The Future of Inclusion: A Critique

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
4/17/2010

On March 4, 2010, the Rev. David Norgard was invited to address the students and faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary. Norgard is the President of Integrity, USA. His topic was "THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION." Integrity USA has been an advocate for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church for 35 years. Norgard's historic address focuses on how far the movement has come and where Integrity and the Episcopal Church are heading. Norgard believes that nothing short of full inclusion is good enough for Jesus or for the church.

VOL believes his "historic" address should not go unanswered. With a second pansexualist - a lesbian - about to be consecrated to the episcopacy in the Diocese of Los Angeles, we believe it is imperative that this movement, begun by activist homosexual layman Dr. Louie Crew, be challenged and exposed and its deeds brought to the light.

We will answer Norgard point for point and challenge him on how a small minority of homosexuals and lesbians took over and co-opted the church, corrupting it sexually, finally forcing generations of orthodox Episcopalians to face the reality that they are not welcome in The Episcopal Church, that their views are ridiculed with many now under siege in dioceses across the country.

NORGARD: Good evening. I want to begin by thanking the Dean for the invitation to be with you this evening. It was a most gracious offer that he made to me to come and speak here at the seminary and I am delighted to be doing just that. I also wish to thank you all for being here. I consider it both a great pleasure and a privilege to share with you my perspective on "The Future of Inclusion in the Episcopal Church."

VOL: In fairness, Dean Ian Markham has welcomed this writer to his campus and has allowed a yearly gathering of Episcopalian evangelicals to meet at VTS where he has personally welcomed and addressed them, indicating that he too is an evangelical. He was and is a gracious and generous host. However he told this reporter that he regards sexuality concerns as "second tier" issues in the church. His invitation therefore to Norgard is not inconsistent with his own position and that of his seminary. In keeping with his understanding of diversity, the seminary does have a member of staff who is an avowed lesbian.

NORGARD: As you may be aware, the Dean issued the invitation to me to speak on this topic in my capacity as President of Integrity USA. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, Integrity is an organization dedicated to advancing the inclusion of lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender persons (LGBT) in the life and ministry of the Episcopal Church. Composed of individual members and parish partners from across the country, it has been engaged in its ministry of advocacy and education for thirty-five years now, ever since being founded by an Episcopal layman from Georgia, Dr. Louie Crew, in 1974.

VOL: This is historically accurate. Dr. Crew was indeed the founder of Integrity and almost single-handedly won the church over to the view that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is permissible and acceptable. What he has achieved has spilled over into other mainline Protestant denominations. He may indeed take most of the credit for this.

NORGARD: When Mike Angell, a student here from the Diocese of San Diego and occasional preacher to the President, first contacted me about arranging this visit, he posed a straightforward yet intriguing question: What is the future of inclusion in the Episcopal Church? If I were someone who was prone to pithy answers, I would say "bright" and call for the next question. The very fact of my being here - at the Virginia Theological Seminary - as President of Integrity - provides strong evidence for the soundness of such optimism. There was a time within the living memory of some in this room (myself included), when such an occasion as this would not have been contemplated, let alone realized. This moment we are sharing right now, my friends, is in itself richly symbolic of the long road we have traveled together as Episcopalians over the past four decades. In fact, I believe that it is a directional sign toward where we are headed as a church....as you put it here, "orthodox and open"

VOL: "Open" yes, "Orthodox" no. It is a profound theological fiction to believe that one can proclaim sexual behavior specifically restricted to heterosexual marriage and expand it beyond the Bible's parameters and still call it orthodox. It is not. The new language of "generous orthodoxy" is to abuse both the word "generous" and the word "orthodoxy." There is nothing remotely "generous" about pansexual behavior.

NORGARD: Recent history clearly has been a story of advances toward a more and more inclusive church, with only occasional setbacks. Looking at the issue broadly, we can see this progression a number of ways. For instance, we can observe how the role of women in the church has evolved and expanded. Thirty-five years ago, there were no women in the House of Bishops. Now there are sixteen. Thirty-five years ago, women were still somewhat new to the House of Deputies. Now a woman is President. In a similar vein, we can look at how the Spanish language has entered the life of the domestic Episcopal Church. Four decades ago, to hear Spanish in an Episcopal church was a novelty. Nowadays, many dioceses have at least one congregation where Spanish the primary language. We can look at various demographic trends and, generally speaking, they point to a denomination that is exhibiting more diversity in both its membership and leadership. My particular competence, however, lies in the area of the conscious inclusion of sexual minorities and, on the national level, that particular storyline begins in 1976.

VOL: Being a woman (or an Hispanic) may have been a precursor to homosexual acceptance, but women in the priesthood is not ontologically or theologically connected to homosexuality. There are orthodox bishops who believe in the priesthood of women who have no truck with pansexuality, though one would be hard pressed to find a homosexual who did not believe women should be priests. Many would argue that it is a slippery slope and they might be right, but one does not follow from the other. Reaching out to Hispanics with the gospel should be the church's business, if not, the church should ask itself why. This too has nothing to do with homosexual acceptance. The two are not connected.

NORGARD: That year General Convention debated a resolution which acknowledged and recognized homosexual persons as "children of God." When you stop to think about that for a moment now, in 2010, to some of us it sounds just a little quaint...kind yet presumptuous in that old-guard, true-blue Episcopalian sort of way. That body of mostly churchmen, in all their magnanimity and sagacity, were moved to vote on the question of who was a child of God.

VOL: That homosexuals should be recognized, as "children of God" should never have been questioned. It was not the issue. Raising it and making it a resolution was a foot in the door to full acceptance of the behavior. The bishops then should have seen this as a red herring and deep-sixed it. It is the behavior of homosexuals that is at issue, but that was not raised at that time. It was a brilliant first move.

NORGARD: Thankfully - and to the great relief of many whose ontological validity hung in the balance, the vote was in the affirmative. (Don't some of you feel much better now?.) Soon after that, presumably in the spirit of that declaration, the Bishop of New York, Paul Moore, ordained the first openly lesbian woman to the priesthood, Ellen Barrett, at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan.

VOL: And Paul Moore was found to be an adulterer, a bisexual, and he intimidated orthodox priests in the Diocese of New York who did not share his views. His daughter blew the whistle on him in a biography she wrote about him after discovering his male lover at the bishop's gravesite. He was hardly a bishop to be proud of. Had he lived he would have been given the Cy Jones (Bishop of Montana) treatment and suspended from the House of Bishops.

NORGARD: The church at large was not at all amused, however. Mountains of letters of protest were delivered both to the parish rectory and the diocesan chancery, including (sadly) no small number of bodily threats and spiritual curses. Apparently, being a child of God was one thing; being a priest was entirely another. In a notable demonstration of elegant backtracking, another resolution passed at the next convention, declaring the Ordination of "practicing homosexuals" to be "inappropriate" at that time.

VOL: The "inappropriate" did not last long. The levy on sexual behavior had been breached. More was to follow.

NORGARD: Permit me a personal excursus here. Despite the apparently ill-timed nature of my desire or desires (whichever), upon returning from the convention in Denver, I proceeded with my own plan of seeking Ordination and enrolling in seminary. It was a very big step for my home diocese, Minnesota, to sponsor an openly homosexual man. As a lot, Minnesotans are quite reluctant to be inappropriate; it's just not in their nature. But the bishop, Robert Anderson, was a man of steadfast conviction and quiet courage. As the local process proceeded and the national debate intensified, he never wavered in his support. I recall one instance that might resonate especially with those here tonight. After receiving my admission application, the dean of the divinity school where I applied called my bishop to express his serious concern. He explained ever so delicately, almost apologetically, that I had listed Integrity - of all things - among my church involvements. The dean discreetly whispered over the phone to the bishop, "He is probably homosexual;" to which the bishop whispered back, "Actually, I have met his partner, and he is definitely homosexual...Is there some problem?" There was none for him if there wasn't any for the bishop, the dean stuttered, leaving the bishop to wonder: Was it his chairmanship of the board or his matter-of-fact approach that had been more persuasive?

VOL: Minnesota has been liberal for decades. I cannot remember the last orthodox bishop in that diocese. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. That bishops were so poorly trained in sexual ethics comes as no surprise. As go the seminaries so go the pulpits. It is only a matter of time when it all washes out into the pews.

NORGARD: Back to the larger saga: For the next dozen years, no convention was without its resolutions about homosexuality. The topic seemed to move from being the love that dare not speak its name to the debate that would never end. Meanwhile, more and more lesbian and homosexual people, lay and ordained, lived on one side or another of an increasingly sharp and deep divide within the church. On the one side, more than one bishop prohibited any known homosexuals from serving at their cathedral's Altar, unless they first took a vow of celibacy. At a prominent seminary, openly homosexual clergy were barred from serving as supervisors of field education. On the other side, another divinity school named a scholarship after Dr. Crew...and several bishops became increasingly vocal about their homosexual-supportive views, rejecting outright the argument that the church would fall apart if it accepted lesbian and homosexual people fully. Douglas Theuner, a predecessor of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, coined the rallying cry of the whole movement. "There can be no unity without justice," he declared emphatically to the House of Bishops. For years, his quote was displayed on the front cover of every Voice of Integrity magazine. And I dare say that it is still timely and pertinent today on an even larger plane.

VOL: The door is now open. The cry that "unity" however defined, or not, could be equated to "justice" for a small subset of persons with same sex attractions was and is incomprehensible. But the culture was changing and moving towards homosexual acceptance. TEC rode the wave. The weighty word "justice" took on a whole new meaning, equating in the minds of many justice for the poor, justice for women, justice well, for just about anybody who had a grievance or grudge with the church or society, especially a church top heavy with white heterosexual men and women. We (Dead White Males) were now made to feel guilty for being well, white, male, middle class and heterosexual and to appease our consciences and alleged homophobia we now had to bow before the phallic cross of Integrity's desires. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

NORGARD: By the start of the nineties, more than a decade of debates and studies and hearings and speeches had brought no resolution. They had brought dozens of resolutions actually but no solution to the controversy. So, what was an "Episcopal" church to do when confronted with such vexation? Turn to its bishops was the answer that came to the Phoenix convention in '91. The theologians among them ("bishops" and "theologians" not being coterminous, you realize) would undertake another extensive study and report back at Indianapolis in '94. If nothing else, we are a studious church. Just parenthetically, I do wonder about our bishops sometimes. They have studied homosexuality for years and some still claim to be perplexed. It only took me a summer to learn it...but I suppose that is a story for another time.

VOL: Most bishops, by the Nineties, were too embarrassed by the Bible's claims to an absolutist sexual ethic. The culture was rapidly moving in the opposite direction helped along by Hollywood and a fast-moving post-modernity. More and more young people were living together without benefit of marriage and the 60's "free love" movement was coming home to roost in the Nineties. "Free love" sodomy and AIDS was just around the corner. No one was "perplexed" it was just an issue of the zeitgeist and timing. We all knew where it was going and Resolution D029 got it underway.

NORGARD: Back to Indianapolis: The bishop who succeeded Paul Moore of New York, a man by the slightly unfortunate name of Dick Grein, delivered the report to a packed and tense House of Bishops. The report started well enough from the perspective of those hopeful for a breakthrough in LGBT equality. It recognized that homosexual people existed, that they were in the church, that indeed they were children of God, that they did some good things, and that many of them were actually very nice...lovely, in fact...devoted to partners, devoted to church, great on the Altar Guild, etc., etc...but...But the report concluded, nevertheless, they still should not be ordained and we should not be marrying them either, particularly to each other.

VOL: Bishop Grein was another adulterer who ditched his wife, later married his girlfriend who stole a job from an orthodox priest at Grace Church in New York. She sued and won hundreds of thousands of dollars against the diocese. Grein was a personal friend of then Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold so there was no discipline of Grein. He still "ministers" to this day at the invitation of churches around New York City.

NORGARD: That night everyone felt a pall hang over the entire convention. Liberals were in despair. Conservatives were anxious. What would happen next? It was not at all obvious. Integrity folk worried: Would these unfounded conclusions somehow end up enshrined in canon law? Had the struggles and efforts of so many of us for so long been for naught? As a church, were we about to retrench? Well, perhaps I should have guessed what was coming, since I happened to know the antagonist so well. The next afternoon, a son of this very seminary, the famous or infamous Bishop of Newark, Jack Spong, stood to a point of personal privilege. Slowly, dramatically, he read what eventually became known as a Statement of Koinonia, i.e. of community. With forceful eloquence, he stated unequivocally that he would ordain whoever was fit and called, homosexual or heterosexual. He took a similar stand with respect to blessing the committed relationships of same-gender couples. Then, with savvy and audacity, he invited his colleagues with courage enough to share his convictions publicly to sign the statement along with him. That evening the special service sponsored by Integrity was overflowing...and so were the tears. By 7:00 o'clock, about five hours later, dozens of other bishops had signed that statement and by late the next day the number had reached 78. There could be no mistake. It was by no means the end of the struggle...but our church had reached a turning point. John Spong's Statement of Koinonia caused a turning point in the church's history of inclusion.

VOL: This included Frank Griswold. His "my door is open to all" speech that he delivered in Philadelphia now slammed shut to orthodox Episcopalians. He would spend the rest of his career and political capital trying to persuade the Primates of the Anglican Communion that sodomy was good and right in the eyes of God. He was the most polarizing Presiding Bishop following his predecessor Edmond Browning paving the way for the church's primal scream - Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Spong went on to ordain an openly homosexual man in the Diocese of Newark who later died of AIDS, and then he wrote his infamous 12 Theses which should have brought him up on charges of heresy and a church trial, but the bishops were so cowed by his bullying behavior and his hatred of orthodoxy along with a bitter and scornful tongue against orthodoxy that no one dared oppose him, especially not the HOB. The church had finally flipped.

NORGARD: Still, skirmishes continued through the rest of the decade. Between General Conventions, the Episcopal Church caught the attention of our nation's secular media by the novelty of conducting a heresy trial, namely that of the Rt. Rev. Walter Righter for ordaining a homosexual man named Barry Stopfel. As anachronistic - can I say medieval? - As it appeared to many reporters, several were nonetheless kind enough to note how the Episcopal Church maintained its sensibility throughout the ordeal. The Wall Street Journal, for example, noted that afternoon tea was served to the journalists and from a proper silver service.

VOL: I attended that trial (it was held in Delaware) and there was no silver service I recall. I DO recall two very large intimidating homosexual men from the Diocese of Newark who walked around with the attitude that if anyone opposes Righter they will be answerable to us. I found that trial one of the most intimidating I have ever attended. The press conference was a nightmare with Righter angrily denouncing the one bishop Andy Fairfield who opposed him of being homophobic and more.

NORGARD: The new century and the new millennium arrived...but not the end of the conflict. The story picks up in Minneapolis in 2003. That bastion of radical liberalism, New Hampshire, had the audacity to elect Gene Robinson, a homosexual man with a partner, as its bishop and, because of the timing; it was up to the General Convention to consent to the election. The line of people rising to speak their mind, pro and con and sometimes both in truly Anglican fashion, stretched all the way to the back of the huge hall. The testimony was variously emotional, logical, political, personal, and theological. Frankly, it was probably also unnecessary. Most people knew how they were going to vote before they ever entered the room. Nevertheless, the debate ran its full-allotted time and then the House of Deputies voted. With a majority that was neither vast nor slim, it confirmed the election of the church's first openly homosexual bishop in the church of God and the bishops did likewise, with the added dramatic flourish of a score of them abruptly walking out upon announcement of the results. Eventually, Gene tied with Desmond Tutu as the most recognized Anglican bishop in the world. (Sorry, Rowan.)

VOL: Yep and the fallout has been stupendous. Since 2003 hundreds of thousands of Episcopalians have left the church, four whole dioceses have gone (more may yet follow), millions of dollars have been spent on lawsuits over property and a new North American Anglican Church has been formed. What about any of that is a win for TEC? The church's ASA is well under 700,000 and sinking as church after church around the country leaves TEC with or without their property.

NORGARD: With the advent of a homosexual bishop, a reasonable outside observer might have expected the Episcopal Church finally to get on to other business. It had now been debating essentially the same subject for three decades. The Nicene Creed had been produced more quickly. Yet in 2006, at the proverbial eleventh hour, the same Presiding Bishop who had presided at Gene's consecration pushed through a resolution designed to ensure that what had happened in New Hampshire stayed in New Hampshire. Although couched in sober and pious phrasing such as "exercising restraint," Resolution BO33 basically called for a moratorium on the consecration of any more homosexual bishops.

VOL: Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold proposed the resolution as a sop to Archbishop Rowan Williams and the Primates. It was pressure politics and Griswold briefly succumbed. Griswold also knew that the momentum started would not be stopped and throwing a spanner briefly in the works would change nothing. Time would take care of everything. He was right. For a brief less than shining moment he could, like Pontius Pilate wash his hands of the whole thing as he exited the Episcopal stage. With the ultra-liberal Jefferts Schori stepping into his shoes he knew that her steel-toed boots following his would kick miters like no other presiding bishop in TEC's history. Little did he know. The future got bleaker and bleaker for orthodox Episcopalians.

NORGARD: That brings us close to the present moment and to Disneyland, or, I suppose I should say, to the 2009 General Convention in Anaheim, California. The passage of two resolutions by the convention brought the saga that had lasted nearly as long as "Days of our Lives" to its long-awaited conclusion. The resolution finally came.

Resolution #C056, originating from the Diocese of Missouri (whose Standing Committee just consented to the election of Mary Glasspool), moved the Episcopal Church decisively toward recognizing - and solemnizing - same-sex unions. Specifically, it acknowledged the changing legal landscape with respect to marriage and called upon our bishops to provide for generous pastoral response, especially in those places where civil unions of one sort or another are now permitted. Furthermore, it mandated the Standing Liturgical Commission "to collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same-gender relationships" while, it added, "honoring the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality." In other words, we recognized that not everyone is happy about the emerging reality, but it is what it is and we are moving forward.

The other landmark resolution, #D025, unequivocally affirmed that God has called and may call LGBT individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. In other words, the de facto moratorium of 2006 on homosexual and lesbian bishops was lifted and what was characterized as "inappropriate" and untimely back in 1979 was at last found to be entirely appropriate and indeed timely.

VOL: Resolution B033 was history with the passage of these two resolutions. The die was finally cast. Louie Crew's worldview had triumphed. Orthodoxy was crumbling in TEC. From one end of the country to the other people and parishes fled. Lawsuits escalated, whole dioceses with their bishops marched out the red doors. They believed that the eternal souls of people were more important than the properties that temporarily housed them. The triumph of pansexuality was complete. The revisionists smelled only victory.

NORGARD: That brings us to 2010, to the present day, which is by definition of course, the threshold of the future. Looking across the ecclesiastical landscape now from the perspective of the history I have just recounted, I believe the direction that this church is headed is clear. Collectively, we are now moving in the direction of transforming the legislative victories attained at the national level into living realities at the diocesan and congregational levels. We have decided, finally and unabashedly, in favor of being the kind of faith community in which lesbian and homosexual people are truly part of the family. We have become a "Modern Family," to borrow another TV show title, and Mother Church, if you will, has come out. She has come out as a "P-FLAGer." As an individual Episcopalian and as President of Integrity, my outlook is both hopeful and optimistic because once you have come out of the closet, friends, it really is not all that easy to go back in.

VOL: The church's trajectory is definitely "clear". Transforming the legislative victories happened because the orthodox let it in part happen and because they were busy building up churches even as liberals emptied them. Liberals cannot plant churches because they have no message. They infiltrate orthodox ones, get themselves onto vestries and then turn them inside out. Anglo-Catholic parishes became Affirming Catholic parishes especially if it can be proven that the priest is secretly homosexual. Smells and bells in the pulpit, boys in the bed. No one says a word. In the name of inclusion everything is now tolerated.

NORGARD: Having said that, I hasten to add that, as it is with the stock market, so it is in politics: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Even the freshman student of history knows that human progress is not inexorably linear. History is littered, in fact, with examples of progress not merely coming to a halt but taking a violent u-turn. The "war to end all wars," World War I was followed by World War II. In China, the move toward a free market was followed by the brutal clampdown of free expression in Tiananmen Square.

VOL: Perhaps the truest thing Norgard said in his whole peroration with one possible exception. The "brutal clampdown" is already upon us. Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori is giving the Wehrmacht a good reputation. More than a dozen bishops and dozens of priests have been deposed on her instructions. Mark Lawrence is waiting for the wrath of her judgment to descend for as yet unnamed crimes...perhaps his failure to come down on those priests who wish flee the diocese with their properties will be the lightening rod of her caprice. She should be careful the Dennis Canon is history in this diocese.

NORGARD: Nevertheless, there are multiple sound reasons for optimism. Let me cite just a few. Just recently, the Attorney General of Maryland announced his official opinion that his state should recognize same-sex unions performed elsewhere. The nearby District of Columbia, of course, just became the latest civil jurisdiction to allow such unions and even though the city has long been regarded as a bastion of liberalism (like New Hampshire), the symbolic value of the nation's capital city doing so is potent. Likewise with Iowa: Today, in the midwestern heartland, same-gender marriage is the law of the land and a fact of life. Looking northward from here, the Bishop of Massachusetts, Tom Shaw, has granted his clergy permission to perform marriages for same-sex couples in the churches of that diocese, C056 being his justification. And across the country in my new home diocese of Los Angeles, the convention elected the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, to serve as one of its two bishops suffragan. As of yesterday, 55 of 56 required Standing Committee consents have been received and her consecration is tentatively scheduled for May 15th.

VOL: And this is Good News? No mention that his uber boss Jefferts Schori is trying to find a way to depose South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence. You see he has repudiated these resolutions and he won't roll over to the zeitgeist. His "sovereign diocese" is not amused. Neither apparently is she. The fact that civil authorities recognize same-sex marriages does not mean the church has to do the same. The church is supposed to run counter to the culture not with it.

NORGARD: Why all this movement in a forward direction? Fundamentally, I believe it is because nearly everyone today knows someone who is dear to them and lesbian or homosexual: a brother, sister, son, daughter, father, mother, neighbor, teacher, student, judge on "American Idol." This increasing familiarity has brought contempt some places, to be sure, but mostly, to know us has been to love us.

VOL: Some truth here. My brother in law died of AIDS in New York city a number of years ago and I was told I had to change my theology and thinking to meet his need for acceptance. I refused. Misplaced compassion is just that, misplaced.

NORGARD: My primary ministry these days is as an organizational development consultant to churches and nonprofits. In that work, I spend a fair amount of time helping leaders articulate mission and vision statements for their organizations and communities. A vision statement is essentially an articulation of what you want to be true when you have succeeded in your mission. It implies a commitment to do whatever is possible toward making that preferred future the reality. If I were to draft the de facto vision statement of the Episcopal Church, it might read, in part, something like this: "The community and its leadership are diverse in age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and familial constellations. This fact is a great blessing and is nurtured in the way we live together." If this phrasing sounds familiar to you, it should be. I adapted it from the student body section of the VTS website.

VOL: TEC is so diverse it doesn't want any orthodox to stay in the church unless of course they roll over and pay their diocesan dues in which case they can stay (money talks). But thou shalt not go against the churches modern heresies. General Convention has spoken and it is of a higher order than Scripture, or so the liberals want you to believe.

NORGARD: As with any great cultural shift, this one will too will continue to meet resistance. A review of the national church's website illustrates the point. There is an extensive section on diversity that includes a, b, c, d, x, y, and z...but not l, g, b, or t. Thinking historically again, just consider the Ordination of women or the adoption of the current Book of Common Prayer. Years after the formal actions were taken at General Convention moving the church forward on these matters, battles still raged on. Every great struggle, it seems, is defined by and motivated in part by the resistance with which it must continue to contend. And in this vein, I see the struggle for a diverse faith community as no exception to that historical rule. Three challenges in particular are possible and substantial enough to merit specific mention.

VOL: And such innovations are emptying Episcopal churches. There is not a shred of evidence that TEC is winning the hearts and minds of people. They are only winning the Culture Wars because they have learned the art of shrill and strident politicking and because they have kowtowed millions of Americans with cries of homophobia.

NORGARD: First is the desire for a scapegoat, a common temptation in community life. Whenever some crisis occurs or some unforeseen disaster descends upon the scene, it can seem expedient or advantageous to cast blame upon a vulnerable target. Jerry Falwell blamed AIDS on homosexual men, for instance. Never mind HIV. The only necessary ingredients for combustion are some inflammable scandal or incendiary economic friction coupled with invidious rhetoric.

VOL: And this has been the perfect ecclesiastical TEC storm. The truth is the vast majority of people infected with HIV/AIDS are homosexual men. In fact a new generation of young homosexuals is "bug chasing" according to a recent article in the New York Times.

NORGARD: Another viable force of resistance to a diverse church is the temptation of political expediency. It is well within the realm of possibility that the Episcopal Church might persuade itself to do the wrong thing (in my view) for the right reason. For instance, it is not implausible to imagine a scenario in which our church moves toward a recognition of global interdependence and, in the process, negotiates away aspects of its own identity or polity.

VOL: Won't happen. There have been enough broad hints that TEC will go its own way if too much pressure is applied by Rowan Williams, not the other way round. Furthermore there is no evidence at this time that Dr. Williams will act against TEC either. Though there could be considerable pressure by archbishops and global Anglican leaders gathered at the Fourth Global South to South Encounter here in Singapore.

NORGARD: The third challenge I would name is perhaps the most worrisome of all because it pertains to our very viability as a community. I speak of the challenge of our own apparent irrelevance in the sight of the world around us. What if we Episcopalians finally do invite all the homosexuals and lesbians in our neighborhood to our party...and they don't to show up? What if what we have to offer is just not seen as being all that appealing? I do wonder: Have we fought for two generations to be included in a community that our younger homosexual brothers and lesbian sisters will simply regard as unimportant?

VOL: Louie Crew made a public call for Roman Catholic homosexuals to come on over into TEC. They haven't. The biggest homosexual church in America is the Metropolitan Community Church. TEC is a distant cousin in the sodomy sweepstakes. TEC is slowly dying and nothing will stop it.

NORGARD: This question, it seems to me, leads to an even larger one: In an increasingly complicated world...one in which individuals are at once bowling alone and inextricably interdependent...one in which many doubt the primacy of any one theological narrative just as others defend their one true faith ever more militantly...one in which the strongest trend is identifying as "spiritual" and not "religious"...in such a world as this, is what we have to offer sufficiently authentic and compelling to appeal to those we would welcome?

I would like to offer two suggestions before I close. First, I believe we are perhaps uniquely positioned as a Christian denomination to offer to the spiritual seeker a community where a sense of mystery in life goes hand-in-hand with a respect for reason in the life of faith. As a communion, historically we have welcomed honest inquiry. To borrow words from the VTS website again, "our church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has been open to new truths discovered by reason and experience." At the same time, it is a church that has generally also been open to the ineffable, especially through experience of the aesthetic. In short, we are equally comfortable with answers and questions, with art and science. In my personal experience, this perspective on the world resonates with individuals who identify as belonging to a sexual minority. It does so because, in a culture where gender roles are still defined by straight lines, they are outliers on the spectrum of conventional understandings of social reality.

VOL: It isn't happening and it won't happen. Tens of thousands of people are leaving TEC including married couples who don't want to see their children exposed to sodomy. They would like to have grandchildren one day. Recently the organist in my parish left with his wife and five kids because he could no longer stand being saddled with "The Homosexual Church" nomenclature. He has gone to a growing ACNA parish. And we are an evangelical parish for heaven's sake.

NORGARD: Secondly, I believe we are necessarily yet nonetheless sincerely at last beginning to see ourselves not first and foremost as an institution to which people, if they have enough sense, will just join naturally. In our most vital congregations anyway, I see evidence of a very different self-understanding. Instead of institutions bound by law and dedicated to self-perpetuation, they see themselves as communities bound by love and dedicated to purposes beyond themselves. This also resonates with LGBT persons in my experience for it mirrors the story of LGBT families and communities. No social conventions have brought us together, let me assure you. It has been nothing other than the soulful desire to belong to a family of choice and a community of choice that allows us not only to be ourselves but also to be there for the other.

There will be resistance. The impulse to respond eagerly and faithfully to the emerging realities of each succeeding age is always met with the opposing impulse to preserve and hold fast to what has been familiar and comfortable. But as I see it, it's not a matter of acquiescing to a more inclusive future for the sake of those who have been on the outside. It is rather a matter of embracing opportunities that give us all a future as a community - a community of mystery and reason, of determined commitment and unconditional love.

VOL: What "mystery" what "reason". Millions of dollars spent on lawsuits is a "mystery". The only "mystery is the exact dollar amount. Please ask Katharine Jefferts Schori, what about the part of "unconditional love" which she shows no sign of demonstrating to Bishop Mark Lawrence. The word "inclusive" should be on her lips as she talks to David Booth Beers about how she is going to deal with the South Carolina Bishop.

NORGARD: Thank you for your kind attention this evening and your willingness to reflect on these intriguing questions together. I dearly appreciate your hospitality and your openness to this conversation. I invite all of you - lay and ordained, straight and not so much, to walk with Integrity in your ministries going forward. It is, after all, by walking with integrity (small "I") that we have arrived at the threshold of the future we behold, one that is bright precisely because it is blessed with a veritable rainbow of color.

VOL: TEC is on the threshold of implosion. Nearly all its dioceses with one or two exceptions are slowly dying with no gospel to attract people. The Diocese of Utah, which may elect a "married" homosexual man to be their next bishop, has an ASA of 1,600, the size of one small church in the Anglican Province of Nigeria. TEC sermons are barely distinguishable from the New York Times or TV News. There is NO Good News unless you think proclaiming pansexuality from pulpits is "good news." Only liberals and revisionists think that. TEC is reaping what it has sown and it is reaping the whirlwind.

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