Blessings for gay couples defy Anglicans
By: Courtney Gross
Once each month, Trinity Church, the largest Episcopal parish in the Diocese of New Jersey, provides a meeting place for the Princeton chapter of Integrity, an Episcopalian group which ministers to gays and lesbians.
To the Rev. Frank Strasburger, the monthly meeting is just one sign of the church’s determination to remain a welcoming place to all at a time when controversy over sexual orientation threatens the unity of the American Episcopal Church as well as its relationship with the worldwide Anglican Communion.
"We are an international family of churches," said the Rev. Strasburger, Trinity’s associate rector, as he prepared for Sunday’s Easter services. "Like families, we have our internal squabbles."
In February, the Anglican Communion, the international governing body descended from the Church of England, demanded that the Episcopal Church in the U.S. pledge not to bless same sex unions or ordain openly gay bishops, as it did with New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003.
Bishop Robinson’s ordination and the willingness of many Episcopal churches to bless same-sex couples have prompted protests from some African bishops within the Anglican Communion as well as from some more conservative Episcopal churches in the U.S. Some of the American churches are seeking to sever ties with the House of Bishops and affiliate with the Anglican Church in Africa.
Though the Anglican Communion’s demand carried a September deadline, the American Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops moved swiftly to rebuff it on March 20, during its spring conference in Texas. It issued a statement confirming its allegiance to the communion but affirming its acceptance of the gay and lesbian community.
"If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision," the statement read.
Susan Russell, Integrity’s national president, said, "It is a sign of both health and hope for all Episcopalians that the bishops have refused to be blackmailed into abandoning the historic polity of the Episcopal Church by threats of institutional exclusion from the Anglican Communion."
At Trinity, where copies of the House of Bishops’ statement were distributed during services the following Sunday, the Rev. Strasburger said parishioners reacted with solidarity and pride.
A few weeks earlier, Bishop George Councell of the Diocese of New Jersey, had signaled the American response during an address to the diocesan convention in Trenton. "New Jersey is not Tanzania, nor Nigeria; neither is it any of the 29 countries on the African continent where homosexuality is a criminal offense," he said. "We minister in a radically different context. In our churches are many gay and lesbian people who are living in faithful, committed unions who are asking for our acceptance, our support and our prayers. We have said that the Episcopal Church welcomes them and welcomes all."
Because the Episcopal Church’s General Convention has yet to confirm an approved liturgy, the bishop said he would not authorize clergy to sign state licenses for same sex unions. But he said that the blessing of such unions can be conducted at the discretion of each congregation. Calling the collision of the state’s New Jersey’s new civil union statute and the disagreement between the Anglican Communion and the American Episcopal Church "the perfect storm," the bishop said he is happy to see civil unions celebrated in New Jersey.
Those views and the March 20 statement from the House of Bishops, have drawn wide support across his 50,000-member diocese, Bishop Councell said this week.
"I think there was a feeling that we needed to dissert our identity as autonomous members of this Communion," the bishop said. "I think we’re working hard to identify who we are and stay connected with our partners in the Anglican Communion."
In Princeton, the Rev. Strasburger sees the controversy as an opportunity to define the history and identify the pillars of the American Episcopal Church as autonomous in its policies and regulated by its independent dioceses, not the international Anglican Communion.
"It is apparent that the Episcopal Church is not falling apart, is not deeply divided," the Rev. Strasburger said. "We’re as unified in our basic principles as we have ever been."
Sociology, rather than theology, is at the root of the dispute, the Rev. Strasburger said. Recalling the struggles when Episcopalians first ordained female bishops in the 1970s, he called the more recent confirmation of gay bishops and the blessings of civil unions by the church "chapter two" in a book of acceptance.
Last year, the American Episcopal Church elected its first female presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, further highlighting the cultural gap with Anglican churches in the Third World, many of which still decline to ordain women as priests.
Yet the Rev. Strasberger remains optimistic about the long-term relationship between American Episcopalians and the Anglican Communion. "I think the depths of our ties and the inexorable movement of history toward equality is going to ultimately preserve the family," he said.
For more information on the Web, visit: www.trinityprinceton.org
www.integrityusa.org
http://newjersey.anglican.org
http://anglicancommunion.org