An Open Lenten Letter to my Bishop

How should our diocese respond to the Anglican Communion's refusal to Invite same-sex spouses to Lambeth?

Dear Bishop Mary,

This week we observed the beginning of Lent together at the cathedral, with prayer, a solemn liturgy, beautiful music. During the Ash Wednesday service, and as you placed the ashes on my forehead, I found myself reflecting on a sermon sent to me earlier in the day by my sister-in-law.

The author, Fr. James Weiss of Boston College, wrote: "What to give up for Lent? The answer is simple: Anything that gets in the way of loving. Lent is not a negative, it is a positive. What do you need to give up in order to love better?" This simple but difficult suggestion encouraged me to think about personal answers, as I struggle with my own crankiness and emotional fatigue at the end of a long winter here in Montreal. But I also thought about what it means for us as a community. How can we love others -- especially the marginalized among us -- more fully and unconditionally? How can we, as a diocese, lead the way toward "loving better?" Where are the obstacles in our path, and what can we do to recognize and surmount them?

Bishop Gene Robinson preaching to a full church at the first OutMass held at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, in July 2006

One issue where we, as a diocese, have made great progress, has been toward full acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons. Like you, I am a straight white woman who has been blessed with a lifelong marriage to the person I love, the right to which was never questioned by anyone. Because of my many privileges, I have always felt it was incumbent on me to fight for the right of all people to full equality, and especially the right to love and marry whomever they choose. As the author of the 2006 biography of Bishop Gene Robinson (who became my own bishop in New Hampshire) I was involved early in this debate within the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church. After we moved from the U.S. to Montreal, I was proud of our cathedral, and later the diocese, for taking a strong leadership role in moving us forward toward openness, inclusion and acceptance, to the point where this is barely an issue anymore among us. So it was with dismay that I heard that that same-sex spouses will not be invited to the dicennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in England in 2020. You will be attending as our representative. What should our response be? Can we send a message with you that conveys all the growth and love that has been shown over this past decade and more here at home -- that explains that we have given up the things that get in the way of loving?

I appreciated the statement by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, calling on all bishops to attend regardless of their differences on sexuality: 'Whether you agree with where the communion is, whether you don't agree, come and express your difference in this beautiful space which is a gift from God. Don't just stay at home and say "I'm not going". Even so, some African bishops have said that they will not attend, presumably because they have disagreed with the ordinations of gay bishops and, in some cases, of women.

This letter is not a request for you or other Canadian bishops to boycott the conference, it is an appeal to you and to our Diocese to use this Lenten period as a time of reflection on how we feel, and prayerfully consider what our response should be. For my own part, I cannot call myself a follower of the Gospel, and then exclude anyone.

I hope that other members of this diocese will not just respond on social media, but write to you or communicate to their representatives on the Diocesan Council how they feel about this issue. I hope that a response can be crafted that is consistent with the message of love with which we are trying to shape our lives, and which we show to the world. And this last is important: the world we live in and represent has moved on, society has moved on. The Church should lead on moral and ethical issues, but instead it tends to lag behind, or to take positions which are widely seen as wishy-washy at best and hypocritical at worst. As attendance declines, and young people in particular look for role models and ways of engaging positively with a chaotic, confusing and destructive secular world, we must lead and do so publicly.

With thanks for your leadership, and very best wishes for a fruitful Lenten journey --

Elizabeth (Beth) Adams

 

Comments

[Peter]

How do the choices of the United Methodist Church affect the thinking of Episcopalians? Your church was one of the leaders in sexuality issues years ago. Is the church turning away from its open position?

[Beth]

Hi Peter, thanks for asking this question. I don't think the United Methodist ruling will affect either the Episcopal Church of the United States, or the Anglican Church of Canada. I can't see either of them going backwards in terms of the ordinations of gay clergy or bishops, which have been approved in both for a long time. The blessings of same-sex unions already take place here in some dioceses, including Montreal, following a vote in 2016 that approved it. However, the decision to allow same-sex marriage won't become canon law until this year, 2019, when it would have to be ratified by the Synod, and would probably cause a censure or worse with the Anglican Communion, as occurred with the Episcopal Church over this issue. I've heard it's unlikely to be passed, which is a great disappointment. However, I don't think that has much to do with what other denominations have decided, or the position of the Anglican Communion at large. It's a reflection of conservative values in certain dioceses of the Canadian Anglican Church. And it's certainly not the prevailing view where we are, or on the West Coast. This article explains the situation in more detail: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/canadian-anglicans-approval-of-same-sex-marriage-far-from-unanimous

[Beth]

Here is the way things stand in the Episcopal Church of the United States (via wikipedia):

As the Episcopal News Service reported on the 2015 Seventy-eighth General Convention, “in the wake of the June 26 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage for all Americans, General Convention followed suit on July 1 with canonical and liturgical changes to provide marriage equality for Episcopalians.” A canonical change eliminated “language defining marriage as between a man and a woman” and “two new marriage rites with language allowing them to be used by same-sex or opposite-sex couples.” These new marriage rites are to be used “under the discretion and with the permission of the diocesan bishop.” Also, “clergy retain the canonical right to refuse to officiate at any wedding.”

The two new marriage rites have been made available online without charge by the Church Publishing House. “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Marriage” (Church Publishing House, 2015) and “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage 2" (Church Publishing House, 2015)

The General Convention also approved The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant: Liturgical Resources for Blessing Same-Sex Relationships for “continued use.

[Sheena]

Thank you Beth.

Sheena (someone who is privileged to call Beth a friend, and who is in a long-term relation with another woman).

[Roderick Robinson]

I can only view the agonies of the last two archbishops of Canterbury with detachment, yet not a little sympathy. Both have struggled with LGBT problems within the Anglican church and, before that, with the ordination of women. To an outsider the arguments appear incomprehensible and are not alleviated when it appears that senior prelates in African countries take a more "evangelical" approach than those in the northern hemisphere. In this case evangelical seems to mean sterner and/or less loving. Both Welby and Williams are, or have been, equipped to lead a modern-day church yet it is difficult to do so when dioceses in distant countries with different politics threaten to leave the Anglican church and set up shop as schismatic variants. I am further restrained by the fact that our present prime minister is a regular churchgoer and yet is able to lead our present disastrous decision to leave the EU without a trace of regret about cutting the geographical and cultural ties with countries whose original and prevailing wish has been to maintain peace in Europe.

Prayer is denied me. I can only "preach" the elevated state and apparent selflessness that music may confer. It seems trivial in the face of these immediate and somewhat ugly problems. The fact that I can take comfort from what I see as the reality in Purcell's setting of the line:

For love has more power and less mercy than fate.

doesn't mean that others may profit from its ambiguity. I wish you well with your letter.

[Kathryn Samuelson]

Lovely letter Beth. I grew up in the Methodist Church. I was dismayed at the vote of the world-wide church to refuse to perform same sex marriages, etc. The thought is that the negative votes came out of Africa in particular. Many American churches have made it clear that they welcome diversity. I'm not sure how they'll handle the marriage issue. There is also some thought that this may cause the American churches to split off from the world-wide Methodist church. I hope they do, although I no longer attend.