Conversations We've Failed to Have

an open letter from the dean

 

  

February 27, 2014

 

Friends in Christ,

 

It is often suggested that the Church should stay out of politics. There are times, however, when the political agenda purports to speak of matters so core to fundamental Christian values that it is incumbent upon all ministers of the Gospel, indeed, all faithful people, to speak out. For me, such a time arrived this past week in a collision of legislative and austensibly Christian voices.

 

My former home state of Kansas proposed House Bill 2453, and the state of Arizona also offered up Senate Bill 1062. To be clear, these two pieces of legislation -- under the guise of "protecting religious freedom" -- legalize discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. Under these bills, government employees, as well as business owners, could refuse goods and services to fellow citizens and taxpayers without repercussions.

Thankfully, the bill was squashed in Kansas before it could come to a vote of the state senate and last evening Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the legislation in Arizona.

 

Collective acts such as these could have been enough to cause despair amongst the most thoughtful of Christians. But added to that was a sermon preached by one of my brethren last Sunday right here in Cincinnati. Perhaps it is the confluence of that sermon, coupled with these recent legislative events, that compels me to speak out. Or perhaps it is a long overdue need on my part to be less in the shadows of this conversation. Note how I do not call what we are talking about an "issue." An issue by definition involves something that is up for debate.   

 

On February 23, Pastor Brian Tome of Crossroads Community Church delivered a sermon entitled "Grace and Judgement." His sermon was part of a series in which he is attemptingto answer hard questions posed by his congregation. I listened closely to the fifty-plus minute sermon. Pastor Tome emphasized the complexity of the dialogue surrounding homosexuality and then said, "I love you too much not to give you information that might be discomforting to where you are." He went on to emphasize physiology and told his listeners that the purpose of sex is reproductive. He then admonished gay men and lesbians to abstain from homosexual relations, much like we would encourage someone to refrain from eating an extra donut. This is problematic. These desires are not equivalent. His comparison of homosexuality to an addiction is a concept that has been fully discredited by the psychiatric community. To imply otherwise is just hurtful to those in our community who know themselves to be gay or lesbian.

 

Christianity embraces a broad spectrum of how to understand Holy Scriptures. I am not condemning those who choose a more literal interpretation of the Bible. I do, however, take issue when clergy reject all social progress as though it is anti-scriptural. Or when they, as Pastor Tome did last Sunday, attack our society's growing understanding, compassion for and acceptance of the LGBTQ community as an orchestrated conspiracy cooked up by a cabal of gay rights activists in 1988 who intended to gain acceptance for their "lifestyle." "And they succeeded," says Pastor Tome. (Listen for yourself.) I especially take issue when the clergyperson casts himself in the role of victim, suggesting that his view of scripture and righteousness is the one being persecuted.

Crossroads does much good in our community and beyond. They care for and feed some of the most vulnerable in our world and for that I am profoundly grateful to call them my brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet, today I must ask: Is it coincidental that the pastor of Crossroads chose to give this sermon in the same time frame in which Kansas and Arizona are considering state-sponsored discrimination? I wonder. I wonder what systemic fear is operating. I wonder what conversations we've failed to have. I wonder why some see societal change as a conspiracy and not as the movement of the Holy Spirit. And most of all, I wonder if the church has abdicated her prophetic voice on behalf of those who are truly victims of discrimination.

 

From a jail in Birmingham, Alabama, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:

 

In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular ... Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

 

For Episcopalians, our faith is unwavering when we profess in our Baptismal Creed that we will "strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being." That creed requires us to be adamantly opposed to legislation and preaching that does the opposite. I invite us all to recommit ourselves to the promise and hope of Jesus Christ who gathers us in and clearly says all people are entitled to the full rights and joys of humanity because all people are made in the image of God.

 

Faithfully,

The Very Rev. Gail Greenwell

Dean 

Christ Church Cathedral