most of the world was focused on the climate change conference in Copenhagen,  a theological roundtable of Anglicans in India issued a statement rejecting homophobia and calling for open study of human sexuality (http://www.nccindia.in/news/pressrelease/n_144.htm).

We might not know where the wind comes from or where it goes, but we know when we experience it that we are in the midst of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit.