From The Living Church:
Posted on: July 24, 2009
As General Convention debated its two most-examined resolutions in July, about ten bishops cast paradoxical votes.
Most of these bishops voted against Resolution D025, which reopens the possibility of consecration for openly gay or lesbian bishops. In contrast, most also voted for C056, which authorizes the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to “collect and develop theological and liturgical resources” for blessing same-gender couples, and allows a “generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”
Some bishops discussed their votes with The LivingChurch. Others spoke only through letters they wrote to the clergy and laity of their dioceses. Others did not elaborate on their votes.
The Rt. Rev. John Rabb, Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese of Maryland, said he was pleased by most of D025 but that its final resolve left him unsatisfied.
“My fear was that it will be read as prescriptive, and that made me uncomfortable,” he said.
Bishop Rabb added that he was mindful of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plea for restraint, and he found the ecclesiology of D025 unsatisfying.
Resolution C056, Bishop Rabb said, will enable the church to begin doing more theological homework, without committing itself to a set result at General Convention in 2012.
“We’ve not done enough work on the theology. It’s not that because the courts change something, the church must change it too,” Bishop Rabb said. “When we don’t get our theology right—and that includes scripture and tradition—it comes back and creates problems later.”
“I voted against D025 because it wasn’t clear, and the reaction from around the world convinced me that it wasn’t clear,” said the Rt. Rev. Stephen Miller, Bishop of Milwaukee. “I wish it had said we were not repealing B033, although that language would have never passed.”
Bishop Miller also voted for C056, and he too believes it enables an important theological discussion. “We have to have the theological discussion we’ve never had,” he said. “I want us to have theological discussion about marriage and same-sex unions and rites.”
The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Federal Ministries (Chaplaincies), is concerned about what message General Convention may have sent in approving D025.
“I voted against D025 with the reasoning that if the choice was between consoling ourselves on the one hand and not kicking sand in the face of our Anglican Communion partners on the other, I choose the latter,” he said. “There’s an anti-war play which tries to portray the damage done to war-torn society as the lead character places a box of butterflies on a table. One by one he lets them go except for the last one, which he burns with a lighted match. The point is that the invaded culture is fragile and easily harmed. It’s a horrific scene and the audience was so traumatized at the debut that the script was rewritten so that only paper butterflies would be incinerated.”
Bishop Packard added: “I maintain this consolation resolution is not the benign legislation we think it is. For my Lambeth friends, I judge it is the real thing, terribly unsettling, no paper butterflies here. Why do this if we already know the way things are among us? What is gained by stating it? There’s so much we could lose. I hope I’m wrong.”
Bishop Packard voted for C056, and was among nearly 30 bishops who volunteered to discuss their conflicting concerns outside of a plenary session.
“It is naive to think we can evade this since some states have already approved civil ceremonies, and Episcopalians—in those places—are asking if their priests and The Book of Common Prayer can be used in the process of blessing civil unions,” he said. “Our church cannot proceed into the future with a single approach, and we should find a way to provision certain dioceses to respond as the bishop sees fit.”
The Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins, Bishop of Louisiana, said he voted for C056 because his colleagues had responded well to his plea for graciousness.
“During closed session, I stood and asked the majority of the house to please consider the position of the minority,” he said, adding that it took the church from 1976 to 2009 before all bishops supported ordaining women to the priesthood.
“A mature clarity means leaving a place for the other to stand with integrity,” he said. “What happens when your pastoral issue runs up against my pastoral issue? What happens when your sense of justice runs up against mine?”
The bishops who met late into the night to discuss C056 did the needed homework, Bishop Jenkins said.
“I felt I was honor-bound to vote for it because these bishops had done what I had asked them to do,” he said. “I felt that the process was a ray of hope for The Episcopal Church.”
Douglas LeBlanc
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