The Episcopal Church, Active and Retired, Are Entitled to Seat, Voice and Vote in the House of Bishops (Unless Deprived of the Privilege)

THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF NORTH CAROLINA THE SECRETARY OF THE CONVENTION

Deputies and Alternates to the 77th General Convention As of August 22, 2011

Clergy Deputies Clergy Alternates The Rev. Sarah Hollar The Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren [email protected] [email protected] The Rev. John G. Tampa The Rev. Kevin S. Brown [email protected] [email protected] The Rev. Canon Beth Wickenberg Ely The Rev. Sara Elizabeth Palmer [email protected] [email protected] The Rev. Kevin Matthews The Rev. David Umphlett [email protected] [email protected]

Lay Deputies Lay Alternates Ms. Alice B. Freeman Ms. Margaret (Meg) McCann [email protected] [email protected] Mr. Joseph S. Ferrell Ms. Jane Motsinger [email protected] [email protected] The Hon. Martha Bedell Alexander Mr. Larry Overton [email protected] [email protected] Ms. Josephine H. Hicks None [email protected]

Introduction to General Convention

By: Gregory Straub, Executive Officer

With few precedents for a republican form of church governance the first General Convention met in 1785 in Philadelphia. That convention began work on a constitution and a revision of the Book of Common Prayer, the church’s book of worship. Within ten years the General Convention had agreed on its form of governance and its pattern of worship, both of which endure to the present day.

Uniquely for its time, the first General Conventions determined on a bicameral house in which elected (rather than royally appointed) bishops would make up one house and lay and ordained deputies (equally represented) would make up the other house.

All bishops of the Episcopal Church, active and retired, are entitled to seat, voice and vote in the House of Bishops (unless deprived of the privilege). Each of the Episcopal Church’s domestic and overseas dioceses (and the Convocation of Churches in Europe) is entitled to elect eight deputies, four lay persons and four priests and/or deacons, to the House of Deputies. (The diocesan electors of deputies are themselves elected representatives from local parishes.) Deputies are not delegates; that is, they are not elected to represent the electing dioceses.

Deputies vote their conscience for the good of the church. They cannot be instructed to vote one way or another, for to do so would preclude godly debate and preempt the work of the Holy Spirit. Deputies are expected to serve on committees, if appointed, to attend forums and hearings, to read the reports to the church from its commissions, committees and appointed boards, to listen to, and if so moved, to respond to resolutions on the floor of the house.

The House of Bishops and House of Deputies meet, deliberate and vote separately. To be enacted resolutions must pass both houses in the same language. Both houses have the right to amend legislation, but the amendment must be accepted by the other house. Resolutions presented to convention come from four sources: committees, commissions, agencies and boards of the church; bishops; dioceses and provinces; and deputies.

In the House of Deputies three lay or clerical deputations from different dioceses may request a vote by orders. In a vote by orders each diocesan deputation has two votes: one lay vote and one clerical vote. To cast that vote the deputation is polled. If a majority of a deputation is in favor, the diocesan lay or clerical vote is cast as a “yes.” If a majority of a deputation is opposed, the vote is cast as a “no.” Tied deputations count as “divided” and, in effect, as additional “no” votes.

The House of Bishops is chaired by the Primate of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and, in his absence, by the Vice Chair, Bishop Richard S. O. Chang. They are assisted by the Secretary of the House of Bishops, Bishop Kenneth L. Price; a Parliamentarian, David Beers; and a Chair of the Committee on Dispatch, Bishop Wayne Wright. (At this General Convention the House of Bishops will elect a new Presiding Bishop, those election must be confirmed by the House of Deputies. The 26th Presiding Bishop will take office on 4 November 2006, at a service at the Washington National Cathedral.)

The House of Deputies is chaired by the President of the House, Dean George Werner, and, in his absence, by the Vice President, Bonnie Anderson. They are assisted by the Secretary of the House of Deputies (myself); a Parliamentarian, Polly Getz; and a Chair of the Committee on Dispatch, J. P. Causey. (This General Convention will elect a new President and Vice President of the House, who will take office at the close of General Convention.)

Much of the work of convention is carried out by legislative committees. The Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies determine the number of committees, the number of persons who serve on them and their composition. Deputies are asked to indicate their preference for membership on committees, and the presiding officers make their choice considering previous experience, expertise and interest, ensuring the committees represent diverse points of view, geographic, ethnic and gender diversity and participation by younger deputies.

Resolutions proposed for discussion at convention are referred to committees, which consider, amalgamate and perfect them before presenting them on the floor of convention. Legislative committees hold hearings on legislation at which the following can speak: deputy, registered alternate or registered visitor. These are held in convention hotels near the Convention Center.

In 2006, the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church will meet in Columbus, Ohio from Monday, 12 June through Wednesday, 21 June. In response to previous conventions’ requests that convention be stewards of time and resources it will be one legislative day shorter than last convention. It is scheduled for June to allow for an orderly transition between Presiding Bishops.

General Convention meets prayerfully. Each morning bishops, deputies, registered alternates and delegates to the ECW Triennial gather for Bible study and Holy Eucharist. At this year’s General Convention the themes for these gatherings will reflect the observances for the days from the church’s calendar of saints, or, if there is no saint’s day, the theme of General Convention: Come & Grow.

Both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops have chaplains, who lead their houses in regular prayer at the beginning and end of sessions and daily at noon. Chaplains are also asked to pray before the enactment of important legislation. Organizations within the church sponsor additional worship services, while volunteers staff a prayer room in which there is continual intercession for the work of convention.

A highlight of every General Convention is its festival Eucharist at which the United Thank Offering is presented. (The United Thank Offering is taken up in parishes twice each year for the mission of the church.) For this General Convention a musical setting of the Holy Eucharist has been commissioned in honor of the Presiding Bishop, and it will have its premiere in its entirety at this service.

Debate on the floor is governed by the Constitution and Canons of the church, Rules of Order for each house, Joint Rules of Order (that apply to both houses) and Roberts’ Rules of Order. Deputies are expected to listen respectfully to the views of others and to adhere to the rules, which require, for example, that persons of different points of view alternate at microphones.

Convention is more than legislation. One of the most interesting parts of convention is the Exhibit Hall. The Exhibit Hall reminds me of an oriental souk: it is a marketplace of goods and ideas in which the organizations and interest groups within the church present their wares, recruit members and do their best to influence legislation. It is a colorful part of convention, and it would not be General Convention without it.

Many church-related organizations hold meetings in conjunction with convention, and there are lunches and dinners hosted by seminaries, provinces, societies, boards and staff offices of the church. One gathering not to be missed is the triennial meeting of the Episcopal Church Women. The ECW meeting has changed over the past several decades; it focuses on the mission and service of the church, and many of the church’s most distinguished members are invited to address this body.

General Convention is a combination of legislative assembly, bazaar of goods and services and family reunion. It is one of the most exciting and, truth be told, one of the most awe-inspiring gatherings in the world.

The Reverend Dr. Gregory S. Straub Executive Officer General Convention Office 815 Second Avenue New York, NY 10017 (212) 922-5184 or 800 334-7626, ext. 5184

Preparing for General Convention 2012

Developed by the Rev. Dr. Leon Spencer Revised by Ayliffe Mumford School of Ministry Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina October 2011

God, Grant your blessing on all who join in this General Convention. By your Spirit give them grace to listen and grace to speak. Help them to discover where you are leading this church. Give us all a unity in mission that will enable the church by its life and witness to fulfill the ministry you have entrusted to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

adapted from the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer

Table of Contents Page # Introduction 2 1. What is the General Convention? 2 2. When and where is this one? 3 3. What are the origins of the General Convention in The Episcopal Church? 3 4. How is the General Convention structured? 3 5. Who attends? 3 6. Why are the clergy and the laity who are elected and attend called deputies? 4 7. Who speaks for the Diocese of North Carolina? 4 8. What do they actually do? 5 9. Who presides at the General Convention? 6 10. Where do resolutions come from and how are they handled? 6 11. How does voting take place? 7 12. What is agenda 7 13. Will General Convention consent to the election of any bishops? 7 14. What is the budget of The Episcopal Church and how is the money spent? 8 15. What else goes on at General Convention? 8 16. How can I keep up with what is happening during the General Convention? 9

Introduction: Preparing for General Convention 2009

This introduction to General Convention is designed to be flexible for a variety of uses. Whether for individual or parish study, it provides people throughout our diocese with some basic information about the General Convention:

• the place of the General Convention in The Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion polity;

• how the General Convention carries out its work;

• who speaks for us;

• ways to become and remain informed during the Convention.

The information is presented in a simple, straightforward way: as “frequently asked questions.” The questions serve as the table of contents. A person or group can read or study a few questions based on particular interests or work through the entire document. This format lends itself to study over several weeks.

Behind all of this is an understanding of the Body of Christ, wherein the Church seeks to live into God’s call to us to fulfill God’s mission on earth. The General Convention is an important part of the way by which The Episcopal Church seeks to engage in ministry.

In that light, the prayer on the previous page is one we hope you will keep before you this coming July.

We commend to you also prayers in The Book of Common Prayer, particularly a Prayer for the Church (no. 7), for a Church Convention (no. 12) and for the Unity of the Church (no. 14) on pp. 816-18.

Ayliffe Mumford The School of Ministry

The School remains responsible for any errors or omissions. As this document will also be posted on our website, http://www.episdioncschool.org/, please draw any corrections to our attention, so that we might make appropriate changes on our web pages.

1. What is the General Convention?

The General Convention serves as The Episcopal Church’s legislative body. It has authority to amend The Book of Common Prayer and the Church’s Constitution and Canons, and determines the program and budget of the Church. It receives reports from various church committees, commissions, and agencies, formulates policy, and elects half of the 40 members of the Executive Council. It meets every three years. Visually and experientially, the General Convention reveals the breadth and diversity of the Church.

The Executive Council administers policy and program between these triennial gatherings.

It may be worth noting that while the General Convention is the governing authority for Episcopalians, our Church is also a part of the world-wide Anglican Communion. Within the Anglican Communion

2 there are “Instruments of Unity.” These are:

• The Archbishop of Canterbury; • The Primates Meeting (all the archbishops and presiding bishops of the 38 autonomous “provinces” or churches recognized by the See of Canterbury); • The Lambeth Conference (a gathering of bishops from throughout the Communion, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, held every 10 years, most recently in 2008); and • The Anglican Consultative Council (a representative body consisting of laity, clergy and bishops from each of the provinces).

While our commitment to our life together demands that we listen to and engage with our partners throughout the Communion, no decisions by any of the “Instruments of Unity” are binding upon The Episcopal Church.

2. When and where is this one?

This, the 77th General Convention, meets in Indianapolis, Indiana from Wednesday, July 5th through July 12th.

3. What are the origins of the General Convention in The Episcopal Church?

The General Convention’s origins go back to the immediate post Revolutionary War period. Left very much on its own after ending its ties with the Church of England, our church had no bishops and no central structure. Anglicans, in what was becoming the United States, had also lost both clergy and resources. If an Anglican church, separate from the Church of England, were to survive, it needed to resolve issues of polity.

Resolving these issues proved difficult. Suffice it to say decisions were made for bishops, clergy and laity—not simply a gathering of bishops—to come together as the first General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.1 It would be the governing authority within the Church.

The first General Convention convened on September 27, 1785, in Christ Church, Philadelphia. They set in motion processes to adopt a constitution, write canons, secure episcopal consecrations, and establish a liturgy. Within ten years the General Convention had agreed on its form of governance and its pattern of worship, both of which endure to the present day.

We ended up with a triennial General Convention, and it has continued ever since.

4. How is the General Convention structured?

Following the republican and democratic sentiments at the time of American independence, the General Convention became a bicameral structure (two “houses,” similar to the House of Representatives and the Senate in the U.S. Congress). Bishops—elected, not appointed (by the Crown or anyone else)—were to sit in a House of Bishops. Ordained and lay deputies—elected and equal in number—were to sit in a House of Deputies.

5. Who attends?

1 There are two official names of The Episcopal Church: the most commonly used "The Episcopal Church" (abbreviated TEC), and "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (abbreviated PECUSA).

All Episcopal Church bishops, whether they are active or not, are entitled to attend and to have “seat, voice and vote” in the House of Bishops.

Each of The Episcopal Church’s domestic and foreign dioceses2, plus the Convocation of Churches in Europe and the Navajoland Area Mission, may elect eight deputies to the House of Deputies. Four of them are priests or deacons, and four lay persons. These eight are elected at their diocesan conventions.

In North Carolina, General Convention deputies are elected by majority vote of all in attendance at our diocesan convention, including both clergy and lay delegates. We do not permit a vote by orders for the election, as is the case in many dioceses.

Almost 900 deputies and around 300 bishops attended in 2009. Among deputies in 2009, some 43% served as deputies for the first time. Approximately 43% were women, and 16% were defined as from ethnic communities. Less than 3% were below the age of 30.

Also in attendance typically, are some international visitors.

6. Why are the clergy and laity who are elected and attend called deputies?

There is a distinction between the terms deputies and delegates. If someone has been delegated to represent a group the implication is that the group may instruct that delegate as to what they wish the delegate to do or how to vote. To deputize someone implies far greater discretion. We call clergy and laity chosen from our dioceses deputies, with the message that deputies are to vote their conscience for the good of the Church. They cannot be instructed to vote one way or another on the presumption that doing so would preclude godly debate and preempt the work of the Holy Spirit.

7. Who speaks for the Diocese of North Carolina?

Our bishops: The Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry, Bishop The Rt. Rev. William O. Gregg, Assistant Bishop The Rt. Rev. Alfred C. Marble, Assisting Bishop The Rt. Rev. Robert C. Johnson, Jr., retired The Rt. Rev. Robert W. Estill, retired The Rt. Rev. Huntington Williams, Jr., retired The Rt. Rev. J. Gary Gloster, retired

Our deputies from the clergy: The Rev. Sarah Hollar The Rev. John G. Tampa The Rev. Canon Beth Wickenberg Ely, Head of Deputation The Rev. Kevin B. Matthews

Our deputies from the laity: Ms. Alice B. Freeman Mr. Joseph S. Ferrell The Hon. Martha Bedell Alexander

2 The foreign dioceses are Haiti, Virgin Islands, Taiwan, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Central Ecuador, Litoral Ecuador, Honduras, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico.

Ms. Josephine H. Hicks

Customarily, deputies are listed (clergy and laity) in the order of the number of votes received in the election.

In our diocese, the Head of the Deputation rotates from one Convention to the next between clergy and lay deputies, and is the deputy of the proper order (clergy or lay) with the most seniority. This year it is the clergy’s turn.

We also have alternates (numbered below, since in the event a deputy cannot attend alternates are invited to serve in the order of their election).

Our alternate from the clergy is:

1. The Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren 2. The Rev. Kevin S. Brown 3. The Rev. Sara Elizabeth Palmer 4. The Rev. David Umphlett

Our alternates from the laity are: 1. Ms. Margaret (Meg) McCann 2. Ms. Jane Motsinger 3. Mr. Larry Overton

Many bishops and deputies are assigned to serve on committees during Convention.

In practice, the like committees of each house meet jointly to conduct hearings and deliberate on matters referred to them, but each house’s committee votes separately and reports to its own house.

8. What do they actually do?

Bishops and deputies at General Convention do more than discuss resolutions and vote. Each morning they, together with delegates and alternates to The Episcopal Church Women (ECW) Triennial, gather for Bible study and Holy Eucharist. Worship accords with the theme of the Convention or reflects the church calendar’s saints’ days.

In addition, both Houses have chaplains who open and close sessions with prayer. Chaplains also pray before the consideration of important legislation. Organizations within the church sponsor additional worship services, while volunteers staff a prayer room in which there is continual intercession for the work of Convention.

There is a festival Eucharist at which the United Thank Offering is presented. (The United Thank Offering is taken up in parishes twice per year for the mission of the Church.)

Mainly, however, there is the business of the Church to do. The Convention considers a variety of resolutions. It may address issues arising from the Canons of the Church (the laws that the Church uses to govern its actions), revise liturgy and adopt measures governing relations with other churches. Once every nine years, it elects a Presiding Bishop. Our current Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, was elected at the General Convention in 2006.

There are two kinds of resolutions, binding and non-binding. Binding resolutions reflect changes in the Church’s Constitution, Canons and/or liturgy. All other resolutions express the “sense of the Convention” and are not binding. A resolution may clarify that the stance of a previous resolution remains the same. Sometimes, time runs out before all measures that have gained committee approval can be acted upon by both houses. If this happens to a legislative resolution it is usually assigned to a task force or committee to continue to study it.

A major part of the work of bishops and deputies who are appointed to the Convention’s legislative committees is to attend and participate in committee discussion and recommend action on proposed resolutions and legislation (discussed in question 7 and further in question 10).

Persons with different points of view alternate in speaking during debates on the floor of the two Houses. There are, of course, rules of order, including those derived from the Constitution and Canons of the Church, the Joint Rules of Order and Roberts’ Rules of Order.

9. Who presides at the General Convention?

The House of Bishops is chaired by the Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, and in her absence, by the Vice Chair, The Right Reverend Dean Elliott Wolfe, D.D. The House of Bishops elects its officers toward the end of General Convention. The House of Deputies elects its officers throughout General Convention beginning with the Secretary and Treasurer at the opening legislative session. The President and Vice President are also elected. Each can serve up to three 3-year terms and they must be of different orders. The current President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, D.D. was elected in 2006.

At the 76th General Convention, meeting in Anaheim, California, in July, 2009, the House of Deputies elected Deputy Brian N. Prior its Vice President. On February 13, 2010, Mr. Prior was ordained ninth Bishop of Minnesota, and the office of Vice President of the House of deputies became vacant. There is no canonical provision for filling a vacancy in the office of Vice President of the House of Deputies until the first day of the next General Convention. Following the precedent set in 1993 when a vacancy in the office of Vice President occurred, President of the House of Deputies, Canon Bonnie Anderson, D.D., will nominate a clergy deputy, respected by the House, who has agreed to serve, if elected, for the 77th General Convention only, and not to run for any office to be elected by the House of Deputies at the 77th General Convention. This will enable the House to be served by a Vice President without compromising the election of the Vice President to be elected to serve during the succeeding triennium. Gregory Straub is the Executive Officer of the General Convention Office.

10. Where do resolutions come from and how are they handled?

There are four sources of resolutions that come before General Convention. They are organized by letter:

• A resolutions are from committees, commissions, agencies and boards of The Episcopal Church; • B resolutions are from bishops; • C resolutions are from dioceses and provinces; and • D resolutions are from deputies.

All resolutions, as they become available, are at the General Convention website. 3

Resolutions are assigned to legislative committees, which schedule hearings, combine like resolutions and recommend action, including adopting or rejecting the resolution. Convention staff help by researching past resolutions on similar issues so deputies are aware of the past stance of the Convention and what actions were taken.

The Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies appoint these legislative committees. Deputies and bishops are asked to indicate their preference for membership on committees, and the presiding officers make their decisions.

Each piece of legislation may have a public hearing. Anyone may attend and testify at hearings.

11. How does voting take place?

The House of Bishops and House of Deputies meet, deliberate and vote separately. To be enacted, resolutions must pass both houses in the identical form. Both houses have the right to amend legislation, but the amendment must be accepted by the other house.

In the House of Deputies three clerical or lay deputations from different dioceses may request what is called a “vote by orders”—clergy deputies being one order, and lay deputies being another. In a vote by orders each diocesan deputation has two votes: one clerical vote and one lay vote. To cast that vote the two orders of the deputation are polled separately and that order’s vote is determined by majority vote. Thus, three members of the order must agree for the vote to be cast yes or no. Tied deputations count as divided. Because the Rules of Order of the House of Deputies require a majority of the votes cast in each order for passage of any question, the practical effect of a divided vote in one of the orders is the same as a no vote in that order. The clergy and lay orders of a deputation need not agree with each other, and often do not.

In the House of Bishops, each bishop in attendance has one vote on most measures. On some issues, such as consent to a consecration of a bishop, only bishops with jurisdiction have voting privileges.

12. What is on the agenda?

The Blue Book (officially titled Reports to the 77th General Convention) is mailed to bishops and deputies in advance. It contains reports of the committees, commissions, agencies, and boards for this latest triennium, and includes all A resolutions (see Question 10). The book provides a good indication of the most important items that will be on the agenda. As was already mentioned, the work of the Convention committees is to decide how resolutions will be handled so, though a resolution is filed, it may be combined with another or “die in committee.”

13. Will General Convention consent to the election of any bishops?

The normal process following a diocesan election of a bishop is for the Standing Committee of the electing diocese to seek the consent of a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and a majority of diocesan Standing Committees. Only if those consents are obtained may the person elected be ordained bishop. If, however, the election of a bishop is within 120 days of General Convention, then the decision is made by the bishops with jurisdiction in attendance and the House of Deputies.

3 http://generalconvention.org/.

14. What is the budget of The Episcopal Church and how is the money spent?

The triennial or three-year budget, to be adopted by General Convention 2012 (GC12) for the years 2013- 2015, will fund the governance, mission and ministry work of the Episcopal Church. The budget for the Episcopal Church serves as the blueprint for the mission and ministry that happen on a churchwide level between meetings of General Convention.

The three categories of funding are: • Program: These expenses support the mission and ministry of the Church. • Canonical: These expenses cover those costs associated with activities and structures required by the Canons of the Church. They include the expenses of the General Convention, including committees, commissions, agencies and boards; the stipend of the Presiding Bishop; and the expenses of the President of the House of Deputies. • Corporate: These expenses provide for the administrative support of the offices of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.4

The Episcopal Church budget supports mission partners and volunteers around the globe; helps Anglican partner provinces around the world to participate fully in Anglican activities; provides theological education scholarships for Anglican leaders in the Global South; and develops educational materials on world mission.

Through this budget we assist refugees and immigrants. Our ecumenical initiatives are enhanced. Congregational development resources on stewardship, new churches, Hispanic ministries and women’s ministries are provided. This budget equips Episcopalians to be faithful voices for justice and peace.

The proposed budget provides “partnership support” to our historically-black Episcopal colleges and to provinces with which we have historic ties such as Mexico, the Philippines, Central America, and Liberia. Domestically, we provide block grants to ministries in Appalachia and with Native Americans, the deaf, the disabled, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

In other words, the budget, once approved, is the Mission Statement for the Church.

15. What else goes on at General Convention?

A lot. An exhibit hall presents goods and ideas from a wide variety of organizations and interest groups within the Church. Many church-related organizations choose to hold their meetings in conjunction with the General Convention. Seminaries, provinces, societies, boards and staff offices of the Church hold luncheons and dinners. The triennial meeting of The Episcopal Church Women (ECW) takes place during the Convention. And, as was stated previously, additional worship services are held, often with experimental liturgies. There are children’s programs, from basic childcare to sponsored outings and activities. There is also a young adult’s festival. You can find the details of these and other activities at the General Convention website, http://generalconvention.org/.

4The full legal name of the national church corporate body is the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

8 16. How can I keep up with what is happening during the General Convention?

Prior to the Convention, you may secure a copy of the Reports to the 77h General Convention, more commonly known as the Blue Book (which was actually RED in 2009). When available, it may be downloaded in pdf format from the General Convention website.

The General Convention’s website5 is filled with all the information about the General Convention. Navigate around the website by following links to the various sites.

During General Convention, there will be numerous news releases from Episcopal News Service (ENS) on Episcopal Life Online. It’s easy to subscribe (or unsubscribe), and it is free. News in Spanish is also available.

The Anglican Communion News Service will provide some coverage of the Convention. Subscribe to it at the bottom of the subscription page of the Episcopal Life news.

Information from the Episcopal News Service will be posted on our diocesan web site, www.episdionc.org, daily.

In 2009, General Convention had daily updates on its media hub. Live streaming of certain events, daily news briefings and end of day reports occurred. There will be a similar ongoing communication from the 2012 Convention that will also include Twitter and Facebook.

There are a variety of independent web sites focused on The Episcopal Church. Anglicans Online has a news page that links to a wide array of sources and hard data that may be helpful. See www.anglicansonline.org/news/index.html.

The diocese will report on General Convention in an issue of the NC Disciple, as soon as possible after the Convention adjourns.

5 http://generalconvention.org/.

9 The Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion: Our Faith Anglican/Episcopal churches uphold and proclaim the Catholic and Apostolic faith, proclaimed in the Scriptures, interpreted in the light of tradition and reason. Following the teachings of Jesus Christ, Anglicans are committed to the proclamation of the good news of the Gospel to all creation. Our faith and ministry have been expressed through the Book of Common Prayer, received and adapted by local churches, in the Services of Ordination (the Ordinal), and in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, first expounded at the missionary Conference in Chicago in 1886, and revised by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. The quadrilateral sets out four essential elements of the Christian faith:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

2. The Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

3. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.

Central to Anglican worship is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (also called the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper or the Mass). In this offering of prayer and praise, the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are made a present reality through the proclamation of the Word, and the celebration of the Sacrament. Anglicans celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism, with water and in the name of the Trinity, as the rite of entry into the Christian Church, and celebrate other sacramental rites, including Confirmation, Reconciliation, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick and Ordination.

Common prayer is at the heart of Anglicanism. Its styles may vary from the simple to the elaborate, from evangelical to catholic, charismatic to traditional. The various Books of Common Prayer give expression to a comprehensiveness found within the churches which seeks to chart a via media in relation to other Christian traditions.

Our Churches Deriving from the ancient Celtic and Saxon churches of the British Isles, Anglicanism found its distinctive identity in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Reformation, when the separate Church of England, along with the Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church, came into being. At the time of the American Revolution, an autonomous Episcopal Church was founded in the United States, and later Anglican or

Episcopal churches were founded across the globe as a result of the missionary movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of these were given autonomy as provinces in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In South Asia, the United Churches, formed between Anglican and several Protestant traditions also joined the Anglican Communion, as did churches elsewhere such as the Spanish Episcopal Reformed Church and the Lusitanian Church of Portugal.

Today, the Anglican Episcopal family consists of an estimated 78 million Christians who are members of 44 different churches. These make up 34 provinces, 4 United Churches, and 6 other churches, spread across the globe.

The Instruments of Communion

The churches of the Anglican Communion are held together by bonds of affection and common loyalty, expressed through links with the “Instruments of Communion” - the Archbishop of Canterbury as the focus for unity, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.

The Archbishop of Canterbury The churches are all in communion with the See of Canterbury in the Church of England, and thus the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his person and ministry is the unique focus of Anglican unity. He convenes the Lambeth Conference, and Primates Meeting, and is President of the Anglican Consultative Council. The 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in succession to Saint Augustine, the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan Williams, was enthroned in February 2003.

The Lambeth Conference Every ten years or so, the Archbishop of Canterbury invites the bishops of the Anglican Communion to join with him in prayer, study and discernment. At the last Lambeth Conference in 2008, over 800 bishops were welcomed to the Conference which was held in Canterbury. The next conference is scheduled for 2018.

The Primates Meeting Since 1979, the Archbishop of Canterbury has also invited the primates (the presiding bishop, archbishop or moderator) of each of the 38 provinces, to join him in regular meetings for consultation, prayer and reflection on theological, social and international matters. These meetings take place approximately every eighteen months to two years.

The Anglican Consultative Council In 1968 the bishops of the Lambeth Conference requested the establishment of a body representative of all sections (bishops, clergy and laity) of the churches, which could co- ordinate aspects of international Anglican ecumenical and mission work. With the consent of the legislative bodies of all the provinces, the Anglican Consultative Council was established, and has met regularly since.

Other Organizational Information

The Anglican Communion Office There is a permanent secretariat, based in London, which serves the Instruments of Communion. The secretariat is responsible for organizing all meetings of the conciliar Instruments of Communion, as well as the Commissions and Networks of the Communion. Funding comes from the Inter-Anglican budget, supported by all member churches according to their means.

They are also invited to contribute to special projects, such as the Personal Emergencies Fund and the Anglican Episcopal World Christmas Appeal.

The ACO is based at St Andrew’s House, London, under the leadership of the Secretary General, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. St Andrew’s House offers a small number of rooms as accommodation for pilgrims and visitors.

Communications The ACO publishes Anglican Episcopal World - a regular magazine containing articles and news from across the Communion - which is produced in print and on the Anglican Communion website. Updates to the Anglican Cycle of Prayer (daily prayer intentions for the Communion) can be found in the magazine and also on the Anglican Communion website. ACNS is the electronic Anglican Communion News Service, available by email subscription and on the website.

Provinces The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia The Anglican Church of Australia The Church of Bangladesh The Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil The Province of the Anglican Church of Burundi The Anglican Church of Canada The Church of the Province of Central Africa The Anglican Church of the Central America Region The Anglican Church of the Congo The Church of England Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean The Church of Ireland Nippon Sei Ko Kai - The Anglican Communion in Japan The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East The Anglican Church of Kenya The Anglican Church of Korea The Church of the Province of Melanesia The Anglican Church of Mexico The Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma) The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) The Church of North India 3

The Church of Pakistan The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea The Episcopal Church in the Philippines The Episcopal Church of Rwanda The Scottish Episcopal Church The Church of the Province of South East Asia The Church of the Province of Southern Africa The Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America The Church of South India The Episcopal Church of the Sudan The Anglican Church of Tanzania The Church of the Province of Uganda The Episcopal Church (United States of America) - includes overseas dioceses in Taiwan, Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica Dominican Republic and Ecuador The Church in Wales The Church of the Province of West Africa The Church in the Province of the West Indies

Extra-provincial dioceses and provinces The Anglican Church of Bermuda The Anglican Church in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) The Episcopal Church of Cuba The Lusitanian Church (Portugal) The Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church Falkland Islands

Churches in Communion The Mar Thoma Syrian Church; The Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht; The Philippine Independent Church; The Church in China is a “post denominational” Church whose formation included Anglicans in the Holy Catholic Church in China; Anglicans/Episcopalians, in certain parts of the Communion, are in full communion with some Lutheran Churches and most recently the Moravian Church.

Canterbury Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Christ, Canterbury, England, is the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion. Daily prayer and the celebration of the Eucharist stand at the heart of its ongoing ministry, and the Archbishop is present at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. The work of the Cathedral was recently extended with the development of the International Study Centre, which welcomes pilgrims and students from across the world.

The Compass Rose The Compass Rose is the symbol of the Anglican Communion. As pictured on the next page, it is centered on the Cross of St. George with the biblical motto “The Truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). The Compass Rose itself bears witness to the mission of the Anglican Communion as it extends this message to all corners of the world.

A Brief Overview the Anglican Covenant Churches of the Anglican Communion are being asked to adopt the Anglican Covenant (or Anglican Communion Covenant). To date, many churches are in the process of reviewing it (including the Episcopal Church), some have accepted it, and only one (Philippines) has actually rejected it. What is the Covenant? How did it come to be? And will it strengthen the Anglican Communion? The Covenant is a proposed agreement among Communion churches. It is a nine-page document developed over a period of more than three years by an international committee, with feedback from various Anglican bodies and churches. A church does not have to adopt the Covenant to remain in the Anglican Communion, but failure to adopt it could result in more limited participation in the Anglican Communion or other consequences yet to be determined. The principal presenting issues that resulted in the proposed Covenant were the blessing of same- gender relationships and the consecration of openly partnered bishops. These issues concerning sexuality were discussed in three successive Lambeth Conferences, culminating with a 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution I.10, which declared “homosexual practice … incompatible with Scripture.” In October 2003, Rowan Williams, less than a year into his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, called an emergency meeting of the Communion’s primates in the wake of The Episcopal Church’s decision to consecrate a partnered gay bishop and the approval of a liturgy for blessing same-gender unions by the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada. The Primates expressed alarm at the recent developments and called for the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish a commission to deliver, within a year, a report that would address the maintenance of communion among Anglican churches. The resulting report is known as the Windsor Report. Though never officially adopted by any Anglican body, the Windsor Report has been characterized by some as offering “the only way forward.” It recommended “the adoption by the churches of the Communion of a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion.” Williams appointed a Covenant Design Group nearly two years later and named the Most Rev. Drexel Gomes of the West Indies as chair. Two members of the Episcopal Church served on the design group. By December 2009, the 38 churches of the Communion were being asked to adopt the “final text” of a Covenant. Whereas the Anglican Communion traditionally has been a fellowship of autonomous churches bound neither by formal agreements nor confessional statements, the Covenant attempts to define the limits of Anglican belief and to establish a disciplinary mechanism to enforce compliance with an Anglican consensus developed through “shared discernment.” Sections 1 and 2 of the Covenant articulate basic Anglican beliefs and goals. Section 3 institutionalizes Communion bodies as “Instruments of Communion” responsible for maintaining order in the Communion, and it commits Communion churches to avoiding unilateral acts that might offend other churches. Section 4 provides a mechanism, although vaguely defined, for enforcing that Anglican consensus. It does not speak of punishing violating churches, but of subjecting them to unspecified “relational consequences.” The question before us is whether the Anglican Covenant can achieve its goal of assuring Anglican unity. If it is adopted by a majority of Communion churches, will it strengthen our common bonds of affection, or institutionalize and intensify the conflict that has beset the Anglican Communion in recent years?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been a strong advocate for the adoption of the Anglican Covenant. He and other supporters assert that “in order to live out our common inheritance of faith in our varying contexts, each church must commit itself to teach and act in consonance with Scripture as received by the Churches of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the common councils of the Communion and our ecumenical agreements.” (Anglican Covenant, 1.2.1) Supporters also believe that the Covenant offers a way forward to allow us to maintain communion in spite of deep cultural and theological differences. However, conservative Evangelicals are concerned that the Covenant is too vague on the question of “biblical Anglicanism.” They also say that the Covenant does not contain a rigorous enough enforcement mechanism. At the same time, there are others who have expressed concerns about the proposed Covenant’s implications concerning biblical interpretation and authority, whether there should be any enforcement mechanism, and whether the covenant precludes prophetic voices. Those who do not support the covenant further suggest that rather than imposing a formal document of understanding where no consensus exists, Anglicans should acknowledge sincere differences of opinion, allowing them to be expressed and debated within the Communion free from threats of schism or exclusion. The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church plans to submit a resolution to General Convention stating that The Episcopal Church is “unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in its present form.” The General Convention will decide whether to pass, amend, or reject that proposed resolution.

What is it, and what does it mean for The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion? 1998 Lambeth Conf. resolution 1.10: “homosexuality is contrary to scripture”

1999-2000: interventions

 May 2003: AbC: Liturgy reflects what we believe. Having reached no consensus on same sex unions, we cannot approve a liturgy for blessing them.

 May 2003: Diocese of New Westminster (Canada) approves a liturgy for blessings

 Aug 2003: Episcopal Church approves election of openly gay bishop

 Oct 2003: AbC appoints Lambeth Commission to report on how we can relate to each other in Communion in midst of deep controversy  Recommended moratoria on consecrating gay bishops, liturgies on blessings, and cross- boundary interventions

 Proposed a covenant to articulate common foundations and set out principles to strengthen the interdependent life of the Communion

 Covenant Design Group

 First draft 2007; rec’d comments from all provinces

 new draft 2/2008; comments from provinces and Lambeth Conference

 new draft 4/2009; vetted at ACC 14  Section 1 – affirms basics of our faith

 Section 2 – affirms common mission

 Section 3 – affirms Instruments of Communion and polity

 Section 4 – sets out governance for the covenant (dispute resolution)  Need to rebuild trust and mutual accountability

 Covenant offers a way forward

 Idea of a covenant is “un-Anglican”

 Prophetic voices may be silenced in effort to find “shared mind”

 Spectrum of views:  No need for a covenant  Urgently need a covenant  No need for Section 4  Need Section 4 as is (best we can get)  Need more work on Section 4  ACC 14 voted for more work on section 4; submit to provinces after section 4 revised

 All provinces are to report on status of their consideration of covenant at ACC 15 (Oct 2012)  Sections 1-3 unchanged  Section 4 provides strong role for Standing Committee  with advice of ACC and Primates, SC would recommend to an Instrument of Communion “relational consequences” for province that violates the covenant

 Consequences could include limited participation or suspension  “Churches” who may adopt means national or regional provinces of Anglican Communion (not anyone who calls themselves a “church”)

 Procedure to be recognized as a province is the existing ACC constitution provision: Standing Committee may “alter” the schedule with assent of 2/3 Primates  What happens to a province that doesn’t adopt the Covenant?

 What are the “relational consequences?”  Only two provinces have adopted

 Several have given preliminary approval; final vote pending next synod meeting

 The Episcopal Church will consider at General Convention 2012 (summer)

 ACC 15 (Oct 2012) will review status

A Covenant for the Anglican Communion A study and consultation guide

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group Prayer for those engaged in the study of “A Covenant for the Anglican Communion”

Gracious and loving God, who has called us into communion through your Son, we give you thanks for the special gift of the Anglican Communion. As we seek to serve you and your church by careful and prayerful study of the Covenant for the Anglican Communion, may we have ears to hear, eyes to see, minds to reason and hearts to follow the guidance of your Spirit, that we might discern your way forward. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group Exploring The Anglican Communion Covenant A Study Kit for Individuals, Congregations and Dioceses Developed by the Anglican Communion Working Group of the Anglican Church of Canada

Pentecost, 2011

elcome to Exploring the Anglican Covenant. This study guide is designed to help people in parishes Wand dioceses dig more deeply into the wording of the Covenant, and the meaning behind the words and to discuss together what the implications of adoption might be. This study is an important part of a national consultation process. The aim is to collect the insights, affirmations and concerns arising from group discussions across the country, and in doing so, inform our church’s response for the wider Anglican Communion.

The materials are designed to support a three-session study of The Anglican Communion Covenant. To fully engage with the Covenant and with each other in discussion of its potential implications for our church, three sessions of 90 to 120 minutes each are recommended. If you do not have the option of three sessions, you will find suggestions to adapt to a one- or two-session study at the end of the guide. Whichever you choose, we hope that the questions and ideas that follow will help you provide effective leadership to your group as it works with the Covenant and the accompanying materials found in this guide.

This study guide includes: l Exploring the Anglican Covenant—background documents prepared by the Anglican Communion Working Group to support this study l tips for planners and facilitators l outlines for group study sessions l links to a short video clip from our Primate, the Most Rev. Fred Hiltz l a PowerPoint presentation on the background for the Covenant l the text of the Covenant l a letter from two of our Canadian members of the Anglican Consultative Council l a resource list l links to a summary of Frequently Asked Questions about the Covenant developed by the Anglican Communion Office l a consultation response form l an evaluation/comments form.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group Letter from Sue Moxley and Suzanne Lawson for Study Kit on the Covenant

e greet you as your two continuing members of the Anglican Consultative Council, who attended Wthe April 2009 meeting in Jamaica with former member, now-bishop Stephen Andrews. (The Ven. Peter Elliott has since been appointed to replace him.) At this meeting the Anglican Communion Covenant was considered for distribution to the Provinces of the Communion. It was obvious from the earnest and thoughtful discussions that a Covenant as a way of strengthening the Communion was of high importance to those in attendance representing the various Provinces of the Anglican Communion. There was tension in the discussion, but huge commitment to getting the Covenant as right as it could be. We knew and still know that the Covenant is not perfect, since it is the result of many varying points of view. There were some who thought that a Covenant was essential and others who thought it was not necessary at all.

We are pleased that the church across Canada will be studying the Covenant and sharing their ideas with the Council of General Synod so that this church may be better able to make a decision on adoption or not at General Synod, 2013. We have been asked to report on the progress towards decision in Canada when the Canadian members attend the next ACC meeting in 2012, and so your feedback will be most helpful to us for that purpose.

Whether you agree with the Covenant or not, there is much to be learned about our Anglican heritage and practice, by engaging in the study process. The Anglican Communion has been in turmoil over the past several years. This Covenant may or may not be of assistance in leading us towards a clearer mission together. The Anglican Communion Networks (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/networks/index.cfm) are self- funding groups that help profile various areas of interest in the Anglican world at large. They have shown that it is possible to work together towards specific parts of God’s mission while holding diverse views.

As you study and ponder what makes for communion in the face of diversity, may you also experience God’s blessing.

The Rt. Rev. Susan Moxley Suzanne Lawson

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group Planning for the Study

In preparing to hold a discussion on the Covenant you will want to do the following: l Gather and read all the material available in this guide. l Decide on a one-session discussion on the first three sections of the Covenant, a one-session exploration of the whole Covenant, or a three-session discussion on the whole Covenant (models will follow). l Determine whether the study will be offered as an open session for all who are interested, integrated into the program of an already existing group (parish council, Bible study group, deanery chapter, etc.) or offered in a group gathered by invitation. l Find a facilitator for the group(s). Note that a facilitator’s job is to introduce the topic and the importance of the study, ensure that all have a chance to speak and to keep the meeting moving according to the time allotted. They will NOT be positioned as an expert who knows the answers to all the questions, NOR will they share their thoughts about the Covenant. l Recruit a recorder to capture key questions, concerns and opinions, and submit them afterwards to the Anglican Communion Working Group on the form provided at the end of the study guide. The recorder will need to summarize and synthesize carefully: not submitting all that was said but accurately sharing both the content and tone of the discussion(s). The equivalent of a one- or two- pager is hoped for, not a treatise! l The group may disagree. Ensure that the recorder is prepared and able to note all perspectives accurately and fairly, and that these are included in the summary feedback to the Working Group.

Planning the Logistics l Find someone who will organize the logistics and promotion. l Set the date(s) and time. If you are planning an open session, advertise that a group (or several) will be formed to study and discuss together The Anglican Communion Covenant. Advertise in the parish bulletin and/or newsletter and/or website, and make an in-person announcement several times about the dates. l Ensure that a room is reserved and that, if you are going to show the Primate’s video, a computer, LCD projector and a screen or blank wall area available to enable its viewing. l Have copies made of the Covenant and the study guide for all who will attend. Ask people to pick up their copy in advance of the meeting and read it in advance.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 1 A Note to Facilitators

The Covenant document has both proponents and detractors in the life of our church today. Don’t assume that there will be consensus in your group. It is recommended that early in the first session of the study, you help the group set some norms for their work together.

Group norms are a code of conduct that will guide people’s behaviour during the discussions. The code, established by the group itself at the beginning of the study, will help create the conditions for full participation. With norms set and agreed to by group members, a facilitator may then remind people, should it become necessary, to abide by their own rules for healthy and constructive conversation.

What guidelines should be established to help ensure that all participants feel they can participate openly and safely in the discussions? Here’s a list of examples (in no particular order) to get started:

As we work together we will l speak for ourselves (use “I” statements) l listen respectfully to each other’s opinions l expect that members will let the group know when they don’t feel heard l be tough on issues, soft on people l recognize that we all may be challenged in ways we didn’t expect l support each other, especially at times where we are surprised or when our discussion moves to places we hadn’t foreseen l not be disappointed with disagreements l avoid stereotyping l be prayerful l be positive l bring our sense of humour to the conversations l be willing to think creatively.

Write the list of norms on paper and post it where the group can see it. Ask the group if all can agree, and are willing to be held accountable to these norms. Post the list, written large enough for the whole group to read, at each session.

Anglican Church of Canada 2 Anglican Communion Working Group A Note to Parish Clergy

It is important that you attend and participate, but avoid dominating or taking over discussion. This is a time to let the discussion emerge from all people in attendance, many of whom might not have had much opportunity to consider issues relating to the international Anglican church before. This being said, there may be times when comments from you will be helpful, particularly if things go off track considerably or require a specific response for information or clarification.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 3 Session One Considering Sections One Through Three: Our Inheritance of Faith, The Life We Share with Others, and Our Unity and Common Life

Materials l Exploring the Anglican Covenant Preamble and Part 1 l A few extra copies of the Covenant l Video clip from Primate l Equipment to show the video clip

Purpose

To look at how the Covenant describes relationship among Anglican churches worldwide; and

To consider how this description reflects the relationships we experience, or aspire to, as the Anglican Church of Canada with other churches making up the Communion

Suggested Format (2 to 2.5-hour session)

Gathering (10—20 minutes) l Welcome and introduce the topic and its importance to all Anglicans l Opening prayer l If necessary, ask group participants to introduce themselves briefly l Set group norms l Run the video from the Primate (optional, but helpful) l Briefly summarize the Preamble

Anglican Church of Canada 4 Anglican Communion Working Group Preparing for Discussion (10—15 minutes)

Introduce the first three sections of the Covenant with the opening paragraph of the commentary accompanying this study guide. You may also want to expand your introduction by briefly outlining the content of the first three sections.

Open your discussion with the following question:

What would you say to your friend, who knows nothing about Anglicanism, about who you are as a Canadian Anglican and your relationship(s) with other Anglicans?

Give people a few minutes to scan the first three sections of the Covenant AND the rest of the commentary— to refresh their memories and focus themselves for discussion. If they haven’t read the materials in advance, give the group some time to do this.

Discussion

Choose one or more of these questions as time allows:

1. How do Sections One through Three of the Covenant describe the relationships we have as churches of the Anglican Communion?

a. In what ways is this description similar to our historic understandings of these relationships? In what ways is it different?

b. In what ways is it like or unlike the kind of relationships you believe we, in the Anglican Church of Canada, should aspire to with other Anglican churches internationally? 2. What specifically in these sections would you point towards as being most meaningful for you and your understanding of being part of the wider Anglican church? What specifically worries or concerns you about these sections? 3. What about the depth and emphases of description? Are these sections too detailed or not detailed enough? What is most emphasized? Are there things that should be taken out, or are there things not addressed that should be included? 4. If adopted by our General Synod, should these sections become a formal definition of Anglican doctrine within our Canadian church, or should they be considered to be more like a treaty among churches without any doctrinal implications?

Raise a question and wait for discussion. (Don’t provide your answer or opinion first!) When the discussion seems to have run its course, introduce another question. Draw the discussion to a close near the time allotted.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 5 Closing (25 minutes)

Ask participants to share briefly: l What have you learned from this session that is new to you? l Is there anything else you would like to learn about Anglicanism and being Anglican?

Briefly introduce the next study session: Section Four outlines what would happen when member Provinces are having trouble getting along. Encourage participants to read the materials before the next session. Note that the Covenant text is actually integrated into this study guide’s commentary, so participants will need just the one document.

Closing prayer

Anglican Church of Canada 6 Anglican Communion Working Group Session Two Considering Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together What is it and What is it Supposed to Do?

Materials

l Exploring the Anglican Covenant Part 2

Purpose

To look at how the Covenant describes the procedures for adopting the Covenant and what it would mean to live within its provisions; and

To look at the mechanisms and processes proposed to deal with disagreement and conflict among Provinces of the Anglican church.

Suggested Format (2 to 2.5-hour session)

Gathering (10—20 minutes)

l Welcome, and introduce the topic and its importance to all Anglicans

l Opening prayer

l If necessary, ask group participants to introduce themselves briefly

l Ask participants (use one or both of these questions depending on time): Do you have any questions or thoughts arising from our last session? As you have been thinking about our discussion since the last session, is there anything that stands out as particularly significant for you? What has stuck in your mind?

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 7 Preparing for Discussion (10—15 minutes)

Introduce Section Four of the Covenant with the opening paragraphs of the commentary accompanying this study guide. You may also want to expand your introduction by briefly outlining the content. You may also want to acknowledge that this is the most complex and contentious part of the Covenant and remind the group of their norms before beginning the discussion.

Give people a few minutes to scan the materials to refresh their memories and focus themselves for discussion. If they haven’t read the materials in advance, give the group some time to do this.

Open your discussion with the following question:

In a few words or a short phrase, what was your first impression upon reading this section of the Covenant?

Discussion

Choose two or more of these questions as time allows:

1. In what ways does Section Four address the balance of autonomy and interdependence among churches of the Anglican Communion? How would you describe what is being proposed? 2. In what ways do you see this part of the Covenant challenging or constraining us within the Canadian church? In what ways do you see it would enhance our church? 3. One of the concerns that has been expressed is that Section Four would limit the possibility and space for the “prophetic voice” to be heard within the Anglican church internationally. a. Where and how do we hear the prophetic voice in our church? b. Do you share the concern named above? Why or why not? 4. With particular reference to Section Four subsections 4.1−4.3, discuss what this might mean for the Anglican Church of Canada. 5. In summary, what can you affirm about this section of the Covenant, and what are your concerns or criticisms?

Anglican Church of Canada 8 Anglican Communion Working Group Closing (25 minutes)

Ask participants to name: l What have you learned from this session that is new to you? Is there anything else you would like to discuss before feeling prepared to frame your response to the Anglican Covenant Working Group? (Make note of these for your next session. Note if there are materials or other preparations to be made before the next session in order to equip people to have these discussions.) l Briefly introduce the final study session. Tell the group that the task of your final meeting will be to frame and write your response to the Anglican Covenant Working Group and through them, to the wider Canadian church.

Closing prayer

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 9 Session Three Sharing Our Voice

Materials l Flip chart and markers

Purpose

To write our response to the Covenant to the Anglican Communion Working Group and, through them, to the wider Anglican church.

Suggested Format (2 to 2.5-hour session)

Gathering (10—20 minutes) l Welcome, and introduce the topic and its importance to all Anglicans l Opening prayer l If necessary, ask group participants to introduce themselves briefly l Ask participants (use one or both of these questions depending on time): Do you have any questions or thoughts arising from our last session? As you have been thinking about our discussion since the last session, is there anything that stands out as particularly significant for you? What has stuck in your mind?

Preparing for Discussion (10—15 minutes)

Review any questions raised by the group at the end of your previous session: Is there anything else you would like to discuss before feeling prepared to frame your response to the Anglican Covenant Working Group?

Determine with the group how they would like to discuss these things.

Anglican Church of Canada 10 Anglican Communion Working Group Discussion

1. Work your way through the questions and discussions above, if any. 2. Ask the reporter to summarize the highlights of each of the previous sessions. Note where there is consensus and where the group has disagreed. 3. What would the group like to share in their report to the church from their discussions? Here are some ideas about what you might like to share: a. What were your discussions like? What was the tone of the discussions and the experience of the study for participants? b. How easy or difficult were the discussions? c. What can the group say about their overall impressions of the Covenant? d. Are the values, regarding the character of international relationships within the wider Anglican church, as expressed by the Covenant consistent with the proposed mechanisms of accountability? Are these mechanisms and processes likely to further the values or impede them? Why?

Finally: Having taken the time to examine the Covenant in detail, how would a decision to adopt, or not adopt, the Covenant further God’s mission for the Anglican Church of Canada?

Closing (25 minutes)

l Ask participants to fill out the evaluation form for the study.

l Thank people for their participation.

Closing prayer

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 11 Notes on a Shorter Session

Should you be able to dedicate only one or two sessions to this study, you could do one of the following:

1. Choose to do just one of the first two sessions. 2. Focus on Sessions Two and Three, having asked the group to read the entire Covenant and study guide in preparation; choose one or two questions from each session that you think will generate the best discussion for the group. 3. After Session Two, delegate a smaller group to summarize the discussions from the first two sessions, and draft their response to the Covenant Working Group. This response can then be reviewed by the larger group by email before being sent off.

Anglican Church of Canada 12 Anglican Communion Working Group Exploring the Anglican Covenant Preamble

At the 2010 meeting of General Synod in Halifax the following resolution was passed: Be it resolved that this General Synod:

1. receive the final text ofThe Anglican Communion Covenant; 2. request that materials be prepared under the auspices of the Anglican Communion Working Group, for parishes and dioceses in order that study and consultation be undertaken on The Anglican Communion Covenant; 3. request that conversations, both within the Anglican Church of Canada and across the Communion, reflect the values of openness, transparency, generosity of spirit, and integrity, which have been requested repeatedly in the context of the discussion of controversial matters within the Communion; 4. request that the proposed Covenant be referred to the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee and to the Governance Working Group in order to support these conversations by providing advice on the theological, ecclesiological, legal, and constitutional implications of a decision to adopt or not to adopt the Covenant; 5. direct the Council of General Synod, after this period of consultation and study, to bring a recommendation regarding adoption of The Covenant for the Anglican Communion to the General Synod of 2013.

In fulfillment of parts 2. and 3. of this resolution, a committee was formed under the auspices of the Anglican Communion Working Group to prepare materials and to encourage consultation. What follows is a process for study and feedback that is intended to help Anglicans in parishes and dioceses across the country engage in a meaningful exploration of this important document so that a comprehensive response can be formulated, and offered to the wider Anglican Communion, by the General Synod of 2013.

At the heart of our life and membership in the Anglican Communion there has always been a strong commitment to the building of relationships, and to careful and respectful dialogue. Our work as we undertake this study must reflect these commitments. These are as important in our relationships within the Anglican Communion as they are within our families, parishes and dioceses.

Many examples can been found in scripture that would articulate the centrality of open and gracious listening in the midst of diversity, but as we enter the season of Pentecost it is this story in the Book of Acts, of the gift of God’s Holy Spirit descending upon and breathing life into the church, that is the most compelling.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 1 In the streets of Jerusalem, as people of different nationalities, contexts, experiences and perspectives gathered, we see the dramatic in-breaking of God’s kingdom and God’s call to mission received in a way that honours and celebrates that diversity. “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each” (Acts 2:5−6).

In response to the gift of this same Spirit, active and present in our common fellowship and ministry, we take up the challenge offered to us by General Synod 2010 to not only engage in a study of the Covenant, but in the process to live the promise made in baptism to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”: to draw closer into communion with each other. As the preamble section of the Covenant states, the goal of churches of the Anglican Communion solemnly covenanting together is as follows:

As people of God, drawn from “every nation tribe, people and language” (Rev 7.9), we do this in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ (Eph 4, 3, 13).

As we work through this study, it will be important to assess the degree to which the Covenant in all its sections would contribute to this goal.

To help study groups fully understand and explore the Covenant, the committee felt it would be important to recognize and wrestle with a number of questions raised by General Synod 2010 members in their table group discussions of the text. These questions have guided us in the preparation of these study materials:

l What is the Anglican Communion?

l Who are member churches and how does a church join?

l What are the theological and scriptural foundations for the concept of “covenanting”?

l What are the origins of this Covenant?

l How was it developed and under whose authority?

However, some questions are not so straightforward.

l What does it mean to be “in communion”?

l What is our current understanding of the Anglican church and how would the Covenant change it?

l Why do we need this Covenant at all?

Anglican Church of Canada 2 Anglican Communion Working Group Our discussions and responses to these questions will generate diverse opinions, concerns, hopes and commitments. There are no easy answers here, but these are the questions we are being asked to consider in dioceses, parishes and other local and national consultations.

As Anglicans across Canada engage in this covenant study, we will find a clearer sense of what the Anglican Church of Canada’s response to the Covenant document should be. We will discover new insights into what it means to be in communion, and in fellowship, with each other as members of the body of Christ. It is to this end that we invite you to participate in this study.

Part 1 of this study focuses on the first three sections of the Covenant. Its contents, while not new, are the most accessible parts of the document. The study will help people look at these sections carefully and prayerfully, and come to a greater understanding of what is being proposed.

Part 2 of this study focuses on Section Four of the Covenant, the text of which is more technical and perhaps controversial. This is the section that deals with ways the Communion would address differences and disagreements among our churches internationally. This study will help people and groups to delve more deeply and thoroughly into the potential consequences of adopting this Covenant.

Other groups within the Anglican Church of Canada, such as the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee and the Governance Working Group, will also be reviewing the Covenant in order to provide advice on theological, ecclesiological, legal and constitutional implications.

It is important that General Synod 2013 delegates be well prepared for the discussions and discernment that will generate our church’s response internationally. Upon completion, please send your learnings, comments and reflections to the Anglican Communion Working Group at [email protected].

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 3 1. Considering Sections One Through Three: Our Inheritance of Faith, The Life We Share with Others, and Our Unity and Common Life

Commentary

Suppose some friends you really admire told you how much they appreciate the commitment they see in you as a Christian and an Anglican—and then asked you to tell them more about what it means to be an Anglican. What would you say to them about being Anglican and about your relationship with other Anglicans? This is what Sections One, Two, and Three of the Anglican Communion Covenant try to do. They describe the relationships among the churches that make up our Anglican Communion: who we are and what we hold in common.

Introduction to the Covenant Text and Sections One, Two and Three

Introduction to the Covenant Text

“This life is revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have communion with us; and truly our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1.2−4).

1 God has called us into communion in Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1.9). This communion has been “revealed to us” by the Son as being the very divine life of God the Trinity. What is the life revealed to us? St John makes it clear that the communion of life in the Church participates in the communion which is the divine life itself, the life of the Trinity. This life is not a reality remote from us, but one that has been “seen” and “testified to” by the apostles and their followers: “for in the communion of the Church we share in the divine life” [1]. This life of the One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, shapes and displays itself through the very existence and ordering of the Church. 2 Our divine calling into communion is established in God’s purposes for the whole of creation (Eph 1:10; 3:9ff.). It is extended to all humankind, so that, in our sharing of God’s life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God might restore in us the divine image. Through time, according to the Scriptures, God has furthered this calling through covenants made with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to a new covenant not written on tablets of stone but upon the heart (Jer 31.31−34). In God’s Son, Christ Jesus, a new covenant is given us, established in his “blood…poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28), secured through his resurrection from the dead (Eph 1:19−23), and sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). Into

Anglican Church of Canada 4 Anglican Communion Working Group this covenant of death to sin and of new life in Christ we are baptized, and empowered to share God’s communion in Christ with all people, to the ends of the earth and of creation. 3 We humbly recognize that this calling and gift of communion entails responsibilities for our common life before God as we seek, through grace, to be faithful in our service of God’s purposes for the world. Joined in one universal Church, which is Christ’s Body, spread throughout the earth, we serve his gospel even as we are enabled to be made one across the dividing walls of human sin and estrangement (Eph 2.12−22). The forms of this life in the Church, caught up in the mystery of divine communion, reveal to the hostile and divisive power of the world the “manifold wisdom of God” (Eph 3:9−10). Faithfulness, honesty, gentleness, humility, patience, forgiveness, and love itself, lived out in mutual deference and service (Mk 10.44−45) among the Church’s people and through its ministries, contribute to building up the body of Christ as it grows to maturity (Eph 4.1−16; Col 3.8−17). 4 In the providence of God, which holds sway even over our divisions caused by sin, various families of churches have grown up within the universal Church in the course of history. Among these families is the Anglican Communion, which provides a particular charism and identity among the many followers and servants of Jesus. We recognise the wonder, beauty and challenge of maintaining communion in this family of churches, and the need for mutual commitment and discipline as a witness to God’s promise in a world and time of instability, conflict, and fragmentation. Therefore, we covenant together as churches of this Anglican Communion to be faithful to God’s promises through the historic faith we confess, our common worship, our participation in God’s mission, and the way we live together. 5 To covenant together is not intended to change the character of this Anglican expression of Christian faith. Rather, we recognise the importance of renewing in a solemn way our commitment to one another, and to the common understanding of faith and order we have received, so that the bonds of affection which hold us together may be re-affirmed and intensified. We do this in order to reflect, in our relations with one another, God’s own faithfulness and promises towards us in Christ (2 Cor 1.20−22). 6 We are a people who live, learn, and pray by and with the Scriptures as God’s Word. We seek to adore God in thanks and praise and to make intercession for the needs of people everywhere through common prayer, united across many cultures and languages. We are privileged to share in the mission of the apostles to bring the gospel of Christ to all nations and peoples, not only in words but also in deeds of compassion and justice that witness to God’s character and the triumph of Christ over sin and death. We give ourselves as servants of a greater unity among the divided Christians of the world. May the Lord help us to “preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4.5). 7 Our faith embodies a coherent testimony to what we have received from God’s Word and the Church’s long-standing witness. Our life together reflects the blessings of God (even as it exposes our failures in faith, hope and love) in growing our Communion into a truly global family. The mission we pursue aims at serving the great promises of God in Christ that embrace the peoples and the world God so loves. This mission is carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship of resources, and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider Church. 8 Our prayer is that God will redeem our struggles and weakness, renew and enrich our common life and use the Anglican Communion to witness effectively in all the world, working with all people of good will, to the new life and hope found in Christ Jesus.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 5 The Anglican Communion Covenant: Preamble

We, as Churches of the Anglican Communion, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, solemnly covenant together in these following affirmations and commitments. As people of God, drawn from “every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev 7.9), we do this in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ (Eph 4.3, 13).

Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith

1.1 Each Church affirms:

(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation [2]. The historic formularies of the Church of England [3], forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.

(1.1.3) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith [4].

(1.1.4) the Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith [5].

(1.1.5) the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—ministered with the unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him [6].

(1.1.6) the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church [7].

(1.1.7) the shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy which form, sustain and nourish our worship of God and our faith and life together.

(1.1.8) its participation in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God, and that this mission is shared with other Churches and traditions beyond this Covenant.

1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(1.2.1) to teach and act in continuity and consonance with Scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the Churches of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the common councils of the Communion and our ecumenical agreements.

(1.2.2) to uphold and proclaim a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition.

Anglican Church of Canada 6 Anglican Communion Working Group (1.2.3) to witness, in this reasoning, to the renewal of humanity and the whole created order through the death and resurrection of Christ, and to reflect the holiness that in consequence God gives to, and requires from, his people.

(1.2.4) to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Scriptures in our different contexts, informed by the attentive and communal reading of—and costly witness to—the Scriptures by all the faithful, by the teaching of bishops and synods, and by the results of rigorous study by lay and ordained scholars.

(1.2.5) to ensure that biblical texts are received, read and interpreted faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, with the expectation that Scripture continues to illuminate and transform the Church and its members, and through them, individuals, cultures and societies.

(1.2.6) to encourage and be open to prophetic and faithful leadership in ministry and mission so as to enable God’s people to respond in courageous witness to the power of the gospel in the world.

(1.2.7) to seek in all things to uphold the solemn obligation to nurture and sustain eucharistic communion, in accordance with existing canonical disciplines, as we strive under God for the fuller realisation of the communion of all Christians.

(1.2.8) to pursue a common pilgrimage with the whole Body of Christ continually to discern the fullness of truth into which the Spirit leads us, that peoples from all nations may be set free to receive new and abundant life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Section Two: The Life We Share with Others: Our Anglican Vocation

2.1 Each Church affirms:

(2.1.1) communion as a gift of God given so that God’s people from east and west, north and south, may together declare the glory of the Lord and be both a sign of God’s reign in the Holy Spirit and the first fruits in the world of God’s redemption in Christ.

(2.1.2) its gratitude for God’s gracious providence extended to us down through the ages: our origins in the Church of the apostles; the ancient common traditions; the rich history of the Church in Britain and Ireland reshaped by the Reformation, and our growth into a global communion through the expanding missionary work of the Church; our ongoing refashioning by the Holy Spirit through the gifts and sacrificial witness of Anglicans from around the world; and our summons into a more fully developed communion life.

(2.1.3) in humility our call to constant repentance: for our failures in exercising patience and charity and in recognizing Christ in one another; our misuse of God’s gracious gifts; our failure to heed God’s call to serve; and our exploitation one of another.

(2.1.4) the imperative of God’s mission into which the Communion is called, a vocation and blessing in which each Church is joined with others in Christ in the work of establishing God’s reign. As the Communion continues to develop into a worldwide family of interdependent churches, we embrace challenges and opportunities for mission at local, regional, and international levels. In

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 7 this, we cherish our mission heritage as offering Anglicans distinctive opportunities for mission collaboration.

(2.1.5) that our common mission is a mission shared with other Churches and traditions beyond this Covenant. We embrace opportunities for the discovery of the life of the whole gospel, and for reconciliation and shared mission with the Church throughout the world. We affirm the ecumenical vocation of Anglicanism to the full visible unity of the Church in accordance with Christ’s prayer that “all may be one”. It is with all the saints in every place and time that we will comprehend the fuller dimensions of Christ’s redemptive and immeasurable love.

2.2 In recognition of these affirmations, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(2.2.1) to answer God’s call to undertake evangelisation and to share in the healing and reconciling mission “for our blessed but broken, hurting and fallen world” [8], and, with mutual accountability, to share our God-given spiritual and material resources in this task.

(2.2.2) to undertake in this mission, which is the mission of God in Christ [9]:

(2.2.2.a) “to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God” and to bring all to repentance and faith;

(2.2.2.b) “to teach, baptize and nurture new believers”, making disciples of all nations (Mt 28.19) through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit [10] and drawing them into the one Body of Christ whose faith, calling and hope are one in the Lord (Eph 4.4−6);

(2.2.2.c) “to respond to human need by loving service”, disclosing God’s reign through humble ministry to those most needy (Mk 10.42−45; Mt 18.4; 25.31−45);

(2.2.2.d) “to seek to transform unjust structures of society” as the Church stands vigilantly with Christ proclaiming both judgment and salvation to the nations of the world [11], and manifesting through our actions on behalf of God’s righteousness the Spirit’s transfiguring power [12];

(2.2.2.e) “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth” as essential aspects of our mission in communion [13].

(2.2.3) to engage in this mission with humility and an openness to our own ongoing conversion in the face of our unfaithfulness and failures in witness.

(2.2.4) to revive and renew structures for mission which will awaken and challenge the whole people of God to work, pray and give for the spread of the gospel.

(2.2.5) to order its mission in the joyful and reverent worship of God, thankful that in our eucharistic communion “Christ is the source and goal of the unity of the Church and of the renewal of human community” [14].

Anglican Church of Canada 8 Anglican Communion Working Group Section Three: Our Unity and Common Life

3.1 Each Church affirms:

(3.1.1) that by our participation in Baptism and Eucharist, we are incorporated into the one body of the Church of Jesus Christ, and called by Christ to pursue all things that make for peace and build up our common life.

(3.1.2) its resolve to live in a Communion of Churches. Each Church, with its bishops in synod, orders and regulates its own affairs and its local responsibility for mission through its own system of government and law and is therefore described as living “in communion with autonomy and accountability” [15]. Trusting in the Holy Spirit, who calls and enables us to dwell in a shared life of common worship and prayer for one another, in mutual affection, commitment and service, we seek to affirm our common life through those Instruments of Communion by which our Churches are enabled to be conformed together to the mind of Christ. Churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together “not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference” [16] and of the other instruments of Communion.

(3.1.3) the central role of bishops as guardians and teachers of faith, as leaders in mission, and as a visible sign of unity, representing the universal Church to the local, and the local Church to the universal and the local Churches to one another. This ministry is exercised personally, collegially and within and for the eucharistic community. We receive and maintain the historic threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, ordained for service in the Church of God, as they call all the baptised into the mission of Christ.

(3.1.4) the importance of instruments in the Anglican Communion to assist in the discernment, articulation and exercise of our shared faith and common life and mission. The life of communion includes an ongoing engagement with the diverse expressions of apostolic authority, from synods and episcopal councils to local witness, in a way which continually interprets and articulates the common faith of the Church’s members (consensus fidelium). In addition to the many and varied links which sustain our life together, we acknowledge four particular Instruments at the level of the Anglican Communion which express this co-operative service in the life of communion.

1. We accord the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the bishop of the See of Canterbury with which Anglicans have historically been in communion, a primacy of honour and respect among the college of bishops in the Anglican Communion as first among equals (primus inter pares). As a focus and means of unity, the Archbishop gathers and works with the Lambeth Conference and Primates’ Meeting, and presides in the Anglican Consultative Council.

2. The Lambeth Conference expresses episcopal collegiality worldwide, and brings together the bishops for common worship, counsel, consultation and encouragement in their ministry of guarding the faith and unity of the Communion and equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4.12) and mission.

3. The Anglican Consultative Council is comprised of lay, clerical and episcopal representatives from our Churches [17]. It facilitates the co-operative work of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, co-ordinates aspects of international Anglican ecumenical and mission work,

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 9 calls the Churches into mutual responsibility and interdependence, and advises on developing provincial structures [18].

4. The Primates’ Meeting is convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury for mutual support, prayer and counsel. The authority that primates bring to the meeting arises from their own positions as the senior bishops of their Provinces, and the fact that they are in conversation with their own Houses of Bishops and located within their own synodical structures [19]. In the Primates’ Meeting, the Primates and Moderators are called to work as representatives of their Provinces in collaboration with one another in mission and in doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters that have Communion-wide implications.

3.2 Acknowledging our interdependent life, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(3.2.1) to have regard for the common good of the Communion in the exercise of its autonomy, to support the work of the Instruments of Communion with the spiritual and material resources available to it, and to receive their work with a readiness to undertake reflection upon their counsels, and to endeavour to accommodate their recommendations.

(3.2.2) to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ [21], and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole [22].

(3.2.3) to spend time with openness and patience in matters of theological debate and reflection, to listen, pray and study with one another in order to discern the will of God. Such prayer, study and debate is an essential feature of the life of the Church as it seeks to be led by the Spirit into all truth and to proclaim the gospel afresh in each generation. Some issues, which are perceived as controversial or new when they arise, may well evoke a deeper understanding of the implications of God’s revelation to us; others may prove to be distractions or even obstacles to the faith. All such matters therefore need to be tested by shared discernment in the life of the Church.

(3.2.4) to seek a shared mind with other Churches, through the Communion’s councils, about matters of common concern, in a way consistent with the Scriptures, the common standards of faith, and the canon laws of our churches. Each Church will undertake wide consultation with the other Churches of the Anglican Communion and with the Instruments and Commissions of the Communion.

(3.2.5) to act with diligence, care and caution in respect of any action which may provoke controversy, which by its intensity, substance or extent could threaten the unity of the Communion and the effectiveness or credibility of its mission.

(3.2.6) n situations of conflict, to participate in mediated conversations, which involve face to face meetings, agreed parameters and a willingness to see such processes through.

(3.2.7) to have in mind that our bonds of affection and the love of Christ compel us always to uphold the highest degree of communion possible.

Anglican Church of Canada 10 Anglican Communion Working Group In reading these sections, we are compelled to ask how well they describe the relationship we experience, or aspire to, as the Anglican Church of Canada with other churches making up the Communion. Are these sections too detailed or not detailed enough? How well do they capture something of the unique gift and witness of the international Anglican Communion? Is there more to be said—or does it say too much?

One of the questions posed by Sections One through Three points to a possibly significant consequence.

If adopted by our General Synod, should Sections One, Two and Three become a formal definition of Anglican doctrine within our Canadian church, OR should they be seen as a treaty among national churches without any doctrinal implications?

The Anglican priest and theologian Richard Hooker in the late 1500s laid out the generally accepted Anglican way of addressing this. He wrote that we should look to scripture, reason and tradition as we try to find God’s will for us and the way that Jesus wants us to live our lives.

“What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. That which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason over- rule all other inferior judgments whatsoever” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, 8).

Hooker’s words, “the voice of the Church,” raises the question of Anglican doctrine. This is a term often used, but only loosely defined, in many of the current debates about the Covenant and the controversies and issues surrounding it.

So what is doctrine and why does it matter?

A good, generally accepted, working definition ofdoctrine seems to be, “What the Church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the word of God.” 1

Roman Catholics are used to a church structure in which authority, particularly that of the Pope, lays out what Roman Catholics are to believe on specific issues and how they are to live their lives as a result of this defined doctrine if they are to be Roman Catholics in good standing in the eyes of their church. Many Protestant denominations have detailed codes of belief that their members are called to profess, such as Presbyterianism’s Westminster Confession.

Anglicans, however, have historically been reluctant to put in place detailed doctrinal requirements for members of our church. Hooker and other Protestants, for instance, held that there were things such as the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God that are indispensable to our belief, and there are many other things over which good Christians can differ in opinion which “neither damn nor save the soul.”

Consistent with this Anglican tradition, our Canadian church has made very few formal definitions of doctrine. One of the most important is what is known as the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which was endorsed by the third Lambeth Conference in 1888 and was formally adopted by the second session of our General Synod in 1896.

1. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. London, 1971. Volume one, page one.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 11 That, in the opinion of this Conference, the following Articles supply a basis on which approach may be by God’s blessing made towards Home Reunion:

(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith. (b) The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. (c) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him. (d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church. —Resolution 11, Lambeth Conference 1888

It had been originally intended as a basis on which to negotiate with other denominations about the possibility of reuniting the Christian church. However, it quickly became accepted among Anglicans as a clear and simple statement of doctrine that Anglicans agree on and hold in common, but one that does not require belief in other less important matters where there is not the same agreement.

This resolution from the Lambeth Conference of 1888 forms the core of Section One of the Covenant text we are considering.

Anglican Church of Canada 12 Anglican Communion Working Group 2. The Covenant Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together What is it and What is it Supposed to Do?

From the beginning of the covenant drafting process, it was clear that the most difficult part would be the text that has ultimately evolved as Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together. 2 The problem was how to balance the commitment to Communion while identifying some way of addressing how the Communion might deal with those circumstances where significant differences arise between members.

On the one hand, there were those within the Communion who wanted to frame responses using the language of discipline. On the other hand, some felt that such an approach could be used to exclude those whose theological perspectives appeared to be at variance with the norm, and would potentially restrict the prophetic voices within the church.

Background

The Lambeth Commission on Communion, commonly known as the Windsor Report (2004), first broached the possibility of a Covenant 3 and included for discussion an example of what a Covenant might look like. This was intended as a discussion starter, and in the resulting conversations was widely criticized as being too legalistic.

In the first draft of the Covenant (the Nassau draft, 2007), the tone of Section 6: Unity of the Communion, remained in the eyes of many as still too legalistic and punitive. The appendix to the St Andrews draft (Draft 2, 2008), partially in response to these concerns, provided a process for addressing differences and included the possibility of mediation. This approach was also criticized as being quasi judicial.

As the drafters approached the Ridley-Cambridge draft (Draft 3, 2009), they found themselves confronted with serious concerns from across the theological spectrum. The Ridley-Cambridge draft endeavoured to provide a solution that would be acceptable to as many as possible. As a result, Section Four of the original Ridley-Cambridge draft shifted tone towards a pastoral and / relational approach to addressing differences.

2. For those interested, this section in the final document was Section 6 of the Nassau Draft (Draft 1) and the Appendix to the St Andrew’s Draft (Draft 2). These texts may be viewed for comparison at http://www. anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/report/draft_text.cfm.

3. Paras 118 and 119

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 13 Following the affirmations and commitments to be found in the first three sections of the Covenant, the drafters worked to create a document that would both affirm the principles expressed and, through this lens, invite the commitment of the Provinces to the procedures of Section Four. The degree of success they have achieved is still subject to debate.

In Part 1 of this study guide we discussed the qualities and character of our relationships as Anglicans in Communion. We explored how we might describe those things that we as churches of the Communion can affirm in common and commit ourselves to. Section Four addresses the tougher questions of how we can live together when there are disagreements and conflicts.

Section Four sets out procedures for both adopting the Covenant and living under its provisions; it describes who may adopt it. It includes practical mechanisms for seeking resolutions in the case of disputes and describes a process for withdrawal from the Covenant. Finally, this section acknowledges that the Covenant is not carved in stone, and a method of amendment is included. The proposed intent throughout is to seek to strengthen relationships within the Anglican family.

Section Four Unpacked

Because of the complexity of this section, we will introduce each part separately.

4.1 Adoption of the Covenant

Subsection 4.1 describes the commitment involved in adopting the Covenant.

(4.1.1) Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, of national or regional Churches, in which each recognises in the others the bonds of a common loyalty to Christ expressed through a common faith and order, a shared inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life.

(4.1.2) In adopting the Covenant for itself, each Church recognises in the preceding sections a statement of faith, mission and interdependence of life which is consistent with its own life and with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them. It recognises these elements as foundational for the life of the Anglican Communion and therefore for the relationships among the covenanting Churches.

(4.1.3) Such mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any Church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one Church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any Church of the Anglican Communion.

Anglican Church of Canada 14 Anglican Communion Working Group (4.1.4) Every Church of the Anglican Communion, as recognised in accordance with the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to enter into this Covenant according to its own constitutional procedures.

(4.1.5) The Instruments of Communion may invite other Churches to adopt the Covenant using the same procedures as set out by the Anglican Consultative Council for the amendment of its schedule of membership. Adoption of this Covenant does not confer any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion, which shall be decided by those Instruments themselves.

(4.1.6) This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.

4.2 The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution

Subsection 4.2 is the heart of Section Four, and outlines a process for trying to address occasions and circumstances that may arise in which churches have serious differences or misunderstandings with one another.

4.2.1 Acknowledges that each church recognizes and seeks to live by the common commitments made in the Covenant.

(4.2.1) The Covenant operates to express the common commitments and mutual accountability which hold each Church in the relationship of communion one with another. Recognition of, and fidelity to, this Covenant, enable mutual recognition and communion. Participation in the Covenant implies a recognition by each Church of those elements which must be maintained in its own life and for which it is accountable to the Churches with which it is in Communion in order to sustain the relationship expressed in this Covenant.

4.2.2 Notes that the Instruments of Communion monitor the Covenant through the Standing Committee.

(4.2.2) The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, responsible to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, shall monitor the functioning of the Covenant in the life of the Anglican Communion on behalf of the Instruments. In this regard, the Standing Committee shall be supported by such other committees or commissions as may be mandated to assist in carrying out this function and to advise it on questions relating to the Covenant.

4.2.3 Addresses circumstances when a question arises in the life of the Communion, each church seeks to live out its commitments.

(4.2.3) When questions arise relating to the meaning of the Covenant, or about the compatibility of an action by a covenanting Church with the Covenant, it is the duty of each covenanting Church to seek to live out the commitments of Section 3.2. Such questions may be raised by a Church itself, another covenanting Church or the Instruments of Communion.

4.2.4 Acknowledges that when there is not a common mind, the Standing Committee seeks to facilitate agreement and may seek advice from the Instruments (ACC and Primates).

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 15 (4.2.4) Where a shared mind has not been reached the matter shall be referred to the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall make every effort to facilitate agreement, and may take advice from such bodies as it deems appropriate to determine a view on the nature of the matter at question and those relational consequences which may result. Where appropriate, the Standing Committee shall refer the question to both the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting for advice.

4.2.5 Notes that if a church takes a controversial action against advice, the Standing Committee can recommend interim relational consequences.

(4.2.5) The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument until the completion of the process set out below.

4.2.6 Explains that on the basis of advice, the Standing Committee may declare something to be incompatible with the Covenant.

(4.2.6) On the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, the Standing Committee may make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant”.

4.2.7 Delineates that again, on the basis of advice, the Standing Committee shall recommend relational consequences to the churches and/or the Instruments.

(4.2.7) On the basis of the advice received, the Standing Committee shall make recommendations as to relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant. These recommendations may be addressed to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of the Communion and address the extent to which the decision of any covenanting Church impairs or limits the communion between that Church and the other Churches of the Communion, and the practical consequences of such impairment or limitation. Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations.

4.2.8 Clarifies that only churches that have adopted the Covenant can participate in the decision- making of this process.

(4.2.8) Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.

4.2.9 Is predicated on the assumption that each church agrees to put means in place to oversee its own participation in the Covenant.

(4.2.9) Each Church undertakes to put into place such mechanisms, agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant.

Anglican Church of Canada 16 Anglican Communion Working Group 4.3 Withdrawing from the Covenant

Subsection 4.3 says that any church may withdraw from the Covenant, though it may trigger relational consequences.

(4.3.1) Any covenanting Church may decide to withdraw from the Covenant. Although such withdrawal does not imply an automatic withdrawal from the Instruments of Communion or a repudiation of its Anglican character, it may raise a question relating to the meaning of the Covenant, and of compatibility with the principles incorporated within it, and trigger the provisions set out in section 4.2 above.

Subsection 4.4 clarifies what the text of the Covenant is and provides an amendment procedure.

4.4 The Covenant Text and its amendment (4.4.1) The Covenant consists of the text set out in this document in the Preamble, Sections One to Four and the Declaration. The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.

(4.4.2) Any covenanting Church or Instrument of Communion may submit a proposal to amend the Covenant to the Instruments of Communion through the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall send the proposal to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the covenanting Churches and any other body as it may consider appropriate for advice. The Standing Committee shall make a recommendation on the proposal in the light of advice offered, and submit the proposal with any revisions to the covenanting Churches. The amendment is operative when ratified by three quarters of such Churches. The Standing Committee shall adopt a procedure for promulgation of the amendment.

Conclusion

The Covenant ends with a declaration of intent to live together in the body of Christ.

Our Declaration

The churches declare themselves to be in Covenant and offer their life together to God. With joy and with firm resolve, we declare our Churches to be partakers in this Anglican Communion Covenant, offering ourselves for fruitful service and binding ourselves more closely in the truth and love of Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory for ever. Amen.

“Now may the God of Peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13.20, 21)

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group 17 Additional online resources

Websites

Anglican Communion www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant – includes full Covenant text, texts of earlier drafts and comments from Communion provinces Anglican Communion Institute www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com – includes several articles on the Covenant presented by the Anglican Communion Institute Anglican Communion Working Group, Anglican Church of Canada www.anglican.ca/acwg – presents summary of Anglican Covenant materials offered to Canadian Anglicans for their feedback No Anglican Covenant www.noanglicancovenant.org – information and analysis compiled by a coalition opposed to the Covenant Church Times supplement guide www.churchtimes.co.uk/uploads/documents/Anglican%Covenant_18%20March.pdf –This thorough guide includes many viewpoints and is available only to Church Times subscribers.

Other resources

Online forms www.anglican.ca/acwg – These evaluation forms and Council of General Synod response forms can be filled out and submitted online. PowerPoint www.anglican.ca/acwg – a presentation on the origins and contents of the Covenant, prepared by Bishop George Bruce (Ontario) Video www.anglican.ca/acwg – In this short online video, the Primate introduces the Anglican Covenant and the study materials from the Anglican Communion Working Group.

Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION COVENANT

Introduction to the Covenant Text

“This life is revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have communion with us; and truly our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1.2-4). 1. God has called us into communion in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1.9). This communion has been “revealed to us” by the Son as being the very divine life of God the Trinity. What is the life revealed to us? St John makes it clear that the communion of life in the Church participates in the communion which is the divine life itself, the life of the Trinity. This life is not a reality remote from us, but one that has been “seen” and “testified to” by the apostles and their followers: “for in the communion of the Church we share in the divine life”1. This life of the One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, shapes and displays itself through the very existence and ordering of the Church.

2. Our divine calling into communion is established in God’s purposes for the whole of creation (Eph 1:10; 3:9ff.). It is extended to all humankind, so that, in our sharing of God’s life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God might restore in us the divine image. Through time, according to the Scriptures, God has furthered this calling through covenants made with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to a new covenant not written on tablets of stone but upon the heart (Jer 31.31-34). In God’s Son, Christ Jesus, a new covenant is given us, established in his “blood … poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28), secured through his resurrection from the dead (Eph 1:19-23), and sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). Into this covenant of death to sin and of new life in Christ we are baptized, and empowered to share God’s communion in Christ with all people, to the ends of the earth and of creation.

3. We humbly recognize that this calling and gift of communion entails responsibilities for our common life before God as we seek, through grace, to be faithful in our service of God’s purposes for the world. Joined in one universal Church, which is Christ’s Body, spread throughout the earth, we serve his gospel even as we are enabled to be made one across the dividing walls of human sin and estrangement (Eph 2.12-22). The forms of this life in the Church, caught up in the mystery of divine communion, reveal to the hostile and divisive power of the world the “manifold wisdom of God” (Eph 3:9-10). Faithfulness, honesty, gentleness, humility, patience, forgiveness, and love itself, lived out in mutual deference and service (Mk 10.44-45) among the Church’s people and through its ministries, contribute to building up the body of Christ as it grows to maturity (Eph 4.1-16; Col 3.8-17).

4. In the providence of God, which holds sway even over our divisions caused by sin, various families of churches have grown up within the universal Church in the course of history. Among these families is the Anglican Communion, which provides a particular charism and identity among the many followers and servants of Jesus. We recognise the wonder, beauty and challenge of maintaining communion in this family of churches, and the need for mutual commitment and discipline as a witness to God’s promise in a world and time of instability, conflict, and fragmentation. Therefore, we covenant together as churches of this Anglican Communion to be faithful to God’s promises through the historic faith we confess, our common worship, our participation in God’s mission, and the way we live together.

5. To covenant together is not intended to change the character of this Anglican expression of Christian faith. Rather, we recognise the importance of renewing in a solemn way our commitment to one another, and to the common understanding of faith and order we have received, so that the bonds of affection which hold us together may be re-affirmed and intensified. We do this in order to reflect, in our relations with one another, God’s own faithfulness and promises towards us in Christ (2 Cor 1.20-22).

1 The Church of the Triune God, The Cyprus Statement of the International Commission for Anglican Orthodox Theological Dialogue, 2007, paragraph 1,2. The Anglican Communion Covenant page 2

6. We are a people who live, learn, and pray by and with the Scriptures as God’s Word. We seek to adore God in thanks and praise and to make intercession for the needs of people everywhere through common prayer, united across many cultures and languages. We are privileged to share in the mission of the apostles to bring the gospel of Christ to all nations and peoples, not only in words but also in deeds of compassion and justice that witness to God’s character and the triumph of Christ over sin and death. We give ourselves as servants of a greater unity among the divided Christians of the world. May the Lord help us to “preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4.5).

7. Our faith embodies a coherent testimony to what we have received from God’s Word and the Church’s long-standing witness. Our life together reflects the blessings of God (even as it exposes our failures in faith, hope and love) in growing our Communion into a truly global family. The mission we pursue aims at serving the great promises of God in Christ that embrace the peoples and the world God so loves. This mission is carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship of resources, and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider Church.

8. Our prayer is that God will redeem our struggles and weakness, renew and enrich our common life and use the Anglican Communion to witness effectively in all the world, working with all people of good will, to the new life and hope found in Christ Jesus.

The Anglican Communion Covenant

Preamble

Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith

1.1 Each Church affirms:

(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation2. The historic formularies of the Church of England3, forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.

2 Cf. The Preface to the Declaration of Assent, Canon C15 of the Church of England. 3 The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons The Anglican Communion Covenant page 3

(1.1.3) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith4.

(1.1.4) the Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith5.

(1.1.5) the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself – Baptism and the Supper of the Lord – ministered with the unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him6.

(1.1.6) the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church7.

(1.1.7) the shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy which form, sustain and nourish our worship of God and our faith and life together.

(1.1.8) its participation in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God, and that this mission is shared with other Churches and traditions beyond this Covenant.

1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(1.2.2) to uphold and proclaim a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition.

(1.2.3) to witness, in this reasoning, to the renewal of humanity and the whole created order through the death and resurrection of Christ, and to reflect the holiness that in consequence God gives to, and requires from, his people.

(1.2.4) to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Scriptures in our different contexts, informed by the attentive and communal reading of - and costly witness to - the Scriptures by all the faithful, by the teaching of bishops and synods, and by the results of rigorous study by lay and ordained scholars.

(1.2.6) to encourage and be open to prophetic and faithful leadership in ministry and mission so as to enable God’s people to respond in courageous witness to the power of the gospel in the world.

4 The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886/1888 5 The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886/1888 6 cf. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886/1888, The Preface to the Declaration of Assent, Canon C15 of the Church of England. 7 cf. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886/1888 The Anglican Communion Covenant page 4

Section Two: The Life We Share with Others: Our Anglican Vocation

2.1 Each Church affirms:

2.2 In recognition of these affirmations, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(2.2.1) to answer God’s call to undertake evangelisation and to share in the healing and reconciling mission “for our blessed but broken, hurting and fallen world”8, and, with mutual accountability, to share our God-given spiritual and material resources in this task.

(2.2.2) to undertake in this mission, which is the mission of God in Christ9:

8 IASCOME Report, ACC-13 9 The five Marks of Mission are set out in the MISSIO Report of 1999, building on work at ACC-6 and ACC-8. The Anglican Communion Covenant page 5

(2.2.2.a) “to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God” and to bring all to repentance and faith; (2.2.2.b) “to teach, baptize and nurture new believers”, making disciples of all nations (Mt 28.19) through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit10 and drawing them into the one Body of Christ whose faith, calling and hope are one in the Lord (Eph 4.4-6); (2.2.2.c) “to respond to human need by loving service”, disclosing God’s reign through humble ministry to those most needy (Mk 10.42-45; Mt 18.4; 25.31- 45); (2.2.2.d) “to seek to transform unjust structures of society” as the Church stands vigilantly with Christ proclaiming both judgment and salvation to the nations of the world 11 , and manifesting through our actions on behalf of God’s righteousness the Spirit’s transfiguring power12; (2.2.2.e) “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth” as essential aspects of our mission in communion13.

(2.2.3) to engage in this mission with humility and an openness to our own ongoing conversion in the face of our unfaithfulness and failures in witness.

(2.2.4) to revive and renew structures for mission which will awaken and challenge the whole people of God to work, pray and give for the spread of the gospel.

Section Three: Our Unity and Common Life

3.1 Each Church affirms:

(3.1.2) its resolve to live in a Communion of Churches. Each Church, with its bishops in synod, orders and regulates its own affairs and its local responsibility for mission through its own system of government and law and is therefore described as living “in communion with autonomy and accountability”15. Trusting in the Holy Spirit, who calls and enables us to dwell in a shared life of common worship and prayer for one another, in mutual affection, commitment and service, we seek to affirm our common life through those Instruments of Communion by which our Churches are enabled to be conformed together to the mind of Christ. Churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together “not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference”16 and of the other instruments of Communion.

(3.1.3) the central role of bishops as guardians and teachers of faith, as leaders in mission, and as a visible sign of unity, representing the universal Church to the local, and the local

10 Church as Communion n26 11 WCC 1954 Evanston, Christ the Hope of the World 12 Moscow Statement, 43 13 IARCCUM, Growing Together in Unity and Mission,118 14 Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, WCC, 15 A Letter from Alexandria, the Primates, March 2009 16 Lambeth Conference 1930 The Anglican Communion Covenant page 6

Church to the universal and the local Churches to one another. This ministry is exercised personally, collegially and within and for the eucharistic community. We receive and maintain the historic threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, ordained for service in the Church of God, as they call all the baptised into the mission of Christ.

I. We accord the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the bishop of the See of Canterbury with which Anglicans have historically been in communion, a primacy of honour and respect among the college of bishops in the Anglican Communion as first among equals (primus inter pares). As a focus and means of unity, the Archbishop gathers and works with the Lambeth Conference and Primates’ Meeting, and presides in the Anglican Consultative Council.

II. The Lambeth Conference expresses episcopal collegiality worldwide, and brings together the bishops for common worship, counsel, consultation and encouragement in their ministry of guarding the faith and unity of the Communion and equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4.12) and mission.

III. The Anglican Consultative Council is comprised of lay, clerical and episcopal representatives from our Churches 17 . It facilitates the co-operative work of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, co-ordinates aspects of international Anglican ecumenical and mission work, calls the Churches into mutual responsibility and interdependence, and advises on developing provincial structures18.

IV. The Primates’ Meeting is convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury for mutual support, prayer and counsel. The authority that primates bring to the meeting arises from their own positions as the senior bishops of their Provinces, and the fact that they are in conversation with their own Houses of Bishops and located within their own synodical structures 19 . In the Primates’ Meeting, the Primates and Moderators are called to work as representatives of their Provinces in collaboration with one another in mission and in doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters that have Communion-wide implications.

It is the responsibility of each Instrument to consult with, respond to, and support each other Instrument and the Churches of the Communion 20 . Each Instrument may initiate and commend a process of discernment and a direction for the Communion and its Churches.

3.2 Acknowledging our interdependent life, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

(3.2.1) to have regard for the common good of the Communion in the exercise of its autonomy, to support the work of the Instruments of Communion with the spiritual and

17 Constitution of the ACC, Article 3 and Schedule 18 cf. the Objects of the ACC are set out in Article 2 of its Constitution. 19 Report of the Windsor Continuation Group, 69. 20 cf IATDC, Communion, Conflict and Hope, paragraph 113. The Anglican Communion Covenant page 7

material resources available to it, and to receive their work with a readiness to undertake reflection upon their counsels, and to endeavour to accommodate their recommendations.

(3.2.2) to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ21, and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole22.

(3.2.6) in situations of conflict, to participate in mediated conversations, which involve face to face meetings, agreed parameters and a willingness to see such processes through.

(3.2.7) to have in mind that our bonds of affection and the love of Christ compel us always to uphold the highest degree of communion possible.

Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together

4 Each Church affirms the following principles and procedures, and, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself to their implementation.

4.1 Adoption of the Covenant

21 Toronto Congress 1963, and the Ten Principles of Partnership. 22 cf. the Schedule to the Dar es Salaam Communiqué of the Primates’ Meeting, February 2007 The Anglican Communion Covenant page 8

(4.1.4) Every Church of the Anglican Communion, as recognised in accordance with the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to enter into this Covenant according to its own constitutional procedures.

(4.1.6) This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.

4.2 The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution

(4.2.4) Where a shared mind has not been reached the matter shall be referred to the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall make every effort to facilitate agreement, and may take advice from such bodies as it deems appropriate to determine a view on the nature of the matter at question and those relational consequences which may result. Where appropriate, the Standing Committee shall refer the question to both the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting for advice.

4.3 Withdrawing from the Covenant

4.4 The Covenant Text and its amendment

(4.4.1) The Covenant consists of the text set out in this document in the Preamble, Sections One to Four and the Declaration. The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.

Our Declaration

With joy and with firm resolve, we declare our Churches to be partakers in this Anglican Communion Covenant, offering ourselves for fruitful service and binding ourselves more closely in the truth and love of Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory for ever. Amen.

You can fill out this form online at www.anglican.ca/acwg or send it by email to [email protected].

Alternatively, you can mail this form to the Rev. Paul Feheley, principal secretary to the Primate, Anglican Church of Canada, 80 Hayden St., Toronto, M4Y 3G2. Please send it as soon as possible after your group has finished its discussions.

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Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group Evaluation of study guide on The Anglican Communion Covenant

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Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Communion Working Group MEMORANDUM

TO: The Executive Council

FROM: The Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons

DATE: February 15, 2011

Background

This Memorandum constitutes the report requested from the Executive Council regarding constitutional and canonical issues arising from the text of the draft Anglican Covenant. We have been asked to focus on Section 4 of the draft Covenant. A close reading of the Covenant, and especially Section 4.4.1, makes it clear that the text of the Preamble and of the Introduction to the Covenant must be considered as part of the Covenant itself, despite some confusing language to the contrary. The Commission is mindful of recent actions and statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury, our Presiding Bishop, and other primates of the Communion which provide some perspectives on the subject of future disputes and the understanding of roles and authority.

As developed further in this report, the SCCC is of the view that adoption of the current draft Anglican Covenant has the potential to change the constitutional and canonical framework of TEC, particularly with respect to the autonomy of our Church, and the constitutional authority of our General Convention, bishops and dioceses.

Provisions of the Introduction and Preamble; Potential Concerns for Constitutional Autonomy

Paragraph 1 of the Introduction speaks of the biblical treatment of the “communion in Jesus Christ.” It includes the “Communion of the life of the Church,” as the basis for the existence and “ordering of the Church.” A fair interpretation of this text is that our “Communion in Jesus Christ” coexists with our Communion as constituent members of the Anglican Communion. The implication may be that the continuation of our communion in Jesus Christ requires accession to the particular ordering of the church described in the draft Covenant, or which may be described from time to time by various elements of the Anglican Communion (e.g., “Instruments of Communion”). If so, this may be seen as superseding the respective Constitutions and Canons of the constituent members of the Anglican Communion, including TEC. This conclusion, if well- founded, may be of concern to those who believe that the history of the flexibility and growth of the churches of the Anglican Communion has been largely attributable to our traditional structures and their local adaptations.

The implied nexus between biblical notions of communion with the Anglican Communion is developed further in paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Introduction. These paragraphs begin to illuminate the drafters’ simultaneous expectations of sharing in God’s communion in Jesus Christ, recognizing responsibilities for our common life, and living out this relationship “in mutual deference.” Depending on the means and manner by which these expectations are made manifest in actions at the Communion level, it may be of concern to TEC and any individual constituent church within the Communion that any given “Instruments of Communion” could define “responsibilities of our common life,” and that invocation of Section 4 is the consequence for alleged breaches of such defined responsibilities.

Paragraph 4 provides that the Provinces will “covenant together as churches of this Anglican Communion to be faithful to God’s promises through the historic faith we confess, our common worship, our participation in God’s mission, and the way we live together.” Again, depending on the forms that this language, if adopted, may take, this provision may challenge the autonomy of each church and the uniqueness by which some believe that the Church has received and understands the Scriptures and understands the Divine (in ways beyond the descriptions of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer). Arguably, Provincial conformity to this promise within the Covenant may proscribe or limit any doctrinal actions of the General Convention or changes to the Book of Common Prayer, a constitutional prerogative.

Finally, the juxtaposition in paragraph 5 of “the character of this Anglican expression of Christian faith” with “the common understanding of faith and order we have received” spotlights the potential tension of simultaneously honoring Anglican tolerance for variation of expression and understanding with the new structure which may circumscribe and limit our faith journey in new understandings. The thrust of the Covenant, that, under certain circumstances, new expression by a constituent member of its understanding of faith and order may be subject to the judgment (and assent) of other members of the Communion, may challenge the authority of the General Convention, under the provisions of our Constitution and Canons, in identifying and articulating new understandings of our faith and doctrine.

The Preamble identifies the purpose of the Covenant “to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the Gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ. Recent actions and statements from the Archbishop of Canterbury, our Presiding Bishop, and the primates of the Anglican Communion illustrate the difficulty of simultaneously recognizing “our different contexts” with the goal “to maintain the unity of the Spirit . . .” This invites the inevitable question of whether the expectations of being “in Communion” or subscribing to the Covenant may be more valuable and useful from the “30,000 foot level” rather than expecting consensus or acceptance of differing understandings or actions on the ground. Should the mutual expectations and accountability for membership in the Anglican Covenant be limited to broader theological tenants and traditions without conformity and the more detailed level?

Particular Issues in Section 4

One matter to be considered in assessing the Covenant is the weight to be accorded the Windsor Report. Although some members of the Anglican Communion consider the Windsor Report to be authoritative in its own right, the text of the Windsor Report states that it is intended to be a document for discussion and study. Some students of the Covenant may be concerned that it accords the so-called “Instruments of Communion” a degree of authority and responsibility arguably never historically accorded them by the collective membership of the Communion. Some observers of the recent history of the Communion may question why primacy seemingly has been given to the recommendation that a Covenant be adopted, while it may appear that other provisions having been largely ignored. Others, however, take the position that the adoption of a Covenant was, in fact, the “prime directive” of the Windsor report, with other considerations, although meriting mention in the Report, being secondary to considerations of promoting adoption of a Covenant. To some, the idea of a Communion-wide Covenant may appear to be anomalous, when the underlying document, the Windsor Report, has never itself been adopted or approved.

Section 4.1 of the Covenant reflects tensions between the concepts of theological harmony within the Communion and Provincial autonomy. Some may view as contradictory the charge of the Covenant for each covenanting church to take the steps to implement the stated principles and procedures and the Covenant’s claim that it does not intentionally alter “any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance.” Similarly, some may be concerned that the Covenant could be seen as promoting a concept of “interdependence of life which is consistent with its own life and with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them, “proscribing actions which may be taken unilaterally by any of the Instruments of Communion” or the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion to sanction any constituent member whose expression of doctrine or practice of the Christian faith is deemed objectionable to an unspecified number of other members of the Communion. To others, however, the principal thrust of the Covenant is to articulate principles of theological comity and harmony that have been historically understood throughout the spread and development of Anglicanism, but whose explicit articulation has been made necessary by the divergent actions of various Provinces. Undoubtedly, however, the Covenant promotes a disciplinary structure which has not existed, heretofore in the history of the Anglican Communion. The adoption of a Communion-wide system of discipline may be, in practice, difficult to establish or conduct, in light of the fact that each Province has a history and role not related to any concept of such a formal Communion-wide structure. The governing Provincial bodies represent a coincidence of how representatives of the Church gather and how we partner in ministry that is quite distinguishable from a governance function. There is no consensus as to the actual authority of the Instruments of the Communion. If the adoption of a Covenant creates a limited governance authority in the Instruments, our Constitution would need to be amended to acknowledge accession to that authority. Some may argue that if autonomy is really understood and respected, so that conformity on any given issue of doctrine or practice is only important as a prerequisite to staying in the Communion, what is the reason for the Communion? Others however, may view the concept of such Communion-wide harmony as being inextricably bound to the nature of being “in communion.”

It is necessary, before embracing any Communion-wide structure, to resolve the issue of how being in the Communion itself informs or changes our Church’s ability to receive the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith?

Paragraph 4.1.3 provides that

. . . such mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any church of the Anglican Communion.

The implementation of the Covenant, and especially of Section 4, could arguably provide a mechanism by which other churches of the community or agencies of the Communion could seek to exert influence if not control and direction over any church of the Communion whose actions (such as ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian persons or authorizing blessing of same sex unions) was deemed (by said other church or agency) to threaten the relationship of the churches of the Communion. This may create legislative conflict in light of the connectivity of our Constitution and Canons with the Book of Common Prayer, and the special nature of the role we accord to our bishops in defending, but not themselves establishing, the Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of the Church; and the limited prerogatives of bishops to authorize special forms of worship. Certainly, in considering the adoption of a Covenant, we would have to consider carefully its effect on the discretion historically accorded to diocesan bishops in the Episcopal Church.

Paragraph 4.1.5 presents an intricately defined set of foreseeable circumstances wherein any one of the “Instruments of Communion” might invite another church to adopt the Covenant, and might indeed invite membership in the Communion without the consent or concurrence of other “Instruments of Communion.”

It is not particularly clear what the effect would be for any church deciding not to adopt the Covenant, although paragraph 4.3.1 regarding withdrawal from the Covenant suggests that there would be a continuing relationship of an undefined nature with the Communion. In remarks concerning the Covenant, the Archbishop of Canterbury has likened the relationship between those Provinces not adopting the Covenant to those who elect to adopt it with the present relationship between the Anglican and Methodist Churches.

Section 4.2.1 begins to make clearer the intention that adherence to the Covenant would be a prerequisite to mutual recognition and communion between the respective churches. The adoption of such an explicit structure is a historic and significant departure for the Anglican Communion churches. The constitutional and canonical conundrum arising from this statement is that the positions and actions of the Church (often expressed through its Constitution and Canons) may determine whether the Episcopal Church continues to be recognized as a member of the Anglican Communion, however, there is no agreed standard for compliance any given action by the Episcopal Church could be considered to be offensive by one or more other member churches or by one of the “Instruments of Communion.” The other constituent members of the Communion ascribing to the Covenant would, presumably, be similarly situated. This would give rise to a “dispute” as contemplated in Section 4.2. The matter would be referred to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, which by this Covenant seems to be granted a new juridical authority without accountability to anyone or any other entity, as the Covenant does not, in its present form, provide for review of or appeal from decisions of the Standing Committee. There is no provision that decisions of the Standing Committee may be appealed to the Anglican Consultative Council. Some may be concerned that the recommendation ultimately rendered by the Standing Committee and the “relational consequences” described within the recommendation may effectively be the banishment or other reduction in status for the offending church.

Section 4.2.3 seems to be the enforcement mechanism for Section 3.2. Section 3.2 has significant consequences concerning our understanding of autonomy and the respect for how a church receives its understanding of the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith. It has been interpreted by some to preclude the right of a church to live into any newly received understanding of the doctrine or practice, including (for example) any changes to the Book of Common Prayer, approval of new liturgies, etc. The process for consideration and approval of such changes is a constitutional element, with no provision therein for deferring to a separate process within the Anglican Communion. Our Constitution might therefore have to be amended to acknowledge a mechanism for deferring to such a separate process if the Covenant is to be approved.

Section 4.2.4 requires referral to the Standing Committee where “a shared mind has not been reached.” However, the Covenant fails to define the criteria for determining if the Communion is of a “shared mind” on any particular theological issue. There is no specific process or timetable within which the Standing Committee of the Communion is expected to act in resolving such questions and no appeal from any undue delay. Accordingly, the constitutional autonomy of the Episcopal Church in its future articulation of doctrine or practice could be compromised by this provision. Referral of the question of “shared mind” to the Anglican Consultative Council and the primates’ meeting “for advice” is beyond any previously established authority or mandate for these groups. The Covenant is also unclear as to whether, in those Provinces that decline to adopt its provisions, individual dioceses may assent to the Covenant. Although some TEC dioceses have purported to adopt the Covenant through legislative action, the effect of such actions is unclear, especially given that TEC has not yet acted as a body on the Covenant.

Paragraph 4.2.8 defines the structure, process, and apparent authority of the Standing Committee, as described in the Covenant, to churches who have adopted or are “in the process of adopting” the Covenant. This provision could be interpreted to supersede any constitutional or other governing provisions of the respective church and of other respective Instruments of Communion regarding their decision-making processes.

Section 4.2 would require substantial Constitutional and canonical action on the part of the Episcopal Church. It would purport to require the Episcopal Church to put into place “mechanisms, agencies, or institutions,” necessary to assure the compliance with the Covenant of all levels of the Church and respective dioceses. It further implies an expectation that the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church be amended to empower the Presiding Bishop to become the Anglican Communion de facto compliance officer for the Episcopal Church, which would clearly exceed her present constitutional and canonical authority.

The Constitution and Canons of TEC

The Preamble to our Constitution describes a relationship with the Anglican Communion, in that we are a constituent member of a fellowship of dioceses, provinces and regional churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is no accession clause or limitation of jurisdiction or autonomy associated with this relationship. Likewise, there is no accession or deference to the Anglican Communion in provisions of the Constitution and Canons where deference would be relevant.

Article V provides for the creation of new dioceses in the Episcopal Church, with no reference to Anglican Communion approval or consent. New dioceses are also required to include an unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, without reference to the Anglican Communion.

Article VIII and IX require compliance by the clergy of the Rules and Canons of the Episcopal Church, with no reference to assent by the Anglican Communion.

In Article X the Book of Common Prayer provisions describe the preservation of the Book of Common Prayer and amendments thereto by the General Convention of this Church, without deference to or assent required by the Anglican Communion.

Article XII provides for procedures for amending our Constitution, without requiring consent or approval by the Anglican Communion.

Applicable Canonical Provisions

In Title I, Canon 2.4, the role of the Presiding Bishop as chief pastor and primate is described, with no express duty or authority regarding our participation in the Anglican Communion.

Title I, Canon 4.2, provides that the Executive Council will elect a representative to the Anglican Consultative Council.

Title I, Canons 9.2 and 10, describe the process for approving new dioceses, with no accession to or approval by the Anglican Communion.

Title I, Canon 10.4, explicitly provides for the requirement of new dioceses to submit an unqualified accession to the Episcopal Church, with no reference to the Anglican Communion.

Title I, Canon 11.2(b) and Canon 11.3, describe ecumenical missions without requiring accession to or deference to the Anglican Communion.

Title I, Canon 11.4, requires notice to all Archbishops and Metropolitans and all Presiding Bishops of churches in communion with the Episcopal Church of the establishment of any area mission or change in status of any missionary diocese outside the United States, but with no assent or approval required by the Anglican Communion. That Canon goes on to prescribe the exercise of any jurisdiction by more than one church in communion in the same place except by concordat.

Title I, Canon 15.1, provides for congregations in foreign lands to respect the territory of other churches in the Anglican Communion.

Title I, Canon 20, describes the Episcopal Church as a member of the Anglican Communion with a relationship of full communion with those churches of the historic episcopal succession and with whom it has entered into covenant agreements. It does not otherwise define what being a member of the Anglican Communion means or infer any accession to the Anglican Communion.

Title II provides for authorized translations of the Bible in the Canons or by the diocesan bishop, with no reference to the Anglican Communion.

Title II, Canon 3, provides for the Book of Common Prayer and changes thereto without reference to the Anglican Communion.

Title II, Canon 4, provides for the authorization of special forms of service by the bishop of the diocese without reference to the Anglican Communion.

Title III, Canon 1.2, provides that there shall be no discrimination in access to the discernment process for ordination or licensing, without reference or deference to the Anglican Communion.

Title III, Canon 11, describes the process for the election of a bishop, without reference to the Anglican Communion.

Task force releases report on Anglican Covenant By ENS staff, June 24, 2011 [Episcopal News Service] An Executive Council task force has released a report it received from the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons outlining the changes that would be needed if the General Convention decides to sign onto the Anglican Covenant.

"The SCCC is of the view that adoption of the current draft Anglican Covenant has the potential to change the constitutional and canonical framework of [the Episcopal Church], particularly with respect to the autonomy of our Church, and the constitutional authority of our General Convention, bishops and dioceses," says the report.

In a statement June 24, the D023 (Anglican Covenant) task force wrote that it has released the report now because of "legitimate concerns raised about issues of transparency around a decision as important for our Church as the Anglican Covenant."

Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine, chair of the task force, told the June 15-17 meeting of Executive Council that the group would not yet release the report. "We're reluctant to have it out there" because some people may assume that decisions have already been made, she told council, noting that the document would eventually form part of the Blue Book report to the 77th General Convention.

In the aftermath of the council meeting, a number of bloggers and other observers called on the task force to release the report before publication of the Blue Book report, a draft of which is expected to be received by Executive Council in October.

"We regret that our initial decision to withhold release of the SCCC report, which was requested as a resource to assist the drafting of the Blue Book Report, caused such distress to some in this Church," said the task force in its June 24 statement. "There is not and has not been any intent to be secretive, nor was there any intent to imply that Episcopalians are not capable of accurately assessing the information in this report."

The 2009 meeting of General Convention asked, via Resolution D020, that the church's dioceses study the proposed covenant and report to Executive Council. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson and Ballentine asked bishops and diocesan General Convention deputations to respond by April 24 so that council could consider their comments as it prepares a report to next year's meeting of General Convention, as requested in Resolution D020.

Ballentine told council that there were "a few" among the 64 responses the group received from a request for comment on the final draft of the covenant that would approve the covenant in full. "Almost all" respondents objected to Section 4, which contained a disciplinary process, she said.

The Anglican Covenant first was proposed in the 2004 Windsor Report as a way that the communion and its 38 autonomous provinces might maintain unity despite differences, especially relating to biblical interpretation and human sexuality issues.

But some Episcopalians and Anglicans, including Jefferts Schori and the Executive Council, have raised concerns about the covenant being used as an instrument of control, particularly in section 4, which outlines a method for resolving disputes in the communion.

Following years of discussion and several draft versions, the final text of the covenant was sent in December 2009 to the provinces for formal consideration. Executive Council has predicted that formal approval of the covenant by the Episcopal Church could not come until at least 2015 should endorsement require changes to the church's constitution; hence the request for the church's Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons to offer its report. Constitutional changes require approval by two consecutive meetings of the church's triennial convention. http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_128852_ENG_HTM.htm Writings on Marriage The Journal of the Bishop's Task Force on Marriage Convention Edition

Edited by Greg Jones

The Bishop's Task Force on Marriage : The Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple Dr. Eugene Rogers Ms. Gail Fennimore Mr. Hugh Stevens The Rev. Dr. Jo Bailey Wells The. Rev. Michael C. Hunn Dr. Robert E. Wright The Rev. R. Scott White The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones (Chair) The Rev. Todd R. Dill 2

Writings on Marriage Journal of the Bishop's Task Force on Marriage Edited by Greg Jones

Copies available from lulu.com. Enter 'Writings on Marriage' in the lulu.com search bar. The downloadable version is free, and the print version is for sale at manufacturing cost, before shipping fees. Quantity discounts are available.

Cover illustration is adapted from diocesan seal -- two persons in the stern are being married, four persons amidships are rowing, and one person in the bow is celebrating. 3

My brothers and sisters in Christ:

It happened in an incredible, ordinary, mundane moment. Soon after the execution of Jesus, two of his disciples were walking away from Jerusalem, confused, downcast, lost. As they were walking they talked with each other, about Jesus, about the hope they once had in him, about the hope now dashed on the altar of reality. “We had hoped,” one said, “that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Luke tells this story in the 24th chapter of his Gospel. His way of telling it is probably a message in itself. For it was as these two struggling disciples were in deep conversation with each other about deep matters of faith and life, that Jesus himself, now risen from the dead, joined them and became part of the conversation. They didn’t realize that it was Jesus alive. They simply thought him a stranger. Only later, when they invited this stranger to break bread with them that evening, did they realize that the stranger in their midst was Jesus, alive.

It was in the midst of their conversation with the Scriptures, with each other, with their situation and world that the Risen Christ became present, even when they didn’t know it. The experience later led some of them to say with some amazement: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

The essays in this journal are part of a conversation among disciples of Jesus about matters of faith and life that matter deeply: marriage, family, relationships, commitments, ties that bind, God-given human community, the possibilities of God’s dream and vision for human life 4 and well-being. They are a conversation between followers of Jesus walking on a journey, hoping to hear and experience something of God’s deep and passionate dream and desire for the human children of God and all creation.

This work is in direct response to a resolution of the 193rd Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina. I am deeply indebted to Greg Jones, the task force members and the contributors to this theological journal on Holy Matrimony. My prayer is that this will be a resource for teaching and conversation among us a diocese, as a church, indeed, as a culture.

But my deeper prayer is that as we listen to Holy Scripture, to the wisdom of Christian tradition, to the stories of each of us in this conversation, the Stranger will walk with us and talk with us as he did centuries ago on a road between the city of Jerusalem and the village of Emmaus. May the conversation and journey continue.

Keep the faith, +Michael B. Curry Bishop of North Carolina November 19, 2009 5

CONTENTS

Foreword ( GAIL FENNIMORE )...... 7

Introduction and Essentials ( GREG JONES ) ...... 9

Marriage: Liturgy for Living ( CHARLES PRICE & L OUIS WEIL )...... 17

Sacramental Unity ( ANNE HODGES -C OPPLE )...... 29

Love ( STANLEY HAUERWAS )...... 34

God-Sent Partnership ( SCOTT WHITE )...... 38

From Marriage to Holy Matrimony ( TODD DILL )...... 41

Marriage and Sanctification ( GENE ROGERS )...... 47

‘You have to be crazy!’ - The Privilege and Price of Covenant Relationship ( JO BAILEY WELLS )...... 52

I Want You to Want Me ( MICHAEL HUNN )...... 63

Humpty Dumpty, Augustine and Marriage ( ROBERT WRIGHT )...... 70

Marriage: Shelter and Context for Trust ( A S OCIAL STATEMENT OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA )...... 76

Marriage and the Law ( HUGH STEVENS ) ...... 80

Signing Marriage Licenses? Yes. ( ANNE HODGES -C OPPLE )...... 99 7

FOREWORD Φ Gail Fennimore

I have been married for 34 years. Sometimes my marriage has been more joyful than other times, but my commitment to my husband, and the covenant we entered into has never wavered. Being a layperson with no formal theological training, my initial reading of the essays, articles, and sermons presented in this journal filled me with amazement: at the naiveté of my preparations for marriage many years ago; and then at the dumb luck I have had in applying many of the ideas and ideals discussed in the following pages.

My exploration of the theology of marriage started at the last diocesan convention when I served on the Committee on Faith and Morals. The committee was assigned a resolution concerning the role of the church in marriage. The hearing room was packed, the testimony was lively and impassioned, and it became clear to the whole committee that, instead of recommending passage, rejection or amendment of a particular resolution, study would be the most important next step. An alternative resolution asking the bishop to form a task force to study and report back was passed by convention. Bishop Curry and Greg Jones should be applauded for pulling together such an esteemed group of scholars (myself excluded) to share their thoughts on Christian marriage. As you will notice, all but two of these writings were produced this year by Episcopalians resident in the Diocese of North Carolina, demonstrating a wealth of talent that is close at hand.

There are several common themes in these works: marriage as a sacrament; marriage as an exploration of our relationship with God;

Φ Gail Fennimore is a physical therapist and member of the Church of the Holy Comforter in Charlotte. She is an active laywoman, leading in various roles within The Episcopal Church, notably as past-president of the diocesan ECW and parish vestrywoman. 8 marriage as a vehicle for reaching the fullest expression of ourselves, and marriage as a legal vehicle for order in our society.

I hope you enjoy your journey within these writings. For those of us who are called to relationship in marriage, we must bring our imperfections, child-like trust, fierceness for justice, needs, wants and longings before our partner to become more fully ourselves. It is one way to breathe in the breath of God and share the love He offers. 9

INTRODUCTION AND ESSENTIALS Φ Greg Jones

At the 193 rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in January of 2009, a resolution was passed calling on Bishop Curry to name a task force charged with studying the theology of marriage, the relation of Church and State regarding marriage, and to report back to the 194th convention. Bishop Curry named me to be the chair of the task force, and he appointed its membership.

Since then, we have been hard at work considering the Church's theology of marriage and the relationship between Church and State as regards marriage. I agreed to chair the task force with a particular vision in mind of how we should proceed, and to what end. It had been my vision that we would produce a publishable volume of good Christian theology and reasoned commentary on these questions, which would be printed by the Diocese, and given to every delegation at the next convention. We have done that work, and here it is.

The writings in this journal range from academic to sermonic to informal reflective pieces. Each piece stands on its own, and there is no need to read this journal in linear fashion. Though there is a kind of order to the ordering. The journal begins with essential theological values of Christian marriage, and concludes with legal/statal questions, and how they may be seen to connect.

Φ The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ('Greg') is Rector of St. Michael's in Raleigh. A trustee at the University of the South and the General Theological Seminary, he is author of Beyond Da Vinci (Seabury Books, 2004) and "On the Priesthood," Anglican Theological Review (February, 2009). 10

Shared Understandings It had also been my expectation that our work would represent a wide array of theological perspectives and a diverse agenda. But, while the task force has both lay and ordained, academic and non-academic theologians, male and female, 'liberal' and 'conservative' and 'moderate' members on it - we just aren't that far apart in terms of how we understand Christian marriage, or how much we all respect and honor it as a gift.

My sense has been that the members of the task force share more in terms of our understanding of Christian marriage than we differ. In particular we all seem to agree that marriage for Christians is a complex 1 economy of commitments - social, spiritual, private, and public. We believe this is described in the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church regarding Holy Matrimony, and we uphold and affirm this vision. We understand Christian marriage to be a public and solemn covenant between two persons in the presence of God and involving the Church and society at large.

In my own year of study, I have come to believe that the Church teaches marriage to be a sacramental action which conveys spiritual grace through socio-physical bonds and commitments which involve God, spouses, Church, and the world beyond the household. I believe the writings of the members of the task force attest to this - as do the writings of other contributors to this journal.

Of course, there are controversial questions about which the task force is not of one mind. As well, there are a number of issues we left undiscussed, in the interest of very limited time. Among those are the vital questions of divorce and remarriage, the rearing of children, pastoral care to marriages in difficulty, and so forth. However, of the controversial questions where we do not all agree, the following three are most noteworthy:

1 I made up the phrase 'complex economy of commitments.' The word 'economy' derives from the Greek word for household. 11

1. Is marriage a form of relationship which may include 2 faithful Christians who are LGBT? 2. Should the Church cease to solemnize marriages, leaving that to be done by secular officials, and should the Church simply offer to bless civil marriages? 3. Should the Church offer a "ritual-only" form of marriage in which a couple is not legally married also?

The first point is likely the most controversial, and in the view of many, also the most important for the Church to discuss and, eventually, decide what to do about it. While this task force is not necessarily in agreement about what the Church should do in this regard - it is important to identify one major point. The task force members shared essentially the same vision of Christian marriage, with the single major difference of opinion being about whether or not this shared vision of Christian marriage could include Christians who are gay. The analogy being to Holy Orders: we do not have separate orders for male or female persons - but rather we ordain persons of either sex to be deacons, priests and bishops. Similarly with marriage, no one on the task force argued for a separate or alternative form of Christian marriage - but some did argue for the eventual inclusion of Christians who are gay into what we currently understand Christian marriage to be.

The second point of wider controversy - whether or not the Church should cease to solemnize marriages and simply offer blessings of civil marriages - was interestingly not that controversial on the task force. Indeed, while some indicated a sympathy for the continental European system of marriage - in which the Church blesses what is already solemnized by a secular official - nobody demonstrated a great degree of advocacy for this. This is interesting because in the wider Church

2 LGBT means "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered' and is often seen to be a preferred signifier for discussing non-heterosexual persons. This journal will also use the word 'gay' inclusively to mean LGBT, following the New York Times and Washington Post style guide. 12 and world there are those who advocate for the separation of what is seen as the sacred and contractual/legal aspects of marriage. Some who do argue for this are often identified as "liberal" or "progressive" within the Church, though clearly not all who self-identify as "liberal" or "progressive" favor separating the sacred from the contractual aspects of the marital covenant. In the non-Church sphere, a growing movement has also called for the State to "get out of the business of marriage." Yes, not the Church, but the State. Across the political spectrum from David Frum to Michael Kinsley, from David Boaz to Wendy McElroy, advocates of "marriage privatization" argue that the 3 State has no business involving itself in people's private marital issues.

Contrary to a sentiment sometimes expressed in the Episcopal Church that "we need to get the Church out of the marriage business," or the inverse sentiment expressed by certain libertarian, individual anarchist, small government conservative or private morality liberals that "we need to get the State out of the marriage business," most on the Bishop's task force are in favor of the Church continuing to define, solemnize and bless marriage entirely within the context of the Church - and allowing the State to recognize and uphold the legal and contractual implications of what we do. By solemnizing a marriage in the context of the Church, in which vows, promises, and blessings are all exchanged between the congregation and the couple, the result is a vision of marriage which integrates the contractual, legal, societal, public, and spiritual aspects of the covenant of marriage. For those on the task force who believe that LGBT persons should be included into marital relationships, the concern was expressed that the secular legal requirements be changed to include them through the political process, so that the Church could continue to solemnize as well as bless fully- dimensioned marriages.

The third point of debate - whether or not the Church should offer 'ritual-marriage' which has no legal dimension - was somewhat more interestingly debated on the task force. Certainly, there are increasing numbers of cases in which persons are effectively penalized by legal marriage - OR - they are not permitted to legally be married. This is

3 David Frum is a conservative Republican intellectual. Michael Kinsley is a liberal Democrat intellectual. David Boaz is executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute. Wendy McElroy is an "individual anarchist." 13 often the case with persons receiving widow/widower benefits, OR, also with LGBT persons who live in states where they may not form any type of legal marriage or civil union. The concern here is this - we all agree that Christian marriage is a form of utter mutuality and self- giving between two persons, and that as such, the covenant element of marriage is one which applies in all directions both spiritual and physical, corporeal and ethereal, legal and financial. If persons engage in a form of marital covenant - such as a 'ritual only' type of relationship - which has no legal or financial bonds, it raises serious questions as to the fullness of the covenant at all.

One member of the task force who is in a same-sex union described how his partner and he sought the maximum degree of legal and financial commitments available within the current laws, to be done in concert with their ritual covenant-making within the Christian community. They believed that the making of maximum commitment to other - in all spheres of life - is central to any Christian nuptial theology or practice. The words, "with all that I am and all that I have" come to mind in this regard.

The Essentials of Christian Marriage Again, apart from these areas where the task force was not of one mind, all of us did seem to share a common starting place for our nuptial theology. I believe that visible in the writings on marriage found in this journal is a common thread through each. This is a thread which is not new at all in Christian thought, and is not particular to Episcopalians either. No, it is a thread about the essence of Christian marriage which one may discern in the centuries-old writings of Martin Bucer, as well as in the contemporary writings of Walter Cardinal Kasper.

Though separated by five centuries - and the Protestant/Roman Catholic divide - both Bucer and Kasper share a rather modern theological perspective on marriage: each asserts that the essential theological significance of marriage develops from intimate sexual relationships of partnership, fidelity and fellowship - even before one 14 considers other important householding questions involving property, 4 dependents, descendants, etc.

To be sure, in the West beginning in the 19th century at least, we may 5 trace the rise of what is often called 'companionate marriage.' Bucer perhaps anticipated these modern trends in the middle of the 16th century when he suggested to the framers of the second Book of Common Prayer that the list of the goals of marriage be reordered, putting "the fellowship of mutual fidelity" ahead of procreation and the 6 avoidance of fornication. They didn't take him up on the suggestion. The American prayer book dropped the traditional three goals of marriage in 1789 altogether. In 1979, the new Prayer Book restored three goals - but they now are defined as mutual joy, mutual help and comfort, and for the Godly procreation and rearing of children.

Walter Cardinal Kasper orders the goods of marriage similarly in his 7 excellent book Theology of Christian Marriage . While certainly upholding and cherishing the traditional goods of marriage as having to do very much with the raising of children, as well as the faithful merging of property and clan, Kasper nonetheless begins his theology of marriage by looking at what it might be about before questions of procreation and property enter in. Perhaps following Bucer's lead - or perhaps merely sharing the modern sense of where marital theology must begin - Kasper begins with what the Book of Common Prayer identifies as the marital good of 'mutual joy.'

Kasper begins his theology with what the relationship between the two married persons has to do with God and God's will for human beings. This also happens to be the same place where all of our task force members choose to begin their theology of marriage as well. As you

4 Kasper writes "the point of departure for Christian thinking about marriage today should be the aspect of mutual love and faithfulness," in Theology of Christian Marriage , (Crossroad, 1983) p. 14. 5 Stacey J . Oliker, Best Friends and Marriage: Exchange Among Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 6 H. J. Selderhuis, Marriage and Divorce in the Thought of Martin Bucer, (Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999) p.114. 7 Walter Cardinal Kasper, Theology of Christian Marriage (Crossroads, 1983). 15 read the articles and sermons which follow - I invite you to consider the following six claims for a theology of Christian marriage which I have distilled from Kasper's work:

1. Theologically understood, the essence of marriage is not natural but relational. The relationship is defined by the mutual embrace of each partner's whole person. As such, the starting point for our thinking about Christian marriage is mutual love and faithfulness.

2. Human persons have dignity because they exist for their own sakes, as creatures of God in God's own image. To be sure, an individual man or woman (whether married or not) is 'fully' human - there are no 'partial persons.' However, human fulfillment does cry out for the acceptance and affirmation of our personhood by others. Human fulfillment is developed in relationships of personal love, in which one says to another, "I want you to be; it is good that you are." In Jesus' teaching, the love of God and the love of neighbor speak to this.

3. People exist bodily and in relationship to creation. Our bodily and world-relational existence therefore is deeply marked by our sexuality - in terms of sexual identity and sexual expression. Human sexuality is fulfilled only within the context of personal bonds. Without these personal bonds, sexuality can result in the disintegration and loss of dignity of the human person.

4. The bodily nature of the human person further means that marriage cannot be purely personal or private. A minimum of physical, social and economic requirements are needed if a marriage is to be successful. As demonstrated in the law, the prophets, and the words of Jesus, 'love includes justice' - meaning that partners in marriage are called and required to give each other his or her due. Without this justice, love would be dishonest and empty. It is in this way that marriage requires both personal and public obligations.

5. The bond of faithfulness in marriage is not to be seen a yoke whereby individual liberties are restrained, but as a mantle under which mutual self-giving in the presence of God is celebrated. 16

6. In marriage, the partners commit themselves to an unconditional existence whose end is unseen. In this way, marital faithfulness is a form of Christian obedience in faith to God - whose love is likewise unconditional and whose ends are likewise unseen. As the ground of Christian marriage is the definitive and unconditional love of human beings by God, a marriage which holds this sort of love as its basis is a relationship in which divine transcendence may be experienced. 17

LITURGY FOR LIVING Φ Charles Price & Louis Weil

From Liturgy for Living , (1979) Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman for the creation and nurture of new life, and for mutual support and enjoyment. It is established by an act of intention in accordance with some custom and tradition. It constitutes families as the basic unit of society, the context for expressing the deepest of human relationships, and the normal structure within which children are born and raised. It is a completely human institution, which can be distinguished from the mating of

Φ Charles P. Price and Louis Weil, Liturgy for Living , The Church's Teaching Series, Volume 5 (Seabury, 1979) reprinted with permission. This chapter includes the section from the classic 1979 text by the late Charles Price and Louis Weil, and an expansion of that piece by Professor Weil written this year for this journal. Charles P. Price was a distinguished professor on the faculty of the Virginia Seminary for many years. Professor Price was also a long-time member of the Standing Liturgical Commission, and made significant contributions to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as well as texts for the 1982 Hymnal. Louis Weil retired this year as James F. Hodges Professor of Liturgics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. His ministry has included missionary and academic work in Latin America. In his work as a teacher of liturgy he has lectured on five continents. He was a member of the Standing Liturgical Commission from 1985-1991. 18 animals. Some animals, too, apparently establish a relationship of relative permanence in order to raise their young. In this case as in so many others, it is impossible to make an absolute distinction between the realm of the human and that of other creatures. Yet there is an absolutely crucial difference. The marriage of a man and a woman, though rooted in the natural urges of sex, is transformed by will and culture.

It would obviously take us far beyond the limits of this book to examine marriage customs of different cultures and different times. They vary widely. At the beginning of Old Testament history, for example, the patriarchs practiced polygamy, as has been done in many cultures outside Israel. Jacob married two wives - Leah and Rachel - and, in accordance with the widespread custom of the day, and apparently with God's blessing, took two concubines as well - Bilhah and Zilpah (Gen. 30:1-13). Solomon's seven hundred wives are legendary (1 Kg. 11:3). One may even suspect some Oriental hyperbole!

Within the Old Testament, the understanding of human sexuality and marriage deepened under the influence of two leading Old Testament convictions: that creation is good, and that God's covenant with his people sets the standard for all relationships within the covenant, including the relationship between husbands and wives. In the first place, sex is a good part of God's good work. In the second place, husbands and wives are to be related to each other with loyal love (hesed ) of the same quality as God's loyal love to Israel.

The story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis puts an extraordinarily high value on human sexuality. We read: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Sexual union is created to be one means by which human beings realize and participate in the image of God. (It is not the only one, to be sure. Marriage is not necessary to salvation.) Sexuality is therefore a matter of greatest concern for the Christian faith.

On the other hand, what is designed to be a great good is often, in sin- ridden human life, a source of evil and distortion. The corruption of the best is the worst, as a familiar proverb puts it. Our sexuality is no exception. It brings soaring joy. It can also bring frustration and 19 bitterness. In the biblical understanding of the conditions of human existence after the Fall, the relationship between man and woman comes under the curse which affects all things. What was designed as a blessing and as an expression of deepest human mutuality becomes, time and time again, a frustration and an opportunity for one partner to dominate the other. "...Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you," the Genesis account reads (3:16).

Under these circumstances, the understanding of marriage in Israel grew with the developing knowledge of God's ways with his people. It came to be recognized that the sexual bond between husband and wife was most secure, satisfying, and fulfilling when it was maintained in the context of a relationship marked by the kind of loyalty and faithfulness which God showed to Israel.

Loyal love ( hesed ) is the decisive factor in the biblical understanding of marriage. An examination of Old Testament laws, for example, would show that if a man had sexual relations with a woman married to someone else or with one engaged to be married, both man and woman were put to death. If the woman were not married or engaged, the man had to pay her father a sum of money and marry her, but the couple were not punished as criminals, (cf. Dt. 22:23-29). The violation of a pledge makes the difference.

Today, we surely find these laws grotesquely severe, and we probably regret that their provisions did not fall more equally on man and woman. Nevertheless it is clear that in its time, the Old Testament sought to uphold faithfulness in marriage; and when God taught the prophet Hosea about God's faithfulness to the covenant by requiring him to be faithful to Gomer, "a worthless woman," faithfulness (hesed) began to be grasped as a man's responsibility in marriage, as well as a woman's (Hos. 1:2-4; 3:1-5).

Marriage In the New Testament The New Testament develops these Old Testament insights. Jesus himself regarded marriage not only as monogamous but as life-long. In his view, a husband should not be able to rid himself of his wife simply 20 by giving her a "bill of divorce," as contemporary Jewish practice was. No, said Jesus,

"For you hardness of heart he [Moses] wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." (Mk. 10:5-9)

This teaching not only establishes the permanence of the marriage bond in Christian understanding, but also underlies the Christian conviction that the relation between husband and wife is, humanly speaking, their primary relationship and takes precedence over all other human relationships, including those to parents and the parental family. All other ties become subordinate to the new one established by the marriage vow. This aspect of Christian marriage brings it into conflict with many alternative understandings of marriage, where the parental family, usually the husband, occupies first place, and the new relationship is subordinate.

Two thousand years of Christian experience have taught us that despite the best of intentions, some marriages are not healthy. Some way has to be provided to dissolve them. In these cases, the break-up of a marriage may be the least of evils, but it is a defeat for the Christian vision of what marriage can be. A couple who undertake Christian marriage must intend it to be permanent when they exchange their vows.

They are also bidden to model their married love on the love of God for his people. The obligation to do so has rarely been more movingly expressed than in the Letter to the Ephesians:

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church....Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. (Eph. 5:22-23; 25-28) 21

Many modern Christians will especially regret the lack of mutuality between man and woman expressed in this passage. Many of us today would say that husbands and wives should be subject to each other and should give themselves to each other , as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it. We believe that this mutuality is an implication of Christian love, which has gradually become clear as Christian people have lived into the meaning of the Christian mystery.

In any case, there can be no mistake that the model for Christians of love in marriage is Christ's total self-giving - his agape . When Christians try to understand the implication of Christ's life for their lives, they realize that his steadfast love for his church involves, in the case of marriage, the complete loyalty of the man to the woman, and of the woman to the man, for life. The chief reason which Christians have for claiming that marriage is an exclusive and permanent relationship is the unswerving faithfulness, revealed by Christ, which God has for his people. When this religious conviction weakens, our understanding of marriage will be correspondingly insecure. The love of God in Christ, agape, which is faithful to death, redeems sexual love, eros, and makes it capable of bearing the meaning it was designed in creation to have; cpable of making the union of male and female to be the image of God. This capacity of Christian marriage to be a communicating symbol of God's own life is so potent that marriage is commonly called a sacramental act. The Development of Christian Marriage Rites There is no service of marriage recorded, or even mentioned, in the 8 Bible. Even after Christianity moved into the Gentile world, there was no special Christian marriage service. In the second century Ignatius required a couple seeking marriage to get the Bishop's permission, and Tertullian in the third century indicated that a couple's marraige would be blessed at a celebration of the Eucharist. In each case the implication is that the actual marriage ceremony took place in accordance with existing local customs. That ancient practice expresses the consistent teaching of Western churches ever since. A couple pledge themselves to

8 Editor's Note: The Wedding in Cana from John 2 makes no mention of the service of marriage itself, but focuses rather on the wedding reception and first miracle of Our Lord. 22 each other and observe the legal requirements of the place where they live when they do so. The church then blesses the union.

Until well into the Middle Ages, there was no expectation that a Christian marriage should take place in a church. The first full description of a Christian marriage liturgy is found in the ninth century. When the church at last did take over the marriage ceremony, it really functioned as the civil authority, church and state being coterminous at this period of history. The priest was understood to function as a witness of the couple's vows as well as the church's representative to bless the couple. The marriage rite itself embodied local customs. Some of the features of the Prayer Book service most familiar to Episcopalians originated in northern England. The father's giving away of the bride, for example, belongs in this category. The giving of a ring as a symbol of the vow is a widespread European custom, but it is by no means universal.

Since the eighteenth century, the principle of separation of church and state has gained ascendancy in Western Europe and North America. As a result of the American Revolution, there is no religious establishment among us. Ordained Christian ministers are nevertheless regularly permitted to function as civil officers in this one instance, officially witnessing the exchange of the vows in accordance with a license issued by the state. Thus in the United States a marriage ceremony can still take place altogether in the church building. On the other hand, the revolutions which occurred in many European nations during the nineteenth century established a wider gulf between church and state. In France, for example, there now must be two complete ceremonies: a civil ceremony at a town registry and the blessing of the marriage in the church. The practice of early Christianity has virtually been reestablished.

The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage In the new Prayer Book, the liturgy for a wedding is entitled "The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage." The two parts of the title correspond to the two parts of the ceremony which have characterized Christian marriage from the beginning: the exchange of vows and the 23 blessing. The whole rite is embedded in a service of the Word identical with the Proclamation of the Word of God at the Eucharist.

The service begins with an exhortation which affirms the biblical teaching about marriage which we have already examined, and states the purpose of the marriage bond:

The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church ....

The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord (p. 423).

The Declaration of Consent follows, in which each partner promises the other "to live together in the covenant of marriage . . . .and forsaking all others, be faithful unto him (or her) as long as you both shall live." Marriage is presented as a covenant relationship which is exclusive, lifelone, and taking precedence over any other human relationship ("forsaking all others. . .").

The congregation then promises to uphold the couple in this relationship, expressing by this commitment the often overlooked fact that the expectations of a community have a great deal of influence on the stability of a marriage.

The "giving away" of the bride has become optional. It is a vestige of a time when women were considered to be property.

After the lessons, which introduce some of the biblical material which we have discussed, the couple make their promises by taking each other's right hand and repeating the age-old words: "...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death." These mutual vows constitute the marriage. 24

It has become possible for both husand and wife to give rings as a symbol that "with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you." This mutual exchange is a further sign of the complete equality of the man and the woman. Since the exchange of rings is in origin local and not universal custom, provision is also made to allow some other symbolic exchange at this point (p. 437).

The concluding Prayers and Blessing take the place of the Prayers of the People in a regular service of the Word. The blessing of the couple by the officiating priest constitutes the irreplaceable action of the church at this service. The exhange of the Peace brings the marriage service to a close. The couple first exchange the peace with each other, and then in a custom of growing popularity, may move through the congregation to greet with the peace those who have come to share this celebration. The Eucharist may follow, in accordance with ancient tradition.

The new Prayer Book provides a service titled "The Blessing of a Civil Marriage" (pp.433-434). It is a sign of the fact that in our society, as in many others in the western world, civil marriages are becoming more frequent. 25

Updating A Text on Marriage, (2009) The text on marriage in Liturgy for Living that Charles Price and I wrote some thirty years ago restates the received tradition regarding marriage as an institution of the Church. Looking back from 2009 over this text, what I find is not errors which need to be corrected, but rather, at certain points, a need to expand what the text says, that is, to develop some of the implications of the text in ways which, in the 1970s, we could hardly have imagined.

I want to focus on what seems to me to be the prime example of this. It occurs in the first paragraph of that article, in which we wrote that marriage “constitutes families as the basic unit of society, the context for expressing the deepest of human relationships, and the normal structure within which children are born and raised.” This statement strikes me now as wonderfully innocent, implying as it does that there is a single definition of ‘family’. The question which this phrase would raise today is, “And how do you define family?” For many in our society, the answer would be “a father, mother, and their children,” a response which would have been generally accepted in the 1970s without question. But for others in our society, that model of ‘family’ does not fit their real life situation.

The variations on the traditional model are numerous, but certainly one very common model today is the single-parent family, and even that with variations. Many children are raised by one parent because of the death of the other parent, or, of course, because of divorce. It is true that in many cases, even after a divorce, both parents remain actively involved in the care of their children. But in other cases, one parent has disappeared from the scene, and the remaining parent has not remarried. Yet no one would suggest that a single parent and child do not constitute a family.

Another variation on the single-parent family occurs when a man or woman has chosen to remain single and yet desires to have children. Back in the 1980s, this model was predominantly associated with professional women. Now, census figures indicate that the number of single-parent households headed by men has grown tremendously since then. 26

Yet another aspect of an expanded concept of family is found in what are generally called “consensual unions.” I began my ordained ministry in Puerto Rico in the early 1960s, and I soon learned that in some parts of the island there was a very large percentage of such unions alongside those which were legally and/or religiously sanctioned. These unions were often very stable family units involving lifetime commitment. These were accepted within the culture, and the children of these unions were, by government mandate, legally legitimate. This pattern had developed centuries earlier during the colonial period when efforts at evangelization were often focused in urban centers. Remote areas of the island would be visited by clergy only rarely, and so such “common law marriages” were accepted as the social reality with the usual legal supports.

Such consensual unions have becoming increasingly common in American society in recent decades, and if one inquires as to the reasons for this, the responses are very diverse.

It is amazing how such unions have come to be accepted as ‘normative’ for young couples even by rather conservative parents. It is often explained that this is a kind of ‘stage’, and testing of the relationship which, if it works out, will lead to marriage. But some of these unions last for many years and include the rearing of children without any inherent sense that a marriage license is needed. Again, one may find examples of many variations on this pattern, but certainly what was once the stigma of “living in sin” has given way in many parts of the country to a much more sympathetic acceptance of yet another model of ‘family’ in our society.

Same-Sex Marriage When we listen to advocates of same-sex marriage, a characteristic appeal is made to an inherent right to form family units which in an increasing number of states are legally recognized and in which, very often, there is a profound desire for children. In addition to roughly a half-dozen states in our country, several nations in Europe have now legalized policies by which same-sex marriages may take place. In such places, this is seen as a matter of civil rights, quite apart from any religious perspective to the question. 27

This does not, of course, settle the question for the churches. It is evident that there is wide disagreement within all of the Christian denominations as to whether such a development is acceptable. The point to be made, however, is that whether or not a person or a denomination accepts or does not accept same-sex marriage, those marriages are likely to enjoy increasing legal sanction. Among Christians, the debate on this issue is likely to go on for a very long time.

Sacrament and Vocation Given the passionate emotions which this question is raising in American society, as well as within the churches, it seems to me that two fundamental aspects of Christian faith and practice should be kept in focus as the dialogue goes on.

The first is 'marriage as sacrament.' The reformed churches of the 16th century tended to restrict sacrament as a category to only baptism and eucharist. In spite of that, Anglicanism has continued to speak of the other rites, including marriage, in sacramental terms. What does this contribute to this particular question? The definition of sacrament is, of course, familiar to all of us, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and visible grace.” On this point it is important to listen to the voices of couples united in the traditional model of male and female who witness to the reality of the grace in their lives which has been God’s gift to them through their marriage. Even those of us who are not married can witness to the experience of grace in our lives which has come to us through close friendships. To extend this a bit further, anyone who has had close acquaintance with a gay or lesbian couple, a couple who are committed to Christian faith, has seen the fruit of that grace embodied in that relationship, often in heroic mutual support. For me this manifests “the nature of sacrament” just as clearly as we might see it in heterosexual marriage or in close friendship. In other words, that same-sex marriage can be recognized as “an occasion of grace.”

The second is 'marriage as vocation.' I have long taught that marriage for Christians must be looked at in terms of vocation. In other words, I am insisting that the commitment of marriage is an act of faith, and pertains to our understanding of who God is calling us to be. In that sense, marriage is grounded in our baptismal identity. Our close 28 relations with others, for example, through marriage and friendship, are the context for the living out of our baptismal faith. To say this, of course, is to say that marriage is for me more than “an ordinance rooted in creation.” It is the context for the living out of our baptismal commitment. But at the same time more must be said. The living out of our baptismal commitment pertains to every aspect of our lives and involves all of our relationships with other persons. Again, the witness of gay and lesbian couples who profess Christian faith is that their relationship bears this same significance, that God has touched their lives through their love of the other person.

It seems to me that the role of the Church in general, and of clergy in their preaching, teaching and counsel, is to nourish these two dimensions of our significant relationships: to see them as the embodiment of ‘sacrament’ in the particularities of our lives, and to understand that it is through those relationships that we discern the person that God is calling us to be.

Having now the chance to expand the framework for what I believe marriage to be, I continue to say that marriage can still be affirmed as “constituting families as the basic unit of society, the context for expressing the deepest of human relationships, and the normal structure in which children are born and raised.” 29

SACRAMENTAL UNITY Φ Anne Hodges-Copple

A Wedding Sermon Think of all the roads traveled to get to this point today: Today, our friends Chris and Pat stand at an amazing intersection, a crossroads of sorts. It has been a difficult path, full of twists and turns, cutbacks and even setbacks. But it is not just the two of you who stand at a crossroads today. Here today are those of us who have found their own way over time, over distances, over joys and over sorrows to be with you on this holy occasion.

There were the roads that brought the two of you together. Pat from Philadelphia and Chris from Winston-Salem: Yankee aristocrat and good old southerner – that’s quite an intersection right there. But there have been other intersections; other events and people that have intersected your lives, brought you to various difficult crossroads and even crises. Sometimes various intersections of vocation and health, of life and work, could even bring you to cross purposes.

But above all it is God’s grace that has brought you together – and back together – over and over. And it is God’s grace that brings the two of you and all of us together today.

We gather as a wide, diverse, interfaith community to witness your vows, to pledge our support and to ask God to bless your lives together. And as with so much of God’s most interesting work, what we are doing here today is a deep mystery. Who can really claim to fully understand the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church or the union between two people in heart, mind and body?

Φ The author is Rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Durham. This sermon text was preached but has been modified to protect the identities of the couple originally involved. 30

Let us consider this mysterious thing we are here to do, and how we perceive and experience it. For that’s the great thing about mysteries: you don’t explain them; you explore them. The more you explore God’s mysteries, the more you may understand, and the more you wish to explore further.

So let’s take a moment – not to explain – but to explore the sacramental nature of this blessing of Pat and Chris's union.

Sacramental theology is like a pair of special eyeglasses. When we put on our sacramental lenses we see a world infused with connections between the holy and the homely; where the ordinary is raised up to the extraordinary. Our sacramental vision helps us to see a mysterious holiness which enlivens our lives and the world around us.

By looking at the world sacramentally we are able to discern intersections of the Divine with the human; the Eternal and the transitory; the mortal and the incorruptible.

And while Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on the capacity of our frail and finite human nature to be caught up in the glory and grandeur and healing of the transcendent, what Christianity does claim is the ultimate expression of this intersection between our humanity and the Divine in the Incarnation. What we proclaim, among other things, is the intersection of God and human, glory and humility, king and servant. By the power of the Incarnation we are given to see that all life is imbued with holiness and all life is in need of God’s sanctifying presence.

And this brings me to the second distinctive thing about looking at life sacramentally. If sacramental moments and occasions are those that reveal a life-changing encounter between the human and the divine, then these occasions are often scandalous to the world. Over and over the biblical witness reveals that the powers of this world often take offense when God acts in ways to bring us up short from our limited human perspectives.

Sacraments are scandalous because they cause the outward and visible realities – things like bread and wine and human beings – to be 31 subsumed into a deeper mystery. And corruptible vessels, oddly enough, are chosen by God to be agents of amazing grace.

But before we can be taken up into a sacramental way of life, we must in a sense be willing to die to an old way of life. In the sacraments of the Church there is always an element of dying that is a part of new life. It is hard, and it is frightening: try telling parents of a baby about to be baptized that in part baptism is a drowning ritual; try telling a couple who dares to join their lives together that they must be willing to die to their illusions of autonomy and independence.

The sacrament of the Incarnation is revealed in climactic and scandalous ways: a baby in a manger; a savior upon a cross; life out of death.

Sacramental thinking tells us that God acts in surprising, life-changing, paradoxical, and even scandalous ways. Sacramental seeing shows us that God takes the most unsuspecting people, connects them with life- changing experiences that often scandalize the rest of the world, and then uses these same people and their experience to usher in whole new levels of communion and community.

So let’s put on our sacramental lenses and ask ourselves how the blessing of this couple in heart, body, and mind measures up as occasion where unity overcomes estrangement, where forgiveness heals guilt, and joy conquers despair.

Let’s start with the notion of sacrament as scandal. As a means of the Grace which turns the world upside down in order to redeem it, given by the One whose death on the cross is itself the deepest scandal.

Chris and Pat: I have to say in terms of scandal I just don’t think you two really measure up! Could there be two less scandalous people? Could there be two more traditional-Rite One types than you? From your preppy wardrobe to your gifts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you two could write the book on good taste and good manners.

But while you are both pillars of tradition, you are also agents of spiritual transformation. You value and uphold the wisdom of the past, just as you follow it to the crossroads of present and future. Embodying 32 sacramental thinking, you know that God is all about new creation – which is not a repudiation or rejection of tradition, but its fulfillment.

In the tradition of our Lord, who was often accused of ignoring or breaking the accepted laws and traditions of his day, Pat and Chris come together today to receive God’s holy blessing, not to abolish the law but to give the law of God’s love yet another marvelous fulfillment.

So, how is this nuptial occasion a sacred intersection where old is made new?

There is a whole lot of discussion in some parts of the world about how and in what sense “two shall become one” in holy union. And yet our biblical and liturgical tradition teaches us that unity – that is, reconciliation with God and within creation – is the deepest desire of God. In the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus prays to his heavenly Father on behalf of the friends gathered with him at the last supper and also on behalf of those who will believe in Jesus through their words and witness:

“Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth…for their sakes I sanctify myself so that they also may be sanctified in truth. . . . I ask this on behalf of those who believe in me, that they all may be one.” [John 17:17ff]

That we all may be one.

It is perhaps the greatest purpose of the Church to bring all disciples together in the love of God and neighbor that we all may be one. It is through the sanctifying love of God and in grateful obedience to his will that we all may become one. And there is no one single model of a Christian household that has an exclusive or a superior claim upon what it means to be in communion with God and therefore in communion with one another.

Consider sisters in a convent, an apartment of college friends, a single mom with many children and few resources, a husband and wife with foster children, or a gay couple. To the degree they model their lives in imitation of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit and by the grace of 33

God, such households may join their lives in intimate connection to Jesus. That we all become one.

Such communion, such unity, is sheer gift and grace. And we should celebrate it, bless it, and give thanks for it wherever we find it.

Chris and Pat, let me leave you with this final scandalous image, odd as it may seem: According to the Gospel of John, Jesus celebrated his first miracle at a wedding in Cana.

How very odd. Not among the sick, the lame, the dying, but at a party. I think we might draw just a couple of concluding thoughts from that. First, Jesus loved a party . . . a gathering of friends . . . an intersection for celebration where we all come together with our various complicated pasts, our foibles, our baggage and our wishes for you for a wonderful future.

But a second observation is this: It is not that Jesus loved wine and lots of it. That would not be the conclusion to draw. Rather, Jesus takes what is wonderful in the first place, but still quite ordinary and common, something like water, or bread – or two ordinary human beings – and performs a miracle, a new creation. Water becomes wine. Two become one. We all, gathered here today, gathered with the saints past and present and yet to come, become one. Your old lives are filled today with something new, something abundant, something life-giving, something eternal. Isn’t it wonderful to think that after so many years, well into the party, there is something more to come? In fact, the best is yet to come. 34

LOVE Φ Stanley Hauerwas

A Wedding Sermon Christians are required to love one another - even if they are married. That may be a cruel and even heartless demand, but it is nonetheless the way things are if you are a Christian. From Paul’s perspective marriage is not necessarily the context that determines the character of love or our ability to love and be loved by another. Rather Paul seems to think we need to learn to be loved by God and so to love God, and then possibly ourselves, and if we have gotten that far we may even discover we can love our neighbor, who may be our enemy, which often turns out to be the necessary condition for those who are married to love one another.

But if that is true, why is I Corinthians 13 read so often at weddings? Is it because the people being married think I Corinthians 13 describes their love for one another? No doubt it is true that the characteristics of love described in I Corinthians 13 seem like good advice for making a marriage work. If your marriage is to be livable you will need to be patient, kind, free of jealousy and snobbishness, non-possessive, and, most of all, you cannot brood over past wrongs.

That seems like good advice. The problem, however, is that to turn I Corinthians 13 into advice for a successful marriage too easily underwrites the sentimentalities associated with romantic conceptions of marriage in our culture. Such a view of love assumes that we naturally know what love is and how to do it. But that does not seem to

Φ Dr. Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Hauerwas is a communicant at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, N.C. This sermon was preached in October, 2009. 35 be what Paul thinks. Paul thinks love is a gift; one that comes through the training of the whole Church by the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly enough when Paul’s descriptions of the character of love are abstracted from their ecclesial home and turned into general recommendations for those to be married, the result is a legalization of the gift of love. As a result love is transformed into a form of works righteousness. We assume it is up to us to give content to Paul’s vague recommendations about the character of love and then we have to make what we have said love must be, work. So understood love is anything but good news. Even worse, the recommendations divorced from their theological home are not particularly helpful.

Think, for example, about Paul’s claim that the love he commends does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. A love that rejoices in truth is not an everyday affair precisely because the everyday tempts us to love half-truths. We never lie more readily, I suspect, than to those whom we love. For our loves are often constituted by misperceptions of one another that we later learn are just that, that is, misperceptions. Yet we fear an acknowledgement of the illusions constitutive of our loves because such an acknowledgement would prompt the recognition that they are not, nor are we, who we thought we were when we said, “I love you.”

So thank God the love Paul commends is not meant first of all to describe the love between those about to be married. Rather, just as the beatitudes are exemplified by Jesus, so the love Paul commends names Jesus. Faith, hope, and love abide, but love never ends. Only Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is without a beginning and end. Thus Karl Barth’s suggestion that we substitute the name Jesus every time I Corinthians 13 says love. “Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful, he does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

Paul’s great hymn of and to love is, therefore, not first about us. Rather the love about which he speaks is that which characterizes God’s very life. Thus Barth’s remark: “to say ‘God is’ is to say ‘God loves.’” We can say God loves because the Father would have the Holy Spirit rest 36 on the Son so that we might participate in the very life of God. The love that is the Trinity was before we were, yet it is the same love that called us into existence. It is the love that assumed our flesh, even to be crucified by our sin, so that sin might be crucified by love. Love prevailed, overwhelming our sin, making possible our ability to love one another as Christ has loved us. Through love we have been made participants in God’s very life.

It is good, therefore, we remember that Paul’s hymn to love comes in the midst of his account of spiritual gifts. The Corinthian church is blessed by and torn apart by a variety of gifts. Some have the gift of healing, others the gift of miracles, another of prophecy, to others the gifts of discernment, and to others is given the gift of tongues, and still to others is given the gift to interpret what is said by those who have the gift of tongues. All are gifts of the same Spirit constituting a body that makes possible the recognition that we desperately need one another just as the eye needs the hand and the head needs the feet.

That we need one another may, moreover, be why I Corinthians 13 is rightly read so often at weddings. It is certainly rightly read at weddings if Benedict XVI is right about the character of love. In the first encyclical letter of his Papacy, Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI reminded us that to be a Christian is to be among those who have come to believe in God’s love. According to Benedict, to be a Christian is not to believe in some lofty idea, but rather to encounter a person, to encounter Jesus, and thus to believe that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should have eternal life.”

Benedict acknowledges that we do have a problem of language about love that leads to many misuses of the word. We speak of love of country, love between friends, love of work, love of parents and children, love of neighbor and of God. That love can be used to describe quite different relations according to Benedict makes it hard to think that love might name a single reality. Yet Benedict says amid this multiplicity of meanings one particular love stands out: love between man and woman. The love between a man and a woman is crucial for our understanding of love, according to Benedict, because of its bodily character. That body, the Corinthian body, is the source of ecstasy, that 37 through renunciation and purification, we are put on a path towards the Divine.

Love is an ecstasy, not in the sense of intoxication, but rather love names the journey from a self curved in on itself to the recognition of another. Such a love Benedict boldly suggests is a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross. For God’s love for us is an erotic self-giving revealed by his passionate love for the people of Israel, but most determinatively found in the embrace we call the Incarnation. The embrace of very God and very Man has made it possible for us to share in the love that is Trinity. God is a bold bodily lover possessing our bodies so that we too might be love.

Benedict observes, therefore, we are rightly commanded to love one another. “Love can be ‘commanded’ because it has first been given.” So we rightly command Steve and Wendy to love one another. For today they are for us I Corinthians 13. Today they are for us the Gospel. The vows they make to one another, the exclusive love they promise to give to one another, is a love in time that binds time. Through such love they will lose their lives, but in the process they will be redeemed. What a happy thing, therefore, they do for us. For the promise they make to love one another makes us all more than we otherwise could be because through their love the body of Christ, the Church, is built up. 38

GOD -S ENT PARTNERSHIP Φ Scott White

A Wedding Sermon Jill and Michael, it is a great joy to be with you today and a privilege for me to preside at your wedding, though it does give me great pause that I've been at this long enough to now be performing the wedding of one who was once a member of my youth group.

We gather here today to witness and bless your marriage. In all honesty neither I, nor any other minister make your marriage happen today, rather you make your marriage happen in the vows and promises you make with one another-and with God. That is my role here, to pronounce the blessing of God that you have sought out. My role is to announce to you, to all witnesses assembled here and really to the world, that you have called upon God to be a part of your relationship and God has answered your call. Christians believe that God plays a vital role in marriage and we believe that God's role in this event started a long time ago and God's role will continue for a long time to come.

You have chosen for your wedding one of the most profound passages of all those suggested in The Book of Common Prayer—the passage from the book of Tobit. At first glance it comes across as merely a nice, romantic reading suitable for the sentiment of a wedding, but when we look closer we see that it is both an odd, yet profound passage for a modern wedding service.

First there is Sarah, now what we didn’t hear in the brief passage just read but what we would learn if we read the whole book of Tobit is that Sarah had been married seven times previously but each time the

Φ The Rev. Scott White is Rector of Good Shepherd in Rocky Mount, N.C. This sermon was preached in 2009, and the names have been changed. 39 groom had died on the wedding night—it took a lot of courage for Tobias to agree to marry this woman!

Second, we learn that the marriage of Sarah and Tobit is an arranged marriage, arranged not so much by their parents but by God. Their love for each other therefore was not strictly romantic in nature. Again, it may seem odd in these modern times to be extolling arranged marriages but what this narrative suggests to you and to me is that an authentic marriage is grounded in the life of the Spirit more than the desire for individual gratification. This is what Tobias means when he says that he takes Sarah to be his wife not out of lust.

Lust is a loaded word in our society but it's reference here is not merely sexual. It also speaks to the dynamics of power that exist in human relationships and especially in marriage. Here Lust signifies sexual passion, yes, but it also refers to the desire to control another person to further one’s own selfish goals. It is treating the other person as an "thing" rather than as a child of the living God. Lust does not honor the other as a unique child of God with his or her own special calling and vocation in this life. A marriage grounded in lust therefore, in the desire for self-gratification, is one that will always crumble into dust. Yet a marriage grounded in God is one that, first and foremost sees the other as uniquely created by God, a person to be honored, respected, loved as God's beloved. When marriage is rightly grounded in God's will, it is one where honesty, forgiveness and godly passion finds a true home.

Lastly, there is prayer. To choose this reading for your wedding is to choose prayer as a binding of your love for other because that’s what this passage is, it’s a prayer. Tobias gets up from the wedding bed and kneels before God and prays for his marriage to be a true partnership that will last forever; a true partnership among husband and wife, where brought together by God, life and love can be openly shared as equals in the eyes of the one who has joined them together. Admittedly, equality of the sexes, as we understand it today is not the cultural context of Sarah and Tobias, but partnership is. Here Tobias' prayer is for a godly partnership with Sarah.

Partnership is the watchword for a solid marriage, a partnership of life, shared so well that no matter what challenges come your way, you will 40 be forced closer to each other and to God by them rather than pushed apart. Such is what Tobias means when he says that he takes Sarah not out of lust, rather he takes her as a God-sent partner.

It is a beautiful image for a world in desperate need of true partnership. Marriage is, indeed your marriage is, a vehicle that God makes happen for the nurture and salvation of your souls. Indeed, it is even a vehicle for the salvation of the world; for if we can do marriage right, we can do all our other relationships in the world right by the Kingdom of God.

Remember always that the power to love each other, come what may, does not come simply from within, but from the one who brought you together and binds you into a partnership fit for the Kingdom of God. 41

FROM MARRIAGE TO HOLY MATRIMONY Φ Todd Dill

Let me first say that I am not a scholar, or a great writer, or even a great thinker. I am a simple parish priest, shepherding a flock of wonderful disciples, doing my best to be faithful to God and the teachings of Jesus. I have been asked to write this reflection in large part because I have a traditional understanding of marriage. My hope and prayer is that this paper will help bear witness to the views of traditionally- minded members of this diocese and the Episcopal Church, who are faithful to the Lord and who seek to stay in the conversation with the rest of the Episcopal Church.

The Oxford Dictionary defines marriage as, “the formal union of a man and a woman, by which they become husband and wife.” This definition will thrill some, and anger others. One only needs to turn on the television in the morning or pick up the newspaper to experience the reality that the institution of marriage is under much scrutiny these days. Individual states, as well as several Christian denominations, (including our own) are in deep discussions over the institution of marriage, its place in society, and the Church’s role in this process.

I believe a clearer conversation must begin with the recognition that secular and Church perspectives on marriage are not one and the same. I believe there is a difference between marriage in general and Holy Matrimony as this Church understands it. The State of North Carolina, for example, is primarily concerned that those seeking a marriage license in this state are documented adult United States' citizens of the opposite sex, they make no other meaningful requirements of the applicants. Neither does the state make any requirements upon clergy who perform marriages either to do them at all, or to adhere to any

Φ The Rev. Todd R. Dill is Rector of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Waxhaw, North Carolina. 42 particular form or rite or subscribe to a given definition of marriage philosophically, theologically or otherwise.

Indeed, apart from requiring who may be married in North Carolina – basically two adults of opposite sex with papers – the state makes no other statement about what marriage is understood to be, or who should solemnize it. It is entirely up to the Church to define what marriage is for us, and whether or not a couple is ready for it, and whether or not one of our clergy will solemnize it.

So What Do We Say That It Is? The great narrative of God’s relationship with humanity gives us wonderful images and insights into God’s design of Holy Matrimony. In Genesis we hear that “in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them 'be fruitful and multiply." In Revelation, in the culmination of God’s victory in Jesus Christ, we understand that the New Jerusalem “comes down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

While there are numerous passages of the Bible that may be examined, (the BCP marriage rite suggests some 17 passages of Scripture as appropriate for the liturgy,) I believe that a few clear points emerge from Scripture regarding Holy Matrimony. I believe these are:

• marriage is to be centered on Christ, for the individuals and the couple together; • a married couple’s life together is to be lived out within a community of faith; • marriage calls for love of other as self; mutual giving, sacrifice and servant hood; fidelity, honesty, and the expectation of and commitment to a life-long bond; • it is an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman.

While this is not an exhaustive list, the qualities listed above begin to paint a picture of God’s desire for us in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. I turn to scripture as a good example of this: 43

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the Church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the Church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind–yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the Church, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the Church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.” (Ephesians 5:22-33)

Now, I know that this particular section of scripture can stir up all sorts of reactions, in part because it has been misused and distorted over the years by individuals and religious leaders in order to justify the mistreatment of wives. However, while I don't believe that Paul makes new demands upon wives from what the culture and time would have required, he does change the expectations of husbands. I expect that Paul's requirements of husbands in Ephesians 5:22-33 would have been met with much resistance from the men of the community. After all, at that time, men had all of the rights, power, and security; and society placed them under no obligation to treat their wives fairly. In other words, I believe Paul demands a much more mutual marital relationship than was then required by the wider society.

My point in suggesting this is that even in the oldest stratum of the New Testament, we have the example that the community that followed Jesus was held to a higher ethic of Holy union than the wider society’s understanding of marital relationships. For those who followed Christ as Lord, husbands and wives alike were both called to relationships of mutual love, respect, and fidelity, and thus the follower 44 of Jesus would have had a much different looking relationship than that of his non-Christian neighbor.

The key for me in this passage is the very first verse, be subject to one another. Christ-like concern for the other is the primary characteristic of a successful relationship. It is the responsibility of the Church to uphold these very high standards, and we should be firm in our support of couples living together in committed, Christian union.

Doctrine and Discipline of the Episcopal Church We Episcopalians particularly depend on the Book of Common Prayer for our theological expression. What we pray is what we believe about God, and our relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, it is no small thing for us that the Prayer Book quite clearly states the following:

Christian marriage is a solemn and public covenant between a man and a woman in the presence of God. In the Episcopal Church it is required that one, at least, of the parties must be a baptized Christian; that the ceremony be attested by at least two witnesses; and that the marriage conform to the laws of the State and the canons of this Church. (BCP, 422)

To be sure, these guidelines are but a starting point for our discussion about Matrimony. And in the case of individual marriages, our clergy are obligated to do more than ascertain whether or not this rubric is being followed alone. During counseling sessions, clergy are called to determine whether the couple understands that Holy Matrimony in this Church is primarily a covenant relationship between themselves and God. It is likewise the cleric's duty to explore with the couple: What does it mean to live in a union of heart, body, and mind intended by God for mutual joy? What does it mean to offer help and comfort in prosperity and adversity? What does it mean to raise children, if they are to be raised, in the knowledge and love of the Lord?

While the State focuses on the legal requirements to be married, our Prayer Book makes it very clear what our Church understands Holy Matrimony to be, and what our clergy in conjunction with the faithful community should be holding up for themselves and their married persons. 45

For this reason, among others, it is my strong understanding and belief that the Church should focus on marrying those persons who are active members of the Church - or seeking to become such. What else could be implied, after all, by the question asked during the ceremony “Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?”

I am convinced that we need to be clear that the Church is first and foremost engaged in Sacramental acts, not as ceremonial agents for what amount to little more than State-sanctioned contracts between two persons. Moreover, the Church itself must examine what it understands marriage to be from our own Christian context, and not from a wider secular one. And for us, Holy Matrimony, as opposed to marriage in general, is understood to be a live-giving sacrament primarily understood and expressed within the fellowship of those who call Christ Lord.

For this reason, I do not think the Church should attempt to make accommodation to changing secular definitions of marriage – either as they change through time, or from state to state. The central question before the Church is this: Do we modify the sacramental act and that to which it points theologically in the interest of inclusion – or is the sacramental act and that to which it points essentially true and complete as the Church has historically come to understand them - and therefore, those who would dress themselves in the sacramental act must conform to that to which it points? The Church is under no obligation to affirm anything of the State in regards to marriage. We are called to approach all questions of faith from a Christian point of view, and not from a world point view. We look to Scripture, reason, and tradition, and base our communal decisions on these three fonts of discernment, Holy Scripture being our primary guide.

The Church is about doing the work of Christ in God’s world, building up the Kingdom of God for His purposes, preparing for Jesus’ ultimate arrival, when the New Jerusalem arrives as a bride adorned for the bridegroom – to be joined forever through the love of Christ, and God’s final victory of the Cross consummated for all of eternity. It is this final victory of which we are assured that we experience here and 46 now through the Sacraments of Christ’s Church, and most assuredly through the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. 47

MARRIAGE AND SANCTIFICATION Φ Gene Rogers

The consideration of marriage theologically raises many questions - but the obvious essential question is: "What at its core is marriage for Christians all about?" One might seek to find the answer in the various ritual forms for marriage across the Christian churches - though it would be difficult to settle on a single "essential" feature. For Catholics, it is essential that one not have been married before to someone still living. For Protestants not. For Catholics and Protestants alike, the essential moment of the sacrament is the exchange of vows. That moment does not occur in the Eastern Orthodox Order of Marriage, or of Crowning. Although an Orthodox couple express their intention to be married, they express that intention to the priest rather than to each other, and the priest marries them, rather than their marrying each other, by announcing that they are crowned. In Judaism, what is essential is the ketubah , the marriage contract signed by witnesses – although many Jewish weddings take place without the parties knowing much or much caring what the ketubah says, and with no intention of carrying out its more interesting conditions. Of course there are further particulars essential to Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian, pagan, and civil marriages. And yet, it seems, that very few if any of us who do not hold any of these different essentials would assert that couples married in any of these traditions are not truly married. So, while it is clearly impossible to speak universally about what marriage is - there does appear to be a family resemblance across the various forms of marriage.

Φ Dr. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Among his published works, Rogers edited Theology and Sexuality , Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology (Blackwell, 2002) and authored Sexuality and the Christian Body (Wiley-Blackwell, 1999). 48

Within the Christian tradition, to narrow the focus, there does appear to be a prominent feature of family resemblance among types of marriage, and I recognize that feature under the rubric of sanctification. Considering the theology of marriage in this way is particularly consistent with the tradition of the Orthodox Church, which regards marriage as a way of participating in the divine life not by way of sexual satisfaction but by way of ascetic self-denial for the sake of more desirable goods. Theologically understood, marriage is not primarily for the control of lust or for procreation. It is a discipline whereby we give ourselves to another for the sake of growing in holiness–for, more precisely, the sake of God.

In this respect marriage and monasticism are two forms of the same discipline, as the Orthodox writer Paul Evdokimov has argued. They are both ways of committing ourselves to others–a spouse or a monastic community–from whom we cannot easily escape. Both the monastic and the married give themselves over to be transformed by the perceptions of others; both seek to learn, over time, by the discipline of living with others something about how God perceives human beings.

9 Rowan Williams has written, "Grace, for the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted. The whole story of creation, incarnation, and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ's body tells us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God's giving that God's [Son] makes in the life of the Trinity. We are created [and we marry] so that we may be caught up in this, so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves 10 God." Like all forms of ascetism, this is a high-risk endeavor. It can expose the worst in people–so that it can be healed.

9 See Canon Michael Hunn's piece in this journal which examines Rowan Williams' landmark 1989 essay, "The Body's Grace." 10 Rowan Williams, "The Body's Grace", in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings , Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. ed. (Blackwell Publishing, 2002), pp. 309-321. 49

Sexuality, in short, is for sanctification, that is, for God. It is to be a means by which God catches human beings up into the community of God's Spirit and the identity of God's child. Monogamy and monasticism are two ways of embodying features of the triune life in which God initiates, responds to and celebrates love. Monasticism is for people who find a bodily, sexual sanctification first and foremost in the desirous perception of God. Marriage is for people who find themselves transformed by the desirous perception of another human being made in God's image. In a marital or monastic community, the parties commit themselves to practicing faith, hope and charity in a situation in which those virtues get plenty of opportunity to be exercised.

Marriage and monasticism are two ways in which Christians make their bodies fuller of meaning by donating them to concentric communities with an other and others. The narrower community is that of the spouses or the brothers/sisters. Larger ones include the local congregation, the witnesses at a wedding or a taking of final vows, the town, the Church, and the whole human race. But the most embracing community of all is that which it is the goal of both marriage and monasticism to promote, however distantly, their members growing inclusion, in this life and the next: the community of the Trinitarian life. Here it is marriage that is the root metaphor from which monasticism grows. For Jesus says, "the kingdom of heaven is like a father who gives a wedding feast for his son."(Mw 22:2) And marriage analogies abound in Christian texts and practices for the relationship of the human community with God. Thus we read:

• "I will betroth you to me forever...I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know [who I am]." (Hosea 2.19a-20) • "Why do [others] fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?" (Matthew 9.14) • "Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom." (Matthew 25.1) • "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready...Blessed are 50

those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." (Revelation 19.6-9)

Throughout the Christian tradition, in many times and places, what you might call an analogia nuptialis is productive of much theology. As Karl Barth has said, "Because the election of Israel is real, there is such a thing as love and marriage." That is, God's love for God's people is the prime analogate, which marriage is to represent. Not only Catholics, but the Orthodox and even Protestants practice the analogia nuptialis .

The paradigm case of the analogia nuptialis is Jesus' eucharistic remark, "this is my body, given for you." It is Jesus' self-giving that the married and the monastic both imitate in institutional form. That self-giving is at once a celebration, a wedding feast, and, under separable conditions of finitude and sin, a sacrifice. Both because marriage and monasticism are meant to sanctify, and because they imitate the eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus, they are essentially ascetic practices. That, indeed, is one of the two main things that make marriage and monasticism two forms of the same practice. First, they celebrate community; second, they practice asceticism - the giving up of less significant goods to gain more significant ones, the pearl of great price.

True asceticism is not a denial but a use, even a heightening of desire. Jesus did not give up his life from lack of desire, but from the intensity of it: "God so loved the world." (Jn 3.16) Jesus did not descend from the cross, because he desired solidarity with the thief, because he so loved the thief: "This day you will be with me in paradise." (Lk 23.39-43)

The choice between marriage and monasticism depends on which leads to the right sort of vulnerability that will change the human being for the good. It is about the right sort of vulnerability before the face of what sort of other. "Grace," Rowan Williams has written, "is a transformation that depends on being perceived in a certain way, as desired, as wanted." The transformative perception par excellence is the one by which God perceives us as God would have us be. God sees Christ in us, that we may change. In the next life, we enjoy the beatific vision, according to Aquinas, not by the power of the one seeing, but by the power of the One seen – by God's causative perception of us. (Summa 1, 12, 13) People who find bodily satisfaction in God's loving perception of them, who can place their bodily selves in God's sight for 51 transformation into God's child, may be called to the monastery. Other people need the focus of a single human other for transformation; the one who, over time, loves them into growth, exposing their faults so that they may be healed. Given human sinfulness, this transformation is risky. To have the best chance of success - to be most hopeful and patient - Christians have traditionally believed that it needs singleness of focus, support of the community, and the promise of a lifetime. For this reason, the Church affirms marriage to be, at the very least, the public and solemn covenant between these persons made in the presence of God and before the nuptial witnesses, the Christian community, and the public community beyond.

Turning again to Matthew's Gospel,

"Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast to his son, sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come...Then he said to his servants...'Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.' And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'"(Mt 22:1-3, 9-13)

The parable reminds us that the Christian community must respect and celebrate how the Holy Spirit sanctifies in a public, committed, interpersonal, and life-long way: in concrete, marriage-like practices, ascetic practices, disciplines – "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:2) – that lead the parties, Christians would say, into the sacrificial and glorious marriage of God and God's people. The marriage of God and God's people – Christ's donation of his body to be for others – ramifies in diverse ways through Christian practices, in marriage, in monastics in community, and in the faithful baptized gathered as one in eucharistic fellowship. 52

‘Y OU HAVE TO BE CRAZY !’ THE PRIVILEGE AND PRICE OF COVENANT RELATIONSHIP Φ Jo Bailey Wells

There is a thread that runs throughout the Old and New Testament in which human marriage finds its theological context. One might argue there are differing models of marriage visible in Scripture: patriarchs and monarchs practiced polygamy without impunity (including Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon); the Hebrew law prescribed remarriage within a deceased husband’s family to protect a widow (Deut. 25:5-10); Jesus challenged divorce (Mark 10:2-12; Matt. 5:31-32); Paul championed celibacy (1 Cor. 7:8-9, 32-35). Nevertheless, the context within which all marriage is understood relates fundamentally to the overarching relationship of God to his people, through the ∗ language of covenant. 1

Our 1979 Book of Common Prayer explicitly articulates this covenant understanding of marriage. Consider, for example, the words of one of the nuptial blessings:

O God, you have so consecrated the covenant of marriage that in it is represented the spiritual unity between Christ and his Church: Send therefore your blessing upon these your servants, that they may so love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their

Φ The Rev. Dr. Jo Bailey Wells is Associate Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry and Bible, and Director of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. She is a priest of the Church of England. ∗ The notes in this piece are endnotes for technical reasons beyond the capacity of the poor priest who edited, typeset and published it. - Ed. 53

home may be a haven of blessing and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (p.431)

This chapter explores the scope, significance and limits of covenant language in the Judaeo-Christian tradition: how, in particular, it enriches and defines a Christian understanding of the bond of commitment between two parties traditionally termed ‘marriage’ and how it may appropriately be applied elsewhere. Our Church does not only invoke the concept of covenant for marriage; the Episcopal Church also speaks of the baptismal covenant; and more recently the Anglican Communion has explored the idea of an ecclesial covenant. What does the common Christian usage of covenant language have to do with the theology of covenant as it is developed through Old and New Testaments, and what does the biblical concept have to offer the Church today?

Covenant in Biblical Perspective The Old Testament term for ‘covenant’ ( berith in Hebrew) is borrowed from everyday life, to describe a deal, agreement or contract. It becomes used, fundamentally, as a metaphor to describe the relationship of God to God’s people.

As with other metaphors for the divine-human relationship – father and son, or husband and wife, or king and subject, or shepherd and sheep – an everyday image is borrowed from one realm of life and applied illustratively to another, on the principal of analogy. In its new theological context, the concept of covenant takes on a life of its own – lending itself to imaginative development far beyond the original scope and significance of its origins. Consider, in particular, the book of Hosea which assumes a covenant theology in describing God as a lover who has been spurned by his bride, Israel. Hosea underlines the faithfulness of God: even though Israel has become a whore, yet God longs for her to return (Hosea 1:2; 11:8). The covenant is not broken, even though it is continually threatened.

The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy tell the story by which God initiated the covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. It is rather like a love story, whereby God had patiently wooed his people. He had brought 54 them out of Egypt; he had sustained them through the desert. Now, prior to entering the long-promised land, God ‘gets down on one knee’ and asks Moses to communicate a gracious proposal:

“Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation…” (Exodus 19:3-6)

Notice how the initiative lies entirely with God, even though it is clearly bilateral. The biblical account underlines how God wishes to reveal himself to humankind in order to enter into relationship with them. The covenant with Israel is the means to that end, not just for Israel’s sake but through Israel to all nations. Covenant is oriented to relationship and particularly to God’s self-revelation. 2

Where the story is retold in Deuteronomy, it is emphasized that this covenant is not a past action that related only to the original generation in the wilderness but a living reality for subsequent generations. That is to say, the covenant does not end in the way that most human covenants do. In Deuteronomy a later generation is addressed, as if it were the recipient of the covenant:

Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today (Deuteronomy 5:3)

Indeed, the encounter with God that is so carefully described in Exodus 19 at Mount Sinai depicts a spatial architecture that mirrors the temple (as well as much subsequent church architecture), underlining that what the Sinai covenant describes in Exodus is not a one-time encounter belonging to the past, but the regular encounter of Israel with their God in worship. This covenant goes on forever. 3

At the heart of the covenant are the ten commandments. At times the covenant is equated to the commandments: 55

[The LORD] declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets (Deuteronomy 4:13)

These are given so that the people ‘do not sin’ – to equip them to live up to the original lofty proposal, to be a holy nation. Even as obedience is invited (Ex.19:5; 20:20-21), it is underlined how these stipulations are life-giving, not life-destroying. Thus, the narrative frame by which they are introduced: ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt’ (Exodus 20:2) – emphasizing the relationship of redeemer to redeemed, Lord to servant, Life-giver to creature. Obedience to the commandments is for Israel’s growth and development. The story of redemption is the grounds for which God asks for loyalty, for an exclusive choice – a choice which is ratified enthusiastically by the people ‘with one voice’ repeating their previous intention, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 24:3).

As our Prayer Book puts it, Israel has discovered ‘the God whose service is perfect freedom’. As at a wedding, promises are made that are exclusive and binding at a special ceremony, following which there is eating and drinking. Then Moses heads up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, which (like wedding rings) serve as a practical physical reminder of the promises made. Further, we may recognize the practice of covenant renewal, a sort-of ‘anniversary’ celebration for the sake of regularly remembering the promises made (Deut.27:1-10; Josh.8:30-35).

As many scholars have explored, the Sinai covenant – which becomes the overarching picture of God’s special relationship to Israel – incorporates all the key characteristics of any typical ancient treaty. The narrative we build from the Pentateuch includes an historical prologue, a list of covenant stipulations (the ten commandments), a ceremony of ratification (followed by regular reminding), a description of the witnesses present (here, heaven and earth) and a set of expectations regarding future blessings and curses that accompany either faithfulness or failure in keeping the covenant. While tracing all these elements of the ancient pattern, the notion of covenant in its new-found Israelite usage takes on a life of its own (while also shaping the life of Israel), such that its origins are rendered virtually irrelevant. ‘Covenant’ is redefined, as the ‘marriage’ between God and his people. Even though we may also use legal language to describe it – for example, that it is 56 binding and inviolable – it is not primarily legal, but relational.4 A covenant is no longer simply a contract. 5

Most of the rest of the Old Testament relates to that faithfulness and failure, to the ups and downs of the divine-human journey together. Even at the ‘honeymoon’ stage, the relationship is threatened by unfaithfulness. That is how the book of Exodus depicts the incident of the golden calf (Exodus 32-34): before Moses had descended from Mt Sinai with the stone tablets, the people had forgotten the commandments and forsaken their promises. It is here that the unconditional nature of the covenant is explored. The situation begs the question: can the covenant bond be terminated? That is, will there be a divine divorce? Certainly God threatens to abandon Israel: so great is the anger. Yet he does not. In the face of the worst human depravity comes the most unconditional statement of divine mercy (Exodus 34:6- 7) as well as the most emphatic demand concerning God’s uncompromising loyalty (Exodus 34:14). The occurrence of sin, destructive as that may be, does not imply an end to the covenant. Rather, it reinforces it: its privilege, its permanence, its exclusivity.

The fact that the possibility of failure is envisaged from the outset stands as a testimony to the fact that God understood human nature from the start, yet perseveres. Later in Israel’s history there is a rocky period resulting in a separation – the exile – but even this does not rupture the covenant. Although Jews would differ in their interpretation of the new covenant announced in Jeremiah 31:31, 6 Christians recognize in Christ an extension of the Sinai covenant to include non- Israelites. 7 Thus we find ourselves welcomed in to ‘the marriage made in heaven’ – that is, to the ongoing covenant between God and God’s people Israel. The New Testament describes the same covenant, now between Christ and his Church, the new Jerusalem. Consider the picture painted in the book of Revelation, describing the end times:

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband… (Rev.21:2) 57

Human Covenants There is no carefully-nuanced definition of human marriage in Scripture Yet the permanent, committed partnership of a man and a woman is clearly present, something regarded as a norm from Adam and Eve onwards, based on the pattern of creation (Genesis 2:24). It is taken for granted that this is the unit from which children are conceived (consider the domestic assumptions concerning the raising of children in Proverbs, for example), even though the modern concept of the nuclear family would have been alien. The problems associated with loss or failure in marriage are raised (the vulnerability of widows and orphans; the circumstances for divorce). The norm, however, is not something that is given any significant constructive exploration in Old or New Testament. Furthermore, it can be argued that both Jesus (by his example) and Paul (1 Cor. 7:32-35) challenges the very assumption of marriage in favor of promoting the ‘ministry’ of singleness.

Nevertheless, the concept of covenant for understanding the dynamics of committed relationship between two parties is well-developed in Scripture. 8 The term that was borrowed from the circumstances of everyday life – a treaty between senior and junior colleagues, a deal between two merchants – is applied to the fundamental relationship between God and Israel, and by extension, to Christ and his Church. It is the ‘marriage’ between God and God’s people that in turn becomes the context for the working-out of human covenants, which may take many forms, including marriage. 9

As we have already explored above, a covenant represents a binding agreement between two otherwise-unrelated parties. The commitment is permanent and unconditional. It requires absolute loyalty (‘monogamy’). It is no private arrangement between the parties, but an oath formally established through a publicly recognized ritual, whereby the duties and privileges of kinship may be extended to another individual (or group). In this light, we may recognize how radical inclusive is the concept of covenant: enabling social ties beyond familial relationships, even extending to aliens. 10 The ritual involves spoken declarations, an expression of consent and the presence of witnesses under God. 11 Their task is to remind the two parties of their commitment, with an awareness of the opportunities and demands (the ‘blessings and curses’) that potentially ensue. Witnesses are those who 58 then bear responsibility for recognizing and supporting the covenant in the community where it is to be lived out. Failure to keep up to the demands of covenant does not deny the existence of a covenant: a covenant is not dissolved by error or failure, only by death.

Christians have come to understand baptism as a covenant, and this example helpfully illustrates the way in which the biblical notion of covenant is appropriated in the Church. Baptism is the ceremony that marks the personal recognition and participation in the covenant of God with humanity, even though the conceptual linkage is not found directly in Scripture, it involves the making of promises, the demands of commitment, the presence of witnesses and the anticipation of blessing. Even though the ritual directly hears promises only from one side – from the baptized (or parents and Godparents on behalf of the baptized) – it nevertheless marks a covenant between two parties given that it recognizes the story of salvation whereby God has already made commitment to his people.

In the same way, covenant provides a theological backdrop for shaping life-long human commitments. The linkage in Scripture is clear for marriage in particular (Eph. 5:21-30), and may also be applied to other forms of human commitment. That is, that God’s covenant with his people provides the context within which we make covenant commitments one to another. A biblical perspective on human covenant recognizes the way in which, in our small corner, we seek to mirror and reflect the greatest covenant of all. If we love because Christ first loved us, so we can live in covenant because God in Christ first lives in covenant with us.

In the Old Testament God shows us what it means to make a covenant and keep it. Covenant becomes the means of growing in faithfulness, of living into the call to be ‘a priestly kingdom and a holy nation’ (Exodus.19:6). Jesus reaffirms this archetype. Although he does not use the term ‘covenant’ of marriage, in ruling out all divorce and remarriage, he makes obligatory for his followers the ideal of God’s covenant with Israel, in which God is faithful even when Israel is faithless. 12

In other words, the call to discipleship in the Judeo-Christian tradition demands so shaping our lives that we become covenant-keepers. That shaping we may call spiritual formation: it happens through the habits 59 of our lives in relation to God and neighbor. For Christians it is the natural – yet disciplined and necessary – response to baptism. Such discipleship, in the end, is not about what we do but who we are: where we fail and how we respond; how we see and where we are blind; what we give and where we resist; how we trust and how we are trustworthy. These are just the aspects covered, in the tradition of TEC, by the baptismal covenant. The sacrament of baptism is the Christian recognition and response to God’s covenant.

As in baptism, so with other forms of covenant. It is on the principle of imitatio dei (‘imitating God’ – for example, [Lev. 11:44, 19:2, 20:26), that human covenants are shaped to reflect the elements and characteristics of God’s covenant, and through them that we ourselves are shaped to reflect more fully the image of God. That is, also, that through them we strive to be a window through which others may more fully understand God’s covenant commitment and mercy.

This is the context in which I understand the gift of marriage. Scripture suggests it is the key context in which I may grow to understand how to live in covenant and thus grow into the reality of God’s ultimate covenant. Though we may describe other forms of covenant – the covenants between business partners or between Churches – these do not mirror the features of God’s covenant to the same extent. That which models an exclusive, permanent commitment of two parties represents the most direct, and personal, and particular outworking of the call to be covenant-keepers. Seen in this light, it seems to me unnecessary that the opportunity be confined only to conventional heterosexual marriage, even though I hesitate to use the term ‘marriage’ for any other kind of union. So long as it is done responsibly – as the marriage liturgy puts it, ‘not… unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately…’ (BCP p.423) – it seems fitting to encourage all forms of covenantal relationship that seek to mirror and reflect the divine. Enabling God’s people to fulfill the covenant call to be God’s ‘priestly kingdom and holy nation’ is what ultimately matters; and this might most obviously include encouraging all who long to imitate God’s rich- but-costly pattern of covenant commitment.

This is the purpose and experience of those who are called to make monastic commitments in the setting of a religious community. As with the Sinai covenant and with the covenant of marriage, vows are taken in 60 the presence of witnesses that are permanent and exclusive. The stakes are high: that is, the costs and benefits – the blessings and curses – are substantial. Yet we recognize here a high calling, and a means to holiness. That calling, and indeed the practices of holiness, require the community – the witnesses – who are charged with the responsibility of helping sustain the covenant they have witnessed in circumstances that intentionally limit the human options so as to discover the freedom of service to God. Brueggemann speaks of covenant relationships involving ‘revolutionary discipline, devotion and desire’. 13

Whatever the context for the human covenants we may conceive – in baptism, in the partnership of two people, or in monastic vows – we are not at liberty to shape the nature and characteristics of God’s covenant. They are the givens – the graces – within which we exist as Christians, explored and presented in the biblical and ecclesial tradition in which we are planted. If we in our human relationships seek to inhabit that tradition and live up to our calling as the people of God, then the terms of our human covenantal commitments are similarly not negotiable. We may choose whether and with whom we partner: but the terms and conditions of that partnership – if it is to reflect God’s covenant – are not ours to negotiate. The self-giving cannot be quantified (unconditional and unending) while its locus is wholly defined and confined. As I say repeatedly to couples preparing for marriage, "You have to be crazy! You have no idea what you are letting yourselves in for." Covenant-making, in human terms, is a crazy idea. But it is not our idea: but God’s. Perhaps that is the only explanation for why so many strive for it. 61

End Notes:

[1] I am working from the assumption that a constructive theological understanding of marriage, based on Scripture and interpreted by tradition, is the starting point for all contemporary liturgical and legal issues concerning marriage in the Church. [2] See John H. Walton, Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994). [3] There is but ‘one, continually “new” covenant’ in the Hebrew bible. See R.Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark) 1998, p.78. [4] In Old Testament scholarship, the idea that covenant simply means ‘obligation’ and is essentially one-sided has been largely abandoned in favor of the view that covenants establish kinship bonds involving mutual relations and obligations. For further reading: Scott Hahn, ‘Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research (1994-2004)’ in Currents in Biblical Research 3.2 (2005), pp.263-292. [5] While a covenant certainly has an important legal aspect, the English term ‘contract’ conveys only the legal aspect to the exclusion of its social, familial, liturgical and other dimensions. For further reading on this, see M. Haran, ‘The Berît “Covenant”: Its nature and ceremonial background’ in Cogan, Eichler and Tigay (eds.), Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in honor of Moshe Greenberg (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), and J. Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews (SNTSMS, 75; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). [6] Note that in Jeremiah’s covenant there is such internal unity of will between the human and divine parties that conventional notions of obligation, with attendant curses and blessings, simply do not apply. See D.N. Freedman and D. Miano, ‘The People of the New Covenant’ in Porter and de Roo (eds.), The Concept of Covenant in the Second Temple Period (JSJSup.71; Leiden: E.J. Brill), 2003, pp.7-26. [7] Note that the fulfillment of the old in the new is neither abrogation nor termination; there is no replacement, but rather a renewal that is both restorative and transformative. In other words, here is no ‘remarriage’, but a reaffirmation of previous vows. [8] Frank Moore Cross evidences the way in which marriage both in the biblical materials and the ancient Near East was a form of covenant. See his chapter ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’ in idem, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), pp.3-21. [9] Hosea is the first to draw the daring analogy of the divine-human relationship to marriage (see Hosea 1). Malachi applies the word ‘covenant’ directly to marriage among the Israelites, not only describing God’s marriage with Israel (in which Israel is faithless) but even pointing to the infidelity of a husband to his wife as impairing Israel’s worship of God (Malachi 2:14-15). Paul extends the marriage analogy between YHWH and Israel to Christ and the Church in Ephesians 5. For a systematic 62 demonstration of the way in which marriage is understood as covenant not only in Mal.2:14 but consistently throughout the biblical texts, see G.P. Hugenberger, Marriage as Covenant (VTSup.52; Leiden: E.J. Brill), 1994. [10] See F.M. Cross, ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’ (op. cit.), p.8. [11] Haran explicates in detail the traditional ritual aspects of covenant-making. See M. Haran, ‘The Berît “Covenant”: Its nature and ceremonial background’ in Cogan, Eichler and Tigay (eds.), Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in honor of Moshe Greenberg (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), pp.203-19. [12] See Mark 10:10. Paul F. Palmer notes that the seeming exception in Matt.19:9, ‘except for immorality’ is made after the scribes and Pharisees have left. Thus, if Jesus softened or accommodated his teaching, the critics were unaware of it (‘Christian Marriage: Contract or Covenant?’ in Theological Studies , 33:4 (1972), p.623). [13] W. Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). 63

I W ANT YOU TO WANT ME Φ Michael Hunn

In 1989 Rowan Williams gave the Michael Harding Memorial Lecture while he was serving as Lady Margaret Professor at Oxford. Long before he was consecrated Bishop of Monmouth or Archbishop of Canterbury, his place and role within the Church were clearly that of theologian and teacher. It was his place to think deep thoughts and write books the average Christian reader might find difficult. It was his place to play with theological concepts and ideas – to press the “cutting edge” – to advance human understanding of God. He was not likely worried about how his words that night would impact the Anglican Communion. Still, his words that night, later published under the title, “The Body’s Grace” have been called, “the best ten pages about human sexuality written in the twentieth century.” 12

To be fair, “The Body’s Grace” does not set out to break new ground or set out an impenetrable theological argument. Williams was sketching out some lines of argument, exploring the general shape things might take if one were to think this way or that way. He did attack some commonplace arguments about sexuality in the Church. He did also take a position that night which led some to wonder if he was the right choice for Canterbury, and others to wonder why, as Archbishop, he wasn’t more supportive of the “liberal” side of things. The outline he gently put on paper might have served as a framework for a much larger conversation about human sexuality in the Church.

Φ Michael C. Buerkel Hunn is Canon to the Ordinary of the Diocese of North Carolina. 12 Eugene F. Rogers says this in his introduction to the "The Body's Grace," as found in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings , Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. ed. (Blackwell Publishing, 2002), pp. 309-321. All quotations in this piece are from "The Body's Grace" are from this edition. 64

He begins in an unusual, but classically theological way, asking “why does sex matter?” The answer he gives sets out a line of conversation about sexuality which avoids many of the most common impasses and well worn battle fields which usually define the debate. Williams begins by saying that human beings are sexual creatures because our sexuality is the place in our lives where we have found whatever maturity we have managed to acquire. In short, we are sexual beings because sex is the place in our lives where we are most likely to grow up: to learn what it is to be human, in relationship with others. Sexuality is where we painfully and thrillingly discover our vulnerability and our power.

On the face of it, that might not seem a revolutionary thing to say about sexuality. But think of all the places he didn’t start! Williams didn’t begin with a Genesis description of the two becoming one flesh or with the idea that the purpose of sex is procreation. He didn’t begin with the marriage liturgy or the place of marriage as a Sacrament of the Church. And he didn’t begin with even a whiff of that Pauline theology of sexuality that lurks around every Christian conversation about sex: Paul’s opinion that those Christians who can abstain are best, but if you can’t abstain, it’s better for you to marry than burn with lust. There is so much Christian conversation about sex that is embarrassed to even be having the conversation. How often are we embarrassed because without even thinking too much about it, we hold fast to the idea that sex has no real holy purpose in our lives. Our sexual selves are the lustful, selfish parts that need to be controlled and regulated. Sex is the embarrassing part of us, the part we hope God won’t take much notice of.

But Rowan’s assertion that sexuality is the place in our lives where we learn how to love as grown up, mature Christian people opens up a whole new conversation about sex. And it is a Biblical conversation first and foremost because Rowan Williams points out how little there is in the bible that speaks of human sexuality in all the ways listed in the paragraph above. He is well aware of the texts in Genesis and Leviticus and the writings of Paul, but in “The Body’s Grace,” he makes note of the fact that the most common motif in the Holy Scriptures is God’s passionate, burning, often jealous, desire to be loved by his people. God is often described as a lover of Israel, steadfast and faithful when she is not. He is a jealous God, who is not interested in having the most powerful, beautiful, numerous or prosperous people, but is interested in 65

Israel. What God wants most is steadfast, genuine love from us. And God can’t command it or control it, for it must be freely given if it is to be real. And so God waits for us and God woos us and God is faithful to us when we don’t deserve it. These are the images that fill Holy Scripture and Williams thinks our sexual lives teach us how to grow up and love like God loves us.

This conversation about God’s purpose for our sexuality invites us to see sex as a part of our life where progress might be made; where learning happens, where grace abounds . Williams wonders why Christians are so reluctant to see human sexuality as a matter of God’s Grace. “What is less clear is why the fact of sexual desire, the concrete stories of human sexuality rather than the generalizing metaphors it produces, are so grudgingly seen as matters of grace, or only admitted as matters of grace when fenced with conditions.” These “concrete stories,” Williams knows, are not pretty. And he is well aware that a lot of the lessons learned while growing up are painful ones; where costly mistakes are made and people get hurt! Choosing a literary example to make this point, Williams describes a story of an abusive relationship in which a man tries to use a woman to meet his own sexual needs. Yet, even in a broken and obviously sinful sexual relationship like the one described in The Raj Quartet , by Paul Scott, grace can be found, healing can take place. Sarah Layton, the woman in the book, discovers her own body’s grace as she realizes that she is wanted. Even though the man who wants to use her is not a nice person and her relationship with him is neither loving nor honest, she still learns something of her own worth as a human being by knowing she is a person worth wanting.

For Williams, this is what it means to grow up: to become aware of oneself as a person worth loving and also as a person who deeply wants to be loved by someone else. Our desire is part of the image of God in which we were made. We long to be longed for just as God does. As the old Cheap Trick song goes, “I want you to want me.” 13 Our longing is for something that is beyond our control because what we want is something we can’t force someone else to do for us. We want to find someone we can love, who actually wants to love us. All of our flirting and dating and teen heartache and grownup relationship mistakes; all

13 "I want you to want me," lyrics and music by Rick Nielsen, first released on Cheap Trick's 1977 album In Color . 66 the affairs and divorces and broken homes – all of these have a part in our growing up and figuring out how to love and be loved. And the Christian community is there to help us with this process. Williams writes, “The life of the Christian community has as its rationale…the task of teaching us to so order our relationships that human beings may see themselves as desired, as the occasion of Joy.” Our sexual relationships have a lot to teach us about finding and being found as occasions of Joy !

As Williams describes our sexual mistakes, embarrassments and wrong turns as part of the process whereby we learn to love, he also places our sexual lives within the context of the sin and redemption whereby we are saved by Jesus. What a refreshing idea this is! Sex is not a realm unrelated to salvation! How often do we assume that as long as two people are married, the sex they have is authorized and ok because they are married? How often do we assume that all sexual activity outside of marriage is fundamentally sinful, not “of God” and to be repented of and forgotten? Instead, Williams invites us into a deeper conversation in which the painful lessons we learn as we grow up are all a part of God’s teaching us to love him. When someone is unfaithful to us, we learn how to be faithful. When we break commitments or fall in love with someone who doesn’t love us, we learn the pain of unrequited love. We hurt and we hurt others, and in the process we (hopefully!) learn how to love in a mature and holy way. We might learn to love as God loves us: with passion and fidelity and steadfast love.

A love like that doesn’t just happen. It takes work between two people who have committed to love one another and are mature enough to be vulnerable and strong with one another. The God who loved the Israelites in the wilderness knew he couldn’t force the people to trust him: so he fed them, protected them, loved them – and when they broke his heart, he loved them still. Learning to love like that is what our sexual desires push us towards.

Love like this is also fraught with risk. In order to find out whether or not I might be truly loved by you, I must let you know that I hope that I might be loved by you. This, of course, is what flirting is all about: we try to manage the risk of heartbreak as we reveal our longing to be loved and our interest in loving another. But the risk will always be there if it is love with another person we are after. For this reason, 67

Williams says, “solitary sexual activity works at the level of release of tension and a particular localized physical pleasure; but insofar as it has nothing to do with being perceived from beyond myself in a way that changes my self awareness, it isn’t of much interest for a discussion of sexuality as a process and relation, and it says little about grace.” We find our body’s grace, (by the grace of God!) when our risky yearning is met by another’s wanting to be wanted by us.

Of course we’re not always innocent as doves. Williams knows that his theology of sex is going to need to include a definition of perversion. “Anything goes as long as no one gets hurt” is nothing like a Christian ethic, and Williams is not one to promote some sort of cultural relativism when it comes to sex. He knows the wickedness human beings are capable of, and how high the stakes are when it comes to sex. In “The Body’s Grace” Williams says, “sexual “perversion” is sexual activity without risk, without the dangerous acknowledgement that my joy depends on someone else’s, as theirs does on mine.” If control or power or coercion or force is used, that is perverse: not because a particular set of sexual deeds are fundamentally sinful, but because sin can happen anytime we try ignore the fact that love is mutual. “Asymmetrical sexual practices” such as rape, pedophilia, bestiality, “have some claim to be called perverse in that they leave one agent in effective control of the situation, one agent, that is, who doesn’t have to wait upon the desire of the other.” Williams’ definition of perverse sexual behavior, like his claim that sex is about growing up, invites us into a deeper and more difficult conversation than we are accustomed to when talking about sex in the Church.

Williams’ assertion that sexual perversion is sex without the acknowledgement that “my joy depends on someone else’s” means that perversion can happen within the context of a Christian marriage and it also suggests that it might be possible for a pure sexual encounter to happen between people who are not married. Marriage alone doesn’t sanctify all sex between the married people. A married couple must still learn to love one another over the years. This is the purpose of marriage, Williams argues in “The Body’s Grace”, that it gives time to the couple: the time they need to grow in love for one another; time for mistakes to be made and forgiven; time for misunderstandings and illnesses to be worked through and healed; time for love to grow. “When we bless sexual unions, we give them a life, a reality not 68 dependant on the contingent thoughts and feelings of the people involved; but we do this so that they may have a certain freedom to “take time” to mature and become as profoundly nurturing as they can. We should not do it in order to create a wholly impersonal and enforceable “bond”; if we do we risk turning a blessing into a curse.” Marriage doesn’t make sex pure and holy, it creates a place in which two people can grow into a pure and whole sexual relationship, with the support and encouragement of the Church.

Our tendency to assume that all married sex is good and holy because it happens after marriage is dangerous, Williams argues, because it allows Christian people a false sense of comfort. “Much more damage is done here by the insistence on a fantasy version of heterosexual marriage as the solitary ideal, when the facts of the situation are that an enormous number of ‘sanctioned’ unions are a framework for violence and human destructiveness on a disturbing scale; sexual union is not delivered from moral danger and ambiguity by satisfying a formal socioreligious criterion.” One cross we must bear, as followers of Christ is that our moral and ethical work needs doing every day. Our sexual decisions have mostly to do with how much we want our lives to mean , not which laws we satisfy. Marriage matters because “sexual faithfulness is not an avoidance of risk, but the creation of a context in which grace can abound because there is a commitment not to run away from the perception of another.”

This need Christian people have to live holy lives, the need we have to pay attention to how our joy is intertwined with the joy of those around us, is there because the relationships we have with other people are directly related to our relationship with God. William’s writes, “to be formed in our humanity by the loving delight of another is an experience whose contours we can identify most clearly and hopefully if we have also learned, or are learning, about being the object of the causeless, loving delight of God.” Every human person is walking that same road, whether we are gay or straight, married or single.

In “the Body’s Grace” Williams deliberately includes every human being in this process of growing up. We are all sexual creatures, after all, even those who live celibate lives. Williams says the Church has always needed the witness of its celibate Christians, not because they are holier than the rest of us but because, as celibates, they choose to focus their 69 entire need to be needed and loved upon God, and, in so doing, possess special perspectives and gifts to offer the Church. In particular, Williams says celibate Christians tend to have a more direct access to erotic images, language and understandings of God than others tend to because their erotic lives are focused on having their need to be loved met by God directly rather than receiving that love of God in and through loving another human being. “Even more important, there is that easy acceptance of the body, its needs and limitations, which we find in mature celibates like Teresa of Avila in her last years.”

We are all learning to love as we walk this earth together. Embedded within our hearts is a holy longing to be loved, to be wanted, for who we are just because! We are like that because God is like that and because God made us that way. “When looking for a language that will be resourceful enough to speak of the complex and costly faithfulness between God and God’s people, what several biblical writers turn to is sexuality understood very much in terms of the process of entering the body’s grace.” That process of yearning, seeking, wanting to be wanted, struggling with faithfulness, and enjoying relationship is the story of our human lives.

“The Body’s Grace” sketches the shape a conversation about human sexuality might take. In it, Rowan Williams challenges the Church to resist easy or pat answers which might shield us from the risk of a deeper theological exploration of sex and its place in a Christian life. It is not an essay about homosexuality so much as it is about God’s purpose of human sexuality for all people. The arguments he makes certainly open that conversation to people who love people of the same-sex, but they also challenge happily married heterosexual couples to reconsider the holiness of their marriages. He hopes to open an orthodox and careful theological conversation in the Church, by expressing his belief that, “a theology of the body’s grace which can do justice to the experience of concrete sexual discovery, in all its pain and variety, is not…a marginal eccentricity in the doctrinal spectrum.” As he draws his essay to a close Williams writes, “it is surely time to give time to this [theological conversation] when so much public Christian comment on these matters is not only nontheological, but positively antitheological.” It is unfortunate to note that sentence is as true in 2009 as it was when he wrote it twenty years ago. 70

HUMPTY DUMPTY , A UGUSTINE AND MARRIAGE Φ Robert E. Wright

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “Whether you can make words mean so many different things?” "The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master? – That’s all.”

This conversation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Lewis Carroll's classic Through the Looking Glass sounds in many ways like the arguments now being waged in Anglicanism over matters of human sexuality and ecclesiology. On one side are those who cite church canons regarding property held in trust within a hierarchical church, as well as the Nicene tradition of respecting diocesan and provincial boundaries. On the other side are those who cite Scripture and Tradition regarding who may be considered eligible for marriage and ordination. Each side, in a sense, is playing Humpty Dumpty, regarding how the church's authoritative texts are to be interpreted with regard to sexual ethics as well as the ecclesiology of the church.

An Augustinian Hermeneutic To be sure, now we all look through the glass darkly, but with Tradition and Reason as sources of illumination, we may more clearly look through the window of Scripture to see God's face. In particular, from

Φ Robert E. Wright is Director of Development and Alumni Relations at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. He is an active layman at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, and has held numerous leadership posts on the diocesan and national level. Dr. Wright received the Ph.D. from Duke in English and medieval studies in 1986. 71 our Tradition, St. Augustine sheds much light on our discernment. Perhaps the late 4th-early 5th century African bishop offers us a way out of the game Humpty Dumpty seeks to play, about who gets to be 'master' of what authoritative texts must mean to us. In particular, the Augustinian hermeneutic offers help as the church wrestles with marriage and our desire to faithfully interpret the Bible, as we also seek to include partnered Christians who are gay and lesbian into the sacramental life of the church.

In his treatise On Christian Doctrine , begun c. 396, Augustine wrote:

Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Whoever finds a lesson there useful to the building of charity, even though he has not said what the author may be shown to have intended in that place, has not been deceived, nor is he lying in any way. (I.36.40)

Later he elaborates, situating the interpretation of Scripture in the context of the entire canon and not proof-texting:

For he who examines the divine eloquence, desiring to discover the intention of the author through whom the Holy Spirit created the Scripture, whether he attains this end or finds another meaning in the words not contrary to right faith, is free from blame if he has evidence from some other place in the divine books. For the author himself may have seen the same meaning in the words we seek to understand. And certainly the Spirit of God, who worked through that author, undoubtedly foresaw that this meaning would occur to the reader or the listener. Rather, He provided that it might occur to him, since that meaning is dependent upon truth. For what could God have more generously and abundantly provided in the divine writings than that the same words might be understood in various ways which other no less divine witnesses approve? (III.27.38)

The premise of Augustine’s interpretive principle lies in the distinction between charity ( caritas ) and cupidity ( cupiditas ). As he defines these terms: 72

I call “charity” the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one’s self and of one’s neighbor for the sake of God; but “cupidity” is a motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of one’s self, one’s neighbor, or any corporal thing for the sake of something other than God. (III.10.16)

In other words, the “master” of the text (to use Humpty’s term) is not the human author or those who would have interpreted his words in the historical, social, or cultural context within which they were written, but rather God himself who as Logos is the true author and whose words are always to be interpreted in terms of the law of charity. Of this principle he writes:

. . . every student of the Divine Scriptures must exercise himself, having found nothing else in them except, first, that God is to be loved for Himself, and his neighbor for the sake of God; second, that he is to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and third, that he should love his neighbor as himself, that is, so that all love for our neighbor should, like all love for ourselves, be referred to God. (II.7.10)

Later in the work, he explains that this interpretive principle may be applied as well to secular, even pagan, texts.

Augustine applies this principal in determining whether certain texts are to be interpreted literally or figuratively. He quotes the Apostle, “For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth,” commenting, “That is, when that which is said figuratively is taken as though it were literal, it is understood carnally . . . He who follows the letter takes figurative expressions as though they were literal and does not refer the things signified to anything else.” As an example, Augustine notes that “if he hears of the Sabbath, he thinks only of one day out of the seven that are repeated in a continuous cycle . . .” and cites the scribes and Pharisees’ accusations against Jesus for performing healings on the Sabbath. (III.5.9-10) 73

An Expanded Interpretation of Marriage? Two remarkable resolutions passed by successive General Conventions of The Episcopal Church in 2000 and 2003, together with the legalization of same-gender marriage first in Massachusetts in 2004 and subsequently in several other states, have effectively changed the terms and the context of the church's debate over the blessing of same-gender unions. Whereas the conversation once tended to be about same- gender partnerships , envisioning them as alternative types of human relationship wholly other than 'marriage,' now people began to be asking whether or not marriage was what we were talking about for everybody - whether straight or gay.

The first, passed by the 73rd General Convention meeting in Denver, stated in part:

Resolved , That we acknowledge that while the issues of human sexuality are not yet resolved, there are currently couples in the Body of Christ and in this Church who are living in marriage and couples in the Body of Christ and in this Church who are living in other life-long committed relationships; and be it further Resolved , That we expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God; and be it further Resolved , That we denounce promiscuity, exploitation, and abusiveness in the relationships of any of our members; and be it further Resolved , That this Church intends to hold all its members accountable to these values, and will provide for them the prayerful support, encouragement, and pastoral care necessary to live faithfully by them . . .

The second, passed by the 74th General Convention meeting in Minneapolis, reaffirmed the resolve that defined the positive qualities of such relationships and added: 74

Resolved , That we recognize that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions.

I believe, these two resolutions point not to the formation of a new category of domestic partnership - which might be available to persons of any sexual orientation - nor do they represent an altogether new vision of marriage itself. Rather, they point to an evolved interpretation of traditional marriage, whereby it may begin to be understood as appropriate for same-gender couples as well as mixed-gender couples.

When one asks how this might be in light of Scripture and Tradition, it is here that I believe Augustine's hermeneutic of charity - when applied to biblical and traditional texts - is the key to this new understanding of how that may faithfully be.

For example, in Genesis' first creation account, we encounter the words: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen 1.27) In the second creation account, we encounter the words: “God said, 'it is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper as his partner." And, "then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. " (Gen 2:18&23)

As a Christian who is gay, I interepret these passages to have little to do with purely physically determined gender complementarity, as much as with the personal complementarity that I know to be possible between two persons of the same gender who love each other intimately. Moreover, I see in these passages a calling to mutuality and partnership - as checks against solitude or selfishness, and the sacred vocation partnered persons have to accompany and serve each other faithfully. According to the Augustinian hermeneutic, I interpret these passages in light of how they reveal to me a godly form of life rooted in the love of God and of neighbor as self.

By the same hermeneutic, a reading of Matthew 22 demonstrates God's will for a principled inclusion to all sorts of persons to the wedding feast of God's Kingdom. Such a principled approach would apply not only to the guests, who are all invited but also expected to abide by a set of agreed groundrules ('the wearing of the wedding garment'), but also 75 the couple sealing their covenant with one another, with God, and with the community of faith.

In On Christian Doctrine , Augustine writes, “. . . every good and true Christian should understand that wherever he may find truth, it is his Lord’s” (II.18.28) Many now believe that The Episcopal Church is called to expand its understanding of marriage - not to make the word mean many things or just any thing - as Humpty Dumpty would do. No, many believe that under an Augustinian hermeneutic of charity, in which we believe the "love of God and of neighbor as self" is the master of our authoritative texts, we may understand marriage to be an honorable estate which includes persons of same-gender affection. 76

SHELTER AND CONTEXT FOR TRUST Φ Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Trust is a quality of relationship that, while never perfected, is nurtured and reinforced over time. The trust and mutuality afforded by marriage can make marriage one of the most beautiful, abiding, and transformative forms of human relationship. Depth of care, matched to an intimacy of touch, creates relationships much stronger than simple and momentary erotic interest. Sexual intimacy, together with promises of fidelity and public accountability, nurtures bonds that allow people to thrive and provides a rich context for the care and support of children.

Marriage is a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope authorized legally by the State and blessed by God. The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, reflecting Mark 10: 6–9: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one put asunder.” (Jesus here recalls Genesis 1:27; 2:23–24.)

Lutherans have long affirmed that the public accountability of marriage, as expressed through a legal contract, provides the necessary social support and social trust for relationships that are intended to be sustained throughout life and within changing and often challenging life situations. In this country, pastors carry both legal and religious responsibilities for marriage. In carrying out these responsibilities,

Φ Excerpted from “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” - A Social Statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted with a vote of 676 (66.67 percent) to 338 (33.33 percent) on Aug. 19, 2009. The passing of the social statement on human sexuality required a two-thirds vote. 77 pastors hold and exercise pastoral discretion for the decision to marry in the Church. In the community of the Church they preside over the mutual promises made between a couple seeking the lifelong, monogamous, and faithful relationship of marriage.

Marriage requires constant care and cultivation. It is intended to protect the creation and nurturing of mutual trust and love as one foundation of human community. It is a binding relationship that provides conditions for personal well-being, the flourishing of the partner, and the possibility of procreation and the nurturing of children. It is also intended to be a blessing to the community and the world. Because of promises of fidelity and public accountability, marriage provides a context of love, trust, honesty, and commitment within which a couple can express the profound joy of relationship as well as address the troubles they encounter throughout life.

Christians believe that marriage is not solely to legitimate physical sexual intimacy, but to support long-term and durable communion for the good of others. It is a communion within which the play and delight of physical love are crucial expressions of the depth of trust, and in which lovemaking can be a tender and generous act of self-giving that tends to the joy and pleasure of the other.

The public character of marriage also implies a civil responsibility. Marriage is intended not only to protect the people who are married, but to signal to the community their intention to live a peaceful and mutually fulfilling life, even as they endeavor to strengthen the community in which they live. The public promises of marriage between a man and a woman, therefore, also protect the community by holding people accountable to their vows. Fidelity to promises blesses all who depend on this trust within and beyond the marriage.

The Christian commitment to marriage recognizes that sin enters all relationships, both within and outside the institution of marriage. All marriages fall short of intentions and difficulties are inevitable, both because of the different needs and desires of the two individuals, and because of sin, which places the anxious concern for self before the needs of the other. Infidelity to marriage promises betrays the intimate trust of the partner, the security of the family, and the public trust of the community. 78

Precisely because marriage is the place where deep human trust and needs abide, it also can be a place of great harm. Many experience neither love nor trust within marriage. Harming another emotionally, physically, or spiritually, including through the misuse or abuse of power, is a profound injury. It is also a betrayal and violation of the shelter and trust that are intended within the marriage relationship. Particular care must be taken to support and find safe haven for all who are at risk within a marriage. This includes those whose sense of self is destroyed or damaged within the marriage relationship and, therefore, whose ability to act or advocate for their own health and safety may be inhibited or lost.

This Church recognizes that in some situations the trust upon which marriage is built becomes so deeply damaged or is so deeply flawed that the marriage itself must come to a legal end (Matthew 19:3–12). This Church does not treat divorce lightly nor does it disregard the responsibilities of marriage. However, in such situations, it provides support to the people involved and all who are affected. Divorced individuals are encouraged to avail themselves of pastoral care, to be assured of God’s presence, forgiveness, and healing, and to remain in the communion of the Church, recognizing the all-encompassing mercy of God.

This Church will provide supportive pastoral care to those who are divorced. Further, it believes that those who wish to remarry may gain wisdom from the past and may be assured of the Gospel’s freedom, in the midst of brokenness and forgiveness, to enter into their new responsibilities in joy and hope. This Church will tend pastorally to the special concerns of blended families, to children of divorced parents, and to the particular tensions that may accompany family breakdown and transition.

Despite its awareness of the presence of sin and failure in marriage, the Christian tradition places great emphasis on the value of marriage for a husband and wife. It is in marriage that the highest degrees of physical intimacy are matched with and protected by the highest levels of binding commitment, including legal protection. It is in marriage that public promises of lifetime commitment can create the foundation for trust, intimacy, and safety. 79

Both the couple’s intent in their lifelong promises and the civil requirements for marriage are important. Mutual promises of enduring care and fidelity, made before God, allow a couple to open themselves to each other. They permit the sharing of profound and tender affection as well as deep vulnerabilities and anxieties. The legal contract creates a public arrangement within which a couple may safely and equitably share their assets and resources, arrive at joint decisions, anticipate children, protect and nurture them, and plan for a shared future.

The Church’s historical experience supports its confidence that solemn promises, made before a company of witnesses who ask for God’s blessing on a man and a woman, have the power to create a unique framework within which two people, a new family, and the community may thrive. Consistent with that experience, this Church has confidence that such promises, supported by the contractual framework of civil law, can create a lifetime relationship of commitment and cooperation.

Recognizing that this conclusion differs from the historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions, some people, though not all, in this Church and within the larger Christian community, conclude that marriage is also the appropriate term to use in describing similar benefits, protection, and support for same-gender couples entering into lifelong monogamous relationships. They believe that such accountable relationships also provide the necessary foundation that supports trust and familial and community thriving. Other contractual agreements, such as civil unions, also seek to provide some of these protections and to hold those involved in such relationships accountable to one another and to society. 80

MARRIAGE AND THE LAW Φ Hugh Stevens

14 Marriage itself has never been simple, but until recently marriage laws were.

Prior to 1996 the criteria for contracting legal marriages in the United States were prescribed exclusively by the various states; tended to be quite similar nationwide; and focused primarily on proof that the parties were of marriageable age (or, if not, that they had the requisite parental consent) and that neither was rendered ineligible to marry by reason of impotency, lack of mental capacity, or an existing marriage. Because marriage standards varied little across the country, states routinely treated marriages performed in other states as valid, even if they did not 15 comport fully with their own laws.

Φ Hugh Stevens is a member of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Raleigh, and a nationally-known First Amendment lawyer with the Raleigh firm of Everett, Gaskins, Hancock and Stevens. He has taught at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School. 14 For a comprehensive and highly readable history of he cultural, social, economic and political complexities of marriage see Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Koontz (Viking Press, 2005) 15 During the late ‘50s and ‘60s, when the author was in high school in North Carolina, it was commonplace for young couples in need of “shotgun weddings” to slip across the border and marry in South Carolina, where the age of consent was lower than in North Carolina and surrounding states. Dillon, South Carolina was such a popular location for such “runaway” nuptials that it became known as the “Wedding Capital of the East." 81

The relative homogeneity among state marriage laws, and their general acceptability across state lines, began to erode in the 1990s after the supreme courts in Hawaii and Vermont interpreted their respective state constitutions to require that same-sex couples were entitled to the same rights and benefits of marriage that were afforded to opposite-sex couples, even if the state chose not to define these rights and benefits as marriage. Fearing that other courts would issue similar decisions, both the Congress and many state legislatures, including North Carolina’s, passed “Defense of Marriage Acts” (DOMAs), which specifically defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In addition, several states amended their constitutions to prohibit same- sex marriage, hoping that such an explicit ban would prevent their courts from reading other constitutional provisions so broadly as to guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. The divergence in state laws and policies concerning marriage widened and accelerated in 2003, when Massachusetts became the first state to authorize same-sex marriage.

Any discussion of “the theology of marriage” in the Episcopal Church necessarily occurs against a background of civil law, because marriage is the only rite, sacrament or ceremony of the Church that is defined and 16 regulated not only by the Constitution and Canons but also by state 17 and federal statutes and by the constitutions of at least 30 states. Neither state nor federal law purports to define or prescribe the criteria for baptism, communion, anointing the sick, reconciliation of a penitent or ordination, but state law sets limits on the ages, consanguinity and, in the majority of states, the genders of persons who may be married, and Congress has enacted a federal statute defining marriage. Section 1 of Canon 18 recognizes the anomalous regulatory duality affecting marriage by requiring that clergy “shall conform to the laws of the State governing the creation of the civil status of marriage, and also to the

16 Canon 18 of the Canons of the General Convention governs the solemnization of Holy Matrimony; Canon 19 sets out regulations concerning “Preservation of Marriage, Dissolution of Marriage, and Remarriage.” 17 Most of the state constitutional provisions are recent amendments that prohibit same-sex marriages (and, in many cases, “civil unions.”) 82 laws of this Church governing the solemnization of Holy 18 Matrimony.”

Although the author holds to certain opinions (some firm, some not) concerning the wisdom, propriety or constitutionality of some of the laws described, this paper is not intended to condone or criticize them. Instead, it attempts to:

• summarize the standards and criteria for contracting a legal marriage in North Carolina; • describe some of the key legal benefits that accrue to married couples; • explain some of the legal and constitutional issues that arise out of the fact that some states authorize or recognize marriages that others do not; • describe the nature and effects of state and federal “defense of marriage” laws; and, • briefly discuss how state and federal marriage laws affect the relationship between the Church and the government.

1. Marriage in North Carolina. Historically, the criteria for a legal marriage, and the scope of the rights and benefits conferred on the parties to a marriage, have been governed 19 by state law almost exclusively. The federal constitution makes no mention of marriage, and Congress did not codify a definition of marriage for purposes of federal law until 1996. Therefore, a logical

18 I believe the conflation of “marriage” and “Holy Matrimony,” which the Canon carefully avoids, muddies and complicates the public dialogue. In recognition of the critical distinction between the two, the term “marriage” in this paper should be read as referring to a legal relationship only. 19 An exception occurred between 1878 and 1890, when the federal government successfully prosecuted polygamists and their supporters in Utah and Idaho, which were then U.S. territories. 83 place to begin any discussion of marriage and the law in North Carolina is with legal standards for marriage enacted by the General Assembly.

A. Age. North Carolina law generally permits unmarried persons over the age of 18, and legally emancipated persons aged 16 or 17, to marry. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51-2. Un-emancipated persons aged 16 or 17 may marry with the consent of a custodial parent or legal guardian. Id. A female aged 14 or 15 may marry if she is pregnant or has given birth to a child and she and the putative father agree to marry; likewise, a male aged 14 or 15 who is the putative father of a child, born or unborn, may marry the mother if she agrees. In either case, however, a district court judge must enter an order approving the marriage of a 14- or 15-year- old. The order must find as a fact and conclude as a matter of law that the underage party is capable of assuming the responsibilities of marriage and that the marriage will serve his or her best interest. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51-2.1(a).

B. Gender. In 1996 the General Assembly passed a “Defense of Marriage” statute, which provides that marriages between individuals of the same gender are not valid in North Carolina. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51- 1.2. (See § ___, below.)

C. Race. North Carolina law prohibited marriage between persons of different races until June 12, 1967, the date on which the Supreme Court of the United States declared all anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1. In 1977 the General Assembly formally declared that all interracial marriages were valid, provided that the parties had complied with all other requirements for a legal marriage. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51-3.1.

D. Capacity. Section 51-3 of the North Carolina General Statutes declares that marriages are void or voidable under any of the following circumstances: 1. The parties are “nearer of kin than first cousins,” or are double first cousins; 84

2. Either party has a legal spouse living at the 20 time of the marriage; 3. Either party is “physically impotent” at the time of the marriage; or, 4. Either party is “incapable of contracting from want of will or understanding.” The courts have applied the foregoing statute to invalidate marriages procured under duress or by undue influence.

E. North Carolina marriage licenses. Persons desiring to marry in North Carolina must obtain a license from a county Register of Deeds. The fee for a marriage license, which is valid anywhere in North Carolina, is $50.00 and must be paid in cash. Applicants need not be residents of North Carolina, but they must provide proof of their ages and identities by presenting a valid driver’s license; an unexpired state-issued ID card, a current passport, a current 21 military ID, or a certified copy of a birth certificate. Each applicant also is required to provide and verify his or her Social Security number by presenting a Social Security card or a W-2 form or pay stub displaying the full Social Security number. Persons who are not eligible for a Social Security card, such as citizens of foreign countries, must provide a sworn affidavit attesting to their status. Every marriage license includes a certificate of marriage that must be completed by the officiant and returned to the register of deeds within 10 days following the ceremony.

20 Marriage by a person who already has a living spouse constitutes bigamy, which is also a Class I felony under North Carolina criminal law. See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-183.

21 An applicant who is age 20 or younger must present a certified copy of his or her birth certificate. Applicants who are 16 or 17 years of age also must present evidence of parental consent, and applicants age 15 must present a certified copy of a District Court order authorizing the marriage. 85

F. Solemnization of marriages in North Carolina. Under North Carolina law, marriages may be solemnized by magistrates or by ordained or licensed clergy of any religious denomination. State law also recognizes marriages solemnized in ceremonies of federally or state recognized Indian nations or tribes. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 51-1. Any person authorized to celebrate marriages who performs a marriage ceremony without first being presented with a valid marriage license, or who fails to complete and return the certificate of marriage that accompanies the license, is guilty of a Class I misdemeanor and subject to a $200.00 penalty. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51-7.

According to data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, approximately 68,000 marriages occurred in North Carolina during 2007, the last year for which complete data are available; this number represented an increase of approximately 3,400 over 2006 and 5,000 over 2005. Although North Carolina does not maintain specific data tracking the proportion of civil and religious ceremonies, an analysis of marriage fees by the Administrative Office of the Courts indicates that about 22,000 of the marriages performed in the state in 22 2007 were civil ceremonies performed by magistrates. Regardless of whether the ceremony is civil or religious, it must be witnessed by at least two persons.

(i). Civil and religious marriage ceremonies in North Carolina. The data cited above suggest that more than two-thirds of marriage ceremonies in North Carolina are religious in nature – a percentage that appears to be well above the national average. In 2003 USA Today reported that the rate of civil marriage “is on the rise coast to coast” because “[f]ewer American couples who marry today see the need for religion’s approval.” Although there are no national data on how many marriages are performed by clergy versus civil authorities such as notaries, justices of the peace or magistrates, the newspaper’s analysis of statistics from the 18 states that track such data showed that the percentage of civil ceremonies in those states had risen from about 30% in 1980 to about 40% in 2003. The author of American Couples, University of Washington sociologist Pepper Schwartz, attributed the

22 Magistrates collect a $20.00 fee for each civil marriage ceremony they perform. 86 trend to high divorce and remarriage rates, the increasing incidence of interfaith marriages, and “more personalized ideas of spirituality.”

(ii). Cohabitation in North Carolina. Data from a variety of sources clearly show that in recent decades cohabitation by unmarried couples has emerged as an important social and cultural institution, 23 both as a predecessor to and as a substitute for marriage. In 1960 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 439,000 unmarried opposite-sex couples were living together in the United States; in 2008 that number had risen to 6.8 million. (“America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2008”) Today in the U.S. one in three women chooses to live with her partner before marriage, compared to one in 10 in the 1950’s. Nearly half of individuals in their twenties and thirties are involved in a cohabiting arrangement. According to a Gallup poll published in 2007, 55% of Americans approve of men and women living together without being married; 57% of respondents to a 2008 poll said they consider an unmarried couple who have lived together for five years just as committed in their relationship as couple who have lived together in marriage for the same amount of time.

In 2005 the Associated Press reported that about 144,000 unmarried couples were living together in North Carolina. However many such couples there are, all of them potentially are subject to arrest and prosecution, because North Carolina is one of seven states that makes cohabitation by unmarried couples a crime. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-184 provides that “If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor . . .”

North Carolina’s anti-cohabitation law came under attack after Deborah Lynn Hobbs, who was unmarried and had lived with her boyfriend for nine years, was hired as a dispatcher for the Pender County sheriff’s office in 2004. Two weeks later Sheriff Carson Smith told her she must marry her boyfriend, move out of their common

23 One index of cohabitation’s status as a cultural, social and economic phenomenon is the number of guidebooks devoted to the subject, such as Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples; Shacking Up: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Living in Sin Without Getting Burned; and Happily Un-Married: Living Together and Loving It. 87 home, or resign her position with his office. The sheriff did not file or threaten criminal charges against her under G.S. § 14-184. Ms. Hobbs resigned and then filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the anti- cohabitation statute. In 2006 Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford declared the statute unconstitutional and enjoined the State from enforcing it, on the grounds that it violated Ms. Hobbs’ right to substantive due process and was vague and overbroad. Attorney General Roy Cooper elected not to appeal Judge Alford’s decision, leaving open the question whether it applies statewide or only in Pender County. Meanwhile the General Assembly has left the law unchanged.

2. State and federal benefits of marriage. North Carolina, like all states, confers some important legal rights on married persons, including significant tax advantages (such as the right to file joint state income tax returns); rights, preferences and presumptions in connection with the probate of estates and intestacy proceedings (when someone dies without a will); the right to support from their spouses both during the marriage and after it is dissolved; enhanced protection of jointly-owned property against creditors and judgments; and rights to be treated as family members in obtaining 24 insurance coverage and making health care decisions.

24 In its 2003 decision striking down Massachusetts’ prohibition against same-sex marriage, the Supreme Judicial Court of that state noted that the following benefits and privileges were available only to married persons in Massachusetts: joint state income tax filing; tenancy by the entirety; extension of benefit of homestead protection to one's spouse and children; automatic rights to inherit property of deceased spouse who does not leave a will; rights of elective share and of dower; entitlement to wages owed to deceased employee; eligibility to continue certain businesses of deceased spouse; right to share medical policy of one's spouse; 39-week continuation of health coverage for spouse of person who is laid off or dies; preferential options under state's pension system; preferential benefits in state's medical program; access to veterans' spousal benefits and preferences; financial protections for spouses of certain state employees killed in performance of duty; equitable division of marital property on divorce; temporary and permanent alimony rights; right to separate support on separation that does not result in divorce; and right to bring claims for wrongful death and loss of consortium, and for funeral and burial expenses 88

Marriage also invokes significant federal benefits; according to a 2004 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are at least 1,138 statutory provisions in which marital status 25 factors in the determination of federal privileges, rights, and benefits.

The scope and purpose of this paper do not warrant a detailed analysis of the rights and benefits that are available exclusively to married couples; suffice it to say that the consequences of the recognition or non-recognition of a particular relationship as a “marriage” has profound consequences, both legal and financial, for the parties to that relationship.

3. The rise of divergent state laws concerning marriage and marriage-like relationships. The confluence of two events in 2003 dramatically affected the climate surrounding the debate over marriage or marriage-like rights for gay and lesbian couples. On June 26, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) . In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court ruled that a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same-sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the Lawrence opinion expressly stated that the Court was not ruling on the constitutional status of same-sex marriage, Justice Antonin Scalia disagreed, arguing in dissent that the majority’s analysis inevitably leads to the conclusion that and punitive damages resulting from tort actions. Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309, 323-24, 798 N.E.2d 941, 955-56.

25 Although Congress did not define “marriage” for purposes of federal law until 1996, the proliferation of federal statutes affecting the rights and privileges of married persons bears out one writer’s observation that “. . . family law isn't the bastion of state sovereignty it's supposed to be. As some scholars have pointed out, [William Rehnquist]'s claim that family law is ‘truly local’ is wrong as a matter of history. Congress has meddled in this area for decades, through laws that address welfare, pensions, taxes, bankruptcy and immigration.” Emily Bazelon, “Trading Places Over Gay Marriage,” The Washington Post , November 23, 2003. 89 marriage must be available equally to homosexual and heterosexual couples. 539 U.S. at 604-05.

Then, on November 18, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state law barring same-sex marriage violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution and ordered the legislature to remedy the discrimination within six months. Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309, 798 N.E.2d 941.

In her opinion for the majority in Goodridge, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall held that denying marriage benefits to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution because it did not accomplish a legitimate government goal. Indeed, the court explained, the reasons the government offered for banning same-sex marriage - promoting procreation, ensuring a good child-rearing environment and preserving state financial resources - would not be promoted by prohibiting same- sex couples from marrying. Thus, according to the court, the only basis for the state's decision to exclude same-sex couples from the institution of marriage was a disapproval of their lifestyle. Because the court concluded that condemning a lifestyle is not a "constitutionally adequate reason" for denying marriage benefits, it held that the state must permit same-sex couples to marry.

In February 2004, the court ruled that offering same-sex couples civil unions instead of civil marriage would not pass constitutional muster under the standards enumerated in Goodridge . Since March, 2004, when same-sex marriage first became available, approximately 12,500 same- sex couples have married in Massachusetts.

The Lawrence and Goodridge decisions activated advocates on both sides of the legal and policy debate over same-sex marriage. On the one hand, they opened the door for courts in states other than Massachusetts to interpret the equal protection clauses of their state constitutions as mandates for same-sex marriage. At the same time, they roused opponents of gay marriage.

A. Same-Sex Marriage Encouraged by the Massachusetts court’s decision in Goodridge, advocates for gay marriage began filing suits and/or pushing for 90 legislative action in other states. Until 2008, however, only one of these cases was even partly successful. In that case, Lewis v. Harris (2006), the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution’s equal protection clause required the state to grant same-sex couples the same rights and benefits of marriage enjoyed by opposite-sex couples. The Lewis decision was not as broad as the Massachusetts decision in Goodridge because the court permitted the state legislature to decide whether to grant these rights by marriage or civil union. Soon after the ruling, the New Jersey legislature passed a measure allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into civil unions but not to marry.

Other than the New Jersey suit, the decisions by state supreme courts went against gay marriage advocates until 2008. In 2006 and 2007, the highest courts in New York, Washington and Maryland found that their state constitutions do not guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. All three courts ruled that whether to permit or recognize same- sex marriage is a policy matter that rests with the legislative and executive branches. The suits grounded in state constitutions finally began to bear fruit in 2008, when the highest courts of California and Connecticut ruled in favor of gay marriage.

In California, same-sex marriage was legal for five and a half months during 2008. On May 15 the California Supreme Court ruled that limiting marriage to persons of the opposite sex violated the California Constitution. Over the next few months approximately 18,000 same- sex couples were married in California, but in November, after a spirited and expensive public campaign, California’s voters amended the state constitution by approving “Proposition 8,” which provides that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized 26 in California.” Advocates for same-sex marriage challenged the validity of Proposition 8, but the California Supreme Court rejected their claim in May, 2009; consequently, same-sex couples may register as domestic partners in the state, but cannot marry. The court did uphold the validity of the same-sex marriages contracted before Proposition 8 took effect. The California Supreme Court’s rulings did not end the battle over California’s prohibition of same-sex marriage. In May, 2009 two gay couples filed suit in federal court challenging

26 The California constitution has been amended more than 500 times through the proposition procedure since it was ratified in 1879. 91

Proposition 8 (and, by implication, all state laws that bar same-sex marriage) on grounds that such bans violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In October 2008, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state's civil union law was discriminatory and unconstitutional, and that same- sex couples must be allowed to marry because "the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a [constitutionally] cognizable harm."

In April 2009, Iowa and Vermont joined the ranks of states that grant full marriage equality to same-sex couples. In Iowa, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state's law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples was unconstitutional, whereas Vermont became the first state to enact marriage equality through legislative action when the state legislature overrode a governor's veto and legalized same-sex marriage in that state.

Maine’s legislature passed a same-sex marriage bill in May, 2009. Governor John Baldacci, who previously had opposed same-sex marriage, signed it immediately upon its passage in the Senate. The governor said he had come to see same-sex marriage as a "question of fairness and of equal protection under the law," and to believe that "a civil union is not equal to civil marriage."

In June 2009, the New Hampshire legislature passed a same-sex marriage bill. Although Governor John Lynch personally opposes gay marriage, he signed the bill because it specifically provides that religious authorities are not required to officiate at same-sex ceremonies. "Today, we are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they will receive the same rights, responsibilities – and respect – under New Hampshire law," Lynch said. The bill takes effect in January 2010.

B. Civil Unions Until recently Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Jersey offered same-sex couples relationship recognition in the form of civil unions – the legal equivalent of marriage in those states. With the 92 advent of full marriage equality in September 2009, Vermont no longer offers the option of civil unions. New Hampshire will abolish them in January, 2010, when its same-sex marriage law takes effect.

In Connecticut and New Jersey, same-sex couples can enter into civil unions that provide the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, including:

• rights under family laws, such as annulment, divorce, child custody, child support, alimony, domestic violence, adoption, and property division • rights to sue for wrongful death, loss of consortium, and under any other tort or law concerning spousal relationships • medical rights, such as hospital visitation, notification, and durable power of attorney • family leave benefits • joint state tax filing, and • property inheritance when one partner dies without a will.

C. Domestic Partnerships “Domestic partnership” is another form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but what it means differs from state to state. In California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, domestic partnership is the legal equivalent of marriage; registered domestic partners have the same rights and obligations as legally married spouses under state law, including property rights and the right to receive support from one's partner after a separation. Although the District of Columbia does not explicitly grant domestic partners all of the same rights enjoyed by married couples, it is difficult to distinguish legally between the two types of domestic relationships.

New Jersey passed a domestic partner law in January of 2004 that offered limited rights to registered domestic partners. New domestic partnership registrations ended in January of 2008, when New Jersey began to offer civil unions that provide the same rights and responsibilities as marriage. However, couples who registered as 93 domestic partners before January 2008 maintain the same rights they had previously.

D. Reciprocal Beneficiaries Reciprocal beneficiary laws in Colorado and Hawaii provide some marriage-like benefits. In Hawaii, any two state residents can register as reciprocal beneficiaries provided that they both are over 18 and are not permitted to marry. Couples who sign up gain some of the rights and benefits granted by the state to married couples, including hospital visitation rights, the ability to sue for wrongful death, and property and inheritance rights. In Colorado, reciprocal beneficiaries may own property jointly, inherit from a partner in the absence of a will, receive priority for appointment as a conservator, and receive a number of other rights similar to those of married couples.

4. State and federal “Defense of Marriage” Acts As noted above, the recent divergence in state policies and laws respecting marriage and other domestic relationships – particularly the recognition by several states of same-sex marriage – led many states to adopt “Defense of Marriage” laws (“DOMAs”) or constitutional amendments prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages, even if they were legally contracted in another jurisdiction. North Carolina’s DOMA was passed in 1996 – seven years before Massachusetts became the first state to permit persons of the same gender to marry. That same year, Congress passed and President Clinton signed a federal DOMA defining “marriage” as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and declaring that the term “spouse” refers “only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.” The Act provides that these definitions apply “[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States.” 1 U.S.C. §7. The federal DOMA also provides that

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex 94

that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship. 28 U.S.C. § 1738(c).

5. Legal and constitutional issues arising out of divergent state definitions of marriage and other domestic relationships. By denying recognition to same-sex marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships that were legal in the states where they were contracted, DOMAs – both state and federal – raise serious and thorny legal and constitutional issues. Assume, for example, that a lesbian couple who were legally married in Massachusetts moves to North Carolina and then part ways. Does North Carolina’s DOMA preclude their obtaining a legal divorce here? Suppose they were married in Massachusetts and later divorced there, after which one of them moved to North Carolina. Does our state’s DOMA deprive our courts of authority to enforce a custody order or property settlement on behalf of the North Carolina resident? And do state DOMAs in general violate the “full faith and credit” clause of the federal constitution?

The federal DOMA raises other constitutional issues, including whether it impinges on a “fundamental right” (to marry) and whether Congress violated the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty by legislating with 27 respect to matters traditionally reserved to the states.

At first blush it would seem that both the state and federal DOMAs run afoul of Article IV, § 1 of the United States Constitution, which provides that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other state” and that “Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved and the effect thereof.” Read literally, the requirement that states accord “full faith and credit” to each other’s laws clearly seems to mandate that North Carolina must grant persons who were legally married in another state, or who are

27 The Tenth Amendment provides that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 95 parties to a legal civil union or domestic partnership contracted in another state, all of the rights and privileges afforded them by that state.

As it happens, however, the courts have not read the “full faith and credit” clause as requiring one state to give absolute deference to another’s laws. Rather, it has been construed to leave room for the application of traditional principles of conflicts of laws, including the concept that each state may decline to apply another state’s law that conflicts with its own legitimate public policies. Therefore, the courts have rejected challenges to both state and federal DOMAs grounded in the “full faith and credit” clause. Wilson v. Ake, 354 F. Supp. 2d 1298, 1303-04 (2005).

The courts also have rejected due process and equal protection challenges to the federal DOMA grounded in the contention that the right to marry without regard to the gender of the parties is a “fundamental right of all persons.” Id. at 1304-05 (citing Baker v. Nelson, 291 Minn. 310, 191 N.W.2d 185 (1971), appeal dismissed, 409 U.S. 810, 93 S. Ct. 37, 34 L.Ed.2d 65 (1972)).

For the foreseeable future, therefore, it appears that state laws and policies concerning marriage and marriage-like relationships will continue to vary widely, that same-sex couples who marry in one of the states that permit such unions will be denied concomitant federal rights available to heterosexual married couples, and that such couples who move across state lines also must be prepared to confront the effective loss of their marital status.

6. Marriage Laws and the Church Under the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment, state laws may (and do) limit, but may not mandate, who can be legally married in ceremonies presided over by members of the clergy. In North Carolina, a priest, rabbi or minister cannot solemnize a same-sex “marriage” no matter how enthusiastically his or her religious body approves; nor can Massachusetts or Connecticut require a member of the clergy to preside over a same-sex marriage. This does not necessarily mean, however, that Church leaders or clergy should be dismissive or obtuse about the upheaval in the legal landscape surrounding marriage. 96

For one thing, dramatic changes in the law generally mirror, to some degree, shifts in cultural and societal tectonic plates. For another, wedding ceremonies are the only occasions when members of the clergy act both as agents of the Church and of the State. Both of these points should be cause for reflection about the relationships between the Church and its members and between the Church and government.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts did not decide that the state’s constitution mandated same-sex marriage as the result of the Commonwealth’s constitution having been amended, because it hadn’t. Rather, the court rendered its decision because gays and lesbians decided (or dared) that the time had come to assert a claim to rights and privileges that traditionally had been denied to them – something that simply could not have occurred in a era when homosexuality was not just stigmatized, but criminalized. By like sign, neither the United States Congress nor the North Carolina General Assembly was moved to enact a “Defense of Marriage Act” until same-sex marriage suddenly shifted from being a cockamamie notion to a genuine “threat.” The point is not whether the decisions made by the Massachusetts court and by our General Assembly perfectly reflect the attitudes of everyone in either state; manifestly, they don’t. The point is that although the Church is not of Massachusetts or North Carolina (or any other state), it is in those states and thus not only must comply with their laws, but also must be aware of, and respond to, their societal and cultural underpinnings.

For a priest in Massachusetts the issue is likely to be how to explain to gay or lesbian parishioners why the Church cannot or will not agree to marry them, even though the state has no objection. For a priest in North Carolina and the majority of other states, the dilemma may involve explaining to gay parishioners why he or she continues to solemnize marriages on behalf of a state that denies them marriage rights and privileges that are accorded heterosexual couples.

Some clergy and commentators on both sides of the gay marriage issue argue that freedom of religion would be enhanced by the formal separation between legal marriage and religious ceremonies, either by voluntary action on the part of religious bodies, or by having state governments “remove one of the final vestiges of theocracy” by defining marriage as a purely civil matter and removing clergy from the 97 list of persons authorized to solemnize legal marriages. See, e.g., Jonathan Lindsey, “On Marriage, Time to Separate Civil from Ecclesiastical,” Associated Baptist Press, 2009; Oliver Thomas, “Gay Marriage: A Way Out,” USA Today, August 4, 2008; “Gay Episcopal bishop says civil and religious marriage should be separate,” The Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2009.

The “Refuse to Sign” movement, which is spearheaded by John Tamilio and Tricia Gilbert of Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ in Cleveland, and which is supported by some Episcopal clergy, espouses the view that ministers should not sign marriage licenses issued in states that do not permit gays and lesbians to marry. [See http://refusetosign.org/ ]

At the other end of the spectrum are clergy who view any government involvement in marriage as theologically untenable, such as Pastor Matt Trewella of Mercy Seat Christian Church in Milwaukee, who has authored a pamphlet entitled “Five Reasons Why Christians Should Not Obtain a State Marriage License” wherein he professes to “marrying 28 couples without marriage licenses for ten years.” [See http://www.mercyseat.net/ .]

A complete decoupling of civil and religious marriage would mean, of course, that candidates for a traditional “church wedding” would first have to undergo a separate civil ceremony in order to legalize their marriage.

Although this “two-step” marriage process would reflect the legal reality that “marriage” is a civil contract that has nothing to do with religious beliefs or practices, it undoubtedly would be perceived by many

28 Couples who “marry” in ceremonies that are performed without benefit of a marriage license (often called “covenant marriages”) expose themselves to serious legal issues involving taxes, inheritance, property ownership, child custody and myriad other subjects. The participants in one such ceremony explained their views about marriage in an elaborate hand-out. See http://www.carolinaliberty.com/handouts/CovenantInfoBook2.pdf 98

29 Americans not only as an inconvenience, but also as a wrenching and unwelcome change to a relationship that traditionally has been and continues to be seen as grounded in divine law. Many commentators worry that such bifurcation would cause many couples to view Holy Matrimony as a ritualistic optional “add-on” to marriage, rather than as 30 a powerful spiritual experience that defines their relationship. Although this certainly is a valid concern on the part of Christians and others who view “marriage” as something much more than a civil contract, it is not clear what, if anything, the Church can or should do to preserve the linkage between civil marriage and Holy Matrimony, given the powerful forces that are pulling them in opposite directions.

29 Such dual ceremonies are commonplace in France, Germany and other countries where only civil marriages are recognized as creating legal rights and privileges.

30 See, e.g., “Marriage: Its Relationship to Religion, Law and the State,” by Charles J. Reid, Jr., published as Chapter 6 of Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty (Laycock, Picarello and Wilson, ed. 2008). Professor Reid argues that the civil and religious attributes of marriage are so inextricably intertwined that any attempt to separate them completely would seriously devalue marriage as a cultural and social institution. 99

SIGNING MARRIAGE LICENSES ? Y ES . Anne Hodges-Copple

From the first time I was asked to officiate at a service of Holy Matrimony, some twenty-odd years ago, I have felt great ambivalence about signing a state-issued marriage license. Such an action seemed an uncomfortable mixing of Church and State. As the years have progressed, the issues have become even more perplexing. Among my questions are:

• As a priest, if I sign a marriage license, issued by the county clerk, am I acting as an agent of the State? • If I refuse to sign such a license have I afforded some greater of measure of justice to all couples who seek God's nuptial blessing? • If I sign a marriage license have I privileged some married couples over others? • If I decline to sign a marriage license will I give couples a great “teachable moment” about the importance of separation between Church and State? • Do I need to protect the Sacrament of Marriage from the tarnish of the State's interference?

For years I have thought that since I do not have any desire to be an agent of the State, and since my signing of the legal document might appear to represent the authority of the State, then maybe I should just stop signing such documents as a matter of conscience, though with regret for the inconvenience it would cause. But I have changed my mind.

I don't know the exact number of weddings I've performed in the 22 years since my ordination, but it's a lot. I have a bulletin board covered with pictures of just married, happy couples. And not all of these couples have been parishioners. I am often called by engaged couples 100 new to the area, looking for an officiant even though they have not quite settled on a church. During my years as the Episcopal Chaplain at Duke, I was often called after a couple booked Duke Chapel, the florist and the caterer and realized they needed to “book” a minister. This is sometimes irritating, but it is also a great opportunity for bringing an engaged couple to (or back to) a deeper engagement with God.

My helping a couple prepare for marriage is for me both a great privilege and a solemn undertaking. It's a great opportunity for evangelism and formation.

One thing I tell couples is that the only authority to conduct a wedding I care about is the authority given me as a priest of the Church. I explain that if they invite me to help them prepare for marriage, that means we will be talking about Jesus, about covenants and about sacraments. I explain that I will not be telling them what they must believe, but what the Church teaches. If all they really need is a marriage license and someone to conduct the service with as little mention of God and religion as possible, then I am happy to help them find such a person. It just can't be me.

So I was not at all alarmed or perturbed when the questions about clergy signing a marriage license was brought up for discussion at the 2009 North Carolina Diocesan Convention. I began with an inclination toward moving away from signing licenses, but, after further reflection, I now believe I can continue to sign them in good conscience.

When I took the time to look over the North Carolina marriage license, I realized that all my signature does is to declare that a particular marriage ceremony took place at a certain time, in a certain place between the two specific people indicated on the license. By signing the marriage license, I am merely informing the county clerk that on this day, in this place, these two people participated under the terms and conditions established by our Church to become married in the eyes of God.

It seems to me, that if the State chooses to recognize this completely religious act as a marriage for their purposes, that's the State's business. In the case of marriage, unlike baptism, anointing, or confession, the State is willing to recognize my authority as a priest of the Church to 101 make such a declaration of marriage. It is the State that is willing to take my word (signature) for it and, thereby, also recognize the couple as married, for the purposes of the State of North Carolina. I am actually grateful that I can go about my business as a priest of the Church and spare the couples I marry the added burden of appearing in front of an actual agent of the State and making what they want to consider holy vows in what is in fact a secular context.

I believe we should appreciate the clergyperson's signing of marriage licenses as a benevolent opportunity afforded by the State which chooses to uphold as valid what we define marriage to be, in at least most, though maybe not all cases. My willingness to sign a marriage license provides legal protections to the persons I marry which benefits them, and which the Church itself could never begin to enforce. The fact is that marriage laws, at their best, are intended to protect both parties, and especially the most vulnerable parties. In fact, the legal difficulties raised by the prospect of divorce provides a kind of check against a couple seeking to break up when the going gets rough. Maybe not the most elegant or pastoral of checks, but a deterrent all the same. The legal protections also serve to enforce justice, when, for example, a breadwinner abandons his spouse and children and seeks to pay no support. We may wish the Church could provide such protection. We should confess our failures to do all in our power to support these two persons in their marriage. But we are not compromising ourselves to appreciate the role the State plays in protecting marriage partners.

In the case of those who seek only a religious covenant, one framed solely along sacramental commitments and without a legal documentation - I say, "be careful what you ask for." Who will become the arbiters of property, the protectors of children and other important issues when such marriages fail? The priest? The congregation?

Now, of course, I realize that not everyone is granted the legal protections and benefits of State-recognized marriage. I recognize that many wish that same-sex couples should be so included. I am one of those. As I see it, there is much hard and valiant work being done to see that the dignity and full humanity of LGBT people are completely respected by Church liturgy and polity as well as by civil law. But I don't believe the decision by an individual, a diocese or a national Church to 102 cease signing marriage licenses is a particularly effective way to achieve this goal.

Conclusion The State of North Carolina may not dictate to the Church how we are to celebrate our sacraments. State law does define the terms of marriage the state will accept. In the past state law did not recognize the marriage of an inter-racial couple, and the current laws do not allow for same-sex couples. That does not mean that such couples have not known the nuptial blessing of God, mediated by a member of the clergy. Now, clergy who perform marriage ceremonies without signing a marriage license do run certain risks, as do couples who choose to marry without a marriage license. Caveat emptor.

However, in the case of those persons who are now eligible to receive a marriage license, if the State chooses to accept my attestation that a service of Holy Matrimony has taken place according to the terms and conditions of the Episcopal Church, then I accept this as both a sign of the State recognizing my religious freedom to perform the rites of my Church. Moreover, by having the vows, blessing, witnessing and of the essential elements of the complex covenant and contract which is a marriage take place within the context of the Church community, we are protecting and upholding what we believe marriage to be over and against secular/statal concepts.

Of course the struggle is that the State is not yet prepared to recognize the unions of gay couples as marriages, while at the same time some of those couples seek the Church's blessing. Until the time comes, and I hope it does, when the State does recognize the unions of gay persons as marriages, I believe the Church is correct to pursue its pastoral sacramental responsibilities internally.

As Christians, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God first, but citizens of the State as well. The exercise of these two complimentary and sometimes conflicting citizenships takes discernment and courage. But, in the case of signing a marriage license, we can exercise both citizenships with integrity.

July 1, 2004

My brothers and sisters in Christ:

I do hope that you are finding time for some rest and recreation this summer. I am enclosing a Pastoral Statement from me to the clergy of our diocese. The statement concerns blessings of committed life long unions of persons of the same gender in the Diocese of North Carolina.

I offer this to provide some pastoral guidance in this area of ministry, placing my comments at last year’s clergy conference in a more formal context. This is not a Pastoral Letter that must be publicly read or distributed, but a pastoral statement to guide and assist us all in our common life and ministry. Please feel free to use this statement in ways that will be helpful to you in the exercise of your ministry. We will make opportunity for discussion available as it is needed.

May God bless and keep you and yours. I remain,

Your brother in Christ,

Michael B. Curry

A Pastoral Statement from the Right Reverend Michael B. Curry To the Clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina July 1, 2004

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another. John 13:35

I am writing to offer some guidance to the clergy of our Diocese with regard to the blessing of committed life long unions of persons of the same gender. I would like to do so by placing this ministry in the context of the mission of the Church, especially our pastoral calling to be a community of God’s reconciling love and compassion, as commanded by our Lord. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another.

The catechism of the Book of Common Prayer reads, “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP, pg. 855). Living that mission of restoration and renewal is how we share in God’s dream, purpose and mission for creation, which is to establish communion and relationship among God, humanity and all creation. This is the ministry of reconciliation; it is the work of God’s reconciling love (see, for example, John 12:32; 2 Corinthians 5:16- 20; Ephesians 1:9; Colossians 1:19-20).

For us as Christians, that reconciling love has been incarnate and made known most fully in the life, teachings and person of our Crucified and Risen Lord, Jesus Christ (the Gospel). As such the Church is “the community of the New Covenant,” who through our baptism and commitment to the Gospel seek to live God’s reconciling love, following the way of Jesus as his disciples, in communion with God and each other in Christ (The Catechism of the BCP, pg. 854; Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

We are, therefore, called to be a community of faith in which the Gospel of God’s reconciling love in Jesus is lived, shared and witnessed to in the world. As a community committed to living the Gospel, we are called to welcome, honor and love all persons. As a community committed to the Gospel, we are called to be a people whose lives are defined by love and whose community is characterized by compassion and caring within and beyond itself. In this spirit our baptismal covenant asks: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” (BCP, pg. 305)

From my perspective as Bishop, the blessing of the committed life long unions of persons of the same gender is one way our community can live the Gospel through faithful and loving pastoral care and spiritual support for each other.

General Convention Resolution C051 Resolution CO51 of the 74th General Convention of ECUSA on “The Blessing of the Committed Unions of Same Gendered Relationships” sought to address this question. While the resolution is primarily descriptive of where we are as a Church and subject to varying interpretations, it does offer some guidance which may be helpful in our considerations. First, it acknowledges that there are a variety of pastoral practices intended to provide such loving and faithful care and support. The resolution reads, “in our understanding of homosexual persons, differences exist among us about how best to care pastorally for those who intend to live in monogamous, non-celibate unions.”

Second, the resolution reaffirmed our Church’s commitment to certain moral and spiritual teachings of the Gospel which should be reflected in life long committed relationships of Christian people who are of the same gender when it says: “We expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see, in each other, the image of God.”

Third, it “recognized that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same sex unions.”

Pastoral Care and Spiritual Support As I said earlier, the question of the blessing of the committed unions of persons of the same gender is, first and foremost, part of a larger concern for providing faithful and loving pastoral care and spiritual support for members of the Church. It is incumbent upon the Church to be a community that provides pastoral care and spiritual support for all who are part of it, but that does not mean that such care will be done in the same way in every context. For some, that may be a pastoral ministry which includes the blessing of the unions of persons of the same gender. For some, it will not include such a ministry. I am not suggesting that all congregations will be called to exercise this particular ministry of pastoral care. Different contexts and communities where we seek to live the Gospel will call forth different ways of being loving and faithful in our common pastoral call.

For those who do have a sense of call to this particular ministry, however, I am asking that the following guidelines be observed:

If serious consideration is given to the possible exercise of this pastoral ministry, the Bishop should be first consulted and kept abreast of the process in the parish.

As a means of providing pastoral care and spiritual support for members of the Church, this ministry should be undertaken in response to clear and specific pastoral needs within the parish community.

As there are no canonical guidelines to provide a sense of direction for rectors exercising their spiritual ministry in this area, it is my expectation that a decision to exercise this ministry will be arrived at by the rector after wide and extended prayer, conversation and education in the parish and in consultation with the vestry.

This ministry should include agreed-upon pastoral guidelines outlining spiritual expectations in relationships, process of preparation and means of liturgical expression.

The process of preparation and any forms of covenant should be guided by the moral and spiritual teachings of the Gospel about human relationships that were identified in resolution D039 of the 73rd and reaffirmed in resolution C051 of the 74th General Convention which stated, “We expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.”

Conclusion We are called to be a community of faith in which the reconciling love of God that we know in Jesus Christ is made known among us. As followers of Jesus and members of the family of God, we are called to welcome, honor and love all persons. In that spirit and by our care for one another, we as the Church of Jesus Christ can bear profound witness to the truth of the Gospel and God’s vision of reconciling all people and creation to God and each other.

Same-Sex Relationships in

the Life of the Church

Authors:

Dr. John E. Goldingay Dr. Deirdre J. Good Dr. Willis J. Jenkins The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge The Rev. Dr. Grant R. LeMarquand Dr. Eugene F. Rogers The Rev. Dr. George R. Sumner The Rev. Dr. Daniel A. Westberg

Editor:

Dr. Ellen T. Charry

Offered by The Theology Committee of the House of Bishops

Lent +2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ii

Foreword, by the Editor iv

Same-Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology: A View from the Traditionalists 1

A Theology of Marriage including Same-Sex Couples: A View from the Liberals 40

The Traditionalist Response 68

The Liberal Response 77

Epilogue 84

Postscript, from the Theology Committee 86

This study document was presented to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church at its spring meeting in March 2010. It has been edited in several places following the discussion. The responses of several pan-Anglican and ecumenical theologians will be added to this study in the summer, along with some further editing, before a final edition is published.

ii PREFACE

For a generation and more the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion have been engaged in a challenging conversation about sexual ethics, especially regarding same sex relationships in the life of the church. The hope of this work is that serious engagement in theological reflection across differences will build new bridges of understanding.

The Lambeth Conferences of 1988, 1998, and 2008 have urged the churches of the Anglican Communion engage in an intentional process of listening to the experience of gay and lesbian persons and exploring our pastoral ministry to them. There have been sharp disagreements. Communion has been strained. There have been repeated calls to listen carefully to one another, to undertake serious theological work and scriptural exegesis, and to repent of prejudice and injustice towards homosexual persons in church and society, as well as calls to uphold the classic teachings of the church on sexual ethics and marriage.

These two papers and responses are a contribution to this on-going process. This project was commissioned in the spring of 2008 by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, to be overseen by the Theology Committee. The committee subsequently appointed a group of eight distinguished theologians to undertake the study. They represent a broad spectrum of viewpoint and intentionally include a variety of theological disciplines, gay and lesbian persons in committed relationships, and both single and married heterosexual persons. The panel has met several times since the fall of 2008, shared a number of papers, and engaged in sustained dialogue.

Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church is their work. It is designed to be a distinctively theological document, bringing to bear on the questions before us careful scriptural exegesis enlightened by reason and the witness of the theological tradition. It seeks to be faithful to the Anglican way of searching for truth and seeking the mind of Christ.

All debates have at least two sides. Honest dialogue enjoins to listen to both viewpoints with genuine attention and respect. Such an approach has been employed by faithful Christian persons over the centuries, and is the way theological discernment is engaged by the church. Its purpose is both to encourage mutual understanding and to provide wise counsel to the church for its mission.

In this vein, after much conversation, the eight theologians formed two affinity groups consisting of four theologians each and have prepared two main papers. One adheres to what it understands to be the church’s traditional ethical and sacramental teaching about marriage. The other revisits this teaching in order to call for the church’s recognition of faithful, monogamous same-gender relationships. Each affinity group has then prepared a formal response to the other’s work. Their study has been accomplished with a remarkable degree of mutual respect and charity.

ii The purpose of this project is not to create a new consensus or make a recommendation to the church. It is rather to express as fully as possible two contrasting theological views, both rooted in the teaching of the church and in Holy Scripture, in order that we might listen to and learn from both sides of the debate. In keeping with our Lord’s parable about the scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven, the theologians have brought forth from their treasure what is new and what is old. (Matthew 13:52).

The Theology Committee is very grateful to our distinguished panel of theologians for their extraordinary and graceful devotion to this project. Very special thanks go to Dr. Ellen Charry, convener of the panel and editor of the work, and to the Rt. Rev. Joe Burnett, consulting bishop. We are indebted to the Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, Bishop in Charge of the Convocation in Europe, for suggesting that we undertake this study, for which he owes us all dinner in Paris one day.

A number of ecumenical and pan-Anglican theologians have agreed to read and comment on these papers. The final edition will include their contributions.

We offer this work to the church for reflection and response and in the hope that it will both help us live together more faithfully in the midst of difference and contribute to our corporate discernment in these matters. We trust that these papers will make all of us think carefully, regardless of our point of view.

In this, as in all things, may we have the “power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. . .” (Ephesians 3.18-19).

The Rt. Rev. Henry Nutt Parsley, Jr. Chair, Theology Committee of the House of Bishops Lent 2010

iii EDITOR’S FOREWORD

This group was convened to offer a distinctively theological approach to the controversy before us. We acknowledged that our church’s doctrinal foundations are the catholic creeds and we gave special attention to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that we recite at the celebration of the Eucharist. Further, we agreed that most of the doctrinal concerns raised by the controversy over same-sexuality cluster under the third article of the Creed on the identity and activities of the Holy Spirit. These include the sanctification of believers (“the Lord the giver of life), the authority of Scripture (“who has spoken through the prophets”), ecclesiology (“one holy, catholic and apostolic church”), and sacraments and sacramental rites.

Because the sexuality controversy is multi-layered, we realized that we could not address every aspect of it and organized our efforts around marriage. Marriage rather than same- sex blessings came to the fore because the former is lurking behind the latter. Gay marriage is currently contested in California, and legal in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont and is being considered in Mexico City and the District of Columbia in the US. It is legal in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden. The question of the definition of marriage is also before the churches.

In making these decisions we realize that our perspectives may not reflect the thinking of all Episcopalians. Our assignment, however, was not to express the mind of the church but to offer to the church theological terms for discussing the matter at issue and to look ahead at some implications of various courses of action that might be taken. We are not offering our work as a way forward. We are not offering a compromise position that might put the dispute behind us so that we move ahead together. We are offering two interpretations of creedal faithfulness that disagree. What we are doing—and on this we agree—is offering a word to the Episcopal Church, that it and the Communion may grapple a bit more sharply with important doctrinal questions embedded in the debates and their practical consequences a bit more sharply. Our work means to stimulate an ever-clearer grasp of the issues at stake.

Within our creedal framework, we came upon some surprises. Some of us came to the table thinking that the disagreement is about sexual ethics or perhaps pastoral care. Some came with a practical approach; contextual changes in the culture mean that some theological changes should be made by the church to adapt to changing circumstances. Some came thinking that the central issue is hermeneutical—what guidelines do we follow for interpreting Scripture.

The creedal orientation of our work, however, pressed us to locate all these presuppositions under the authority of the “deposit of faith” that sustains the Church in obedience to its Lord. By no means does this mean that the deposit of faith is inured to change, only that the terms on which change is considered be consonant with the historic faith. To put it sharply, we agreed that theology based on the Creed sets the terms for considering extra-theological perspectives that bear on the matters at hand. Neither modern science nor high-minded values, nor personal experience can authorize changes

iv in Christian doctrine but change must be interpreted and treated within logically prior commonly agreed upon creedal categories.

Christian belief and practice are not like a Kandinsky painting that can be thought of as right side up no matter which direction one may view it. To put this in terms of the three- legged Anglican stool, if Scripture and tradition constitute the deposit of faith, reason’s contribution—that includes philosophy, science, culture and experience—will be reviewed within the purview of the other two legs of the stool in the process of reasoned theological argumentation.

As the reader will see, we did not arrive at two symmetrical documents with each side addressing common questions. This is partly because each affinity group came at the issue with different purposes, needs, and perceptions of audience. The work of the traditionalists was overtaken by events in the midst of their work in the summer of 2009. The decisions of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention relating to this issue, and the approval of ordination of clergy living in same-sex relationships by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, pressed the conservatives to frame their work in terms of the precise context in which they now found themselves. Their document took a less doctrinal turn as they not only framed the global context within which they locate themselves but also laid forth their position through doctrinal development, hermeneutics, natural law, and the scientific evidence surrounding homosexuality.

The liberal document takes a quite different approach. It is a bold doctrinal proposal to expand the scope of marriage to include same-sex couples. The argument is that homosexual persons need the sanctification of life that marriage offers no less than heterosexual persons do and that the Church should not withhold from them oversight of sexual holiness but use the means of grace offered in its marriage rites to support them in their life in Christ.

A difficult issue that accosted us is the unity of the church. Whether the ordination and marriage of homosexual persons is a church dividing issue was not one that we sought to address but one that we finally could not avoid. There are two ways of understanding “church dividing.” On a practical level, it is clear that this controversy is causing division in the church, both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The creation of the Anglican Mission in America (now Anglican Mission) in 2000, under the auspices of the Province of Rwanda, and of the Anglican Church in North America, formalized in 2009, attest to the division among us.

Normatively speaking, however, the question is whether the movement of the Episcopal Church away from some classic doctrine and practice—as in ordaining non-celibate homosexual persons—warrants ecclesial division on doctrinal grounds. Does that practice, and now possibly the ecclesiastical marriage of homosexual persons, constitute a doctrinal challenge to the integrity of the faith sufficient to warrant division? Although neither ordination nor marriage are dominical sacraments, sacramental theology would need to be considered in order to ascertain clearly what is at stake ecclesially, pneumatologically and pastorally in fresh applications of ordination and marriage.

v What looks to some as leaving the church is to others being left by the church. If, for example, it is the Holy Spirit who is leading the Church in this new direction, those who demur would be disobedient by remaining faithful to the tradition that they believe to be true, and, in the case of the ordained, that they promised to uphold and honor. It would be ironic if a move to include the disenfranchised effectively disenfranchised others.

Perhaps more discussion on what constitutes a church-dividing issue is warranted. Marriage may not be a core doctrine of the faith—equal in honor with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, or even with the dominical sacraments—but the liturgical blessing of the newly married couple in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 (p. 430), does have an epiclesis, indicating that the celebrant calls for the Holy Spirit to bless the marriage. From this vantage point, one issue is pneumatology, as our discussions bore out.

At this point, a word on nomenclature is in order. As is the case with many controversial topics, language is a sensitive issue here. For example, because the word ‘Jew’ has been used derogatorily, some Christians preferred ‘Jewish person’ or ‘person of the Mosaic persuasion’ or some other euphemism to distance themselves from denigration. Today, such circumlocutions sound quaint. In our case, various terms have been used and rejected as sensibilities have been recognized and addressed over the course of the decades.

We have generally settled on the terms traditional and liberal to designate the two positions taken here. At times, we have used the term conservative as a synonym for traditionalists, and revisionist, progressive, and expansionist as synonyms for liberal. Among ourselves, we have been comfortable with all these terms. Realizing, however, that there will be readers with various sensibilities, there may be no nomenclature that will appeal universally. Still, we have used several of these terms as they help us cultivate the self-reflective spirit and openness to other sensibilities at which our work aims.

In sum, this offering responds to the call for the Episcopal Church to treat the controversy theologically, and we interpreted that call to invite doctrinal analysis that is first faithful to the Creed, the foundation of the Church’s unity, and that interprets Scripture within that framework. Some readers may be unfamiliar with theological terms that generally presuppose formal theological training. We, however, are executing the charge that was given to us in the framework in which most of us have been professionally trained. Indeed, we all agree that our professional scholarly and theological training is to be used in service to the church and not only for the sake of advancing knowledge for its own sake. We invite a patient reading of our work that it may be a constructive contribution to what is now a decades-long controversy. In terms of theological controversies, that is not very long, but to those caught in it it can seem an eternity.

Editor, Ellen T. Charry Ash Wednesday, 2010 Princeton Theological Seminary

vi Same-Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology:

A View from the Traditionalists

John E. Goldingay, Fuller Theological Seminary Grant R. LeMarquand, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry George R. Sumner, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada Daniel A. Westberg, Nashotah House

Part 1

The Social and Ecclesiastical Context

Modern western societies in North America and Europe are increasingly moving towards the acceptance of same-sex relationships. At first people were challenged to accept lesbian and gay partnerships on a political and legal level; but recently and more problematically, Christians are being asked to accept a redefinition of the institution of marriage itself. No longer is marriage to be regarded, in its essence, as a bond between one man and one woman, but as a sexual relationship in which two men or two women may also be committed to each other, and ought to be recognized to have the corresponding rights of support, parenting, adopting, inheriting, divorcing, and the other privileges and obligations which spouses in a marriage have had the right to expect.

We recognize that a remarkable shift in public opinion has occurred in the last thirty years or so in the aftermath of the so-called sexual revolution. Several European countries, including traditional Catholic societies such as Spain, as well as a number of American states have either passed legislation to allow same sex marriage, or have had their courts rule that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is unjust. It is not at all surprising that many Christians who live in areas where these social developments have progressed furthest should attempt to harmonize the attitudes and practice of their churches with those principles of fairness, tolerance, and compassion that are the supporting moral features of the acceptance of same-sex marriage.

If we were assessing simply the drift of European and North American societies, and the Anglican churches there, the picture would be discouraging for conservatives because of the apparent strength of liberalism. However, we remind ourselves that the Anglican Communion as a whole is much more solidly biblical and traditional than the western liberal portion of it, and that the opposition we express in this paper to same-sex marriage is in fact the dominant position of worldwide Anglicanism. Further, we take courage from reflecting on the fact that a slide into lax sexual morals (characteristic of the last fifty years in the west) may be reversible, just as England witnessed a reversal of libertine views of sexual behavior in the seventeenth and again in the nineteenth centuries.

In recent years, the Anglican Communion has struggled with the issue of homosexuality in different contexts, including the Lambeth Conferences (at least since 1988), meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council, and Primates’ Meetings. The growing acceptance

1 of homosexuality in the western sections of the Communion created a context in North America in which the consecration in 2003 of Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire in the USA, and the decision by the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to bless same-sex unions seemed legitimate developments. But much of the rest of the Communion has not shared the conviction of the need to accept same-sex blessing or marriage, so that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada find themselves torn between a sizeable liberal body in favor of accepting a revised view of sex and marriage, and large swaths of the Anglican Communion solidly opposed.1

Ecumenical relations between Anglicans and other denominations are a very mixed bag. Some national churches in Europe (such as the Swedish Lutherans), have predictably reflected the prevailing acceptance of modern secular views on sexuality and marriage, and opted for a “gender-neutral” definition of marriage for church weddings. We note, however, that the recent steps taken by the Church of Sweden have received some rebuke by the leadership of the Church of England.2

Until recently, only a few churches in the United States, mainly weaker and shrinking groups such as the Unitarians and United Church of Christ, had taken the more liberal path on same-sex marriage. By the end of the summer of 2009, however, the scene changed considerably with the passage by a two-thirds majority of voters at the August 2009 meeting of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America of a resolution allowing Lutheran clergy living in same-sex relationships to be ordained and minister in that denomination. It has to be admitted that this development among the Lutherans, with whom the Episcopal Church has close ties, strengthens, prima facie, the credibility of the liberal direction in the Episcopal Church.

On the other hand, it is very clear that other church bodies with which we have nurtured special links because of a common understanding of theology, sacraments, and ordination, namely the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, are distancing themselves from the Anglican Communion on this issue. There is also a vast range of evangelical and Pentecostal churches that differs sharply from the liberal direction in the Episcopal Church. Although some of other so-called “mainline” churches in North America (e.g., Presbyterians and Methodists) have also been moving in a liberal direction, it is not at all clear whether they will be following the example of the Episcopal Church (and alienating their conservative and evangelical constituencies which tend to be larger than ours), or perhaps becoming more cautious about accepting same-sex marriage.

A major problem for liberals in the west has been the negative response to the American

1 It is very likely that if Canada and the USA had not acted first, then certain similar events in Great Britain, Australia, or New Zealand, for example, would have sparked the debate and crisis.

2 See the letter of 26 June 2009 to the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden from the Council for Christian Unity, The Faith and Order Advisory Group of the Church of England Archbishops’ Council, pointing out that the steps taken by the Swedish Church appear to be “a fundamental re-definition of the Christian doctrine of marriage and of basic Christian anthropology.” The document may be found at http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ccu/europe/ notices/replytoabsweden. The recent approval of clergy with same-sex partners by the ELCA leaves the Church of Sweden less isolated.

2 and Canadian innovations on homosexuality from Anglicans in the global south. Churches like the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have long considered themselves sensitive and responsive to issues of racism, injustice, and poverty and they have taken pains over the years to operate as partners in mission with African, Asian and Latin American churches, working for development, education, and peace in so many troubled spots in the world.3 Some liberals appear to have been deeply wounded because those in the global south who also believe in justice and peace have not been willing to accept North American positions on sexuality. In fact, well before the Lambeth Conference in 1998 (at which the vast majority of bishops of the Communion voted in the now-famous Lambeth I.104), there was a re-statement of the traditional Christian position on sexuality which both saddened and angered many liberals. This was the second Anglican North-South Encounter, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which warned that the adoption of liberal policies on blessing same-sex unions and ordaining practicing homosexual persons would be both inconsistent with Scripture and would have damaging consequences for relationships within the Communion.5

It should not have been surprising, therefore, that the non-western response to the announcement by the Diocese of New Westminster that they would go ahead with plans to bless same-sex unions, and to the election, ratification, and consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, has been widely negative. Various provinces of the Communion have attempted to express their displeasure with the North American churches in differing ways. Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, for example, have attempted to cut all ties with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.6 Some have declared themselves “out of communion” or in a state of “impaired communion” with the North American churches, without spelling out the exact implications of what these terms imply. Some have refused to accept money that is tied to the American and Canadian church bodies, or have refused to accept missionaries from them. Primates from some Anglican churches have refused to participate in eucharistic fellowship with primates from Canada and the USA at Primates Meetings; and some provinces, of course, boycotted the Lambeth Conference in 2008. Other churches (Southeast Asia, the West Indies, and the Sudan, for example) have attempted to express

3 Whether the perception of North American Anglicans has matched the reality on the ground is controverted. Willis Jenkins, for example, has argued that one of the reasons that non-western Anglicans have responded so negatively to western Anglican innovations is that Episcopalians in the US, especially “liberals/progressives” have retreated from “international companionship.” See, “Episcopalians, Homosexuality, and World Mission,” Anglican Theol. Review 86/2 (Spring, 2004): 293-316.

4 The Anglican Communion maintains an archive of all Lambeth Conference resolutions. For Lambeth I.10 see, http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1998/1998-1-10.cfm Accessed April 21, 2009.

5 For the “Second Trumpet from 2nd Anglican Encounter in the South, Kuala Lumpur 10-15 February 1997” see, http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/weblog/comments/second_trumpet_from_2nd_anglican_enc ounter_in_the_south_kuala_lumpur_10_15/. Accessed November 19, 2009.

6 We say, “attempted” because relationships between provinces of the Communion exist on many levels. A primate or even a house of bishops in one province may declare that their church is no longer in relationship with another church; it does not necessarily follow that all relationships cease. Ties may continue to exist between dioceses, between theological institutions, between members of international commissions, and between individuals.

3 their opposition to the North American churches by calling for repentance but stopping short of declaring that they are out of communion with the wayward churches in Canada and the USA.

All of these efforts to express displeasure, to declare that communion has indeed been broken, impaired, or endangered, are, as far as Anglicans in the non-western world are concerned, attempts to say that it is the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada that have put the Communion in danger by their actions. Most of the declarations by non-western bishops and synods announcing impaired or broken communion explicitly lay blame for the schism at the feet of the North American churches. The more moderate Diocese of Egypt said of the North American provinces that “by their actions, they have chosen to step out of communion with the Anglican Communion.” The (then) Archbishop of Central Africa wrote, “…you have broken our fellowship. To sit with you and meet with you would be a lie.”7 They believe that their responses are not acts of schism, but attempts to come to grips with the fact that the North American churches have been the ones who have broken communion. Many Anglican Christians in the global south believe that to go forward in fellowship as if nothing had happened would be dishonest, damaging to their Christian witness in their own countries, and harmful to conservative Anglican Christian witness in the west.

The suggestion by some that the non-western reaction is primarily prompted by American conservatives is condescending, implying that Anglicans in the southern hemisphere have been manipulated, and lack independence of thought.8 Numerous factors are involved in the varying degrees of fracture between the North American churches and the non- western churches.9 Non-western Anglicans have mentioned several issues at stake. One is that the new positions of the American churches violate traditional modes of Anglican discernment. In addition, it seems clear to most African, Asian, and Latin American Anglicans that Scripture does not support the new positions. Tradition obviously does not

7 A listing of some of the statements issued after Robinson’s consecration by Anglican leaders from around the world can be found in Chris Sugden’s paper given to the Lambeth Commission entitled, “What is the Anglican Communion For?” at note 19. The paper can be found on the Anglican Communion website: .

8 Miranda Hassett (no conservative herself) has made a careful and judicious study of the relationship between some American conservatives and their African counterparts in the midst of this controversy. See, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Reshaping Anglicanism,” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

9 Many observers highlight the rift between the North America churches and the African churches. Although there is an element of truth to this way of describing the situation, it is not so clear-cut. Not all African churches have declared broken communion as clearly as have Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. The Primates of West Africa and Tanzania were both present at GAFCON, and have expressed displeasure, but have not spelled out the implications as strongly. The Indian Ocean, Burundi, the Sudan, and the Congo seem to have more hope that the Anglican Covenant proposed by the Windsor Report and now in its third draft may heal divisions. On the other hand, the Southern Cone (a Province in South America) seems closer to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria in its response. Asian provinces have expressed a variety of (mostly negative) reactions, but have yet to declare communion to be broken. It would be a mistake to lay the blame on “Africa” as many have done–the vast majority of the global south provinces oppose North American innovations. Most non-western Anglicans agree with the Windsor Report that the Anglican Communion has been damaged by North American actions.

4 align with this innovation, and most non-western observers have a hard time seeing how reason, either, would support homosexual practice. Add to this that all four of the Anglican “Instruments of Unity,” or “Instruments of Communion” have affirmed the requested moratoria, and most non-western Anglicans are left convinced that the liberal argument is without merit.

Before July 2009, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the central leadership of the Church of England were loath to be too critical of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, in the interests of maintaining the bonds of communion. But with the resolutions taken at the General Convention and the evident determination of the leadership of the Episcopal Church not even to agree to a delay in their agenda, the reality of the walking apart from the rest of the Communion by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada became too clear to deny. Archbishop Rowan Williams pointed out the question at issue:

It is about whether the Church is free to recognize same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage. In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years, it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also. A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding. This is not our situation in the Communion. Thus, a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole.10

Further, the influential Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright, who has also hitherto taken pains to attempt a balanced view of controversial statements and developments in the interests of preserving the integrity of the Communion, has pointed to the need to accept the reality of the divergent paths within the Anglican Communion indicated by Rowan Williams’ reflections:

the resolutions that were passed [at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, 2009] clearly had the effect (a) of reminding people that the way was in fact open all along to the episcopal appointment of non- celibate homosexuals, and (b) of reminding people that rites for public same-sex blessings could indeed be developed. The Archbishop of Canterbury is now clearly if tacitly saying, throughout the document, that there is no reasonable likelihood, at any point in many years to come, that the Episcopal Church will in fact turn round and embrace the moratoria ex animo, still less the theology that underlies the Communion’s constant and often-repeated stance on sexual behaviour. Nor is there any reasonable

10 See “Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future,” at http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2502, accessed Aug 18, 2009.

5 likelihood that the Episcopal Church will in fact be able to embrace the Covenant when it attains its final form a few months from now. The Reflections deal with that reality.11

A divide has now developed between the western, largely liberal Anglican provinces (with important conservative sections) of the Communion and the more traditional, non- western global south; and the acceptance of same-sex marriage is merely one of the issues revealing the divide. There are exceptions: some high profile, non-western Anglicans such as Desmond Tutu, support gay rights on the same basis on which they worked for the rights of blacks in South Africa and for an end to apartheid. From their perspective it seems that homosexuals are an oppressed group in need of liberation from prejudice and oppression, and so they would argue (from Exodus and other biblical texts), that Christians ought to side with those seeking equal rights for homosexual persons.

The liberation argument can cut more than one way, however. Numerous church leaders, especially in Africa, see the move to approve homosexual marriage as in itself just one more example of western imperialism. The non-western world has long had to live with economic, political, and social agendas being set by rich and powerful “developed” nations. Foreign aid, for example, has often come with military and political strings attached. The current dispute looks to them uncomfortably like an ecclesiastical form of cultural imposition. Many in the global south see the story which governs the church in North America not as the biblical narrative, but as a modernist story in which, just as the World Bank has been able to define what economic systems should look like in order to supply loans and aid, so the developed Christian world thinks it is in the position to define the nature of progress and well-being for other societies, and to force the acceptance of that understanding onto the rest of the world. So, rather than the Anglican ideal being measured by the attractive-sounding ideals of “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ,”12 the churches of the West act as if they are better able to discern God’s will than their sisters and brothers in the rest of the Communion. When Western church leaders claim that their stand is “prophetic,” or that the Spirit is leading them into this new understanding, the church leaders of the global south immediately ask the epistemological question: “How do you know this? On what basis can you claim to have been given this new revelation? Is it not your wealth and power (and the habits and assumptions which naturally accompany them) that enable you to press this argument?

Conservatives in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada feel a certain dismay at this point in the development of the issues and the crisis in the church. In spite of the lack of clarity on the issue of same-sex attraction on the part of biological and social scientists, and in spite of the wounds caused in much of the rest of the Anglican Communion, and in spite of the clear opposition of Scripture, our leadership is confident

11 Available at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2009/07, accessed Aug 18, 2009.

12 See, E.R. Fairweather (ed.), Anglican Congress 1963: Report of Proceedings (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1963).

6 enough of its understanding of the issue to refuse even a modest delay before proceeding in the same way that secular society is going.

We realize that many leaders of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada see this as the kind of litmus test of moral sensitivity and courage. Slavery was such an issue in the early nineteenth century in the England of Wilberforce, and remained an issue much longer for leaders in the United States. And there have been social and reform movements, such as women’s rights, the rights of workers to safety and minimum wages, not to mention the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when many in the Episcopal Church were socially conservative, protective of the prerogatives of the establishment and of men in power, and thus hesitant to join a movement which seemed to have unwelcome social and political features, and where it seemed easier and more “prudent” to wait.

We believe that there are a number of Episcopal bishops in 2009 who may well have some conservative reservations about moving ahead with same-sex marriage, and are sensitive to the considerations listed above; and yet they lend their support to revisionism, perhaps because they are afraid of being like the two Episcopal bishops in Alabama in 1963 who joined with six other local churchmen in writing an open letter to Martin Luther King, Jr., criticizing him for disobeying established laws and for not having patience to wait for change in civil rights to develop gradually and naturally.13 We believe that many of our leaders would have done well to be more hesitant on moving forward on the issue of same-sex marriage, however. At the heart of our position is the conviction that the issue of same-sex marriage simply cannot be put in the same category as other social issues on which Anglicans and Christians in general have changed their mind. We do not believe that acceptance of gay and lesbian marriage fits neatly into some narrative of successive liberation movements that emancipated serfs, slaves, child laborers, blacks, and now homosexual couples.

When we consider some of the moral issues on which the Church (speaking broadly) has changed its thinking and practices over the centuries, what emerges is not so much a general pattern as the more difficult requirement to consider the rationale for change in an issue-by-issue fashion, and not on the basis of some template of “progress.” Such issues as slavery, capital punishment, usury, divorce, just war, the role of women in society, and (more particularly) the ordination of women to office in the church, as well as others, need to be analyzed and thought through on both biblical and philosophical lines. This takes some careful work, as each issue has its own rationale, pattern of biblical material and its interpretation, and its own distinctive relationship to science and philosophy. When this is done, the case for same-sex marriage does not have the same kind of biblical support and philosophical rationale as women’s ordination and a moderate divorce policy have, for example.14

13 And of course it was King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that pointed out that some laws are unjust of their very nature and need to be changed rather than being put up with indefinitely.

14 The very fact that some prominent denominations such as the Southern Baptists have in recent years shifted from the acceptance of women clergy to opposing them shows that the overall biblical teaching is ambiguous and can support both sides. On divorce, Roman Catholic experts argue that there are good arguments for modifying the view of divorce along the lines of changes in human rights and economic policy; see John T. Noonan, A Church 7 Conservative Anglicans in modern western countries are well placed to take part in this communion-wide analysis and discussion, since they have a stake in both camps, and might be able to function, if not as a bridge that unites, then as a kind of interpreter of each side to the other. They have usually been trained at the same seminaries and have been fostered by the same modern cultures as the more liberal leaders in America and Europe. They understand the pressures and logic behind this development and can to some extent agree and sympathize with it: fairness, compassion, and individual rights are strong moral principles, and compelling forces for change. However, conservatives also share the scepticism voiced by non-western church leaders about the agenda of modern liberals, because so often the attitudes toward a revision of traditional views of sex and marriage are linked with liberal views of biblical authority, theological heterodoxy, and a general tendency to water down the basis and nature of Christian attitudes and way of life. This would generate a Christianity that, by not being counter-cultural enough, becomes unfaithful to the Gospel.

We offer a reflection on tradition. In one sense, the force behind tradition favors current practice, and is against change that is arbitrary or without good reason. In another sense, however, tradition should not have very much force at all if we are considering the case of an institution–including the church!–seeking to rectify a mistake in its understanding. The prohibition of usury, for example, was held for centuries, and came to be seriously questioned both on the adequacy of the interpretation of the few scriptural texts that were thought relevant, and of the philosophical understanding provided by Aristotle on the nature of money. In that case, the evidence to decide the issue comes from reason and Scripture, and not from tradition. In other words, the challenge to change the canon law on usury could not be answered simply by appealing to the many centuries when the prohibition was accepted. Galileo and Darwin could not be answered by appealing to how long the opinions on a geo-centric universe or a recent creation were held—if there is genuine error involved, then of course, it is time for the traditional view to give way.

The basis for conservative resistance to the liberal agenda, then, cannot simply be an appeal to the long-standing tradition of opposition, but must use a strong combination of reason, and Scripture. We apply the framework that Richard Hooker brought to bear on items of contention during the reformation and its aftermath in England. Where the more radical (Puritan) reformers alleged that policies and officials of the church and liturgical practices required scriptural warrant, Hooker articulated a valuable Anglican approach. Where practices and institutions develop in accordance with reason and tradition, and when they are not in contradiction with Holy Scripture, then there is no requirement to abolish such understandings and practices (such as church vestments, hierarchical ministry, and so on). While it may be possible on grounds of justice (in a modern sense) to argue in favor of same-sex relations, it would be in contradiction to the teaching of Scripture, and it would be in contradiction to the guidance from reason which Hooker

that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 161-190. For a general approach and explication of the details of exegesis which underlie a position like ours which accepts women’s ordination and some use of divorce, but does not accept same-sex marriage see Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996), esp. chapters 1,15, and 16.

8 articulated in his understanding of natural law. Though tradition and reason carry weight, they are, finally, not on the same level as Scripture, which must be deemed the decisive factor. In the following sections of this document, we will set forth our position and articulate its basis in Scripture and in relation to scientific knowledge and the philosophical approach of natural law.

Part 2

The Witness of Scripture

The main factor that distinguishes Anglican conservatives is treating the Bible as uniquely authoritative for basic Christian belief and practice. The strong reluctance that we have to set aside what we consider Scripture’s direct meaning may well be the single most important factor in the opposition of Anglican conservatives to the acceptance of same-sex marriage.

We are aware that a strong appeal to scriptural authority invites the charge of fundamentalism, but as we make clear in what follows, we accept critical principles in textual interpretation, and the accusation of “fundamentalism” all too often becomes a rhetorical term to dismiss traditionalist arguments, just as “homophobic” is often used as a short-cut to silence or even demonize those who do not agree with same-sex marriage and the concerns of the gay and lesbian community.

Interpreting the Bible: Ancient Text and Contemporary Message

The process of interpreting the Bible involves reading an ancient text in a contemporary context, establishing a kind of dialogue between very different cultures and life situations. It is awareness of both of these situations–the ancient and modern–and properly balancing them that enables the biblical message to be clearly understood and applied.

Pre-modern interpreters might seem naïve to us, but they took the canonical text to be answering questions that arose in their own context and were not concerned with the questions of different cultural situations. The same phenomenon occurs in western art of the Middle Ages or Renaissance: in a scene of the annunciation, nativity, or crucifixion of Christ, for example, the landscape, architecture, and clothing, are taken from the milieu of the artist, not from what they thought the scenes and figures would have really looked like in first-century Palestine. In fact, it would not have occurred to the artists or their public that “historical accuracy” was part of the task of artistic description of a past event.

The pre-modern reading of Scripture often resulted in a search for symbols, hidden meanings, and allegorical interpretations, such as reading the Song of Songs as a poetic description of Christ and his love for the Church. Pre-modern interpreters thus discovered inspiration and sometimes deep theological insight, although we might say that they sometimes imposed their own concerns onto the text, assuming continuities that did not

9 always exist, and even missing some meanings and emphases in the text that did not fit their own framework.

Modern biblical interpretation developed with the scientific approach of the Enlightenment; it tried to avoid the assimilation of the two contexts, the ancient text and contemporary life. Its aim was an “objective” interpretation, one that understood the text in its own right, and developed the resources to accomplish this: linguistic studies, archaeology and history, comparative religion, and so on. The exegetical task was primary. After exegesis, the interpreter (such as the preacher with a homiletic task) might go on to reflect on possibilities of contemporary application, but it was understood that the “real meaning” of the text stemmed from the objective, exegetical work, and not from subjective interpretation.

Although ideally this modern type of interpretation would better respect the text itself, it all too easily deceived itself about its capacity to distance itself from its own concerns and agenda. Just as pre-modern interpretation did, so modern historical criticism also looked for answers to its own questions, namely, those concerning the text’s historical origins. Then it simply assumed that providing such information (for example, that a certain passage in Exodus comes from a P source rather than J or E) was of primary importance in discerning the text’s significance for us. Such historical exegesis tended to produce tedious commentaries that often lacked theological insight. However, could we have the advantages of pre-modern interpretation (theological coherence and spiritual richness) and of modern interpretation (historical accuracy) without their respective disadvantages?

There are two moves involved in biblical interpretation. One begins from the fact that we are trying to achieve an objective understanding of this text according to its own presuppositions and concerns. There is an analogy here in the process of gaining an objective understanding of another person whom we love. Because of our commitment to them as a person, we want to know them in reality, and not just make them some sort of projection of our own interests. We commit ourselves to understanding them in their distinctiveness, even where we may find them difficult or objectionable. Often we find that when we do that, what seemed objectionable becomes, if not likable, at least understandable. We may then be able to learn from who they are–which does not happen either if we reject them, or if we assimilate them too quickly to what we understand and accept. The significance of modern biblical criticism lies here. It declined to be bound by traditions concerning the meaning of texts and insisted on seeking to discover their inherent meaning. Exegesis focuses on the meaning of texts as acts of communication, and in the process of interpretation, one sets aside the significance of the text for the interpreter, in order to do justice to its inherent meaning. This reflects an ethical principle: recognizing that someone wished to communicate something here, and we respectfully seek to understand what that communication was.

There is also another move in interpretation, another way of understanding what is taking place. There was some reason for our interest in this text (or this person): something drew our attention to it, and persuaded us that it was worth the effort to understand. Moreover, that sense of being drawn in is the way into understanding the text (or the person). The subjective becomes the way into the objective. It turns out to be both an unavoidable

10 hindrance to interpretation, but also its indispensable help. The challenge to interpretation is to maximize this help and limit the hindrance.

One aid to our reading of the Bible is the recognition that it has been given to the whole Church and not merely to individuals. When we read the Bible we read it with other eyes, and not just our own. If we are fortunate, we read it in a congregation with a mix of genders, ages, classes, and ethnicities. But we also read it in the company (which we intentionally bring in) of other eras (such as the fathers or the reformers); of other faith communities (such as Judaism); and of other cultures and contexts (such as liberation theology from South America, and enculturation theology from Asia or Africa). These have the potential to enable us to see things we would not otherwise see, and to recognize previous misperceptions.

The insights of recent feminist interpretation illustrate these dynamics. The pre-modern interpreters (and with some significant overlap into the twentieth century) read Genesis 1 and 2 in light of the patriarchal realities of their own cultures. The creation of Eve as a “help meet” for Adam does not in itself imply subordination to Adam, but that is how the passage came to be read, uncritically we may say, and we have benefited from feminist critics pointing out such hidden cultural assumptions.

Can the challenge of taking a fresh look at our assumptions also be applied to the issue of same-sex relationships? There is, for example, the long association of “sodomy” and homosexuality with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19: 4-11); but it may well be that the point of the story is to illustrate the violence and wickedness of the city in general, and not to highlight a lurid view of homosexual relationships.15

Advocates of same-sex relationships sometimes point to the relationships of Naomi and Ruth, and of David and Jonathan, as possible biblical examples of consensual sexual relationships between members of the same sex. Here there is the obvious difficulty of arguing from an agenda rather than from explicit textual support. But it also exposes the weakness of modern western culture in not being able to foster or even understand deeply committed same-sex friendships that do not involve physical sexual expression.

Liberals often follow the lead of feminists in pointing to the social and religious assumptions built into biblical law. Feminists critique the patriarchal attitudes in Scripture where laws dealing with sexual behavior often have different standards for men and women, and express a pattern of treating women as property rather than as full persons. Similarly, some scholars have argued that the Levitical condemnation of homosexual acts has more to do with purity laws (such as the rules governing dead bodies), or with idolatry (where sleeping with male prostitutes was connected with pagan worship).16 The conclusion is drawn for us that the force of the prohibitions of same-sex

15 Conservatives have different opinions in interpreting this Genesis passage. Robert Gagnon in The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 71-91, defends the traditional interpretation, while Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996), 381, writes that “there is nothing in the passage pertinent to a judgment about the morality of consensual homosexual intercourse.”

16 See William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007).

11 relationships in the Old Testament comes from the concern for ritual purity in a Jewish legal context, and therefore that they are not binding after Christ’s coming and thus do not have the force of universal moral prohibitions.

This “tour de force” style of exegesis has been used by liberals to limit the scope and relevance of all the biblical passages dealing with same-sex relationships. If the prohibitions in the Mosaic Law can be disregarded as simply on the same level as dietary and other ceremonial laws, the New Testament passages can be severely curtailed by other means. In the few passages where male homosexuals are mentioned (e.g. 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10), it can be argued that the context in Hellenistic culture was one of adolescent youths offering their thighs to adult men, and that the real concern was with pederasty and exploitative sex. The clearest and strongest passage, Romans 1:26-27, has been cleverly dealt with by limiting its reference only to those individuals, whether heterosexual or homosexual, who act against their natural instincts and (perversely) engage in erotic activity with those to whom they are not naturally attracted to. In other words, homosexuals who have an inherent same-sex orientation, it is argued, are not in view in this passage, because they act in accordance with nature.

Taking the passages individually, there is some plausibility in the critical reinterpretation (except, we would say, in the case of Romans 1 where the liberal case is specious). A coherent understanding emerges from setting these passages in interrelationship, not least because sometimes they are alluding to one another. Further, setting these various passages in the context of a broader theological framework has the effect of reinforcing the traditional interpretation of the texts. Specifically, Scripture sets proper sexual expression within the context of God’s designing a lifelong exclusive heterosexual relationship as the context for bringing up children.

A full-blown “post-modern” approach, which has been a contemporary reaction against the misplaced confidence of the modern historical critic to be able to grasp the true meaning of a text, tends to give up on the very idea of getting to know the real meaning of a text. This, however, is to throw out the baby with the bath water. There is a certain ethical obligation involved in interpretation: we owe it to the author to try to understand what he or she meant; we also owe it to our forebears in the faith communities who took these writings into their Scriptures and invited us to live by them; and we also owe it to ourselves and to the consistency principle. If there is no such thing as the meaning of the Sodom and Gomorrah story (which is a very different thing from saying that we may have been mistaken in understanding it), then there can be no objection to its being understood as a critique of all same-sex relationships and thus used as a kind of club with which to beat people in same-sex relationships. The fact that sometimes we may be uncertain what Isaiah or Paul was seeking to communicate is no reason for abandoning any attempt to understand what they wrote. Our culture, time and place does enter into the process of interpretation; but that does not prevent us from trying to understand a text (and a person) different from us, one that needs understanding on its own terms.

Using the Bible as a Whole

An important aspect of tradition is that the form of the Scriptures has been determined

. 12 and handed down by the Church as the Word of God. It is not so much that the church councils decided or conferred authority on certain gospel narratives and epistles of Paul, etc., but that the Church has recognized the special authority characteristic that these texts inherently have.

We discern the wisdom (and the guidance of the Holy Spirit) in the pluriformity of the narratives, even where there are overlapping accounts, differing accounts, and slight differences in the presentation and diversity of emphasis. Deuteronomy, for instance, covers some of the same material of the law and covenant as earlier sections of the Torah, but with a different context and purpose. In the New Testament, the four Gospels have much material in common, but also different themes and emphases, as well as individual unique material.

To minimize the problems of proof-texting and to secure the most faithful interpretation, we must be attentive to the witness of the whole of Scripture: not merely assembling the full range of relevant texts on a topic, but treating them in a way that is consistent with what we know of the basic theological themes and principles, and especially in accordance with the teaching and witness of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God.

Jesus and the Torah

In Matthew 5, Jesus makes a series of declarations beginning “You have heard…but I say to you….” These declarations take up statements in the Torah and comment on the way it was or might be interpreted, or on how its requirements need to be taken further. In criticizing anger as well as murder, lust as well as adultery, Jesus does not tell his disciples that they may now ignore the commandments, but refers to attitudes that may motivate behavior. Matthew 5.43 is more puzzling, as there is, of course, no requirement, in the Torah that people should hate their enemies.

There is some irony about the fact that these declarations in Matthew 5 appear in a chapter that contains strong statements about the abiding significance of the Torah. Jesus declares that he has come not to annul the Torah and the Prophets but to bring them to fulfillment; people who attempt to revoke any of them or teach other people to do so have a very low place in the kingdom of heaven, while those who observe and teach them have a high place (Matt 5:17-19). This fits with other aspects of the way Jesus refers to the Torah, such as his repeated affirmations “It stands written” during his testing in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11). Jesus takes the same attitude to the Jewish Scriptures as any other Jew.

How does “fulfillment” of the Torah come about through those pronouncements that involve declaring, “You have heard. . . but I say to you”? In some instances, this fulfillment comes about through the interpretation of an individual requirement of the Torah. Leviticus itself makes clear that the requirement to love one’s neighbor implies loving one’s enemy. If the average Israelite has enemies, they will also be neighbors, that is, people in the village: those who steal or harm one’s animals, or accuse one of wrongdoing, or seduce one’s daughters—these are the ones who will be one’s enemies. Thus, in Leviticus 19:18 the command about loving one’s neighbor follows an exhortation about not taking redress or bearing grudges against people, and it suggests the principle involved in these acts of self-denial. Taken in isolation, loving one’s neighbor 13 could mean that one was free to dismiss or attack one’s enemy; but Jesus makes explicit what is implicit in the Torah by declaring that it implies having concern for and a forgiving attitude towards one’s enemies in the community. He thus fulfills or “fills out” the Torah.

In some of his comments on Torah passages, Jesus declares that the requirements of the Law are more demanding than conventional interpretation suggests. For example, in Mark 10:2-8 when some Pharisees want to know his attitude to divorce, he asks them what the Torah says. They refer to Deuteronomy 24, which requires a man to provide a woman with papers to indicate her status if he divorces her. Jesus responds by declaring, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this command for you. Yet, from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” When the disciples ask him further about the matter, he declares that anyone who divorces their spouse (unless it is because of porneia, Matt 19:9 adds) and marries another commits adultery.17 Jesus thus sets verses from Genesis 1 and 2 alongside the verses from Deuteronomy, draws attention to the clash between them, provides a principle for understanding the clash, and suggests how a disciple should behave in this connection (though in Matthew 19 he recognizes that not everyone will be able to live with his teaching on the question).

Jesus thus suggests a basis for interpreting Scripture: we are to evaluate scriptural perspectives according to the way they reflect God’s vision in creation, along with the possible provision for human hardness of heart. It is possible to see the same critical principle implicit in his exhortations concerning anger, lust, lying, and revenge. A ban on murder, adultery, false oaths, and excessive retribution do not go far enough, because they fall short of the standards implicit in God’s creation. Indeed, one might then see Jesus’ entire teaching as expounding what it means to be a real human being who lives according to the vision of the Creator, as he makes explicit in his distorted comment reported by the evangelist on loving enemies (Matt 5:45). The Torah does not begin with the concrete commands in Exodus to Deuteronomy that make allowance for human willfulness. It begins with the vision in Genesis 1-2, and Jesus fulfills the Torah partly by reaffirming its vision, indicating its implications, and challenging his disciples to live by this vision. As other prophets do, Jesus clarifies the evangelists’ interpretation of the implications of the Torah.

According to the evangelists, Jesus’ interpretive principle comes from inside the Torah, to reflect its inner meaning and purpose. The comments of Jesus on aspects of the Torah that make allowance for human hardness of heart do not imply that he is de-canonizing or relativizing sections of the Law. Indeed, that aspect of his evaluation reflects an emphasis in Deuteronomy on the reality of human stubbornness, as the four evangelists saw it.

Regarding our issue of same-sex relationships, the question might arise whether in our present context Jesus might say either “You have heard…. but I say to you,” or, “Moses because of your hardness of hearts,” and if so, what he would mean by these statements. Is same-sex attraction a divine gift from creation parallel to heterosexual attraction, or is it one manifestation of the way we have all been affected negatively by the world’s

17 See also Matthew 5:32. 14 sinfulness? In isolation, the restrictive regulations in Leviticus and the negative comments in the epistles about same-sex acts might be read either way.

Might same-sex relationships go back to God’s creation intent and have the same theological and ethical status as heterosexual relationships? This would fit with the fact that such relationships seem as “natural” to some people as heterosexual relationships seem to other people, yet it can hardly be reckoned to fit with the Torah’s own vision of creation and of what is “natural” in the way that is the case with a forswearing of anger, lust, swearing oaths, and forgoing revenge. Jesus points out that the opening chapters of the Torah describe God making humanity male and female and describe a man leaving his parents to be joined to a woman. It is hard to see how this could fit with the idea that a same-sex marriage is just as valid a creation reality as a heterosexual marriage.

The argument is often made that the scriptural treatment of chattel slavery, the subordination of women, and the prohibition of usury are moral issues where subsequent reflection and experience led to genuine change in the Church’s teaching, and that the question of same-sex relationships poses the same kind of challenge to accept the wisdom of a new perspective. However, this comparison really does not work. With regard to the subordination of women, it is explicit in Genesis 3 that men’s ruling over women came about as result of human disobedience rather than as an original intention of creation. Texts that require the subordination of women can therefore plausibly be seen as concessions to human sinfulness, and reflect the disorder of humanity after the fall.

The same description in Genesis 1:27 of humanity made in God’s image in turn leads to a description of humanity’s vocation to cultivate and tend the garden; there is no hint of slavery or servitude in human relationships. Texts in the Torah that later regularize servitude are concerned to constrain an institution that exists because of the fallenness of humankind. The New Testament has been seen as more acquiescent to slavery, but there are texts (e.g. 1 Tim 1:10) that put human trafficking in a negative light. We should regard the apparent acquiescence (not at all the same as approval, by the way!) as largely a reflection of the immense power and apparent resistance to change of the political and legal institutions of the Roman empire within which the Church had to manage.

There are no indications in Scripture parallel to the principles used against slavery, racism and the subordination of women to which we could appeal to demonstrate that God’s creation ideal should also embrace same-sex relationships. Rather, the portrayal of human origins in Genesis points in the opposite direction. There, the centerpiece in the vision of human marriage is not intimacy or relationship or romance but family. The man and the woman will be the means and the context in which the family will grow in such a way as to serve God and serve the land. This point in itself does not exclude same-sex marriages, but it does suggest they are not an equally valid option.

If the Church—or at least a large portion of it in western countries—does actually move ahead on the question of accepting same-sex relationships, it may appear to be following a pattern of moral change demonstrated in the past. In our judgment, however, the reasoning behind this change in viewing marriage and sexual relations will have come more from assimilation to modern culture than from following Jesus in learning how better to understand and live by the Scriptures.

15 Canonical Interpretation

Another way to describe critical interpretation is to think in terms of a canon within the canon. Though this is an ambiguous notion, there are several ways in which it may function. It can (for instance) designate those parts of Scripture that a particular group takes with ultimate seriousness, a kind of practical canon within the formal canon. Such an informal and possibly unconscious recognition of a canon within the canon can be a way to understand Scripture, but needs to be open to revision. Second, the canon within the canon can denote the material within the canon that one views as actually true and binding, over against material that reflects human misconceptions and to which we are not bound. Third, the canon within the canon can denote the material that expresses the most central or clearest insights, which provide clues to understanding other material without implying that this other material is less binding. Canonical interpretation then reminds itself that the canon itself still is the actual canon. The greater attention paid to interpreting portions of the Bible in the light of the themes and concerns of the rest of the canon of Scripture has been spurred on in part by the work of such biblical scholars as Brevard Childs.18 Our concern is to take the whole of Scripture seriously. How do we do this in connection with same-sex relationships?

The attempt to discover what the Bible has to say about same-sex relationships involves looking to it for answers to questions it does not pose, at least not in the form we want to ask them. The notion of same-sex marriage did not exist in Scripture or in its contemporary contexts. To the church, the idea of the Scriptures being the canon implied that they offer enlightenment on issues other than ones they directly discuss. The discussions of various issues from within Scripture suggest frameworks and paradigms for considering other issues.

The first chapters of Genesis were not written to provide a description of the - mechanics of the process whereby the world came into existence. It is a misuse of Scripture to force it into a scientific framework foreign to its outlook. On the other hand, we realize that “in Main Street America, evolution is often interpreted as a creation story for atheists,”19 i.e., many people who believe in the theory of evolution do so because they believe that by its nature it excludes any need for God (of course, many other people recognize that by its own nature it does not do so). In that context, it is quite appropriate to read Genesis 1 in a way that emphasizes what it says about the process whereby the world came into existence, such as the fact that God was involved, that it was systematic and organized, that it issued in a good world. It is not inappropriate to put some emphasis on aspects of Genesis 1 that say something in response to our questions as well as to those of people such as Judeans living in Babylon in the sixth century.

The practice of tithing and the observance of the Sabbath provide examples of the ongoing process of interpretation of Scripture within the community. Through the Old

18 See B. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970). See also Richard Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, who stresses the importance of looking at the whole canonical witness of the Bible in using it to address moral issues.

19 Karl Giberson and Donald Yerxa, Species of Origins (Lanham, MD: Rowman, 2002), 58.

16 Testament and at least into the Gospels, there is never any question that these observances are expected of the people, but what they mean changes. Thus, tithing in Genesis 14 starts as a recognition of achievement and as such a common Middle-Eastern practice, and a natural human instinct. In Jacob’s story (Gen 28:22), tithing becomes a response to God’s promise, though perhaps one conveying some irony as it is a way of appearing generous. In Leviticus 27:30-33, it expresses an acknowledgment of God’s giving; people cannot claim credit for tithing and need to beware of evading its demand. In Numbers 18:21-32, it is a means of supporting the ministry. In Deuteronomy 14:22-29, it also benefits the needy. In 1 Samuel 8:15-17, Samuel warns of how tithes will be claimed by the king, suggesting more irony; demanding tithes is a means of oppression. In Amos 4:4, tithing is accompanied by self-indulgence, suggesting yet more irony; tithing a means of evading real commitment (cf. Matt 23:23). In Malachi 3:8-12, it becomes an index of whether people are really committed to God and therefore the decisive factor in whether they experience God’s blessing. It is no surprise that in many churches, it can seem to be the pastor’s favorite text. Yet this means tithing is in danger of being merely a means of our paying for services rendered and for our church buildings to be kept ambient.

Instead, we might ask a different sort of question. In light of the way God inspired the community to see so many different meanings in tithing within Scripture, perhaps western Christians might tithe for the provision of nourishment, education, basic health care in the poor sections of the world, and expect that perhaps to issue in God blessing us. This would radically confront (and perhaps imperil) the financial foundations of standard North American church life.

In a parallel way, the Old Testament always assumes Israel must observe the Sabbath, but the significance of doing so keeps changing. In Exodus 20:8-11 it reflects the pattern of God’s work as creator. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15 it reflects the pattern of God’s deliverance of serfs from Egypt. In Amos 8:4-7 it confronts the desire of merchants to make money. In Isaiah 56:1-8, it provides people such as eunuchs and foreigners with an identity marker for commitment to the God of Israel. In the modern West, we could see the Sabbath in tension with a mentality shaped by consumerism, efficiency, and constant activity, thus constituting a radical confrontation with the foundations of the culture.20

Seeing the significance of Scripture for our world combines a kind of left-brain process and a right-brain process: one is linear and exegetical, undertaken as an attempted exercise in objective study, while the other is imaginative and intuitive, undertaken in light of current issues and experience. The two of course complement each other. Investigating the significance of tithing or the Sabbath within Scripture, utilizing critical and exegetical methods, is a predominantly left-brain process. Making a leap from what is going on in the ancient text to insight for our own world is more a right-brain process that more obviously involves the Holy Spirit’s inspiration if it is to generate genuine insight. Testing the alleged insight involves a further left-brain process utilizing critical and exegetical methods, analogous to the process for testing prophecy (of which, indeed,

20 See Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 90-99.

17 this is an example). One would have to ask whether the kind of giving for the sake of the poor in the third world as suggested above, with its possible consequence in the neglecting of church buildings and facilities in the west, fits with the teaching of Scripture as a whole. One would likewise have to ask whether encouraging people to work less fits with the teaching of Scripture as a whole.

Can we then find a plausible canonical reading of the Scriptures in which a positive view of same-sex relationships has a place? We think this is highly dubious, and the next section below provides a summary analysis of the texts to demonstrate this. To speak of interpreting Scripture canonically involves some redundancy. By definition, Scripture is a canon, and the church’s canon is Scripture. It is its key resource and final norm. The question seems to be whether our church is able to let Scripture function in that fashion in dealing with the issue of same-sex marriage, or whether the issue will be determined more by cultural and political pressures.

Summary of Biblical Teaching on Same Sex Relationships

There is force and clarity from the texts of Scripture that we set out together. First, there are important texts that underscore the basis of marriage as between a man and a woman; second, the texts that forbid same-sex relationships should be read in this context.

Marriage Texts

In Genesis, we have familiar texts summarizing the place of man and woman in God’s creation plan. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV): “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

There is in the text an obvious emphasis on the connection of all humanity to the image of God. The fact that God created humanity as male and female stresses that both genders constitute humanity, and share in the reflection of the image. This much can be confidently stated. It is a more controversial and perhaps tenuous argument to attempt to link the definition of the image of God directly to the male-female relationship in the way that Karl Barth did when he identified the complementary relation between man and woman as constituting the imago Dei.21

It is fair to conclude from the context that the mention of male and female has to do with the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation. There is a link to dominion in v. 26 and then to the fruitfulness of humankind emphasized in v. 28—the blessing of humanity and its proliferation is implied in the creation of male and female. Anglican biblical scholar Gordon Wenham has commented: “Here then we have a clear statement of the divine purpose of marriage: positively, it is for the procreation of children; negatively, it is a rejection of the ancient oriental fertility cults.”22

The text from Genesis 2:24 is explicitly about marriage: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” The phrase

21 Barth was trying to stress that the individual human being does not possess the imago Dei as the quality of rationality, and so on, but as a person-in-community. See Church Dogmatics III. 1, 183-206. 22 G. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Dallas: Word Books, 1987), 33. 18 “clings to” or “cleaves to” suggests that marriage should be characterized by both passion and permanence.23 Man and woman becoming “one flesh,” has a multi-faceted implication: the physical sexual union itself, the children conceived in marriage, the spiritual and emotional relationship that it involves, as well as the new set of kinship relations established by the marriage—all are indicated by the resultant “one flesh.” This perspective on the one-flesh aspect of marriage is the basis for the subsequent provisions in the Mosaic Law for kinship and remarriage.24

In the New Testament, we have in Mark 10:1-9 (and parallel in Matt 19) a reaffirmation of the principles of marriage according to God’s will, as Jesus’ citation from Genesis includes both Gen 1:27 and 2:24. This is an important reaffirmation of the continuing basis for marriage under the new covenant.

The concern in the teaching of Jesus is centered on divorce, and we must take seriously (especially in the Markan version where there is no exception clause as found in Matthew) that divorce ought not to take place. “The marriage ethics of the kingdom of God must be based not on a concession to human failure, but on the only pattern set out in God’s original creation of man and woman.”25

Although in concise format, we have some clear characteristics of marriage delineated in these verses from Genesis and Mark:

Between male and female Connected to children and fruitfulness Passion and commitment (emotional and institutional weight) To be considered permanent

How are we to consider same-sex relationships in the light of these creation principles? From a strictly logical point of view, describing God’s intention as a man and a woman leaving their parents and cleaving to each other does not necessarily prevent a same-sex pair from fulfilling the last two characteristics here, namely passionate attachment and permanent commitment. The connection of marriage, in God’s plan, to the fruitfulness of humanity through the creation of children and families, however, would imply an important lack of an essential characteristic.

Texts Forbidding Same-Sex Relations

There are only a few texts, but in the words of Richard Hays, these “are unambiguously and unremittingly negative in their judgment:”26

1 Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The act of a man lying with another man “as with a woman” is categorically prohibited—note that the act in general is proscribed, and that it is not relevant to consider the motivations for the act (exploitation, prostitution, and so on).

23 Ibid. 71. 24 Ibid. 25 R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 388. 26 Hays, Moral Vision, 381. 19 Arguments that this is a purity law (where the concern is ritual purity rather than a fundamental moral principle), or that many aspects of the Old Testament are irrelevant in the new covenant after Jesus are considerably undercut by Jesus’ own affirmation of Genesis 1:27 and 2.24 in Mark 10.

2. Romans 1:18-32. Here Paul is reflecting on the purpose of creation, and the tendency of human beings to turn toward creating their own objects of worship. Humanity’s unrighteousness consists fundamentally in a refusal to honor God and render him thanks. The human race has neglected the evidence of God and turned to idolatry.27

For Paul, one dramatic example of this reversal is the love of male for male and female for female. The reference to God as creator (v. 26) would automatically invoke in readers the creation account, especially Genesis 1:27 that links creation of humanity in the image of God with their creation as male and female.

We may observe the following: (1) Paul’s overarching purpose in the early chapters of Romans is to argue for the universality of sin. The point is not to isolate homosexual practice as a special type of sin. (2) Also, Paul points specifically to the form of the homosexual relationship, its inversion of the created order, as a sign of this larger condition of fallen humanity. In so doing, he refers to lesbian couples as well to male homosexuality. This point effectively answers the liberal argument (see above) that the condemnation of homosexual relationships in the New Testament is really about pederasty or abuse of power in unequal relationships, because the context will not support such a narrowing of Paul’s concern.

The Pauline phrase “God gave them up” occurs three times, indicating that the condition fallen human beings find themselves in is a natural consequence of turning from God. Contrary to the impression many have of God sending further punishment on those who disobey, the picture here in Romans is that sexual perversion itself is a kind of punishment for abandoning the ways of the true God,28 rather than a specific punishment for the perversion. Thus idolatry, the major theme of the passage, finally debases both the worshiper and the idol. The creature’s impulse toward self-glorification ends in self- destruction. “The refusal to acknowledge God as creator ends in blind distortion of the creation.”29

3. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:10. In these passages, those who practice homosexual behavior are included in lists of the kind of persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Both passages use the term arsenokoitai , a term not found prior to its appearance in 1 Corinthians 6, but seems to refer generically to men who lie with other men as with a woman, thus echoing the condemnation of Leviticus.

In addition to arsenokoitai, Paul in 1 Corinthians 6.9: refers to malakoi, which was a common slang term in Hellenistic Greek for the passive partner in gay sexual relationships. The use of both terms here is another rebuttal to the liberal argument that the chief concern in these passages concerned pederasty, a point that would be more

27 Hays, Moral Vision, 384. 28 C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 126-7. 29 Hays, Moral Vision, 385. 20 convincing if the consistent term were malakoi. To discern the larger point being made in these passages is the point. The one-flesh pattern of heterosexual marriage in Genesis was the background for the descriptions of sinful behavior in the letters to Timothy, to the Corinthians and to the Romans. Because homosexual behavior was more common in the Greco-Roman world, there was a need to update and expand the list of actions contrary to the Decalogue by including homosexual behavior along with theft, adultery, and so on.

In 1 Corinthians, we have the context of the kingdom of God. Those who habitually are adulterers, idolaters, thieves, drunkards, and greedy in character, are not going to inherit the kingdom of God. Thus, we see not just a catalog of current vices, but a theological chain linking the will of God in creation, to the qualities of character expected in the coming kingdom, clarified by reference to the Decalogue.30

Scripture and the Larger Picture

A number of the arguments in favor of the blessing of same-sex unions acknowledge the reality of sin and the promise of resurrection life, but rely upon a stark contrast between the old eon and the new in which Christians live. Some liberals appeal to Acts 15 and the council of Jerusalem, for example, arguing that the situation of contemporary Christians is held to be analogous to that of Peter, who has a revelation of the new salvation- historical moment that makes it possible to move past outmoded norms. Similarly, appeals are sometimes made to Paul’s claim that we in Christ have transcended the differences between “male and female” (Gal 3:28), and this fundamentally changes rules governing sexual relations. Or, consider the much later argument that many of the Torah’s requirements may be summed up as temporary ceremonial laws which Christ has come to abolish (here making the Levitical prohibition of same-sex relations analogous to the regulations about impurity is a standard strategy).31 Christians ought to understand the resurrection to be the renewal of the created order, but that this created order retains its meaning and form; it is, after all a created order. What has been done away with is the futility of sin, our inability to restore our damaged relationship with God. Now this continuity of the created order includes human nature as it was created by God, and so also the divine intention of the union of male and female in one flesh which entails the social, psychological and physical union, including the fruitfulness of childbearing as part of the order of creation. The citation by Jesus in Mark 10 (and parallels) of this passage from Genesis is highly significant in reaffirming the perpetual continuity of this principle of creation.

Living in the hope of the resurrection of the body reminds us that God is restoring creation, not abolishing the old, and replacing it with something very different. The world

30 David Field, ”Homosexuality,” in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (InterVarsity Press, 1994), 451-452.

31 So William Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007).

21 that God is and will be renewing retains its intended shape.32 Now in the “in-between” time in which we live, this process is incomplete, and we still need the guidance and the reproof of the Law, for we still struggle to live into the new world God has granted to us (so Romans 6). Christians are not saved by the law, but by God’s grace; yet the Christian life is not antinomian, because the law has an instructive and illuminative function.

It follows then that when we think about marriage and family we need to think about God’s work in creation and His work in redemption as aspects of a single gracious intention for us. As St. Irenaeus struggled against the Gnostics, we hold creation and redemption closely together. This is no less true when we think about the gift of marriage within the new dispensation of grace. Here the key passage is of course Ephesians 5:31- 32: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will be one flesh. This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.” Here Ephesians33 gives us a new and spiritual meaning for marriage, for it is to be a living symbol of the love that Christ has for His Church. The fact that Paul obviously refers to the familiar Genesis text as Jesus did is important in signifying that the expanded spiritual meaning and signification of marriage is firmly rooted, and grows from, the inherited “one-flesh” physical-spiritual reality of creation. Male and female are not transcended; the mystical signification of marriage cannot support Gnostic dualism, or utopian reorganizations of sexuality and family life, or the current desire for same-sex marriages: husband and wife (plus progeny) is the pattern for sexuality to be discerned as God’s revealed will.

Part 3

Discerning the Sexual Patterns in Creation:

The Theological Use of Science and Natural Law

In the marriage rite in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, we find in the opening address of the priest to the man and woman to be married, reference to God’s establishment of marriage in creation, Jesus’ presence at the wedding in Cana, and the mystical signification of the relationship between Christ and the Church. The meaning of marriage pointed to by the rite combines the union of husband and wife on all levels: social and relational, psychological and spiritual, and physical and biological. Reference to the procreation and nurture of children is integral and essential to the biblical meaning of the union in one flesh of husband and wife.34

The proposal to adopt same-sex marriage is not simply a matter of drawing the circle of eligibility a little wider to include those who are attracted to members of their own gender

32 Oliver O’Donovan has been eloquent on this theme in many of his works, including especially Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics, second ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994). 33 We are aware that there is some scholarly doubt about Paul’s authorship of Ephesians, but prefer to take the well-supported traditional position. 34 The inclusion of the phrase “when it is God’s will” (BCP, 423), is an ambiguous modification of the declaration of God’s intention: it may properly be taken to refer to the contingency of age or physical condition of any particular couple; but it would be improper to take the phrase as implying that the procreation of children is something extraneous to or optional in God’s intentions for marriage in general. 22 rather than the traditional male and female pairs. It is to change the nature and meaning of marriage in a fundamental way. More precisely, it is to drop essential aspects of the biblically depicted meaning of male and female marriage, untie the strands of purposes given to us by the Creator, and hold on only to those threads that we find convenient or appealing.

We realize that the methods of contraception and reproduction now available have obscured awareness of the meaning and purposes of sexuality and marriage as described by Christian theology. This is of course merely symptomatic of a much wider shift in western thought from a discernment of meaning and purpose in nature, to an attitude that nature–including our own human nature–is something on which we are free to impose our own will and purposes. This attitude of technological control over a nature that is neutral or meaningless until we impose values and goals on it is deeply embedded in the modern western mentality. That mentality has generated both obviously impressive achievements in areas such as medicine, engineering, and agriculture, as well as greater powers of damage to our humanity and the environment.

When we apply the technological mentality to sexual relations, we get the common modern attitude that there are biological functions, with physiological, psychological, and social aspects, and we as agents decide, based on our own values, what we want to get out of sex and sexual relationships. As Christians, however, we need to think what it means to find in sex and marriage a participation in a creation provided and intended by God for us. That we as creatures have no power to change the purposes inherent in the created order, and to suppose we can devise and impose our own desires and purposes is a kind of Promethean self-deception.

What we offer in two sections that follow is a summary of what can be discerned, for theological and moral purposes, from what we may call the realities of sexual patterns in creation. Because sexuality itself is so multi-faceted, we deal in the first section much more specifically with what is at the crux of our discussion about same-sex marriage: the state of scientific knowledge about homosexuality and same-sex attraction. We aim to show that the certainty common in modern western society, fostered by the media and the educational establishment, about the origins and nature of homosexuality does not reflect the ambiguity characteristic of the studies of specialists in the field.

In the larger section that follows, we deal with homosexuality from the perspective of natural law. This approach is of course philosophical rather than “scientific” in the modern sense, but is also based on reason in that it seeks to discern patterns from the created order in philosophical and theological reflection. The concept of “natural law” is easily misunderstood, and we take some care to avoid misconceptions and exaggerated claims.

Homosexuality and Science

In the general public and in mainline church circles the support of the homosexual agenda is based on the key assumptions that same-sex attraction is common and innate. An important part of the conservative reluctance to accede to this pressure and momentum towards approving same sex marriage is the conviction that the actual evidence to back up a shift in policy is far weaker than many people realize. The prevalence of 23 homosexuality, for example, is often exaggerated to a range close to 10% when 2% would be much more accurate.35

Central to the argument for normalizing same-sex relationships within the Episcopal Church and other Christian groups, is the key assumption that homosexual orientation or attraction to members of one’s own gender is something fixed and innate. Gays and lesbians often report that from the earliest point of sexual interest and self-awareness they find themselves attracted not to the opposite sex, but to their own, and the conclusion is drawn (by themselves and by others) that the causes must have been present from birth.

The liberal argument then goes on to treat such same-sex attractions as natural, i.e., occurring within the natural order, and thus should be considered part of the category of creation. Both the secular versions of celebrating diversity and “gay pride,” as well as the claim of homosexual Christians to be naturally the way they are (“God made me this way”) have convinced the general public that a significant part of the population is simply born with a different set of sexual responses and inclinations which we should all accept as natural, normal variations, and for Christians, part of God’s creation.

This view of the normality and naturalness of same-sex attraction has rapidly secured wide (and unwarranted) acceptance. As a recent example, it is instructive to consider the recent project of two Roman Catholic moral theologians, Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler, since they are arguing for a liberal view strongly at odds with their Church’s official teaching.

Salzman and Lawler provide us with a good example of how people turn the ambiguous state of scientific knowledge about homosexuality into an assumed consensus position to justify their project:

There is growing agreement also in the scientific community that sexual orientation, heterosexual or homosexual, is an innate condition over which the person has no control and that she or he cannot change without psychological damage. In addition, because homosexual orientation is experienced as a given and not as something freely chosen, it cannot be considered unnatural, unreasonable, and therefore immoral, for morality presumes the freedom to choose.36

In a few lines, these authors have managed to work in several highly questionable assumptions and assertions. Even when we set aside the logical confusion between orientation, behavior, and morality in the last sentence,37 we are left with three fallacies

35 The 10% figure has been quoted for more than fifty years since the methodologically questionable Kinsey Report. Some of the difference between the higher and lower figures can be attributed to whether one includes or excludes a large group of those who do not report exclusive same sex attractions.

36 Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press, 2008), 65.

37 Traditional Catholic teaching would see the orientation as unnatural, but not immoral, because it is action and behavior that become the subject of morality.

24 that need correction: (1) that current science points to sexual orientation as basically innate; (2) that the attempt to change orientation is bound to cause harm; and (3) if homosexuality is something “given,” it cannot be considered in the category of “unnatural.” The rest of this section on scientific evidence will counter the first two points, and the section on natural law that follows will clarify what a theological notion of “unnatural” implies, and why this still applies.

Is Homosexuality Innate?

For our purposes in this document, we draw on two helpful summaries and overviews of the literature on science and homosexuality—one from 1994 and the other from 2008. Both of these were provided by practitioners in the field, and provided specifically for the benefit of Anglican discussions of homosexuality.38 Below, (on a separate page) is a chart comparing these two reviews of the scientific literature on the factors influencing homosexuality (abbreviated as HS)

A common perception in the general public (aided by simplistic stories in the press) is that there is probably a genetic cause for homosexuality; and if the “gay gene” has not yet been discovered, research will eventually provide this. The main argument against this, which emerges in the review by David de Pomerai, is the study of identical, or monozygotic, twins. When one twin is homosexual the other twin, since he shares the same genes for height, hair color, etc., ought also to be homosexual (if the genetic theory of origin is to be valid). This is true in less than half of the cases, however, suggesting that genetic influence is of some significance, but not decisive. As Tom Brown summarized, we may accept that there is some genetic basis for homosexuality, but this is not to concede genetic determinism. Parallels suggested by Brown are musical ability and temperamental inclinations toward introversion or extroversion: there is a genetic component, certainly, to temperament and musical talent, but the role of environmental influence and personal psychological processing is also highly important.

In reviewing the various theories to explain homosexual attraction, both studies stress that the evidence does not point to any sort of “gay gene” or one type of biological cause. In fact, it is unlikely to be the case that there is an “innate” causal factor (or set of factors), because the role of environment (psychosocial factors) is also extremely important. The recent de Pomerai overview reminds us to take into account that there are different categories of homosexuals, and that some mechanisms will apply to one category more than another; that there are multiple causes; and that the “relative proportions of these elements in the total mixture” will vary from individual to

38 The work of J. Bancroft, “Homosexual Orientation: The Search for a Biological Basis,” British Journal of Psychiatry 164 (1994), 437-40, summarized by Tom Brown, “A Psychiatrist’s Perspective,” in T. Bradshaw (ed.), The Way Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 137-144. The more recent survey is David de Pomerai, “Biological Mechanisms in Homosexuality: A Critical Review” in Philip Groves (ed.), The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality: A Resource to Enable Listening and Dialogue (London: SPCK, 2008), 268-292.

25 individual.39

The rather agnostic concluding sentences in de Pomerai’s review are far indeed from supporting the common general assumption of homosexual orientation as innate: “Only a complex and highly variable mixture of underlying mechanisms—some biological, as well as some psychosocial—seems adequate to explain the reality of HS in human society, and no single mechanism can claim to hold the key to HS. This is the biological reality with which theologians must grapple.”40 Taken in the context of De Pomerai’s careful assessment of the recent studies and literature, such a judgment should keep us from making arguments and forming positions based on the assumption that all homosexuals are inherently so from birth.

Is Change in Orientation Possible?

The issue of change is more problematic, both in terms of evaluating the evidence, and in terms of the role of agendas and hidden assumptions that shape the research and conclusions. We should note that the American Psychological Association at their (2009) annual meeting strongly cautioned their members about the methods and claims of sexual orientation treatment programs.

Within the past ten years or so, several studies have been made to calculate the effects, both positive and negative, of the programs designed to help those with unwanted same- sex attractions to change.41 Care must be taken in evaluating the studies and data, because of the problems of definition, size of samples, the type of counseling and the ambiguities of the program outcomes. Harrison’s evaluation does not condemn such counseling ministries, but points out the dangers of crude theories, false and exaggerated claims, and poor interventions by insensitive or poorly trained counselors.

The summary conclusion by Harrison points to (1) the possibility of “significant changes” in patterns of unwanted same-sex attraction, with a conservative estimate in the 10-15% range, and (2) a larger proportion who are able to bring their unwanted same-sex attractions “into line with their values” in the face of a persisting mix of sexual attractions.42 Harrison rightly reminds us of the very real risk of harm in some cases. This then implies in the accompanying recommendations the need for setting clear and high standards that require informed consent, and appropriate training for counselors in such programs or ministries.

39 De Pomerai, 290. 40 Ibid. 41 The main studies have been by Nicolosi et al. (2000), Spitzer (2003), and Jones and Yarhouse (2007) and are reviewed by Glynn Harrison, “Unwanted Same-sex Attractions: Can Pastoral and Counseling Interventions Help People to Change?” in Groves (ed.), The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality, 293-332.

42 Harrison, “Unwanted Same-sex Attractions,” 328.

26 Assessments of the Theories of Homosexual Origins in 1994 and 2008

Bancroft (1994) De Pomerai (2008)

Genetics There is undoubtedly some HS is unlikely to be caused by a single variant gene. The situation evidence that genetic factors may be more like multi-gene disorders, where a variant gene are of “some significance” or a combination of such may confer susceptibility to the in determining condition, dependent on interaction with environmental sexual orientation, factors and other genes. especially in men. Evidence from studies of identical twins is relevant here.

Nurture There is “a lot of room for Environmental factors are of environmental influences” undoubted importance (psychosocial)

Hormonal By the early 1990s, theories of Slight revival of these theories: hormonal balance in utero were some suggest that female HS Influences no longer considered relevant may be linked to high androgen exposure, and male HS to low androgen exposure. The evidence is “weak and confusing.”

Fraternal Not considered There is an increase in the prevalence of HS among Birth Order younger brothers (no similar effect for female HS). This might be related to the mother becoming progressively immunized against male-specific proteins.

27 Creation, Natural Law, and Modern Culture

So far, we have been proceeding in our argument about the shape of creation, even in this era after the resurrection, by referring to Scripture and thinking about the implications of those words for our Christian lives. But this biblical-theological argument is bolstered by an appeal of a more philosophical sort, what the tradition has called “natural law.”

The theory of natural law, developed in classical philosophy and in patristic and scholastic theology, attempts to account for the awareness of certain general moral principles that human beings have, apart from specifically religious teachings. Human beings have a rational nature, which in the social and moral spheres implies the ability to have purposes and reasons for our actions. This allows us to discern meanings and purposes in the structure of the world we live in, and to draw moral conclusions from reflecting on the nature of human life.43

For Christian theology, the claim of natural law is both weakened and strengthened by scriptural revelation. On one hand, the Bible informs us of the reality of sin and the fall that weaken the confidence that can be placed in the ability of human reason to discern reality accurately and to draw proper moral conclusions. Yet, we note that Paul makes the argument in Romans 2:12-18 that gentiles without the Mosaic Law are still accountable based on some moral knowledge they ought to have.

Yet, on the other hand, natural law is strengthened in that the Christian can speak more confidently about this kind of guidance through natural law because of the knowledge that the reality of the world we are part of has been provided for us with certain purposes and guidelines. Certain meanings and purposes in creation can be discerned from careful reflection on our experience of life and living in the world, because they are expressive of God’s care and wisdom in creation, and allow us to speak about the guidance offered by this kind of reflection as a kind of moral authority.44 Some of these purposes God instructs us about through scriptural revelation, and some are left for us to discern through reflection and reason. The Reformed Protestant tradition distinguished between “special” and “general” revelation to indicate the difference between knowledge through Scripture and knowledge through natural law, and that God as creator is the ultimate source of all truth. The love and wisdom of God lie behind the created order in which we live and allow us as Christians to have more confidence, especially with Scripture, to affirm meaning and purpose in the world. Yet even without a Jewish or Christian perspective, there is order and meaning to be perceived. Oliver O’Donovan, in a recent treatment dealing specifically with our thinking about homosexuality, wrote:

Any purposes God has in making the world are to be discerned in the world; they

43 For definitions, see A. H. Holmes, “Natural Law,” in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 619-621, and Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), esp. 63-64.

44 We have referred above to Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order. See also the discussion of authority and its connection to reality, The Ways of Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

28 are not set apart from it somewhere else. Any discernment of how the world works will. . . be a discernment of the purposes of God. No “presupposition” is required for this discernment other than that it is a morally intelligible world, a world in which there is good and evil to be distinguished, a world fit for humans to act in.45

The moral dimensions of life in this world are thus something that can be discerned by human beings in general. Christians have the important advantage of being able to reflect on this moral reality in the light of God’s revelation in Scripture. We as human beings are able to reason about the nature of human society and government, the meaning and purpose of punishment, the nature of health and medicine, the education of children, the principles of economics, and the relations between nations, to take some examples. The theories and approaches that are developed have sometimes been wrongheaded, of course, and need to be guided, ultimately, by a solid link with the reality and truth of human nature and society.

For Christian thought, there is a mutual corroboration between Scripture, which can be seen as special revelation, and insights from the natural moral order. Where there is an overlap between the insights from the structure of human reality and positive scriptural revelation─for example in the portions of the Decalogue that deal with murder, adultery, lying and stealing─then the rationale of biblical law can be seen to be one of making the conclusions of reason clear and certain.46 From this perspective, the Christian defender of the traditional view of the family has a measure of confidence in the clarity and certainty of the principle that marriage is between a man and a woman not only because this has seemed self-evident to virtually every human society, but also because it is a principle clearly articulated by the creation narrative in Genesis and reinforced in the teaching of Jesus (Mark 10:6-9 and parallels) and in other parts of Scripture.

There is confusion and skepticism surrounding the natural law line of argument in contemporary thought, which is one reason the liberal case seems to carry such force in our time. One basis for confusion is the belief that conservative proponents of natural law are asserting that principles of natural law are inherent in human consciousness (perhaps from birth), and that modern anthropology, multi-cultural awareness, and post-modern suspicion of universal moral claims has invalidated this kind of appeal to natural law. But the traditional teaching of natural law (as in Aquinas) is not based on inherent common human knowledge, but on the accessibility of moral principles to human reflection.47 The preference of Oliver O’Donovan for speaking of “objective moral order” rather than “natural law” reflects the problems associated with the concept expressed in traditional terminology, including the exaggerated claims for natural law made in the recent past,

45 See the important chapter “Creation, Redemption, and Nature” in O. O’Donovan, Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion (Cascade Books, 2008), 86-101, at 96-7.

46 See the discussion of Thomas Aquinas on the old law in the Summa Theologiae, I-II q. 99, a 2.

47 See Summa Theologiae I-II q. 94, a. 4.

29 and with the tendency of many contemporaries to confuse natural moral law with natural laws in a physical or biological sense.

Even with this qualification, the claim that human reason can discern moral principles from reflecting on the world and human society involves the discernment of inherent purposes in the natural order, an attitude or framework of thought that is foreign to modern thought. The conservative appeal to such principles is met with strong skepticism and resistance. The reasons for this are highly important, but complex, woven into the development of the culture of western modernity during the last five hundred years. The development of western science involved a shift away from an Aristotelian teleological view of nature to an inert instrumental view of nature subject to human will. The meanings and purposes of nature, including human beings and their social arrangements, have been regarded in the common modern western view as imposed by human will rather than inherent in the order of things.

If we take, for example, the world’s wealth of land, mineral resources, water, forests, and so on, as so much raw material, simply “there” in existence (which is the common modern view) then it is up to us to decide what to do with them. We impose principles of ownership and use by social and political agreement. What even most Christians have largely forgotten is the conviction─so foundational for Augustine and the church fathers, as well as for Aquinas and the scholastics, because it is inherent in the biblical creation narratives─that the resources of the world were provided by God to sustain humankind in general. To hoard and to squander natural resources, or to ruin or destroy sections of the earth, which from a modern and very common free market and private property point of view are legitimate and part of the “right” of ownership, are really an abuse of the fundamental purpose of God’s intention in creation to make generous provision for humanity in general, and are also contrary to God’s instructions to tend and preserve creation (cf. Gen 2:15).

The most operative influence in the current suspicion of a natural law line of argument (especially as applied to sexual relations) is the discredit stemming from the abuses and false claims made for natural law in the past. The struggle for equality in civil rights in the United States and the world wide feminist movement have both exposed the shabby and self-serving arguments to support racism and male prerogatives on the basis of the supposed natural inferiority of blacks or women’s inability to function as rationally as men. Many of these differences which seemed to many people of the Victorian period to be rooted in nature are recognized by most of our society to be generated largely by social convention or prejudice.

Because the argument for an objective moral order seems to have so little force in modern thinking, many western Christians appear to agree with the position of liberals and well-meaning institutional officials who categorize opposition to same-sex marriage as based on the same kind of ignorant prejudice and unenlightened attitudes which prevailed in colonies established by western nations, in sections of America before the civil rights movement, and in institutions that treated women as inferior.

30 Natural Law and Sexual Relations

A strictly Darwinian point of view would reduce the purposes of sex to the preservation and betterment of the species. To the reductionist social biologist, all the psychological and romantic aspects of courtship and being in love are simply cultural constructs to increase the desire to set aside objections to the difficulties and costs of child rearing, and to fulfill the fundamental biological urge to procreate and enhance the human species. There is one procreative “purpose” to sexual relations, and all the romantic and pleasurable aspects are useful concomitants.

The Christian tradition, on the other hand, when it has more formally reflected on these matters, as in the theologies of Augustine and Aquinas, has discerned in human sexual relations two fundamental purposes: to produce children and to create a special bond of affection and support. In both the modern Catholic language of the encyclicals, and in Protestant ethical thought, these are known as the procreative and unitive purposes.

On the importance of holding the relational aspects of marriage together with procreation, we cite the influential Protestant ethicist, Paul Ramsey (who was an important transmitter to Protestants of many important principles from Catholic moral theology), expressed well this view of sex and natural law: “sexual intercourse tends, of its own nature, toward the expression and strengthening of love and towards the engendering of children. Let us call these two goods, or intrinsic ends, of sexual intercourse its relational or unitive and its procreative purpose.”48 These differ from the purposes of marriage in the Book of Common Prayer in that they are discerned philosophically or by general moral reflection and do not include the additional theological purposes of Christian marriage, remedy for sin, and the sacramental signification of Christ and His Church.

The stories of Genesis bring out both the procreative and unitive purposes: “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28); and the recognition of Adam’s need for companionship (“it is not good that man should be alone,” Gen. 2:18), followed by the creation of a new family unit when husband and wife leave their parental homes and become one flesh together.

The pre-eminence that used to be given to procreation as the primary good (reflected in the Roman Catholic tradition before the encyclical Humanae Vitae49) should be seen as an understandable but regrettable distortion. There is logic in seeing the future of the human species as fundamental and the romantic elements as ancillary or subservient to the purpose of procreation. Thomas Aquinas may give this impression in his defense of the permanence of marriage (and the sin of fornication) based on the lengthy time required for child-rearing and the good of a stable home,50 but in his defense we can note that Aquinas also affirmed the unitive good of marital friendship and the inherent good of sexual pleasure. It is also possible to construct an argument, as Philip Turner has done, defending the permanence and exclusivity of sexual relations based not on the procreative

48 Paul Ramsey, One Flesh: A Christian View of Sex Within, Outside and Before Marriage (Grove Booklet on Ethics No. 8; Bramcote, Notts: Grove Books, 1975), 4. 49 See for example the 1930 papal encyclical Casti Connubii that made procreation the primary purpose, whereas Humanae Vitae considers the procreative and unitive ends of sexual relations as equally essential. 50 Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 154, a. 2. 31 good, but on the relational good, reflecting on the nature of committed human love.51

Where the Christian tradition would have affirmed that the nature of sexual relations implied the inherently dual─and inherently combined─purpose of procreation and marital friendship, the modern view tends to separate these purposes. The blessing of same-sex unions would contribute to the sundering or voiding of this nexus of meaning, and so lead to further confusion about basic Christian views on sexual identities and relationships. However, there are other factors in modern thinking as well. The prospect of over- population and scarcity of resources has changed procreation from a self-evident purpose to fulfill to something that requires special moral justification. This has made it seem all the more reasonable to see the romantic, unitive purpose of sexual relations as completely determinative. With the relegation of any procreative purpose, then the unitive purpose no longer serves child rearing or family life, but instead serves self-expression, personal pleasure, and marital friendship of varying degrees of commitment. Procreation becomes an entirely optional “project” for those so inclined or for those guided by social expectations. The liberal view of same-sex marriage depends on eliminating procreation as an inherent meaning of sexual relations. This allows the liberal to argue that same-sex marriages can embody a kind of complementarity that is based on psychological or social fulfillment or incorporation of the “other” which is parallel to, or a valid variation of, ordinary heterosexual male-female complementarity.52 This is where the conservative response must be firm: the inherent procreative purpose of sexual relationships must be respected and embodied in Christian marriage. This does not require the unnecessarily stringent requirement of respect for procreation in every sexual act (as implied in Humanae Vitae), nor does it imply that a marriage foreseen to be childless (e.g. when the parties to the marriage are beyond normal child-rearing age); but it does, at the very least, imply a marital partnership of a man and a woman. If the procreative purpose of sexual relations is co-determinative with the unitive and social purpose, then it automatically defines the romantic or social marital union as a male- female one, since that is the only union that could, as a sexual relationship, be procreative. In describing the essential relation of man and woman in sex and marriage, Oliver O’Donovan puts the matter in a clear and conclusive way: The dimorphic organization of human sexuality, the particular attraction of two adults of the opposite sex and of different parents, the setting up of a home. . . and the uniting of their lives. . . form a pattern of human fulfillment which serves the wider end of enabling procreation to occur in a context of affection and loyalty. Whatever happens in history, Christians have wished to say, this is what marriage really is. Particular cultures may have distorted it;

51 See “Real Sex” in P. Turner, Sex, Money and Power: An Essay in Christian Social Ethics (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1985), 45-70. 52 See the helpful treatment of the view of sexual difference in the Christian tradition as compared to some modern liberal views in Christopher C. Roberts, Creation and Covenant: The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage (New York: T & T Clark, 2007).

32 individuals may fall short of it. It is to their cost in either case; for it reasserts itself as God’s creative intention for human relationships on earth.…”53 That we suppose ourselves to have moved beyond this, or that we can reconfigure the goods of marriage which can be discerned by natural law, says something significant about ourselves as modern thinkers, and not about the nature of marriage itself, which from the point of view of a theology of creation must remain constant and consistent.

Part 4

Concluding Reflections

There has been a strong desire in recent decades to emphasize an orientation to mission as something inherent and constitutive of the nature of the church. The high-profile issue of homosexuality in our culture is an important testing point of our relationship with contemporary culture and of the soundness of our strategy of witness and mission.

Our discussion of the evidence of science and insights from philosophy on the issue of homosexuality is meant to help us draw practical conclusions and guidelines for a collective decision about same-sex marriage, and not merely to help our theoretical understanding. This then brings us squarely into the forum of our contemporary culture, whether in its modernist or post-modern mood. This realm of culture is of great concern to the church as it tries to engage its context and communicate its message. The standard contemporary terms for describing this area of the church’s relationship to culture have been “enculturation” or “contextualization,” which lead us to pose the question: What would a properly enculturated or contextualized theology of sexuality for the Church in North America look like?

The liberal approach tends to respond to that challenge in a way overly favorable to the surrounding culture. As conservatives, we want the church to be faithful to the Great Commission and to find the best ways to witness to our culture, having in mind the warning and encouragement articulated by the apostle Paul: “do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed in the renewing of your minds…” (Rom 12:2). The issue before us now, whether to approve of same-sex marriage, is for our time a major challenge to the quality and confidence of our Christian minds: do we judge homosexuality in light of the standards of our culture or in conformity with the mind of Christ?

This discernment cannot simply rely upon the growing consensus in the general public and society’s legislatures and law courts to determine our attitudes and positions, because the church needs to be faithful to its own theological criteria for assessment and above all to be faithful to the will of our Lord. The appeal to justice and fairness, which carries so much weight in public opinion and in civil society, should not be the determining consideration.

53 O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 69 (italics added).

33 We should all be more aware of those salient features of our culture as a whole, which unconsciously shape our attitudes, skew our perceptions, and distort our decisions. Through sexuality, modern western culture (as seen in much of its literature, cinema, music, popular culture, consumerism, and fascination with shallow celebrity) seeks a set of goods largely different from what Christian theology wants to affirm. Instead of a proper emphasis on faithfulness and mutual service as the context for affection, sexual pleasure, and family life, the goods desired by our society are often gratification, self- expression, narcissism, and novel experiences. The consumerist nature of modern society affects sexuality by commodifying and depersonalizing sexual experience. The modern technological mentality leads us to treat sex and other areas of responsible behavior as devoid of meaning in themselves, and thus allows us to give ourselves the freedom to impose our own values and needs under the framework of a right to our chosen self- expression. These features of modern cultural attitudes are often heightened in North America where we find even stronger emphasis on individualism and subjective autonomy. Understanding the nature of this intellectual and cultural history is of great importance in realizing why traditional Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality has lost much of its persuasive power.

Where We Are Now

We can set down as a clear expression of our position a section of the “St Andrew’s Day Statement” offered about fifteen years ago by a number of respected theologians in the Church of England:

The primary pastoral task of the church in relation to all its members, whatever self-understanding and mode of life, is to reaffirm the good news of salvation in Christ, forgiveness of sins, transformation of life and incorporation into the holy fellowship of the church. In addressing those who understand themselves as homosexual, the church does not cease to speak as the bearer of this good news. It assists all its members to a life of faithful witness in chastity and holiness, recognizing two forms of vocations in which that life can be lived: marriage and singleness (Gen 2:24; Matt. 19:4-6, 1 Cor 7 passim). There is no place for the church to confer legitimacy upon alternatives to these.54

We also agree with the authors who follow this statement with the recognition that a “certain flexibility” is required in responding to different individuals and circumstances, and to discern ways in which the Gospel touches people in different situations.55

Many readers and observers, both within and outside of the Church, will interpret any provision short of marriage for homosexuals as unfair, lacking in compassion, and

54 “The St. Andrew’s Day Statement” in T. Bradshaw (ed.), The Way Forward: Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 5-11 at 8-9.

55 Ibid. 9. 34 perpetuating attitudes that liberals feel called to challenge and change. In the light of our position in support of traditional Christian marriage articulated above, we believe that the range of legitimate possible pastoral responses, as policy for the Episcopal Church (or for a diocese or parish), is limited. For the individual counselor or parish priest there may be room for some discretion or flexibility, but given that the demand is for same sex marriage, it is difficult to see room for compromise.

There is the option of simply continuing the “policy” of not doing or saying very much at all on an official level, combined with pastoral openness. More so than in the past, there will be parishes, bishops, and priests who know that many parishioners are in fact homosexual, and realize that the church has always had a percentage of homosexual members in its midst. This ambiguous treatment is unsatisfactory for many gays and lesbians, however, who feel that they need to hide an important part of their identity when engaged in worship or other parish activities or simply to belong to the church.

This is analogous to the notorious “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the American military sanctioned by president Clinton, and still in effect (at the time of writing), where there is a tacit understanding all around that homosexuals are understood to make up a certain percentage of the military, and that there will be no official attempt to harass or discourage them; on the other hand, gay and lesbian soldiers and officers do not have permission to live in open and active same-sex relationships.

Life in a parish, we note, is often far better than this crude military policy. Many parish priests are trusted as confessors, counselors and confidants, so that there is often the possibility of individual understanding and support in spite of the lack of official diocesan or parochial affirmation. There must be many (probably the majority) of traditional parish priests in this position who do not feel able to change their position on the theology of marriage, but have ongoing affirmative relationships with individuals (or couples) who are gay or lesbian, and who encourage them to be part of parish life.

Traditionalists understand homosexual attraction as not following the intended order of creation. Even if we do not use the explicit language of the Roman Catholic magisterium,56 same-sex relationships fall short of the order for sexual relationships affirmed in Genesis and in the teaching of Jesus. But so do many other sexual relationships in modern life, including, of course those of many Christians and church members. Clergy are faced with parishioners having affairs and experiencing marriage breakdowns; and, in the last generation or two, young couples who are living together, some of whom seek Christian marriage in the local church. The difference is that the parish priest (conservative ones, at any rate), will point out that such pre-marital sexual liaisons, even those which eventually do result in marital commitment, fall short of the biblical standards for marriage, and that a Christian wedding is a good opportunity for the pastor to deal with the element of disorder and conform the relationship to Christian standards.

56 See the “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986),” reprinted in C Curran and R. McCormick (eds.), Readings in Moral Theology No. 8: Dialogue about Catholic Sexual Teaching (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1993), 297-308.

35 The theologian Helmut Thielicke reminded us about fifty years ago of the vulnerabilities and frustrations faced by homosexuals who live with the combination of secret temptations and the need for a deceptive appearance in public. The Christian ethicist and pastor must be aware of and sensitive to this situation.57 One benefit of the much greater openness in the last generation or two about homosexuality is the diminished pressure to disguise sexual orientation and the decrease in opprobrium.

Abstinence and Christian Discipleship

Thielicke spoke in the 1950s of helping people to “sublimate” their homosexual urges.58 There is a quaintness about this in the twenty-first century, and many may feel something impractical about it (on a large scale), much as some view the “abstinence only” style of conservative school sex education programs. Even though misunderstood and mocked in many circles, this aspect of Christian discipleship must remain a strong part of the church’s pastoral teaching. After all, learning to refuse to indulge sexual urges is part of the general spiritual discipline that needs to be developed in many other areas of life and is part of the way of the cross. This aspect of Christian discipleship applies, of course, not just to the homosexually inclined, but to all those not in a marital relationship: we think of the widowed and divorced, college students and other youth before marriage, and those whose circumstances involve long periods of separation from spouses. Many people are looking for instruction and practical help in this area of Christian training.

The possibility of change in orientation

We note that in the 1950s Helmut Thielicke wrote from the premise that “the great majority of homosexuals” are in a condition that is not susceptible to medical or psychotherapeutic treatment.59 Even on those assumptions, however, that would still leave a minority who experience unwanted same-sex attractions and might benefit from a course of counseling or treatment aimed at developing heterosexual inclinations.

We realize that this will seem wrong-headed and even arrogant to many, including many heterosexuals, who feel sympathy with the important GLBT movement. We must admit the dangers involved in such counseling, and the risk of increasing confusion and alienation. But even if we do agree that any talk of change towards heterosexuality is inappropriate and unhelpful in many cases, there is still evidence that some positive and beneficial change can and does take place as a result of some ministries and programs. With the help of a number of recent studies, and recognizing that this area is still somewhat unclear and very controversial, it seems fair to say that a modest percentage (perhaps 10-15%) of those with same-sex attractions can achieve noticeable change60

Admittedly, this pastoral approach applies only to a minority—nevertheless it should not

57 H. Thielicke, The Ethics of Sex (London: James Clarke, 1964), 286-7; the Eng. trans. was published later as the third volume of Theological Ethics, the first German edition of which was published in 1958-9. 58 Ibid. 287. 59 Ibid. 283-4. 60 See our summary above in the section on Science and Homosexuality with reference to Glynn Harrison’s study, “Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions: Can Pastoral and Counseling Interventions Help People to Change?” in P. Groves (ed.), The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality, 293-332 at 328.

36 be dismissed as impossible or unethical. Because there is a continuum between homo- and heterosexual inclinations, and some fluidity between them, as well as a lack of agreement about the actual genesis of homosexual inclinations (genetic, environmental, relational and cultural causes), it seems inappropriate to deny a voice in our discussions to ex-gays, those who have left homosexual lifestyles (but may still have same-sex inclinations), and to those involved in responsible ministry programs with them.

To deny the very possibility of change in the complicated process of sexual inclination and attachment seems akin, theologically, to a couple of questionable approaches to solve difficult theological and pastoral problems with an a priori definition. One example would be the ultra-Calvinist doctrine of eternal security, where defenders of the “once saved, always saved” principle deal with those who leave the church or seem to abandon faith in Christ as simple impossibilities: if they have no faith now, then they were never Christians at all. Similarly, under the Roman Catholic doctrine of marriage, if a separation or breakdown occurs between two Christians sacramentally married, then it must be the case that the marriage is still valid anyway, or that it was never a proper marriage in the first place (hence many annulments which function as quasi-divorces).

As pastoral provisions for homosexuals these options of sublimation, abstinence, and therapeutic change where appropriate are limited, to be sure. Sublimation and abstinence–i.e., chastity–in the context of Christian discipleship, will present a challenge for us to present as an attractive option in modern culture, we admit. In most cases, with heterosexual young people, for example, chastity (as abstinence) is normally meant to be a temporary aspect of moral character, in preparation for marital chastity. It is one thing for young singles, the newly divorced and recently widowed to learn (or relearn) chastity as a single person again, and quite another for single homosexuals who face, without an option for marriage, an entire lifetime of singleness. We recognize the extra burden and challenge involved. The call and gift to live a celibate life is rightly seen as a special vocation, given to individuals both heterosexual and homosexual who respond to the call to celibacy in conjunction with a special (usually religious) vocation. We are aware that the traditionalist opposition to same-sex marriage will seem inflexible and even wrongheaded; and the injustice of a position requiring all gays and lesbians either to adhere to life-long abstinence or to seriously contemplate a course of counseling toward heterosexual attraction will make the possible provision of Christian same-sex marriage seem a very reasonable and compassionate solution.

We need to explain further the basis for our opposition to this widely attractive line of reasoning in our Church, namely, to have as official policy the open acceptance and blessing of same-sex relationships, even if they might well reflect the same level of commitment and permanence as heterosexual marriages. We can make a few additional points to explain our reluctance and resistance.

1. First, the apparent injustice of imposing abstinence on gays and lesbians is partly a reflection of the modern tolerance, even in church circles, of temporary and semi- committed sexual relationships between young men and women. This tolerance points to doubts or confusion about the truth or relevance of the standards of self-discipline and self-denial that need to be applied to sexual behavior. These modern doubts reflect the common and unspoken assumption that an active sexual relationship is necessary for a

37 fulfilling human life, unless there is a special grace given by the Spirit for celibacy. The clear implication is that living one’s adulthood as a single person without a sexual relationship is so difficult that only a select few can be expected to receive this charism.61

2. Further, there are many heterosexuals whose circumstances call for living their adult lives as chaste single persons (and without a vocation to celibacy): those who postpone marriage in favor of a career (or are forced to because of circumstances) and then find few or no prospects for a good marriage later on; those who face social situations with an imbalance in the number of eligible potential spouses;62 those who are disabled or disfigured due to disease or accident and have few marriage prospects; and there are many men and women who had high ideals for a potential spouse and found no one to meet them, as well as those who would very much like to have married but simply found no one with whom to enter into a marriage covenant. All of these groups form a considerable section of the population, who have not chosen to live life as singles, nor had a special vocation to celibacy, but have had singleness and chastity imposed on them through circumstance.

3. A third point deserves some attention. We are concerned for a number of homosexuals who have turned away from living with sexual partners because they have responded to the challenge of Christian discipleship and have the understanding that this means abstinence from all sexual relationships. The acceptance of same-sex marriage within the church undercuts some of the rationale for their understanding of the relation of their sexuality to living the Christian life. Thus, while we on the grounds of justice or compassion attempt to make provision for some homosexual persons, by accepting same- sex relationships under the framework of holiness, we may well be adding to the burden of others who have same-sex attractions, and increasing the potential discouragement of many homosexual Christians who are quietly pursuing their call to Christian discipleship within the traditional moral boundaries.

The testimony of a homosexual Anglican in England who is not at all convinced that homosexual relationships are pleasing to God, writes candidly, “I know many Anglicans (including leaders) with a homosexual orientation, but seeking celibacy, who have said privately they will feel betrayed if the Church of England changes its traditional viewpoint on homosexuality. Some say they already feel tempted to leave the Church of England.”63

The starkness of the conservative position is tempered by the reminder that it is our eroticized and materialist culture that creates the framework so inimical to chastity and

61 The growing movement within the Roman Catholic Church to end the requirement of clerical celibacy is often supported by assertions that it is wrong to expect all priests to receive the gift of celibacy at their ordination.

62 Consider England (and other countries) after WW I when the supply of young men for a whole generation was substantially reduced; or consider present-day China and India where the supply of young women does not meet the demand for marriages because of culturally or politically imposed child-selection practices.

63 Martin Hallett, “Truth and Love in Our Sexual Feelings,” in Bradshaw (ed.), The Way Forward, 130.

38 self-control. In a Christian theological perspective, our identity as members of the body of Christ define who we are, and not personal sexual feelings and experiences. As the St. Andrew’s Day Statement puts it: “At the deepest ontological level, therefore, there is no such thing as ‘a’ homosexual or ‘a’ heterosexual; there are human beings, male and female, called to redeemed humanity in Christ, endowed with a complex variety of emotional potentialities and threatened by a complex variety of forms of alienation.” 64

We need to put into proper perspective the inflated importance we naturally attach to sexual fulfillment and even marriage. We have the teaching of Jesus about the disappearance of marriage and family relationships in the kingdom of heaven, and we have the examples and teaching of both Jesus and Paul, who made clear that physical sexual needs, expressions, and relationships are temporary and secondary compared to our destiny as co-heirs with Christ. “The goal for homosexual and heterosexual alike is fulfillment and wholeness in Christ.”65 Recovery and proclamation of that conviction is the challenge for our Church.

64 “The St. Andrew’s Day Statement,” in Bradshaw (ed.), The Way Forward, 7.

65 D. H. Field, “Homosexuality,” in The New Dictionary of Christian Ethics (InterVarsity Press, 1996), 453. 39 A Theology of Marriage including Same-Sex Couples:

A View from the Liberals

Deirdre J. Good, General Theological Seminary Cynthia B. Kittredge, Seminary of the Southwest Eugene F. Rogers, University of North Carolina, Greensboro Willis J. Jenkins, Yale Divinity School

Marriage is a discipline. Marriage is a means of grace. Marriage is a discipline and a means of grace for sinners. Marriage is a discipline and a means of grace for sinners and for the whole church. It is a discipline because its vows are for better or worse. It is a means of grace because it signifies the love of Christ for the church.

We argue that the church should marry same-sex couples, because it requires their testimony to the love of Christ and the church, and because it recognizes that same-sex couples stand in need of sanctification no less than opposite-sex couples. In grafting same-sex marriage onto the domestic rite, the church follows the pattern of God’s grafting wild, Gentile olive branches onto the domesticated olive tree of Israel (Rom 11:24). The church does so because same-sex couples need the sanctification that marriage teaches, and the church needs the marital virtues that same-sex couples are already receiving. We would expand the theology of marriage to include same-sex couples based on our corporate life of faith in the Episcopal Church and our re-reading of the Christian tradition. This vision of marriage is offered not in arrogance, naivetė, or spiritual enthusiasm, but in trust and with hope, as our witness to the mission of Christ.

In what follows we explain how the marriage rite initiates couples into an arduous discipline, a training in sanctification. This account of marriage does not minimize procreation and chastity, but follows the Book of Common Prayer in upholding the context of those gifts: “the union of Christ and his Church" by which "God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5.19).1 This is not so much a new theology of marriage, as one explicit in Eastern Orthodoxy and implicit, as we shall show, in the prayers and vows of the Book of Common Prayer. We portray the world that marriage can make if extended to same-sex couples. We base our argument, then, not on autonomy, individualism, or personal experience, but on the embodied discipline—that of marriage—by which God may transform longing into charity and dispositions to love into works of virtue. Can we credit what we pray in the marriage rite, that God may “make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair” (BCP, 429)? Our argument arises from the power of prayer, the marriage prayer of the church. Does it make sense for two women or two men? Do same-sex couples, in spite of all that opposes them, nevertheless fit the marriage prayer? This proposal is not intended to

1 The Book of Common Prayer . . . According to the Use of the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation and The Seabury Press, 1979), p. 423. Future references (BCP) by page number in text.

40 exclude those who disagree, to replace an old exclusion with a new one, but to pose a question: Does this proposal about marriage fit with our understanding of how God prepares us for life with himself, by binding us for life to another?

Mission, Scripture, and a Confession

Mission

By mission does the church live; "you shall be my witnesses," says the risen Jesus (Acts 1:8). Disagreements among the churches over blessing the marriages of same-sex couples arise from mission's zeal. Traditionalists worry that some forms of welcoming same-sex couples would imperil the church's proclamation of the gospel. Some have even been willing to break bonds and create new ecclesial structures for the sake of that mission. Expansionists have become convinced that marital blessings for same-sex couples will advance the church's proclamation of the gospel.2 Some have been willing to break bonds and risk new ecclesial practices for the sake of that mission. Because Christian marriage bears witness to the reality of Jesus Christ for the world, such missional zeal over the question of blessing the marriages of same-sex couples should come as no surprise.

The full name of the Episcopal Church is “The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." Our polity and ethos still reflect the character of a missionary society, and our theological tensions arise, in part, from different senses of how our church should bear witness. Arguments over theology and Scripture in the context of mission are hardly new. In Acts we find the earliest church arguing over how to understand the mission of Jesus Christ, and there was "no small dissension and debate with them" (15:2). The New Testament was formed in the midst of churches arguing over how to read their Scriptures in the presence of the Spirit and an unexpectedly expanded company of readers. Our arguments over eligibility for the rites of marriage take a similar form, as an argumentative missionary society tries to understand, in an expanded company of readers, how the Spirit makes marriage a witness to Christ.

Churches must discern their way into mission because it does not originate from the church, but is first the activity of the triune God—missio Dei—in which the church seeks to take part. Mission begins with the Father sending the Son and the Spirit to bring into the feast those different from himself. "For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven." In Acts we see the church hastening to follow the Son by the leading of the Spirit: "we are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit" (5:32). The Spirit leads in showing the church how to bear witness to Christ. In mission, the Trinity goes out from itself, in that the Father sends the Son for the sake of communion with the world,

2 Names for the parties to a debate cannot avoid attracting their own controversy. We refer to ourselves here as "expansionist," not without some reservations, in order to identify with our argument for a particular change in liturgical practice. We do not speak officially for a theological school or ecclesial tradition, although we occasionally refer to "liberals" and "conservatives," when gesturing to colloquial categories.

41 with those different from himself, and sends the Spirit to realize and interpret, celebrate and solemnize that communion. As did the apostles Peter, Stephen, and Paul, the church recognizes the Spirit's witness by recounting the narrative of salvation among those gathered by the Spirit. The church learns how to bear witness by reading, eating, and praying with all those God has called to bear witness. The church takes part in the missions of the trinitarian Persons when she goes out from the Father in the person of the Son for the community the Spirit makes.

As a “Domestic” Missionary Society, the Episcopal Church must seek to proclaim the gospel to its neighbors in its cultural context. Those neighbors include same-sex couples in a culture obsessed with sex and confused about marriage. The Song of Songs has long been interpreted as a parable of the love between God and God’s people, and Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Mt 22:2). Yet proclaiming the love of God for God's people in this culture has pressed the Episcopal Church to attend, with pastoral care and evangelical attentiveness, to the testimony of same-sex couples.There it has discovered, in those couples who desire to give their lives in self-donation to one another, movements of the Spirit within same- sex relationships. "God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit" (Acts 15:8). So, while the Episcopal Church was considering how to offer the work of God to non-heterosexual persons, it has found itself standing witness to the Spirit already making community, already on mission beyond the bounds. While we have equivocated, the Spirit has been expanding the church.

As a "Foreign" Missionary Society, the Episcopal Church must also give account of its domestic mission to its companions in mission around the Communion and to the universal church. Zeal for mission may divide the church, but while the Spirit may move wildly and diversely, it always moves within the missio Dei. Much as Acts 15 describes a council in Jerusalem to discuss how Gentiles should be welcomed into the church's universal mission, so does the church today hold theological council. And in a similar pneumatological pattern, it seems the Spirit has preceded us, transforming the church and its mission. In the self-donation of same-sex couples to one another and to the church, some leaders of the church see surprising gifts of the Spirit. Even when same-sex couples were in the wilderness, God "gave his good Spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst" (Neh. 9:20, para. Acts 10:47). Can anyone withhold the rite for blessing these couples “who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47).

The church's longstanding practice of blessing nuptial rites is a sacrament in which the church bears witness to the love that Christ shows for the world and the community that the Spirit makes. In marriage, the couple give their bodies over to one another and to the church to become a sign of God's reconciliation; they pattern desire "in the image of God's constancy."3 In blessing marriages, the church celebrates God's mission by employing a social and legal institution that changes over time and place to represent the

3 David Matzko McCarthy, "The Relationship of Bodies: A Nuptial Hermeneutics of Same-Sex Unions," in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 200-216; here, p. 210.

42 love of God for God's people. As cultural habits of marriage and partnership change, the church's following of the Son by the Spirit meets challenges. Cultural changes may work good or evil. Never simple, change calls for historical understanding and theological interpretation.

In North America, social and political changes have reshaped gender roles and identities, permitting more opportunities for work and leadership by women as well as by sexual minorities. Women and sexual minorities have won greater freedom to participate in public, economic, and religious life. In some states, civil rights laws offer legal protections to same-sex partnerships. Christian efforts for social justice have inspired and supported some of these changes.

We do not argue that those changes represent the progress of enlightenment over ignorance, western values over lesser ones, or Christian values over worldly ones. That would be simplistic, for at the same time social practices of marriage and divorce have suffered from shallow and mistaken notions of freedom. Sex fascinates, confuses, and sometimes tyrannizes our culture. Within our consumer society the question of same-sex marriage can seem just one more lifestyle option within a marketplace of sexual, reproductive, and familial options. Sometimes the ethos of consumer choices creates commodification, violence, and other dehumanizing forms of relationship.

While the question of same-sex marriage arises within those wider social changes, our church's situation is hardly one of simply accepting or rejecting a surrounding culture. We seek to bear witness to Christ within a society that supports historical movements for freedom and justice, yet struggles to understand sexuality and marriage and seems baffled by desire and love. How the church receives the question of same-sex marriage therefore shapes how it will bear witness to God's justice, to God's marriage with God's people, to God's desire for the world.

Amidst these cultural changes, supported by broader currents of social justice, lesbian and gay members of churches have come out of hiding. They have known themselves as beloved children of God, and have begun to interpret their lives and relationships in light of God's companionship, and to understand their sense of identity and their struggles within the mission of the church. Others in the church have listened and tried to understand this testimony corporately in light of Christian tradition. Christians who know themselves to be gay receive calls to ordination and leadership in the community. Parents teach the gospel to their lesbian and gay children. Adolescent young women and men look to the church for patterns of holy living. As the Spirit has contrived with social change to deepen our church's community, the company of readers interpreting Scripture and bearing witness to God's mission has expanded. Some of us have offered lives as logoi in the Logos, or words in the Word, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made manifest to us" (1 John 1:1-2).

With visibility and voice for gay and lesbian Christians has come understanding and compassion, increased questioning of the conventions excluding and condemning same-

43 sex relationships, and reflection on our liturgical rites and theological teaching in response to their Christian lives and testimony. The need to think theologically about same-sex couples, their role in the church, and their work as ordained leaders has taken on urgency, not simply for individuals and couples who seek recognition and acceptance, but for the Christian community as a whole: other married persons, children, clergy, parents, and teachers. Many members of the church report something like the growing sense of Peter, moving from puzzlement to protest to a new conviction: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality...but anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34).

Reading Scripture

As Christian theologians, Scripture is authoritative for our work and we participate in the church's ongoing interpretation of the Bible. The church's expanded company of those reading and following Scripture, and its differing desires to live in communion with sinners, to become blessings to one another, have led to different teachings from Scripture. Because Scripture demands to be interpreted in accord with the mission of God, we should not so confine it to any one sense, as to expose the faith to ridicule (Augustine, Confessions V.5, De Genesi ad litteram 1; Aquinas, De potentia 4, 1, r). For different mission partners will inevitably ridicule the faith in some way, causing the church to see different aspects of the truth that God desires holiness. This view of Scripture is the view of Augustine: that God gives us the difficult work of interpreting Scripture in order to make finite, sin-darkened readers capable of growing into the truth. Scripture gives itself to many readings that its readers may slowly learn to orient their desire to God's desire for them.

Alongside the marriage practices described in Scripture, even in their variety, our proposal that the Church extend marriage to same-sex couples appears transgressive. Yet, within the testimony of the early church's way of reading Scripture, it appears to fit the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8:15, 23) that exceeds Paul’s expectation by grafting wild branches onto the domestic olive (Rom 11:24). Acts portrays the apostles and the earliest church as following the presence of the Spirit even when the Spirit's activity seemed to exceed the plain sense of Scripture. In Romans and Galatians, Paul must defend the astonishing inclusion of Gentiles, which exceeded theological assumptions, and elaborate the coherence of a way of life that ran against moral assumptions. We argue here, that analogously, marrying same-sex couples comports with the mission of God celebrated by the Spirit in the body of Christ, even though it seems to exceed the marriage practices assumed by Scripture and honored by tradition.

Interpreting marriage so that male-female complementarity is typical but not exhaustive of its witness requires reinterpreting the male-female symbol system that runs throughout the biblical texts. Interpreting the aptitude of same-sex marriage for bearing witness to Christ requires acknowledging the apparent rejection of same-sex relations in some texts and the use of those texts by subsequent tradition. Our argument, therefore, must support an unexpected interpretation—astonishing to some. We will elaborate the coherence of a

44 marriage practice that runs contrary to received moral assumptions and exceeds the social forms assumed by biblical texts. In a pattern similar to that of Peter and James, Barnabas and Paul, our argument does not seek to annul or disprove prior moral judgments of Scripture; rather it interprets them within the witness to Christ that the Spirit makes.

Old and New Testament authors assume male-female marriage. We do not claim that biblical writers imagined or anticipated marriages of two women or two men. The New Testament does, however, give evidence that the followers of Jesus and the churches begun by Paul and other missionaries took a skeptical perspective on both male-female marriage and the patriarchal family. In Mark, Jesus makes the true mark of a sibling and kindred relationship doing the will of God (Mk. 3:31-35). Paul’s letters show that both he and some members of the churches understood baptism into Christ to commend celibacy (1 Cor 7). Many texts in the gospels and letters attest to the ascetic character of these early communities. Later Christian writers then reasserted the primacy of marriage and the household as the model for the shape of the church. Marriage practices supported by the early church therefore hold in tension both those who radically relativize the traditional family in preference for celibacy or “spiritual” family and those that make the traditional family, what we would call today the “biological family” the sole Christian model. Our approach combines the two New Testament values of asceticism and household: marriage is a school for virtue, a household asceticism: "for better for worse," "forsaking all others" (Book of Common Prayer 427, 424).

The history of interpreting these diverse texts has yielded various kinds of support for gender relations, sexual understanding, and marital practice. In different periods and with distinctive priorities they have celebrated the superiority of celibacy and the vocation of Christian marriage, promoted a celibate male priesthood and a married clergy, restricted ordination to males and lately extended it to women. Guided by the reading of Scripture in the prayers and blessing of marriage in the Book of Common Prayer, we argue that faithful marriage partnership can also be the aspiration of same-sex couples just as it is for opposite-sex couples. Adapted to include partners of the same sex, Christian marriage still retains procreation as one of its purposes (BCP, 423). Marriage creates a family and a home for the nurture of children. Beyond the good of procreation, marriage makes the conditions for companionship and friendship that God intends both for mutual joy and for the sanctification and maturation of the individuals within it. We testify that in this, God shows no partiality. Opposite-sex as well as same-sex couples who engage in this covenant undertake extraordinary promises in the face of great odds and with God’s help make a vivid witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church established in his name.

"It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" that they should marry (Acts 15:28). Reading Scripture for the way marriage bears witness to God seems to depend at least in part on how a reading community understands the mission of God in its context. We read in the community that the Spirit makes. Because the Spirit spans the centuries, our argument reads Scripture in the company of patristic interpreters as well as in the company of readers long silenced by the tradition.

The church learns how to interpret Scripture by being the Body of Christ. It learns the truth of Scripture by living from marriage to its Bridegroom, and therefore not from self-

45 sufficiency but from self-donation to another. That means that the church reads Scripture not in purity but from mission, a mission that must leave it changed. The church takes part in the mission of the Trinity when she goes out from the Father in the person of the Son and in the community of the Spirit. She evangelizes others and herself by going out of herself and receiving into herself those who are different, as the Son and Spirit do in their missions.

Many in the Episcopal Church have felt driven by the Spirit into community with gay and lesbian Christians. It is no scandal that a church finds herself driven into the desert, into the houses of sinners, or to the Gentiles, and that in going to those places feels herself drawn by the Spirit and preceded by her Lord. The question is whether the church evangelizes in those places and if she receives fruits of the Spirit. The church evangelizes same-sex couples by drawing them to represent the marriage of the Son with his bride. They come to share in his martyrdom by putting their bodies on the line for one another as heterosexual married couples do. Similarly, the church evangelizes itself by having community with another. She enacts the identity to which the Spirit calls and the Lord leads her. But how does the Spirit change the church?

Reading with the Spirit may change Scripture’s interpretation. If it does it can only be because the Spirit changes the interpreter. The Spirit must change the interpreter, if it is to lead us into “all truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit must change the interpreter because we learn over time. After the Fall, the Spirit must also change the interpreter because we are sinners. Without growth in wisdom that the Spirit directs, immature readers will inevitably read Scripture in ignorance. Without repentance Christians will inevitably read Scripture "in ways that support their own sinful beliefs and practices." Both learning and repentance are therefore necessary but neither is sufficient. Repentance without hope would be despair, and learning without love is sterile. Rather, “recognition of sinfulness must lead one into the practices of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation.”4 These are the practices that take us out of ourselves and fascination with our own sin, and into community with one another. The Spirit of love must issue in love.

How does the Spirit hold together in love this company of people who differ in following the Son, to whom God shows no partiality, but who fear God and seek to do what is right? Under conditions of sin, the communion that the Trinity, the church, and the baptized seek with those different from themselves must begin with forgiveness, so that they may repent. “Repent and believe," for "the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Mk.1:15). The church, in expanding the community of the forgiven, has not found any without need of forgiveness.5 Other churches, following the missions of Christ and the Spirit to expand the community of the forgiven, have sought to evangelize those of traditional morality among its neighbors and in its midst. It should be part of the Episcopal church’s mission to marry same-sex couples, that is, to discipline them and turn them to the service of the church, that by them redemption may reach further and the marriages of all may be strengthened. We recognize that still other churches consider it

4 Stephen Fowl, Engaging Scripture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p. 97.

5 James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes (New York: Crossroad, 1998).

46 their mission to resist same-sex marriages for similar reasons: in order that they might better convert others and turn them to the service of the church, so that by them redemption may reach further and (by a different logic) the marriages of all may be strengthened (BCP, 430).

Mission is to fulfill the promise to Abraham, that all the nations of the earth—the Gentiles, including those Gentiles with whom Paul associated same-sex desire (Rom 1)— should become not curses but blessings to one another (Gen. 18:18, 22:18, 26:4). Christ fulfills that promise by eating and drinking with sinners, refusing to let human differences, even the difference of sinners from God, work as a curse. Rather, Christ takes even the seizure of his body as another occasion to found the feast. God's mission turns curses into blessings, the division among nations into the reconciliation of all peoples. Where a church considers it its mission to resist same-sex marriage in order to witness to Christ's fulfillment of God's mission, they must not let that mission become a curse to others. The church's mission should not lead to imprisonment, persecution, or hatred of sinners; it should lead to eating and drinking with them.

The Spirit leads the church into the future by leading it into mission—which is to say, the Spirit leads the church into God's ways of companioning with the world, and in so doing transforms the church into one of them. God transforms the church by sending it out to cross frontiers, as the Father sent the Son into the far country of creation and death, stretching out on the cross a way for humanity into God. Like eucharist and baptism and mission itself, marriage is a stretching out for community with another. Under conditions of sin, marriage becomes a means of communion that God can stretch out, as on the cross, to expose our faults to heal them. “It is not the well who need the doctor, but the sick” (Mk 2:17).

A Confession

Because those arguing for expansion of marriage have talked often and profoundly of love, we must go first in confessing our sin. While we attended to God's mission among us, we sometimes abandoned our sisters and brothers in the global South, reducing our companionship with them and leaving them uninformed about our changing understanding of same-sex couples. When we did inform them and they remonstrated with us, we went our own way, sometimes responding with tactics rather than with fellowship. Rather than invite the rest of the church into our experience of the Spirit's movement, we have used languages of rights and struggle defensively to isolate our experience from the rest of the church. We have sometimes proceeded as if the rest of the church did not exist, or have regarded it as standing in need of conversion by our lights. We, of all Christians, should know that in mission we go out for companionship with those who are other than ourselves. We have hardly done this with the conservatives in our midst and abroad; too often we have instead taken recourse to law. "To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you" (1 Cor 6:7).

In consequence we too often fear one another within the church. Liberals fear that conservatives will proceed as if same-sex couples do not really exist, or do not need pastoral care. Conservatives fear that liberals will proceed as if the rest of the church did

47 not exist, or stands in need of conversion. Our similar fears have lead to a failure of common life. The Spirit builds koinonia by the hospitality we have all refused. In our common failure, we have insulated ourselves, counting purity a thing to be grasped, rather than humbling ourselves, taking the form of a servant. In the transformation of the Spirit, our fears and our failures have brought us together: they bind us into the community of those who seek forgiveness.

Our interpretation of Scripture has suffered from these divisions. We have all favored self-authentication and despised common patterns of discernment. We have all abandoned the discipline of concern for one another. We have failed to practice friendship and hospitality and have not labored for the most charitable interpretations of one another. It is no accident that we now debate marriage. For marriage is an example of the concrete discipline that most of us (liberal and conservative) lack: in marriage we practice common discernment over self-interest. Marriage cultivates concern for one another; it offers life-long hospitality; it enacts love; and it exposes our faults in order to heal them. It is the marital virtues that the church needs, not only with respect to the Bridegroom, but, just now, with respect to one another.

In Acts, the parties agree to maintain hospitality. Jewish Christians may not refuse table- fellowship with Gentile sojourners. Gentiles must refrain from blood, strangled meat, and unchastity (Acts 15:28-29). Here is what we propose: Conservatives maintain table- fellowship. Same -sex couples must marry.

“For Better, For Worse”

The Vows, the Prayers, and the Preface

“For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.” The marriage vows mark marriage out as an ascetic discipline. It is no privilege for spiritual heroes, for the adept or the perfect. To them, Paul commends celibacy (1 Cor 7:9). It is medicine “not for the well but for the sick” (Mk. 2:17). It is for those who would follow Christ to be perfected in weakness for the love of another (2 Cor 12:9). The prayers of the church identify marriage as a discipline for sinners: “Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize and acknowledge their fault” (BCP, 429). The discipline of marriage relies on the difficulty of living with another “in prosperity and adversity” not to avoid but precisely to expose our faults—so that they can be healed. Nor does the clause “when they hurt each other” confine itself to minor slights. Since hurt and acknowledgment—sin and confession—are central to Christian growth and sacrament, the next prayer sets their discipline in the theater of the whole fallen world: “Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair” (BCP, 429). These vows mark marriage as an arduous form of training in virtue, by which the promises come true, that God will heal human waywardness and teach us to love (Hos. 14:4; Jer. 3:22). The vows signal no privilege or right; they do not treat sexuality as a need to be satisfied.

48 The vows offer a means by which God may turn eros into charity (“to love and to cherish”). Not all marriages begin in eros, but it would be an odd account of marriage that reduced its eros to "men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding," as Cranmer's preface put it (BCP, 1662). Patristic and medieval commentaries on the Song of Songs taught the church to see in eros the hope for agape.6 The vows do not turn eros into charity by relying on our self-control. That would be a plan designed to fail. Self-control is something you would hardly expect to come from eros. Paul recommends marriage “if they do not exercise self-control” (1 Cor 7:9). Rather, marriage so often begins in eros, with its abandonment of self-control, that the rite names not all the things that humans can muster against eros, but many things that tend to defeat it: for worse, for poorer, in sickness, till death. Marriage relies not on self- satisfaction or self-expression, and still less on titanic self-control: it relies instead on self-disposession for self-donation. It is the daily version of finding one's life by losing it, and it encompasses all the daily practices of lives lived in covenanted closeness: laboring to provide for one another and to support family, organizing a household and its daily table, maintaining and sharing property, caring for another in sickness and finally into death. Undoubtedly the shape of these daily practices has sometimes been distorted by men's controlling power, turning the pattern of mutual self-donation into a female norm of self-denial. The Christian covenant of charity challenges and heals just such distortions of self-giving. If it begins in the self-disposession of eros, it ends in self-abandonment to God. It turns not our attempts at control but our defeats into victory, on the pattern of Christ's self-giving. It begins in self-donation to the other, and ends in mutual self- donation to God.7

The vows of marriage mirror, and in Russian theology derive from, monastic vows.8 Monks and nuns promise poverty, chastity, and obedience: the married vow “for richer for poorer,” “to have and to hold,” “forsaking all others,” and—for women in older versions of the rite—“to love, cherish, and to obey” (1892). These are matrimonial versions of monastic vows “Perfect spouses are not inferior to monks,” writes John Chrysostom; “they can manifest greater virtues than the monastics.”9

6 E.g., Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 13 In Cantico Canticorum, PG 44:1048C.

7 "Self-donation" occupies a prominent place in the nuptial hermeneutics of John Paul II and the eucharistic theology of Bernard Cooke, and has been applied to same-sex unions by David Matzko McCarthy. See John Paul II, "The Man-Person becomes a Gift in the Freedom of Love" in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 174-77, and David McCarthy, cited above, pp. 206-213, with references to Cooke.

8 Paul Evdokimov, The Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Light of the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 65-84, abridged and reprinted in Theology and Sexuality, pp. 186-91.

9 In Epist. ad Ephesios Homilia XX, PG 62:147; In illud, propter fornicationes uxorem, PG 51:209. Quoted in Paul Evdokimov, Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Light of the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), p. 164.

49 The Preface to The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage in the Book of Common Prayer puts the discipline of the vows into a christological context and tells us straightforwardly what marriage means. Marriage “signifies the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church” (p. 423). Referring to the miracle of the wine at Cana, the rite looks forward to Christ’s own marital donation of his body at the Last Supper when he says “This is my body, given for you.” As the Wesley hymn explains: "The Church's one foundation/ Is Jesus Christ her Lord/ . . . From heaven he came and sought her/ To be his holy bride;/ With his own blood he bought her,/And for her life he died." A Proper Preface to the Eucharist connects marriage and the eucharist in the same way: "Because in the love of wife and husband, you have given us an image of the heavenly Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her bridegroom, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who loves her and gave himself for her, that he might make the whole creation new" (BCP, p. 381). Under conditions of the fall, Christ’s marital donation of his body to the church also involves atonement for sin. Invoking the reality of Christ’s marital commitment, the Book of Common Prayer constructs marriage as a means of grace for sinners not just individually but for the whole church. The church's practice of blessing the marriages of couples bears witness not only to the atonement but also to the church's hope for its own sanctification. That marriage could work sanctification is hardly evident by nature; it is a reality of faith.

The Book of Common Prayer tells us how to understand the statement that “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation,” because, it continues, “it signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church.” Marriage is the sign and the atonement is the reality. Marriage is temporary (“till death do us part”); the wedding of the Lamb endures forever (Lk. 20:24-25). This orients earthly marriages to God's salvific purpose. The union of man and woman in creation is typical, in the strict sense that it marks out a type, sign or symbol. As the author of Ephesians explains: “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (5:32). The Book of Common Prayer invokes the controlling New Testament interpretation of Genesis. Paul does not associate marriage with procreation or with complementarity, but with typology: with God’s plan to love and save his people, one God, one people. Same- and opposite-sex couples seek to participate in this typology of marriage. It belongs to the church's mission to introduce them into that witness and discipline.

The question of same-sex marriage therefore comes to the church not as an issue of extended rights and privileges, but as a pastoral occasion to proclaim the significance of the gospel for all who marry, because marriage embodies and carries forward the marriage of God and God's people. To deny committed couples marriage deprives them not of a privilege but of a medicine. It deprives them not of a social means of satisfaction but of a saving manner of healing. Those couples who approach the church for marriage-- and those whose priests prompt them to marry—are drawn there by the marriage of Christ and the church, which alone makes it possible for human relationships to become occasions of grace. Couples who delay marriage are like those who previously waited for deathbed baptism; they unaccountably put off the grace by which their lives might be

50 healed. There is no question of whether the marriage of Christ and the church is available to sinners, but only how it is so.

The church must know how to respond both to couples who seek marriage and those who delay it. Among those who seek marriage are same-sex couples who offer their relationship in witness to and imitation of Christ's love. Among those who delay are same-sex couples waiting for the church to discover and proclaim the significance of its marriage to Christ for their relationships. In both cases, the church faces a test of its understanding of atonement, posed in an immediate pastoral query. How will the church receive the couple that would approach the altar, and how will it suffer the couple that delays?

How the church marries couples shapes its witness to Christ's atonement. Whom the church marries testifies to its understanding of its own sanctification. The church's practice of marrying is an evangelical practice, proclaiming that the love of God for God's people is real, that the atonement is real, that reconciliation is real, that salvation is real. The Spirit calls all Christians to witness to that reality, and the church offers practices for doing so.

Because the love of God for God's people is real, and the declaration "this is my body given for you" is true, the church needs as many witnesses as the Holy Spirit and its mission may draft. Same- and opposite-sex couples who want to marry in the church bear witness to the love of God for God's people and to the power of that love to atone, reconcile, and heal. Not that they can do those things by their human power alone, but the Spirit can attest their witness to the atonement and healing of Christ.

How the Book of Common Prayer follows the New Testament in interpreting Genesis

The Book of Common Prayer follows the New Testament in interpreting Genesis in light of Christ and the church. While Ephesians has both hierarchical and reciprocal aspects, the Book of Common Prayer chooses to quote a reciprocal passage, and declines to quote the more hierarchical ones. It directs us to the part of Ephesians that interprets Genesis and witnesses to Christ and the church. As is well-known, Genesis offers two accounts of the creation of the human being male and female, one in chapter one and another in chapter two. Neither Jesus nor Paul relates Genesis one to marriage, except where Jesus quotes it against divorce (Mk. 10:6-7), adding a gloss that some same-sex couples have come to quote to the church at large: "Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (10:9). When Paul does quote Genesis 1:27, at Galatians 3:28, he blocks one of its interpretations. This is the “be fruitful and multiply” passage that Jesus and Ephesians decline to quote:

Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the

51 earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1:26-31).

Neither Jesus nor Paul quotes “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Some traditional exegesis, noticing this feature of Paul’s quotations, argues that Paul associates the passage with what humans share with animals (procreation), rather than with what makes marriage. "The command 'be fruitful and multiply,' addressed alike to the animal world and the human being as 'male and female,' has caused western theologians completely to lose sight of the fundamental fact that the institutional word of marriage, addressed to man as man-woman above the animal plane, does not even mention procreation. It speaks of the 'solitude' of the nuptial communion (Gen. 2:18-24). Likewise, the teaching of the Lord (Mt 19:5; Mk 10:4), and that of St Paul (Eph 5:31)."10 Certainly, the passage associates the multiplication of procreation with the multiplication of cattle and crops and the command “you shall have them for food.” The context here is agriculture.

When Paul does mention this passage, he maintains its wording with care. He preserves it just when parallelism might prompt him to change it. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no ‘male and female’: for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). The first two pairs have “neither . . . nor” (ouk . . . oude); the last pair correctly quotes the Septuagint to read “no ‘male and female’” (ouk . . . kai). Paul denies that the gender of the believer can hinder Christ. Male and female, Christ can draw them: Christ can be all to all. Christ is the Bridegroom for women and for men; the church is Christ’s Bride in its members female and male. Gender does not hinder the Bridegroom or the Bride, the Spirit of fidelity or the Spirit of adoption, for the Spirit can create faithfulness and adopt children even from stones. Precisely because Christ is all--the omega--there can also be “no ‘male and female,’” where that means a final, compulsory, exhaustive ending of one in the other, but in the Christ who satisfies the desire of every living thing (Ps 145:16). Christ attracts—or orients—all desire to God. “No ‘male and female’” denies, therefore, strong forms of the complementarity theory, according to which a woman would remain incomplete without a man, or a man incomplete without a woman. That theory, taken to its logical conclusion, effectively denies the Christ in whom all things are “summed up” (Eph 1:10).

Thus Paul, when he does quote Genesis 1:27 at Gal 3:28, subordinates it to Christ and blocks the implication that complementarity of "male and female" is exclusive rather than typical. Indeed, ascetic currents in the early church found a stronger reason than exegesis

10 Evdokimov, p. 22 runs together with one of his notes; a second note in the same place cites Origen, Commentary on Matthew, PG 13:1229.

52 to deny compulsory complementarity or procreation: the examples of Jesus and Paul, who kept mixed company but did not need to be completed either by a spouse of the opposite sex or the procreation of children. If the love of God for God’s people founds marriage, then the complementarity of female and male can typify and signify, but not compel or exhaust its meaning.

The tradition that runs through John Chrysostom notes another feature of that passage. The command “be fruitful and multiply,” precisely as applied to the man and the woman, does not end the verse but leads to “and fill the earth." The command is not absolute, but contingent. Already at creation, God foresees its end. The earth, Chrysostom explains in the fourth century, is full; its population is enough; the command has been fulfilled11. God bounds the command by time and sufficiency. But that is not all. Filling the earth is not just quantitative but qualitative, so that the command ends in "dominion." To Paul, therefore, it suggests the qualitative fulfillment of history in the dominion of the Messiah. The command of creation is fulfilled, that is, when the Second Adam fulfills the promise of the first and brings the dominion of God. That is why ascetic innovations in the early church found Paul's example so powerful. Procreation undermined the sense that the command has been fulfilled, the Messiah has come, this world is coming to an end, and human beings may rely on resurrection to show God’s faithfulness to the continuation of embodied human life. Here is the connection of resurrection and moral order. Because we may trust God, human beings do not need procreation in the same way.12 Thus Paul promotes celibacy as a witness to the resurrection (1 Cor 7:29). He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8). The New Testament has entered the age in which the sacrament of baptism--which Cyril of Alexandria recognizes as a rite of adoption13-- qualifies procreation in significant ways. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). The author of John contrasts "children of God" through faith with biological children created through marriage. Thus, the example of Jesus and the teaching of Paul rule out both the cult of fertility and the exclusive version of gender complementarity.

Both Jesus and Ephesians prefer the second account of the creation of human beings. The Book of Common Prayer subjects the interpretation of Genesis 2 to a christological discipline in two ways. First, it reads marriage to signify Christ and the church. Second, it reads it to embody Christ's love of the neighbor as himself. Galatians 3:28 placed Genesis 1:27 under a christological judgment: the oneness of human beings consists not in “male and female,” but “in Christ Jesus.” Genesis 2:27, on the other hand, receives a christological expansion: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. The mystery is a profound

11 John Chrysostom, "Sermon on Marriage," in On Marriage and Family Life, trans. Catherine P. Roth and David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997), p. 85.

12 John Chrysostom, Homily I on Marriage, in Theology and Sexuality, p. 90.

13 Cyril of Alexandria, PG 33.1081B.

53 one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself” (Eph 5:32-22).

Why does the author of Ephesians prefer the account in Genesis 2? He tells us that it allows the community to represent Christ and the church. Neither procreationism nor complementarianism is his theme, but witness: witness to the love of God for God’s people. This in itself makes no innovation, but carries forward Jewish exegesis of the Song of Songs as treating the love between God and God’s people. Nor does the witness to the love of God remain distant and otherworldly, but comes right down to earth. Immediately the author draws the conclusion that marriage should teach neighbor-love: “love your wife as you love yourself.” Marriage, therefore, bears witness to both of the great commandments: it signifies the love of God, and it teaches love of neighbor. In turn, how and to whom the church offers marriage shows the great commandments' scope. Ephesians denies, therefore, that the model of Christ and the church could be the man and the woman standing before the altar in static tableau. Rather, modeling Christ and the church is a moral matter; it is an activity, a discipline or discipleship; it requires the couple to practice the love of the neighbor as oneself (agapato hos heauton, Eph 5:32). Not every now and then, but every day; not at a distance, but in the closest quarters. The couple's path "is narrow, perhaps the most narrow of all, since there are two that walk upon it."14

We may sum up this line of thought like this as follows. Marriage begins in eros, and ends in caritas. Eros refers to the “one flesh” (sarka mian) for which one leaves father and mother (Eph 5:31). “Caritas” refers to loving the other as one loves oneself (5:32). Marriage thus converts eros into the two great commandments about the love of God and neighbor. It testifies to the love of God by signifying Christ and the church. It testifies to the love of neighbor by enacting it toward the spouse. Marriage models Christ and the church, Ephesians suggests, not as a "state" of life, but by serving as a school for virtue. Same-sex couples must also witness to the love of Christ for the church, and they need practice in love of neighbor.

The typology of “Christ and the church” does not reduce to male-female complementarity, even if it uses gendered language. Men have always represented the bride of Christ as members of the church. Women have always represented the priesthood of Christ as believers. More recently, they have represented the priesthood of Christ as ordained. Members of either gender may serve as a sign or represent a "type." A "type," in Greek, is a sign of something else. Ephesians is not saying that we should take our understanding of Christ and the church from how our marriages work. It says that we should understand marriage from Christ and the church. Marriage forms do not limit the love of Christ for the church, but that love can give marriage more to mean. The church, traditionally gendered female as Christ’s bride, embraces women and men. “The body of Christ,” while gendered male as a human being, is gendered female as the church. Such shifts remind us why Ephesians calls marriage a "mystery" and treats it as a sign. Types do not limit representation: they open it to God's work.

14 Evdokimov, p. 70.

54 By interpreting gender christologically, the typology of Ephesians and the Book of Common Prayer - functions to exclude everything that would restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples (its reduction to procreationism or complementarianism), and opens it to everything that would include them. It opens marriage up for sanctification, for the healing of sin, for the donation of the body on the pattern of Christ, for the schooling of love of neighbor, for participation in the atonement that Christ makes for his spouse, for the adoption represented by baptism, the redemption of our bodies, and the wedding of the Lamb. That is why Paul, even if he could not have imagined same-sex marriage, restricts his advice on who should marry to the practical: “It is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor 7:9). He does not advise us to pair up male and female, in order to represent Christ and the church: he advises celibacy and marriage "if your passions are strong" (1 Cor 7:36).

Thus, both same- and opposite-sex marriage may represent the marriage of Christ and the church, because Christ is the spouse of all believers. Men do not represent Christ by maleness alone, nor do women represent the church by femaleness alone. Same-sex marriage witnesses to the reality that a male Christ also saves men and a female church also saves women.

Marriage in Christ and Sexual Orientation

Marriage develops and disciplines the desire of one person for another, which includes and indeed relies on the sexual orientation of human personhood. Christian practices of marrying place the mutual desire of marriage within the desire of God for God's people, and so they interpret sexual orientation within God's desire for humanity.

What is a sexual orientation? It is an orientation of desire. Since Christ “satisfies the desire of every living thing” (Ps 145:16), a sexual orientation, theologically speaking, must be this: a more or less settled tendency by which Christ orients desire toward himself, through the desire for another human being. Alternatively, stated another way-- Christ, as God, is nearer to every creature than the creature is to itself. A sexual orientation is a way, a tropos, which the creature follows Christ to come as near to another person as a creature can. The orientation of desire to Christ means that sexual orientation is a moral matter. All of the married know that they have learned moral virtues—patience or temperance or courage, fidelity, hopefulness, and charity—because of a vulnerability to their spouse that they could not learn from any other person. Eros makes a way to the heart; without the vulnerability it brings, charity grows cold. This is not a lesson of “sexual liberation,” if sexual liberation involves evading commitment and discipline. This is a lesson of the incarnation. The role of yearning in the incarnation and in the marriage that mirrors it cannot be bypassed but must be taken up—in technical language, “assumed”—to provide the energy for moral healing and growth.

What does it mean that human personhood is sexually oriented? Again, the explanation is moral. A sexually oriented person is someone who develops and is morally improved through a relationship with someone of the apposite sex, typically but not necessarily the opposite sex. Those called to same-sex relationships are those that need them for their own sanctification. They need same-sex relationships for their own sanctification because

55 neither opposite-sex relationships nor celibacy could get deeply enough into their hearts to promote lifelong commitment and growth. “Moral improvement” means growth on the pattern of the incarnation. In addition, that means growth through and not without the creaturely limitations that Christ took on to use for our good: the limits of time and the body. Moral growth takes time. Further, it takes place when we are brought up against the limits and the finitude of our bodies, of our creatureliness. It does not bypass the body. We learn anew with Adam that we are yet creatures, and not gods. Many gay and lesbian people have learned this in trying and failing to “go straight.” Finally, we learn anew with Christ to re-befriend our bodies, to see them as places where Christ can continue in us the project of incarnation in turning desire into charity and even sacrifice.

Complementarity theories of marriage stress “difference.” If difference is about more than body-shape, what differences matter? God intends difference for blessing. Under conditions of sin, we have learned, human beings turn difference to curse. There is enough difference to go around. The question is, which differences bless? The differences that lead to moral growth on the pattern of the incarnation, of Christ and the church, are those, as Gregory Nazianzen says, that turn our limits to our good.15 The differences that turn our limits to our good are those that cause us to need one another, since love can exist only as relationally possessed. We need each other both because we yearn for one another, and because we challenge one another. It is difference—as need—that excites longing. Same-sex couples are no strangers to that. Rather, same-sex couples are those who encounter yearning and challenge of the deepest, most heart-felt, most life-changing sort from someone of the apposite, not the opposite sex.

If I am in a same-sex couple, my spouse is the one who most differs from me in the morally significant sense: the one who makes me most vulnerable; the one who most escapes my control; the one who brings me to give myself; the one who challenges me; the one who confronts and stands over against me because with that one I disarm and donate myself. That one inspires me and requires that I live out the relation of Christ with his bride: who inspires sacrifice and self-commitment, to whom I undertake the ascetic discipline of “for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better for worse, till death do us part.”

When two women or two men vow lifelong faithfulness to one another in marriage, they order their sexual desires in relationship. It is, indeed, marriage that makes difference, the difference God intended, the difference that blesses, the difference that makes us different, that opens us to challenge and change. The difference that marriage makes is the differentiation of the Spirit, by which the Spirit drives eros to sacrifice. The church should call to same-sex marriage those for whom someone of the same sex makes the moral difference. The church should call to same-sex marriage those who need sanctifying. The church should call to same-sex marriage those whose witness she desires to the love of God for the church.

15 Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 14.7. Maximus the Confessor devotes Ambiguum 7 to expanding this idea.

56 Real desire is not the satisfaction of the ego, but its loss in self-donation. Too many gay and lesbian people have tried opposite-sex marriages to gratify their egos and gain self- control, or to deny themselves. Only in same-sex marriages can they undertake and undergo real self-abandonment and self-donation to the other. Discipline hardly works without longing; all creation waits "with eager longing" (Rom 8:19). With longing Jesus so loves the world, that he gives his life (Jn. 3:16) on the cross. Jesus did not go to the cross by denying what he longed for: Jesus went to the cross by following his desire, because his love was for his bride. Jesus went to the cross by following his yearning, because he yearned for God. That is why marriage imitates the wedding of the Lamb, and initiates desire into charity: it practices the self-giving of a whole life to another followed by the gifts of the Spirit that help unite the spouses to God. Jesus prefers those whose desires run hot (Rev. 3:15) and avoids those whose desires grow cold (Mt 24:12).

No married couple, gay or straight, takes God’s grace for granted. Rather, they all pray for grace and mercy. In the marriage liturgy, the celebrant calls on God to “look mercifully.” The couple comes “seeking” God’s blessing. The celebrant asks God to assist them with grace (BCP, 425). We ask God’s assistance more widely. We urge more couples to seek God’s blessing and see new signs that God looks mercifully upon those who do. “Marriage does not justify love; it is its grace.”16

Marriage as Medicine

Under conditions of sin, a community from which one cannot easily escape—especially marriage and monasticism—is not likely to be straightforwardly improving. The community from which one cannot easily escape is morally risky. It tends to expose people at their worst. The hope is that community exposes the worst in people to heal them. To this end, multiple Christian traditions portray Christ as a physician who must probe the wounds. According to the following hymn, the instruments of the examination and cure are those of Christ’s own suffering, as he explains it to his mother standing at the foot of the cross:

Be patient a little longer, Mother, and you will see how, like a physician, I . . . reach the place where they lie and I treat their wounds, cutting with the lance their calluses and their scabs. And I take [the] vinegar, I apply it as astringent to the wound, when with the probe of the nails I have investigated the cut, I shall plug it with the cloak. And, with my cross as a splint, I shall make use of it, Mother, so that you may chant with understanding, ‘By suffering he has abolished suffering,’ my Son and my God.’17

The question is, how does the Spirit here extend the medicine of the cross to same-sex couples, as in traditional marriage the Spirit extends it to opposite-sex couples?

16 Evdokimov, p. 187. 17 On the Lament of the Mother of God 13, in St. Romanos the Melodist, Kontakia on the Life of Christ, p. 148

One God and one people

Even as a school for virtue, marriage is no final end, but trains us for another reality. "It signifies the union of Christ and his Church." The marriage of Christ and the church is not a metaphor but the real marriage, the mysterion, which other marriages “signify.” The reality that human marriages signify is one God and one people. "What God has joined together, let no one put asunder" (Mk. 10:9) applies to both marriage and the church. That is why "our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee." It is because God loves God’s people "that there is such a thing as love and marriage."18 Because God reaches out to God's people in mission there has come to be love and marriage for couples of the same sex.

“To Uphold this Couple in their Marriage”

The Third Vow

The marriage vows make marriage an ascetic discipline for sanctification’s sake. The marriage preface directs that discipline to the signifying of God’s reconciliation. However, there are not only two vows in the marriage rite. There are three. The third vow commits the people witnessing the ceremony to uphold the couple. Marriage is not for the couple alone but also for the gathered church. The marriage preface commissions the couple for mission. Their witness to the community, and the community’s keeping faith with them signal that marriage itself is no égoïsme à deux, but belongs to the work of the Spirit who makes new witnesses.

Traditionalists invite us to consider the risks of revising the tradition to include same-sex couples. Among those risks is jeopardizing the church's mission, especially in contexts where blessing the marriages of same-sex couples would bring scandal or danger. Against those risks, however, others fear confining the tradition by refusing to bear witness to the Spirit of fidelity who extends and celebrates the wedding of the Lamb. Bearing such witness is the office of the Spirit whom we would not want to grieve (Eph 4:30). In such refusal, we cut ourselves off from the Spirit’s invitation to the feast and out of the Spirit’s movement of adoption. Refusal to bear witness to and keep faith with love refuses to participate in the work of the Spirit. Refusal to celebrate weddings incurs its own moral risk:

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast to his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. . . Then he said to his servants, . . . ‘Go therefore

18 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1958), p. 318.

58 to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good: so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” (Mt 22:1-3, 9-13).

Parables work on many levels. Jesus’s parable about the guests at the wedding feast has rarely been interpreted at face value. Some of us however are beginning to hear its plain sense: refusing to bear witness to love can also bring scandal and danger. Traditionalists may find the plain sense of the parable applied here in a novel way. Yet that enlargement maintains a deep accord with its traditional sense. The parable has traditionally been used in an anti-Judaic way some now repudiate: God’s servants call Gentiles into the feast of the marriage of the Son and his people, because the invited guests do not come. We repudiate supercessionist rejection of Jews on principle. Indeed, the theme of enlargement (rather than replacement) is more apt. Just as God adds Gentiles to Israel, by adoption (Rom 8) or grafting in excess of nature (para phusin, Rom 11:24), so here too God calls the unexpected into the feast. We see this happening: if the church refuses to bear witness that same-sex couples too can represent the wedding of Christ with his people, then the Spirit will expand the church. If the church is visible, not everyone may have eyes to see its full compass. The wedding rite itself requires the congregation to behold and see, to bear witness, to take part in the Spirit's office of upholding fidelity.

The priest prompts a third vow: “Will you do everything in your power to uphold this couple in their marriage,” and the people answer, “We will” (BCP, 425). “The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding feast”: the Spirit draws not the couple alone, but all who celebrate with them. One promises; the other returns the promise. That is not all. They do not promise by themselves. A congregation of witnesses promises also. In the third vow, not only the couple but also all the witnesses participate in a relationship of promises. In this third promise, the Spirit draws not only the couple, but also all the witnesses, into a parable of the Trinity, where there is one who gives a promise, one who returns a promise, and one who witnesses, upholds, guarantees, and celebrates the promise.

The Third Person

In this third vow, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of fidelity, the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8)—catches up the whole people into its own proper office of bearing witness to love. In the Spirit of fidelity (8:15), who reunited the Son with the Father to prove that love is stronger than death, the witnesses at a wedding hope to reunite the couple in times of difficulty. In the Spirit of adoption (8:23), who makes additional children for the Father from virgins and stones, the witnesses at a wedding hope the promises will produce a couple and perhaps also adopted or biological children, will with groaning in travail bear them into children of God.

59 In the Spirit of witness, who caused Jews like Paul and, under his influence, finally Peter to witness to the grafted righteousness of the Gentiles, same-sex weddings especially create witnesses to a grafting of love. Those who make these promises—these third promises, these promises of witness—put on the wedding garment. Those who make these promises at same-sex weddings may put on wedding garments as invited guests, or in place of those who would not come. Those who make these promises—these third promises—strengthen all marriages, not only the one they witness, but also their own, and not only their own, but those of others, because in these promises they uphold fidelity, undertake hospitality, and celebrate love (BCP, 430). This is perhaps the most important reason for same-sex weddings, because those who refuse to witness by refusing to uphold this marriage undermine their own marriage. Those who break this third promise, by their false witness, also break marriage vows while those who practice the third promise strengthen their own. In as much as they promise this to the least of those who marry, they do it for Christ and the church.

There may be reluctant witnesses who may feel driven into the wilderness. This also marks the Spirit’s work. Reluctant witnesses are another reason why the priest requires promises from the witnesses present, before the altar, and under God—so that later the couple may hold them accountable, as they may hold the couple accountable, to support the marriage and the promise to witness, guarantee, and celebrate the love of others. “Will you do everything in your power to uphold this couple in their marriage?” Or, as Jesus put it to Peter, “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.” For the third vow at a wedding promises to enact discipleship; it anticipates, serves, and celebrates the wedding of the Lamb. The church needs more of them. If invited guests will not come to the wedding, bring them in from the streets.

Mission and Paul's Letter to the Romans

Extending marriage intends to strengthen a connection to the love of Christ for the church by extending it precisely according to another missionary goal suggested by Paul: preaching the gospel to the group that Paul associates with same-sex practice, the Gentiles (Rom 1). Both Acts and Romans offer narratives about how the Spirit extends God’s community, and therefore God’s healing, to those regarded as too unclean to receive it. That is, both speak, of Gentiles. Acts applies to the present case because it shows the Spirit moving the earliest church to readings of Scripture that are not just novel, but apparently opposed to earlier ones by extending full fellowship to Gentiles. Moreover, it does so as the church struggles to make sense of evident holiness where the church did not foresee it. What began as a pastoral question about the conditions of Gentile admission became transformed by the Spirit's movement among the Gentiles into a missional question about the character of the gospel. Just so, many heterosexual persons in the Episcopal Church find that what began as an uncertain matter of conditions of welcome has become transformed by the faithfulness and charity of same-sex couples into a call to witness to the Spirit's mission. Indeed, some of the church's most courageous and cherished missionaries have been gay and lesbian Christians. The Spirit seems to have set a feast; refusing to attend would be ungrateful.

60 Romans applies even more clearly to the present case for same-sex marriage. In Romans, either Paul or a rival preacher whom he quotes19 associates same-sex desire with those same Gentiles. It characterizes that desire as illicit, calling it “beyond nature” (1:26; 11:24 uses the same phrase of God). At the same time, it shows the genius of Paul in undermining that very category, the natural, in describing the Spirit’s work. For Paul insists on characterizing the Spirit’s work in terms that extend the biological to include “adoption” (Rom 8:23) and “grafting” (Rom 11:23). In a reversal designed to shock, Paul returns to the very phrase used to castigate the Gentiles’ apparently excessive sexual desire—the phrase “beyond nature”—to describe the action of God in saving them (Rom 11:24). In both cases the word “extension” now seems strictly necessary to describe what the Spirit does, because the church now sees that the Spirit does not leave behind the Jews in extending blessing to the Gentiles. Rather the Spirit (in the metaphors of Romans) “adopts” or “grafts” Gentiles onto the house of Israel. The metaphors of “adoption” and “grafting” are meant to exclude not only the replacement theologies that sprang up nevertheless; they are also meant to exclude the kind of Gentile dominance that would swamp or wash out Jewish identity. “Adoption” and “grafting” mark strikingly para-biological metaphors for the extension of God’s household by love. Similarly, “adoption” and “grafting” make good metaphors for the extension of married households to same-sex couples whom we seek to graft into traditional marriage forms. In order to understand the church’s mission to same-sex couples, we must understand the church’s mission to those with whom Paul (or his rival) associated same-sex desire: the Gentiles.

This procedure enjoys several advantages. It reminds us that the passages in Hebrew Scripture that refer to same-sex sexual activity (Gen 19:5; Lev 18:22 and 20:13 of which the Genesis passage does not refer to desire but to rape) have the same shape as those that Romans treats: they characterize Gentiles. It helps to restore all these passages to the canon of Scripture, from which contemporary embarrassment had banished them. It does that by restoring these passages to their place in a larger and more important topic: the salvation of many nations worked by God.

In Romans, Paul extends the love of Christ for the church by using the phrase para phusin, “in excess of nature” (Rom 11:24). Translators often render this phrase as "against nature."20 The root meaning of the Greek word para is spatial: alongside, as in "parallel." "Paranormal" and "paradox" connote what comes beside or in addition to the expected, rather than reversing it. No one would hear contrariety in such Greek words as paradigm or paragon, or such biblical words as paraenesis, Paraclete, or parable. Although the preposition functions differently from the compounding form, it is not the same as anti. Paul plays on all this by using the preposition and its compounds in the same context. It is just such compounds that abound in Romans 11, forcing a Greek

19 For narrower and broader judgments about where the quotation marks would go, see Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994) and more recently Douglas Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009).

20 Dale Martin, "Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32," Biblical Interpretation 3 (1995):332-55.

61 reader to think of the horticultural terms paraphusas, paraphusis, a graft or insertion. The use of para phusin in Romans 11 re-casts and ironizes its use in Romans 1, since both uses concern the characterization of Gentiles.

The Spirit works paraphysically, alongside the incarnation, or by adoption, to make the Gentiles God's “para-people” alongside Israel. Thus, Paul chooses to describe God’s extension of the gospel to the Gentiles by the very word with which he or his rival had previously stereotyped them.21 None of this makes Paul himself pro-gay: but it reads the text of Paul as pro-Gentile. If Paul entertains the cultural stereotype that Gentile sexuality is excessive (Rom 1), he does so to show how God's love of Gentiles is also excessive (Rom 11). Since today almost the whole church is composed of Gentiles, we ignore this at our peril. “How much more quickly,” Paul asks in the same verse, “will God cut off you [Gentile, grafted] branches?” We carry forward the love of Christ for the (now mostly Gentile) church in making this extension. We continue Paul’s metaphor of grafting the so-called “wild,” undomesticated same-sex couples onto the “domestic,” household olive tree “in excess of nature.”

Romans also reminds the marriage debates that the Spirit of marriage—which is the Spirit that binds Christ and the church—is called “the Spirit of faithfulness” and “the Spirit of adoption” (8:15, 8:23), and not the spirit of procreation or the spirit of complementarity. It is a Spirit that distributes gifts and gathers the diverse. It is a Spirit that reproduces, not itself, but Christ. It is a Spirit that reproduces “not by blood or by the will of the flesh or by the will of man” (John 1:13), but by “grafting” and “adoption.” The Spirit who hovers over the waters of creation and the womb can hardly be against procreation—by no means!—but that is not how Paul characterizes it. What the Spirit replicates in Christian marriage is not children as such, but children of God, including spouses made into the image of Christ and the church. The marriage of the Spirit produces Christians--including, "when it is God's will," children raised "in the knowledge and love of the Lord" (BCP, 423, 429).

“For which your Son gave his Life”

Marriage is one of the chief places in which adults gladly pay one another’s debts and substitute for one another. The mystery of Christ and the church includes substitutionary atonement in the context of Christ’s marital friendship with humanity. The wedding and the blood of the Lamb are inseparable. All Christian marriages, gay and straight, live from the wedding of the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain. The Lamb did not bleed but for the love of the bride, so that even in Anselm, God meets his demand with the gift of the body, and pays his debt with a bodily donation. In fact, Anselm describes himself as by baptism "betrothed to Christ" and therefore "dowered with the Holy Spirit," in the

21 Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 108-9.

62 technical sense of a widow receiving an inalienable share of her dead husband's property.22 No one has put it more familiarly than Samuel Wesley:

The Church's one foundation/ Is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is his new creation /By water and the word: From heaven he came and sought her /To be his holy bride; With his own blood he bought her, /And for her life he died.

Moreover, no one has put it more vividly than Jacob of Serugh:

The King’s Son made a marriage feast in blood at Golgotha; There the daughter of the day was betrothed to him, to be his, And the royal ring was beaten out in the nails of his hands; With his holy blood was this betrothal made . . . he led her into the Garden—the bridal chamber he had prepared for her.23 At what wedding feast apart from this did they break the body of the groom for the guests in place of other food?24

Marriage participates in the atonement that Jesus made for his spouse. In both cases, a body is given to another. In both cases, the gift begins in desire and ends in charity. Jesus did not die for his spouse because his desire was faint, but because his passion was great. Jesus takes on the body to befriend it, to rescue it from scorn; he gives over the body to befriend others. As Athanasius has him pray to the Father, “As Thou hast given Me to bear this body, grant to them Thy Spirit.”25 As the atonement does not bypass the body, neither may we. As the atonement uses and elevates the body by giving it as a gift, so must we. Marriage is a signal means of taking part in the atonement through our very bodies, not by expressing or satisfying them, but by giving them. Better—a body’s true expression and fulfillment comes only in gift and refusal of this gift risks the refusal of the Spirit. Every Christian must be able to pray to the Father the prayer that Athanasius put on the lips of Christ: “As Thou has given me to bear this body, grant to them Thy Spirit.”

The paradigm for the body in Christianity is Jesus’s remark, “This is my body, given for you.”26 With that, Jesus subverts and redeploys a structure of violent oppression—the

22 Anselm of Canterbury, Oration II (formerly Oration III) in Opera Omnia, vol. III, p. 80, ll. 7f.

23 Jacob of Serugh, translated as "Jacob of Serugh II," in Sebastian Brock, The Syriac Father on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1987), p. 287.

24 Jacob of Serugh, Homily on the Veil of Moses, 11.141-51, trans. in Sebastian Brock, Studies in Syriac Spirituality, Syrian Churches Series 13 (Poonah, India: Anita Printers, 1988), p. 95.

25 Athanasius of Alexandria, Orations Against the Arians III.25.23.

26 This paragraph is quoted with small changes from Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., “Marriage as an Ascetic Practice.” INTAMS Review, The Journal of the International Academy of Marital Spirituality 11 (2005): 28-36.

63 crucifixion—and turns it to a peaceful feast. He reverses the movement of the Fall, which counted divinity a thing to be grasped. Jesus re-befriends the body, and creates the bread of heaven, by counting divinity not a thing to be grasped. At the last supper, he performs a deathbed wedding, as if he said: “You cannot violate my body,” he says: “Take it, I give it to you.”27

Marriage for same-sex couples helps us recover, not lose, the meaning of the atonement. It helps us recover, not lose, a remedy for sin. It helps us lose, not heterosexual marriage as such, but distortions in which the less powerful suffer at the hands of the more--often women at the hands of men. It also helps us lose, then, distorted meanings of atonement in which the self-abnegation of Christ becomes an image of female subordination and a warrant for patriarchal violence. Marriage for same-sex couples helps us to recover the meaning of atonement in the gift of Christ's body.

Both same and opposite-sex couples may make the mistake of blaming the fall on the body, because that interpretation sees the body as something Christians are saved from, rather than taking the incarnation seriously to see the body as something by which Christians are saved. Rather, Genesis and Philippians agree that the point of the fall is wanting to be like God. Therefore, Genesis 3:5 names the temptation: “you will be like God.” They did not stoop too low, and then fall down: they reached too far up, and fell over. In the Philippians hymn (2:5-6) we read reversal. “Have this in mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (harpagmon).” Here the incarnation precisely reverses the fall: Christ undoes Adam's grasping after equality with God. Marriage teaches creatures to "have this in mind": that they are to participate in Christ's reversal of the fall by intentionally loving each other as Christ loved them. Marriage, among other things, fulfills this command; refusal of marriage to those who appropriately seek it diminishes and detracts from it.

The mystery of Genesis 1 is that I am made in the image of another: not my own. I am destined to find my greatest good in one beyond my control. God is a mystery, as a good too great for me to grasp, and I am a mystery to myself, as having my true good there. Genesis 1 portrays sexuality as a reflection or image of this mystery: “in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26).

Only after the first couple grasped after wanting “to be like God” (Gen. 3:5) were "their eyes opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7): They did not see that their bodies were bad but that their bodies were creaturely. Their bodies told them truth, they were creatures, and not God. Their bodies gave their overreach the lie. They felt shame, because they scorned the bodies that God created good. Their shame was already an

27 For a longer account, see Sexuality and the Christian Body, pp. 249-268 and Rogers, “Nature with Water and the Spirit: A Response to Rowan Williams,” Scottish Journal of Theology 56 (2003): 89-100; here, 92- 96.

64 effect of the fall, not recoil from it: they felt shame because they failed to become God, because they were creatures still.28

This reading is confirmed by Philippians, because the incarnation reverses it. Christ not only repaired the fall negatively when, unlike Adam, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” Christ also repaired the fall positively when he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” Christ repaired the fall by taking on the body, not by scorning it. “Therefore God exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” at the human name, at the name, Jesus, that Christ received with his body (Phil. 2:7-10).

Why did Jesus not climb down from the cross? - because he held himself accountable to put his body where his love was. In Luke, the last temptation is “if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,” from the temple, the place of sacrifice (4:9). The soldiers' recommendation to Jesus on the cross in Luke to “save yourself” becomes in Matthew a recommendation from passers-by, mockers, and the thieves crucified with him to “let him now come down from the cross . . . let God deliver him” (Mt 27:42-43). Why does Jesus regard climbing down as a temptation? Because he has pledged his love in his body (“this is my body, given for you”) precisely to these, to humankind the grasper, the criminal, the thief: and because to climb down from the cross would be to abandon his solidarity with the thief, the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43), that other Adam, whom Christ took on a body to befriend.

To put one’s body on the line in solidarity with another, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part: that is one place where Christians daily and bodily live out and partake in the atonement by which Christ re-befriends the body and overcomes sin. They practice Christ’s solidarity with his bride, the criminal, the thief on the cross. The practice of accountability through the gift of the one’s body to another “for better for worse,” and the practice of solidarity with one’s body on the line “till death do us part” are not things that same-sex couples should be left out of: they are things same-sex couples desperately need and the church desperately needs from them. Traditional Christians have no wish to deprive same-sex couples of their most promising source of help: yet on this account, this is same-sex marriage, because it not only participates in the atonement for sin, but does so by daily practices of accountability far beyond what counseled celibacy can provide. Marriage for same-sex couples allows them to participate in the solidarity of Christ with the thief on the cross whom he did not abandon, but befriended, until death parted and paradise reunited them.

The final reversal of the fall is of course eucharistic, because redemption, like the fall, takes place by eating. Not only do Adam and Eve partake of the fruit of the tree, as the second Adam would later offer the fruit of the vine: they are also commanded “in the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread” (Gen. 3:19). This command becomes the means

28 See Sebastian Moore, “The Crisis of an Ethic without Desire,” in Jesus the Liberator of Desire (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 89-107, reprinted in Rogers, Theology and Sexuality, 157-69.

65 of their redemption when Jesus gives his body as their bread. That is why the marriage rite begins with Cana, which points forward to the Last Supper and the Wedding of the Lamb, and ends with the Eucharist, where “the newly married couple may present the offerings of bread and wine” (BCP, p. 432). Their first married act follows Christ to reverse grasping by offering, and their first common bread replaces Adam’s taking by force with receiving by gift. The gift that they receive—and that they may follow—is Christ’s self-donation, his nuptial commitment to the church, to be where his body is.

“For their Mutual Joy”

This theology of marriage has so far been very “high.” It invokes a high christology, and it requires high standards. It has interpreted human nature from the standpoint of God's grace. It has, until now, said little about natural orders and ends, on the view that nature offers no easily known ends, but rather must be interpreted. Christians interpret the patterns of nature by the patterns of grace. This theology of marriage has then interpreted human nature in the practice of marriage within the patterns of God's dealings with creation. It has then spoken much of sanctification and self-donation, asceticism, training, accountability, and discipline. For fear of giving the wrong impression, it has spoken little of pleasure and joy.

Yet, the marriage rite expects joy from those united together, as the fulfillment of their nature as human creatures. “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy” (BCP, 423). Indeed, this end of marriage comes before the mutual donation, “for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity.” “Joy” precedes “gift” as justification before sanctification, as prevenient grace. For what can prompt the gift of self? Overwhelming grace that carries and transports: Augustine calls it delectatio victrix, delight that wins the victory, and he analyzes it in his letter to Simplicianus. What do you have, Augustine asks, that you did not first receive? One first receives, he answers, by God’s prevenient moving of the heart, moving it most interiorly, more intimately than it moves itself, a moving Augustine calls “delight.” Augustine was speaking of conversion, but he might have been speaking of marriage, when he wrote: “Who can embrace wholeheartedly what gives him no delight? But who can determine for himself that what will delight him should come his way, and, when it comes, that it should, in fact, delight him?”29 “Love, like martyrdom, cannot be imposed.”30

Peter Brown paraphrases Augustine’s claim in Ad Simplicianum like this: “‘Delight is the only possible source of action, nothing else can move the will. Therefore, a man can act only if he can mobilize his feelings, only if he is ‘affected’ by an object of delight.”31 This delight both gives a vision of the whole—what life with this one (bride or

29 Ad Simplicianum I.ii.21.

30 Evdokimov, p. 188.

31 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 154-55, citing Ad Simplicianum I.ii.13.

66 Bride, bridegroom or Bridegroom) might be like, and a foretaste of charity, as eros (for a time) gives what charity demands.

In the exegesis of the Song of Songs, therefore, delight does not reduce to its fleeting character, as if its fulfillment should blink in and out of sight: rather its yearning remains constant when its vision departs. “Let me leave them outside, breathing into the dust, and filling their eyes with earth, and let me enter into my chamber and sing my songs of love to Thee, groaning with inexpressible groaning in my distant wandering, and remembering Jerusalem with my heart stretching upwards in longing for it: Jerusalem my Fatherland, Jerusalem who is my mother . . . .”32

This is so because in human love, if it is really love, “it is the image of God that delights us.”33 The union of the spouses “is intended by God for their mutual joy”—and can hardly be otherwise, if the end of the human being is “in the joy of fully knowing and loving God and each other.”34 Therefore, “[t]he life of the Christian community has as its rationale—if not invariably its practical reality—the task of teaching us so to order our relations that human beings may see themselves as desired, as the occasion of joy.”35 This then is no selfish joy. The spouse learns joy only by teaching the other that he or she is the occasion of joy. And this is not individual or even couple- centered joy. This is among the ways that the church teaches her members that God loves them for Christ's sake in the Spirit. That is why the marriage rite teaches that the union of the spouses—even sinners--“is intended by God for their mutual joy.” If even sinners may rejoice that heaven is at hand, then why not? If even marital discipline trains for the kingdom, how then could it be otherwise? Although we have stressed marriage as a risky and difficult form of training in virtue, the liturgy presents it to us as a celebration, intended for joy—because without joy it could not prefigure the wedding of the Lamb. The wedding feast, like the Sabbath, is a day of the Lord: Let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24; Rev. 19:7).

32 Confessions XII.xvi.23.

33 Evdokimov, p. 172.

34 Catechism, BCP, p. 862.

35 Rowan Williams, “The Body’s Grace,” in Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), p. 312.

67 The Traditionalist Response

The conversation between the traditional and liberal teams on this panel has been charitable and constructive, and we affirm the sincere desire of our counterparts to be faithful and to build up the Church. At the same time, we find their argument confused and their exegesis mistaken, and we worry that the revision they advocate would be harmful to the life of the Church. This is important to point out, for we readily acknowledge the quasi-homiletical eloquence of their paper, into which the reader may be caught up. There are extended sections of spiritual explication of the meaning of marriage, which we found moving. The problem is that those sections do not actually bear on the question we have been commissioned to reflect upon, whether or not same- sex couples ought to be married. It is on the passages that deal with the question at hand, especially as they offer theological argumentation and scriptural interpretation, that we will focus our attention.

Our counterparts are offering what they themselves understand to be a surprising and “transgressive” argument. To this end there are places where words are used in highly unusual, even contrarian ways: passages in praise of celibacy now serve to undermine the norm of heterosexual monogamy, all in the service of homosexual marriages, which are described as “ascetical.” (One can only imagine how amazed the Patristic and Orthodox authors cited would be to read the use to which their ideas are being put). We will show how key biblical passages are made to stand on their heads; for example, Ephesians 5, with its explicit reference to male/female complementarity, is taken to say the opposite. These swerves in the argument slide by quickly, and our task will be to point out such detours. Our advice to readers is to remain focused on the question at hand.

Note well what is not in their argument, namely any treatment of the question of scientific evidence about homosexuality.1 This is odd for several reasons: 1) its treatment was part of our mandate, and 2) it features prominently in popular arguments in favor of

1 Though they avoided the scientific discussion mandated for us in this project in their main document, the liberal side does wade into this debate in their response. At the outset, they acknowledge that the question of the etiology of homosexual orientation is a murky and controverted one. They then assert, “sexual orientation begins in the womb…” But how could this possibly be correct, since one side of the argument in the controverted debate about the causes of orientation emphasizes factors of human environment, of “nurture”? The liberal claim then expands exponentially: it is a “natural aptitude,” it is “nature” in a theological sense (in distinction from grace, and so as in itself a gift of creation), it is even a “christological condition…[directing] our desire godward…” indeed a gift of the Spirit hovering over “the waters of womb.” These huge claims stand in sharp tension with the starting point of scientific agnosticism; they are heavily freighted with debatable assumptions that are the stuff of the contention that runs throughout this whole debate (i.e., effect of the fall or gift of creation). Such bald assertions cannot stand up. For example, advocates of same-sex marriage acknowledge that for at least a few persons a significant cause of same-sex attraction may be abuse - how can this fit with this picture of divine prevenient orientation. Likewise all involved in this debate, liberal and traditionalist, agree that some people are oriented in a pernicious way, e.g. with sexual attraction to minors, whether of the same or the opposite sex. Surely, the orientation-granting Spirit did not hover over the waters of their mothers’ wombs.

68 the blessing of same sex relations. We would hazard the guess that the data in its ambiguity and inconclusiveness were not helpful to their argument.

What is the core argument?

It is always interesting when authors tell us what they are not saying at the outset. When our counterparts tell us that they are not offering an argument based on experience, spiritual enthusiasm, and cultural trend, they “doth protest too much,” for that is just what they in fact do present. Theirs is a pneumatic argument, an intuition of what they believe the Holy Spirit is doing in the world, namely the confirmation of the affirmation of gay unions, first in society and now in the Church: they say, “the Spirit has contrived with social change.” They identify this movement as part of the missio Dei, the work of the triune God reaching out to the world through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. Who could be against that?

To see the problem in this apple-pie-and-motherhood argument, a word of historical perspective from the modern theology of mission (missiology) is helpful. The origins of the idea of the missio Dei are in the period after World War II, when figures such as Lesslie Newbigin and the German missiologist Georg Vicedom sought to emphasize the triune God’s sovereign work as opposed to our own human plans and efforts. They worried that their contemporaries’ “God was too small,” and this idea would show His work in the whole world to be bigger. But the problem is to read what God’s work is off the secular record of worldly events and movements alone. With the emergence of a more secularized missiology in the 1960s, it soon became apparent that the missio Dei bore for each writer a striking resemblance to his or her own agenda for social change in the world.2 In other words, the danger is that, under the guise of mission, and marinated in a rich broth of Trinitarian language, the idea becomes an occasion for the social agenda items their advocates already espouse. Far from being a means of turning our attention to God, it becomes a cover for the same old fixation on our own interests.

This is exactly what is going on in this argument. Our counterparts tell us that what God is doing in the world at present is the affirmation of same-sex couples in society and the Church (= missio Dei). How do we know this to be true? The Spirit says so. How have they ascertained this? It is self-evident from their experience of these couples, from the trends of liberation in our culture, etc., at least to those who agree. This self-evidence is a kind of immediate intuition from looking at the world. This brings us to the next crucial stage in the argument: “the Scripture demands to be read in accordance with the missio Dei.” So, passages that do not move in that direction can be ignored or can undergo a swerve in interpretation. Therefore, the pneumatic train of thought goes like this:

Cultural intuition -> Spirit -> missio -> norm for reading Scripture -> rereadings in conformity to the missio

2 The classic work on this is H. H. Rosin, `Missio Dei’: an Examination of the Origins, Contents, and Functions of the Term in Protestant Missiological Discussion, (Brill: Leiden, 1972). Lesslie Newbigin talks about his worries about the secularized direction the idea took, especially in the writings of Hans Hoekendijk, in his autobiography Unfinished Agenda, (London: SPCK, 1985).

69 Note what a radical change in biblical exegesis this will bring about. We are warned against readings that would constrain the work of the Spirit in the missio Dei. Surely, attention to what the words actually say should constrain readings; otherwise, it is hard to say that it is reading we are doing at all. An important part of the Scripture serving as a canonical authority for the Church is that it can guide, critique, and indeed constrain the judgments and decisions of the Church. This power to address the Church is clearest in cases of “repugnance” (see Article 20 of the 39 Articles), where a matter in question stands in direct contradiction to the plain sense of a passage, interpreted in keeping with the whole witness of Scripture. We will show that such is the case before us. It is precisely at this point that the debate over homosexual behavior, while it may not be (to use the unhelpful language of the Righter trial) “core doctrine,” does become a prime occasion for a debate over a doctrinal issue of great importance, namely the authority of Scripture itself.

There is, of course, an irony in the abstract use of God’s mission to the Gentiles, since it is in the service of a cause which continues to tear at the communion we have as Anglicans from all the nations of the earth. The liberal argument offers confession of carelessness on this score and calls for greater neighborliness, but there is no indication of a willingness seriously to take counsel with our fellow nations in the communion or to have our behavior constrained by their admonitions. They admit that they have “despised common patterns of discernment,” but counsel continuing in the same vein in spite of this fact. The idea that Gentiles from different vantage points can see for one another things one cannot see for oneself, is absent; we are sorry, and then we do what we want to do. The real catholicity of fellowship, born of the missio Dei ad gentes, is marred.

Let us return for a moment to the core logic itself, for understanding it helps to answer an important question about the liberal case. This is a seeming tension in their document. They tell us that only now, in light of the Spirit’s movement in the lives of same-sex couples, can the plain sense of the passages in question be understood. However, at one point, they seem to acknowledge that Paul meant what we traditionals are saying, except that the whole “male-female symbol system,” of which these views are a part, is problematic and must be reworked. This latter, more radical tack reminds us of an interpreter like Walter Wink,3 who more straightforwardly acknowledges that the Bible is on this subject uniformly negative, and goes on to claim that here the Bible is wrong. We are told that, where it is wrong, we need to move in the direction of greater progress and liberation. While there is a hermeneutical gap within the liberal argument itself between these two views, it provokes only a seeming tension, since it makes no theological difference.4 For both subthemes in the liberal argument evince a similar underlying logic,

3 See his review in Christian Century, June 5-12, 2002, pg. 33.

4 This difference of opinion within the liberal side itself, between the “new plain sense” claiming better to understand Biblical texts, and a critique of those texts as patriarchal, may be found in the liberal response itself. The latter, more liberationist view asserts itself when the liberal response tells us that patterns of domination on which the Biblical texts are based have been replaced by emerging model based on “egalitarianism, mutuality, and democracy.” (19th century liberal Protestantism lives!) We too are all for democracy as a political system, but making such markers of Western cultural progress the norm for judging Scripture is another matter.

70 which is typical of method in modern theological liberalism: a general theme derived from the culture at large comes to serve as a norm for the reading of Scripture. In both cases, the experience of same-sex couples, growing out of a political and social movement, generates the norm, in the later case more directly, in the former case in a more roundabout way via the invocation of missio.

If God has acted, as it is suggested in the missio Dei argument of the liberals, who are we to contend with God? For its advocates, the matter is already settled. So they naturally feel they must proceed, without waiting on more debate and regardless of consequences. This casts the context of dialogue in which we participate in a clearer light. We have addressed the question whether we ought to see this question as a “Church-dividing issue.” Such an issue is properly understood as one that follows so directly from the very nature of the Gospel that faithfulness requires action, come what may.5 Therefore, the liberals see this issue, for they believe they are only following what the Holy Spirit has already done. They proclaim confidently that this is already the “American mission’ to the world. In just this way, the liberal side in the Episcopal Church, as they move forward unilaterally in diocese after diocese without regard to the effects on the Communion, are treating this issue as a “Church dividing issue.” As an aside, we may note the odd and awkward position this places us who advocate the traditional view on this subcommittee. It is more normal to consider arguments pro and con before the decision has been made!6

Misreading Scripture

In our main document, we have already treated the key passages, and we will not rehearse their arguments here. We recognize that there can be debate over the meaning of passages, and that passages can have multiple senses. However, this does not mean one can overlook or overturn what passages actually say, and such is the treatment key passages receive in the liberal argument. We can register these problems succinctly.

a) Acts 15 is foundational to the pneumatic argument. As the early church was opened to Gentile believers, so we now must open ourselves to same-sex marriages. But this swerves aside from some obvious facts: i) the inclusion of the Gentiles was the fulfillment of prophetic hopes (see for example Isaiah 2:2-4), while there is no such warranted Old Testament hope in the case of homosexual relations ii) the opening to the Gentiles followed the decisive act of Christ at the turning of the ages. In contrast to them, we should not presume ourselves apostles at a new turning of the ages iii) the Jerusalem Council specifically forbids porneia, that is, “sexual immortality.”

5 In Reformation theology the technical term is the status confessionis, “the stand for witnessing.”

6 There is a potentially worrisome side to the pneumatic argument for the one who refuses to see what is claimed to be the work of the Spirit. How might Matthew 22:1-3, 9-13 come to be interpreted by the church about its conservative minority?

71 b) Mark 10. Here Jesus tells us of the nature of marriage, between a man and a woman, as ordained by God “from the foundation of the world.” In so doing, he quotes both Genesis 1 and 2. Yet, inexplicably, the liberal side continues to insist that Jesus avoided citing the former, and they find in this imagined avoidance evidence against what they call “complementarianism.” This is simply inaccurate.

c) Galatians 3:28 The liberals read Paul’s statement that there is no more “`male and female’” in Christ as a warrant for same-sex marriages. However, this ignores the context of the passage, and the rest of the Pauline witness, and so amounts to proof-texting. Paul is, quite simply, not talking about marriage. While in Judaism, only the free, Jewish male could contribute to minyan in the synagogue, now all stand together and equally in prayer in the ekklesia. Indeed, when it comes to salvation, there is no difference between male and female. Neither Paul nor we would suggest anything different, and so the use of this passage in a discussion of marriage amounts to presenting a straw man.

d) Romans 1 and 11. As to the former, the liberal argument ignores what the passage in question actually says. They focus on the criticism of the Gentiles as being oversexed, but they ignore that fact that the passage refers directly to the sameness of same-sex relations, including lesbian relation (so excluding the suggestion that Paul had only pederasty in view). The argument then proceeds to claim that the references to para phusin in Romans 1:26 and in 11:24 should be understood in the same way, as meaning “beyond nature.” The claim is that taken together they amount to God’s grafting in the homosexual behavior discussed in chapter 1. This is clever but surely wrong. First, the tones and directions of the passages are starkly different. Secondly, the inclusion of the Gentiles does not mean the acceptance of all they do, especially that behavior he singles out as emblematic of their fallenness.7 Thirdly, a phrase does not mean the same thing everywhere it is used, for meaning must take account of use and context. In fact, the Greek lexicon will confirm that the preposition para can mean a number of things, among them “beyond” and “against.”

e) Ephesians 5. The liberal argument sees this passage as part of what they call the “participatory” theme in Ephesians in contrast to its hierarchical sections, and as such, they see it as a witness against gender complementarity. Given that the passage actually quotes Genesis 2 on the joining of man and woman, this reading simply contradicts what the passage actually says. Furthermore, it is ironic to deploy this passage against the procreative end of marriage, since it is part of the point of the type. One reason it serves as a “great mystery” is that the life-giving relationship of man and woman is a sign of the spiritually life-giving relationship of Christ and the Church. Furthermore, it should be noted that the verses that immediately follow in chapter 6 have to do with children. The misreading of this passage points to a more pervasive problem in the liberal side’s hermeneutics. They offer an account of typology that claims that only the antitype (the thing to which the type refers) bestows meaning, “back” as it were, on the type itself. In

7 I Cor 6:11: “such were some of you…”

72 other words, it is only Christ and the Church that tell us how to understand male and female in marriage (in this case the type). To be sure, the type does not exhaust what one might know of the antitype. Surely male and female in marriage, a thing we do know something of, does tell us something about Christ and the Church. That is, after all, the point of an analogy. The liberal reading of the typology, in which the meaning is “opened up” without restraint, conforms to their core wish not to confine their understanding of the missio.

A Consequence of great consequence

The reader may tire of all this exegetical debate, and may wonder what is really at stake; the answer is “a great deal.” The liberal argument would at the outset have the reader understand their proposal as a modest addition to the traditional understanding of marriage, which remains intact. But as the case continues, we see that a major reinterpretation is envisioned.8 The marital purpose of procreation is fine for those so inclined, but we may note the subtle shift from “purpose” as a goal given by God in creation, to “purpose” as an option that a human will might choose. Furthermore, we can cite a number of passages in their argument where procreation stands in contrast to the spiritual ends of marriage (consider for example,“what the Spirit replicates in Christian marriage is not children as such, but children of God….”) They cite affirmatively the opinion that procreation as an end of marriage has been demoted since the advent of Christ. (This strange combination of a post-procreative dispensation and a sex-positive “asceticism” might best be named “Shakerism with benefits.”) Procreation is identified as “what the human being shares with the animals,” as if this were a slight on us; for all the talk of bodiliness the argument here has a gnostic tinge. We do indeed share our bodiliness with the animals; here the biologist has something to say to the theologian. What is at stake here is the very nexus of creation and redemption, of which we spoke in our paper. Why should we assume that in matters such as ecology we do well to think and act “with the grain of creation,” but when it comes to the doctrine of the human person, and our sexuality, we ought not to think and act so? Something theologically basic is at stake here which would have major consequences if this anti-breeding drift were to affect our understanding of the human person and of society. To cite but one implication, denigration of procreation leads to the “devaluing [of]…the bearing and raising of

8 At this point, we must dissent from the claim of the liberal side that they and we have no disagreement over the “significance of marriage.” While we applaud their highlighting of a common commitment to charity in this debate, we believe that the liberal transformation of the traditional end of procreation into a personal choice, and the relegation of childbearing to the old eon, amount to a seismic shift in the significance of marriage. Their desire to blunt the sharpness of their argument is odd, given their willingness to follow its radical nature through much of our dialogue. Our disagreement can and should be charitable: in this vein, we welcome their rejection of litigation and happily and enthusiastically endorse rejection of all coercion and prejudice against gay people. At the same time we honor one another more if we take seriously the fact that we have before us a real disagreement on which a great deal rides. To claim that it amounts to a celebratory diversity following from the very persons of the Trinity resonates rhetorically, but hides the fact that discernment means deciding and deciding has consequences. (In fact the advocates of same-sex marriage know this, driving determinedly toward implementation of the revision. In this light, claims that the opposing sides are but complementary perspectives in the spirit of F.D. Maurice seems ironic.

73 children.”9 This needs, for the sake of transparency and candor, to be made clear to the Episcopal faithful in the pews--one wonders what their reception of this dimension of the new teaching might be. 10

Unmoored, and drifting where?

The liberal argument claims for itself boldness, and so we need to track its trajectory, since some of its implications will be different from what we might assume. One such example is the idea of monogamy inherited from the tradition, which turns out to be a vestige, in its two-ness, of the biological fact of conception, and so tied implicitly to the now demoted procreation. If marriage is now really about mutuality and self-donation, would there not be all the more of these in polyamory?

Equally worrisome is the implication of the argument’s view of sexual expression per se. As sexual beings, we inherently seek fulfillment according to our orientation.11 We are told that only such expression can “get deeply enough into their hearts to promote lifelong commitment and growth,” which has a strange ring given the praise offered earlier in the argument to celibacy. The imperative of sexual self-expression is connected to what is called “befriending the body” (a phrase with a distinct popular psychological ring). To refuse to befriend the body is to deny one’s creatureliness and so to fall into sin. But even this is not all: the warrant for this befriending, we are told, is the incarnation of the Son Himself. Sanctification is understood as the extension of the “project of incarnation” whereby God is transforming eros into agape through marriages. Our worry here has to do, not with the kind of rhetoric that is employed, but with the impression that it leaves. First, it seems to expand the role of marriage drastically; at times it sounds as if marriage is simply how Christ makes atonement available to us, so that those who are unmarried are somehow left out (“refusal of this gift [marriage] risks refusal of the Spirit.” What happened to sheer faith? Second, when we hear that desire is necessary “to provide the energy for moral healing and growth,” we worry about a rhetoric that too blithely praises eros per se; our counterparts would agree that there is eros galore turned toward degrading, violent, and abusive purposes. Talk of eros must always have the doctrine of original sin near at hand. Third, we worry about a tendency to eroticize even our talk of God himself. While the tradition has been willing to speak this way in a mystical sense, the concept of the divine Eros has also posed problems for Christian self-

9 Doug Farrow, “Beyond Nature, Short of Grace,” IJST, vol. 5/3, p. 281

10 The expansionist response cites a threefold typology of Evdokimov’s for the ends of marriage: procreation (catholic), restraint of lust (protestant), and sanctification (orthodox). Precisely this kind of isolation of one end from another should be avoided. Surely, Genesis 2, I Corinthians 7, and Ephesians 5 are the common inheritance of the whole Church.

11 The treatment of orientation as a given and, as such, our nature ready to be taken up by grace, is given no backing in a treatment of the scientific evidence. In addition, we are left wondering about orientations of kinds that both teams would find pernicious. If they are settled do they require fulfillment, and if not, then “settledness” is not enough of a guide.

74 understanding in the tradition, even without being connected to advocacy of sexual activity itself, as it is here.12

Conclusion

We do well to note several, more general features of the argument as a whole. First, it is an energetic case for same-sex marriage. There is no interest here in evasive halfway blessings of unions. The real question at hand is the nature of marriage, and that is what they would debate. On this, they should be praised for their clarity and candor.

Second, this is not the proposal of some small addition to an otherwise stable institution. The problematic “male-female symbol system” requires a radical change. The inherited notion was a “warrant for patriarchal violence.” Marriage itself is now to be understood, for all, to be based on mutuality and self-giving regardless of gender. If Tom happens to choose Peggy, but it could have been Bob--it is just a matter of choice. To reiterate, candor requires that the Episcopal Church make it clear that it understands all marriages in this radically new way.

Third, the argument offered by the liberal side is, whatever its strengths may or may not be, highly idiosyncratic. In our view it is not an argument that would be recognizable or acceptable to most Christian traditions, or most Christians in the world. In other words, at the very least a long, long road would lie ahead of such an argument until one could say that it has been received by the faithful. In ordinary circumstances, this would delay implementation of its recommendations, but as we have observed, when it comes to discernment and doctrine, the Episcopal Church’s modus operandi is far from ordinary. For all the quoting of Orthodox theologians, this argument is complicit in a change that could well spell the end of significant ecumenical relations for the Episcopal Church.

At the outset of our dialogue, the traditionals offered as a key diagnostic issue, the following question: are same-sex relations an effect of the fall or a blessing of creation? If one opted for the former, one might still have a debate about how best to respond pastorally. But the assumption throughout their argument is for the latter, and when one chooses that road, and then one has no choice but to seek to undo the traditional account of the ordering of the sexes in creation itself, of complementarity, procreation, and the raising of children. A close reading of this case shows what it looks like to follow that road out consistently. Has the church truly measured the tower about making such a revised account normative, about teaching it in confirmation classes and pre-marital classes? To suppose that this case is consistent with a moderate accommodation out of

12 Again, a comment by Doug Farrow, op.cit. in which he quotes Rogers’ book Sexuality and the Christian Body, is apropos: “…`God desires to enter into human bodies to be desired bodily by them.’ Eros is the real mediator here, not Jesus Christ. That is why withholding the sacrament of marriage is, for Rogers, tantamount to excommunication. Sex prefigures the Eucharist…to close that sacrament to homosexuals…is to consign them to a `destiny toward nothing.’ It is an offense not only against their humanity, but God, for `it gives God nothing by which to redeem them,’” (p. 279).

75 pastoral concern with the traditional doctrine of marriage intact, as many Episcopalians, sensitive to the culture, may wish to do, simply does not follow from a close reading of this case. To follow this path promises something more challenging.

In our dialogue, we have sought candor; let candor be the watchword here at the end of our remarks. We must know ourselves to be part of our modern Western culture that valorizes autonomy and self-creation; it is not hard to see how we are readily and often tempted. Something there is in us moderns that does not love a constraint, which wants it down, for it seems to us arbitrary, “heteronomous” (to use Tillich’s term). We would define and control the genetics of our children, the terms of our dying, even the nature of marriage and its relation to the procreation of a new generation. Making marriage itself into an instrument of our own self-definition is then a case in point of something more pervasive. We would err if we left the impression that this fault lies especially with the advocates of same-sex marriage. Let the last word go to Paul in the locus classicus of Romans 1. There he insists that homosexual relations are but a vivid example of the fallenness to be found in us all. We all partake in some way in the willfulness of our age. The ubiquity of the deeper problem cannot, however, deflect us from the task, to which we are here called: to speak up when something as basic as marriage is redefined to our culture’s better liking, and when our Christian colleagues would hear peace, peace, even if it means disregarding the very words of Scripture itself.

The Liberal Response

We first want to thank our colleagues for their paper, “Same-Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology: a View from the Traditionalists” which sets out their position clearly and describes with care and respect a number of different positions. Our discussions together in the preparation of these papers have been difficult, at times emotional and passionate, and mutual trust has been hard won. Our arguments have made clear to each of us the theological, political, and personal stakes for the church’s witness to marriage. We have all shared concerns that our work together might be misunderstood, manipulated, or enlisted by church parties in ways that would contravene our purposes in working together. We are then grateful to the traditionalist panel for undertaking honest inquiry into the question of same-sex marriage in the midst of such a fraught context.

We offer this response so that readers may know how we understand the significance of our disagreements over marriage, to explain why the arguments proceed differently, and to point out some implications. Church parties will quickly draw their own implications so we wish here to be forthright about one: the church can include both of these witnesses to marriage. In our judgment, neither paper scandalizes the faith or ruptures the church On the contrary, both papers describe faithful patterns of marriage that the church needs for its witness to the truth. Where we disagree, it is over patterns of holiness and pastoral practice–not over the dignity of all persons, the significance of marriage, or the truthfulness of the gospel.

The Divide

Readers will observe that the traditionalist and expansionist arguments proceed almost along parallel tracks, so that they rarely come into direct conflict. This is because the papers use different methods to different purposes. The conservative paper argues that accepting same-sex marriage contradicts moral teachings of Scripture and the guidance of reason by natural law. It therefore defends readings of Scripture that support traditional heterosexual marriage, in part by guarding against comparisons with previous social questions about slavery and the roles of women. It supports those readings with natural law principles of sexual complementarity and procreative purpose in marriage. Our argument, on the other hand, does not reason from specific social teachings but from the moral patterns of Scripture. We do not, then, attempt to defeat biblical suspicions of various sexual relations, but rather to show how God uses marital faithfulness to heal and perfect sinners. Our argument does not seek to overturn biblical accounts of marriage and sexual morality; on the contrary, it upholds and deepens their theological meaning. We support our reading of marriage not by appealing to natural rights or to inclusive justice, but by showing how same-sex marriage fits within the scriptural liturgy and orthodox theology of the church.

Both papers demonstrate the burden that an expansion of marriage must bear within the Anglican Communion. The traditionalist paper points to the majority sentiment of the Communion, which has many members suspicious of North American innovations and western sexual culture. Our argument acknowledges that burden by demonstrating how an innovative witness to marriage is part of the Episcopal Church’s mission within its

culture and explaining how missional innovation sits within a New Testament pattern of church unity and discernment.

Because of our sense of the church’s mission, we argue for blessing same-sex marriages, not for blessing civil unions or same-sex partnerships. While some civic and legal strategies reserve the word “marriage” for relationships between male and female, and use another term such as “union” for relationships between two women or two men, the distinction does not make sense within the life of the church. There, marriage is a discipline, a means of grace, and a type of the relationship of Christ with the Church. Our argument therefore eliminates the option of “half way houses” and compromises (“Same- Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology.” We agree with the traditionalist paper and Archbishop Williams that public blessing of same-sex unions would function as Christian marrying, and we acknowledge with them that sentiment in the Communion stands against that.

We do not then argue for same-sex marriage lightly or in disregard of the Communion. We do so for the sake of the mission of our church within the Communion, as a way of giving our testimony to the work of the Spirit among us. Our position seems pressed upon us by the witness of same-sex couples, the pastoral practice of the church, and the sacrament of marriage. There is a wealth of theological, ethical, and hermeneutical work done in support of including sexual minorities in the life and leadership of the church, and of recognizing faithful same-sex partnerships as legitimate ways of living a Christian life. For the sake of mutual understanding and responsibility, our argument proceeds from the church’s liturgical tradition and practices of moral formation. For we want our companions in mission to hear us say this: expanding our blessings of marriage to include partners of the same sex does not undermine marriage; it upholds and strengthens it.

An important role for traditionalists in the Episcopal Church, their paper notes, is to continue taking part in the debates of the Communion, for they are well placed to serve as an interpreter of each side to the other. They have improved our understanding of opposing views from other parts of the Communion. We hope that by understanding our missiological appraisal of social changes in sexual attitudes and marital practices in western societies, they can help interpret the situation of expansionists in the Episcopal Church to the rest of the Anglican Communion. The purpose of our proposal is not to defeat a traditionalist position, but to provide a catechesis of marriage for the church within its context.

Scripture

The two papers take different approaches to Scripture, but neither undermines its authority for Christian life. They do not differ as enlightened opposed to fundamentalist, or modern versus pre-modern. The traditionalist paper worries that its argument will be dismissed as fundamentalist, but we do not make that charge. Nor do we denigrate pre- modern models of hermeneutics. On the contrary, we point to instances of Scripture reading Scripture (e.g., Paul quoting Genesis) and of the liturgy reading Scripture. So we read with the earliest church, with the Book of Common Prayer, and with patristic and medieval interpreters.

We also read with an expanded community of readers, including many whom the church has not previously recognized and some whom the biblical texts do not address as subjects. In the authorial perspective of some biblical texts, women, wives, slaves, Gentiles, and sexual minorities are subordinated as persons and silenced as mutual interpreters of God’s revelation. The expanded readership of the Christian church now questions these attitudes and the social presuppositions on which they were based. We read scriptural texts about marriage in a culture and world of ideas where the model of authority of husband over wife, master over slave, and parent over child has been substantially revised in the direction of egalitarianism, mutuality, and democracy. We welcome this development as positive, and related to Christian social witness. Of course, modern notions of freedom, equality, and autonomy have their corruptions and abuses, and of course, these ideas have been negotiated within a wider culture, but their impulses and logic have come in significant measure from the Christian tradition.

Within Christian churches, the ideal of marriage has already been modified by all these factors. Within our church, the Book of Common Prayer elevates “mutual joy” as one of the purposes of marriage (p. 423). The spiritual dimensions of marriage have been elaborated in the Christian tradition to deepen and expand Paul’s view of marriage as a poor alternative to celibacy or a remedy for lust (1 Cor 7). In light of all these factors, the liberal paper does not deny overwhelming evidence that biblical writers assumed heterosexual marriage. Our expansion of marriage, however, retains scriptural principles of moral discipline, nonconformity to the world, witness to Christ, sanctification, and holiness. We do not argue that biblical condemnations of homosexuality derive from a purity system that is obsolete for Christians. The question is not whether there should be distinctions made between sacred and profane and whether there should be rules for holy living, but what they should be in this time and place. How should this Christian community offer the gospel to its culture? We argue that in the North American context, for gay and lesbian couples to enter into Christian marriage blessed by the church, represents a powerful Christian witness.

Pastoral Responses to Gay and Lesbian Christians

The traditionalist paper argues for abstinence, sublimation, or therapeutic change as the appropriate Christian responses to non-heterosexual orientations. We argue that these pastoral responses are inadequate. Extending marriage strengthens its connection to the love of Christ for the church by discouraging practices in the pastoral care of homosexual persons that have shown their strengths and weaknesses precisely by their approach to marriage. The trouble with marrying people to members of the opposite sex, when the opposite sex is not apposite for them, is that this undermines marriage. It leads to lying of the body, adultery, and divorce, instead of the truthfulness of the body, faithfulness, and constancy. While rare cases may justify marriages of gay and lesbian people to members of the opposite sex, it should be discouraged because the risks are too high: rather, same- sex marriages better represent Christ’s self-offering for the world. Salvation in Christ arose not from a great self-refusal, but from a great self-gift. “For God so loved the world.” “This is my body, given for you.” To live out that pattern, marriage must not

bypass but, like the incarnation, take up the body in its movement of love. Marriage keeps love and the body together, as the incarnation and the Eucharist do. Certain alternatives to same-sex marriage fail because they “signify the mystery of Christ and the church” less adequately than marriage does. They do not take the body seriously enough for the incarnation.

Sometimes lesbian and gay persons enter into profound, long-term counseling relationships with spiritual directors or priests, in an attempt to turn their sexual desires in a faithful direction. The reason why these counseling relationships work, when they do work, is the same reason why opposite-sex marriages sometimes work, to some extent, for gay men and lesbians: they work precisely because they are marriage-like. They feature a designated other person to whom one makes oneself accountable and from whom it is hard to escape. However, opposite-sex marriages and long-term counseling relationships also fall short of the mark for the same reason: they are not marriage-like enough. Neither permits the full christological commitment of “this is my body, given for you.” Counseling deprives the counselee of the full christoform self-donation of giving his or her body. The counselee does not put his or her body on the line for the counselor as for a spouse. In a repudiation of the incarnation, they keep the body back from donation, evade incarnational cost. “The vocation to virginity must be something other than a frustration: it is a gift.”1

Opposite-sex marriages for gay and lesbian people should worry us. “Love, like martyrdom, cannot be imposed on someone.”2 Only unions that follow the incarnation to befriend the body can hope that the martyrdom that they sometimes inspire will be not false witness, but true love. “It is possible that the most ascetic act [i.e., the best training in charity] is not renunciation of self, but total self-acceptance,” if it is oriented toward God and neighbor.3

Likewise, ex-gay ministries fail to follow the incarnation, because they use the body to exercise self-control, rather than self-donation to another. Only in self-donation can God expand the body toward the Trinitarian exchange of gift, gratitude, and mutual joy. In self-donation, God became human. In self-donation, humans become open to God, but hardly in self-sufficiency. That resembles the pride that does not befriend but seeks to bypass and abandon the body.

Same-sex couples do not need marriage so that they can enjoy satisfaction, but so that they can practice sanctification. No traditionalist has ever yet seriously argued that same- sex couples need sanctification any less than opposite-sex couples do. Same-sex couples do not need marriage for self-expression: they need marriage for self-donation, for the daily challenges and rewards of loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

Science and Orientation

1 Paul Evdokimov, The Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Light of the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 167. 2 Evdokimov, 188. 3 Evdokimov, 100.

The traditionalist paper spends some effort contesting the biological science of sexual orientations and the social science of counting sexual minorities. Our argument rests on neither outcome. Scientific evidence about the cause of sexual orientation may be inconclusive, but scientific evidence about changing orientations is unanimous. Recognizing that individual orientations conduce to personal health, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexual orientation from its list of diseases in 1973. What some call “reparative therapy”–attempts to change non-heterosexual orientations– the American Psychological Association declared unethical in 1979. Whatever the mechanics of causation, health care professionals acknowledge sexual orientation as a given, prior to choice, a natural aptitude. It may be socially shaped but it does not go away. Minority orientations, whether they number in the few or many millions, cannot be ethically coerced into majority patterns of relationship.

Attempting to change a person’s orientation is unethical not only because it offends against personal integrity, but also because it betrays the very relationships in which we bear witness to the Spirit and through which God transforms us. Grace elevates nature; it does not destroy it. God transforms, changes, converts, and heals sinners, always in the direction for which God created them, for the relationships to which the Spirit calls them. The church as the body of God is not, then, in the business of destroying orientations, but of discipling, realizing, and uplifting them. Grace is therapeutic for sinners by vindicating what God gives to each, enabling it to offer its own gifts to other persons, to the body of Christ, and to God.

The church does not need to await scientific certainty on the causes of sexual orientation in order to understand it as given. The will of God for human sexual practices does not lie in the gaps of research into orientations, for competing scientific theories nonetheless converge on a simple picture. We know that sexual orientation begins in the womb– whether by one gene, committees of genes, the hormonal environment, or some combination–and develops over time as the person does. As the Spirit creates variety in hovering over the waters of creation and diversifies the church in the waters of the font, so too the Spirit presides over the waters of the womb. "For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb" (Ps 139:13).

Like other natural aptitudes, sexual orientation is a christological condition; it shapes ways of participating in the body of Christ. In the case of orientation, God in Christ orients desire godward through various capacities to desire others. The Spirit hovers over the waters of the womb to prepare all persons for inclusion in the body of Christ. What the Spirit prepares in the wombs of all women images what the Spirit prepared in the womb of Mary and anticipates what the Spirit prepares in the womb of the font: persons meant to find their destiny in Christ's body. John the Baptist exhibited this aptitude of desire for Christ by leaping in the womb of Elizabeth. The Spirit distributes many and various ways to desire Christ, for the sexual differentiations and orientations that begin in the womb prepare us for particular patterns of invitation to put our bodies on the line for others.

The church has as its mission to teach all sexually oriented persons how what they have been given is known and consecrated by God even before the womb (Jer. 1:5). The

church has as its mission to model relationships in which persons can offer themselves as gifts. We argue that to further this mission, we should extend marriage to same-sex couples.

Innovation, Diversity, and Communion

The traditionalist paper characterizes our theology of marriage as new. On the contrary, while the practice of marrying same-sex couples would be new, our theology develops one of the three main ideas for marriage in the Christian traditions, and it defends that theory as everywhere implicit in the marriage rite of the Book of Common Prayer. Paul Evdokimov makes the crude but salient typology: the Catholic tradition has tended to base marriage on procreation; the Protestant tradition has tended to base marriage on the control of lust; and the Eastern Orthodox tradition has tended to base marriage on training in virtue, or sanctification.4 The advantage of this third approach—the one adopted here—is that it easily accommodates the other two and orients them both to an even higher goal: growth into God. Traditional goods of marriage--children and faithfulness– make sense within this sacramental end. Marriage becomes a means by which God may bring a couple to himself, by exposing them to each other: they may grow into love of God, by practicing love of the nearest neighbor. The growth of a couple into God prompts them to welcome children and to practice faithfulness. This Protestant-Orthodox approach may make a good fit for Anglicanism, because it has always tried to take the best from a variety of sources, and because like Orthodoxy has always taken its theology from the liturgy.

These theologies of marriage are obviously not mutually exclusive. Marrying same-sex couples does not nullify other practices of marrying. The catholicity of the church cannot only accommodate but in fact requires these several witnesses to the marriage feast. That same-sex couples come late to the wedding feast is no reason to suppose they will cast out the others.

Matthew's parable of the laborers in the vineyard of the kingdom (Matt 20:1-15) describes the means by which those who came late to the employment office for the vineyard are paid the same as all day laborers on the basis of God's generous justice. Those who were able to commit early to the labor of the vineyard, which in this analogy is the grace and work of marriage, might well resent that others added to the workforce receive, at the end of the day, the same wages as those who "bore the burden of the day and the scorching heat." To them the vineyard owner explains that they are not unjustly treated: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?" (Greek: Is your eye evil because I am good?) What is given is not only generous, but as it is given by God, it is also just.

Those who challenge generous justice in the parable, having already been paid, seem envious that God's generosity extends to all who need it. Those who receive generous justice as the (unexpected) reward of their labors have only gratitude for God. Therefore, it is with those who come latterly to labor in the vineyard of marriage. They are the

4 Evdokimov, 15-22, 41-45.

recipients of God's surprising generosity for which we have nothing but gratitude. Here at the end of the day, are we not all laboring side by side in the vineyard of the kingdom?

We do not call for an end to disagreement, for that is part of the labor of our common baptism into God’s mission. The Father sent the Son and the Spirit into a finite and fallen world where only diversity could image infinity and only history could reconcile them. Baptism prepares human beings for this arduous process by binding them together, and promises them that contrary to human expectations, their disagreement will have been for blessing: “thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies” (Ps 23:5). Under conditions of both diversity and division, disagreement can become a Spirit-given way of discerning the form of the Son. Baptism binds us together for the long process of making the body of Christ whole and complete in all its members. We are baptized into the Father, the Son, and the Spirit so that we can better disagree. The bonds of baptism tell us that there is no salvation without the others and require therefore the greatest freedom for disagreement rather than the narrowest slice of purity. For baptism’s commission is to go out, and its purview is the whole world. This is not a formula for uniformity. We need the other to differ from us.

However, not all labors of disagreement seem fitting. We have disparaged lawsuits over church property as a way of conducting disagreements. Liturgy, not litigation, is the consequence of our theology of marriage. We have also asked traditional Anglicans to refuse to let their disagreement with us permit hatred of homosexual persons, and have entreated them to stand in public witness against persecution of homosexual persons. For both sides, when a church makes enemies, it is bound to love them; where a church finds sinners, it is invited to eat and drink with them.

During a previous period of church controversy, when an international Anglican Communion was first taking shape, the church was torn by conflict between Tractarian and Evangelical factions. Then, F. D. Maurice and other leaders counseled the church to listen to multiple witnesses to truth without becoming divided into parties, and so preserved the catholicity of Anglicanism. In Corinthians, Paul welcomes multiple evangelists for Christ, but asks the church not to become divided into parties. In the book of Acts, when Peter and Paul disagreed, the Spirit extended the church through controversy. The Spirit distributes bread for the journey and holds out the promise of Pentecost that our different languages will not have been spoken in vain. It is the same Spirit who dilates the womb, expands the church, extends time, and opens debate.

EPILOGUE

In conclusion, our work sustains one generally accepted observation and adds several doctrinal and practical considerations to the broader discussion. It is generally accepted that differing hermeneutical presuppositions produce conflicting readings of the same texts. This is not a matter of how highly one or another holds the authority of Scripture but the lens through which it is read. Hermeneutical clarity and integrity, difficult as it is, would seem to be of great help in future scriptural analysis.

Further, our collective voice perhaps highlights several pneumatological loci. One is the role of the Spirit in bringing the church into all truth (John 16.3). Can we ever be certain that the witness of the Spirit that we perceive to be working among us is not our own voice writ large rather than the voice of the Holy Spirit? Further, should that caution prevent the church from acting in some circumstances?

A second pneumatological concern arises from the belief that the Spirit guides us in holiness of life that Paul develops in Romans and First Corinthians. The question here is what constitutes a holy sexual life and what role ought marriage play in regulating it. This issue pertains to many people, among whom homosexuals are, no doubt the minority. The liberal document herein offers a theology of marriage from one perspective. Perhaps more pneumatological reflection on sexual holiness is warranted given the radically changed sexual mores of the northern hemisphere and the reality that marriage seems to be fading among heterosexuals in various parts of the world.

Should the Episcopal Church seriously consider the liberal proposal for reimagining marriage, practical questions would also arise. The new practice would raise the question of the relationship between ordination and marriage across the board. For instance, the Episcopal Church has been ordaining and consecrating non-celibate homosexuals because marriage is not legally available to them. Would that practice be called into question if the Episcopal Church normalized same-sex marriages? The examination of candidates for the priesthood and the diaconate, has ordinands pledge to be “a wholesome example… to your people” (p. 532) and “to all people” (p. 544). Would marriage become required for ordination for all non-celibate persons so that the wholesomeness that they embody would surely include sexual holiness? That is, would sexual scrutiny need to become part of the ordination process regardless of orientation for the sake of consistency?

A further issue would arise. In the United States, the minister validates the marriage on behalf of the state and then calls on the Spirit in the nuptial blessing. What would be the status of nuptially blessed couples in states that do not authorize or recognize same-sex marriage? In that case, what would be the difference between same-sex marriages and blessing rites?

While the Episcopal Church has responded to questions and requests put to it by the instruments of unity over the past seven years, it has not until now invited its theologians and scholars to tackle the theological and doctrinal issues at stake in this great debate. As professionally trained theologians, historians and exegetes, we often become absorbed in

the debates in our various fields and subfields and sit on the sidelines without much role in the church’s self-reflection. We are grateful that the House of Bishops has a theology committee on which professional theologians sit and we are all honored to have been invited to offer our gifts at the table. We pray that our work may contribute to the well- being of the body of Christ.

Almighty Father, whose blessed Son before his passion prayed for his disciples that they might be one, as you and he are one: Grant that your Church, being bound together in love and obedience to you, may be united in one body by the one Spirit, that the world may believe in him whom you have sent, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 255.)

The Editor

POSTSCRIPT

We are enormously grateful to the panel of scholars and theologians who have worked so hard to produce these papers. Their work is for study and reflection and does not constitute a position paper of the Theology Committee. It is very significant in itself that brothers and sisters in Christ who hold differing views about such a contested matter have worked together, sharpening each other’s views without coming to any false or over-easy resolutions. We need more occasions and examples of this sort of conversation.

We commissioned this panel in hope, and the panelists in many respects have fulfilled our hopes. They cannot be expected to represent all of the different views or to have answered all the questions about this complex matter. Hence, this afterword provides a response to these papers that may help people read them together. We also want to point out areas where further work, discussion, and debate await our attention.

Anyone reading these papers will immediately recognize that they reflect two different styles of doing theology and represent different genres of theological writing. Most of us will find that we are more readily disposed towards one (or neither) of these styles. When that is the case, the challenge we face as readers is to manifest interpretive charity toward alternative styles and genres. Interpretive charity is not a way of glossing over or denying real and profound disagreements. Rather, it is the commitment to read a document in its best possible light, in ways that seek to maximize our agreements with it, without denying points of weakness or disagreement. In this particular case, interpretive charity also recognizes that both parties seek to order their faith and practice faithfully before the triune God. Disagreement here does not entail condemnation of our opponents.

In addition, readers of these papers will probably recognize that most of us enter such a conversation with a working model of same-sexuality and certain assumptions inherent in that model. There is a spectrum of such models: same-sexuality can be described as an offense in the sight of God to be destroyed, a sin to be repented of, a disorder to be controlled, a failure to live up to an agreed-upon standard, an interesting physical difference (like left-handedness or right-handedness), or a precious gift of God, a blessing to be celebrated and not scorned. The model we bring inevitably shapes our reaction to a proposed argument or vision.

The papers manifest real differences, but we note that they converge at some points. We wonder where the panelists’ conversations might have gone had they explored these connections more directly. For example, Romans 1, Acts 15, and Ephesians 5 come up for discussion in both papers in ways that invite further discussion and reflection on these important passages. It is clear that both papers take Holy Scripture seriously. It is also clear that each group brought a different set of interpretive constraints and considerations to bear on these texts. There may not be an easy way to adjudicate these larger interpretive issues. Nevertheless, much is to be gained by arguing over specific texts such as these in the light of these different hermeneutical approaches.

Another point of connection relates to the discussion of “orders of creation” in one paper and the discussion of what is “natural” and “unnatural” in the other. Engaging scientific study of sexual orientation might also fit within this overall discussion.

Both papers discuss the place of marriage in the Christian life. This discussion would benefit from an expansion in at least two directions. First, in light of the contributions of these two papers, there is significant theological work to be done on the “ascetical” dimension of marriage. Again, there is also more to be said both on the relationships between divine and human love and on the ways in which we might understand patters of self-giving and the integrity of the self in human relationships.

In a second direction, these papers invite further discussion of how understandings of marriage have been constructed over time; how the church has engaged and reformed these understandings; and how, within the Anglican Communion, diverse theologies and practices of marriage have existed and still exist within the same church. The matters we indicate for further study are suggestive but not exhaustive.

Furthermore, in a cultural and ecclesial context marked more by failures of conversation on such charged matters, by anathemas and excommunications, whether overtly secular or purportedly religious, we find hope in the fact that in grace all parties still see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. This itself witnesses to the power of the Gospel.

We are convinced, however, that the church needs to move to a better place than we currently occupy. We hope that a theological, ecclesiological, and moral synthesis that will garner widespread agreement will one day emerge. In the meantime, we cannot deny that we are connected to each other. Disagreement and debate on these matters of profound importance do not entail disunity.

It is a sign of hope that this panel accomplished its work together rather than as separate and separated believers. That there is more to do should not frustrate that hope. Instead, with Paul, we pray, “May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).

The Theology Committee

The Rt. Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt The Rt. Rev. Larry R. Benfield The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal The Rt. Rev. Joe G. Burnett Dr. Ellen T. Charry The Rev. Dr. Sathianathan Clarke Dr. Stephen E. Fowl The Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb The Rt. Rev. Gayle E. Harris The Rt. Rev. Robert W. Ihloff The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall Dr. Charles T. Mathewes Dr. Joy A. McDougall The Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr., Chair The Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith Dr. Kathryn Tanner

87 Same Sex Complementarity A theology of marriage by Eugene F. Rogers Jr. May 11, 2011

A year ago the bishops of the Episcopal Church received a 95-page report by eight theologians to provide the church with a "theology of same-sex relationships." (The report was published in the Winter 2011 issue of the Anglican Theological Review.) As you might expect, the panel split into two parties, "traditionalist" and "liberal."

What you might not expect—if you follow such debates in mainline Protestant bodies— was how the sides began to meet. Certain familiar arguments disappeared. New arguments took their place. And some of the new arguments converged in ways their authors perhaps had not intended.

For example, the traditionalist report avoided sociological arguments about the sexual practices of gay men, nor did it offer an exegetical argument from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Nor did it focus on Romans 1, arguably the one biblical passage that still carries weight on the issue. Antigay arguments, that is, had disappeared. Instead, the traditionalists chose a positive focus on Genesis 1—"male and female created he them." Officially, their argument stressed the conditions for procreation. Yet it also made room for aged or infertile heterosexual couples to marry, giving others to think that being able to procreate supported rather than defined that vision of marriage. The primary issue for traditionalists, one might conclude, boiled down to male-female as an icon of creation. The case rested on two genders conceived as complementary, as fitting together.

On the liberal side, references to "rights" remained historical. The word equality appeared not at all, except in a reference to the Philippians hymn about how Jesus "counted equality not a thing to be grasped." And appeals to individual experience ("As a gay man, I . . .") disappeared as well. Rather—as the conservative Presbyterian Thomas Gillespie wrote afterward—"the genius of the liberal proposal" lay "in its definition of marriage as both a 'discipline' and a 'means of grace' modeled on 'the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church'" and "its expansion of this 'sacrament' to include same-sex couples." That is, these "liberals" treated marriage as a discipline of sanctification rather than a means of satisfaction. They made a lex orandi argument from the marriage rite of the Book of Common Prayer—a rite that draws on the gendered language of Ephesians 5 about Christ and the church.

Because the language is gendered, it might hardly seem a promising passage for liberals. But as I hope to show (as a member of the committee that drafted that part of the report), it leads to a rich biblical understanding of how same-sex couples can image the faithfulness of God.

Despite the dismissals of bishops and others who thought that the divide between the panel's theologians meant that nothing had changed, the two sides had unwittingly converged. "The mystery of male and female is a profound one," the author of Ephesians writes, commenting on the passage in Genesis, "and I am saying that it refers to Christ

1 and the church." It appears that, for both sides, their new disagreement turns on the mystery of Christ and the church, what icons can image them and what "male and female" means for Christians.

In both Galatians and Ephesians, the New Testament writer subjects "male and female" to what Stanley Hauerwas has called christological discipline. "In Christ there is no 'male and female,'" says Galatians 3:28, interpreting Genesis. Ephesians too subordinates Genesis to Christ in describing how a man leaves his mother and father and is joined to his wife: "This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church" (5:32). Ephesians makes Christ and the church the realities referred to, husband and wife the signs that refer. It interprets male-and-female typologically, as an icon or symbol, even if the symbol participates in what it represents. In the words of the wedding rite, the covenant of marriage "signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his church." The analogy recognizes Christ and the church as the realities, not male and female gender. Male and female point to something else.

In this light, same-sex marriage raises the question whether two women or two men can signify the relationship of Christ and the church. Ephesians presents that as a typological and a moral matter. As types, the spouses represent the love of God and God's people. In morals, they practice love of neighbor. Ephesians frames the mystery of Christ and the church with paraphrases of "love your neighbor as yourself": "He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of one body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself." The mystery opens and closes with neighbor love. "Marriage," the panel wrote, "bears witness to both of the great commandments: it signifies the love of God and it teaches love of neighbor."

That's even more important if, following Ephesians, we take marriage as an ascetic discipline, a particular way of practicing love of neighbor. The vows do this: "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part." Those ascetic vows—which Russian theologians compare to the vows of monastics—commit the couple to carry forward the solidarity of God and God's people. Marriage makes a school for virtue, where God prepares the couple for life with himself by binding them for life to each other.

Marriage, in this view, is for sanctification, a means by which God can bring a couple to himself by turning their limits to their good. And no conservative I know has seriously argued that same-sex couples need sanctification any less than opposite-sex couples do. (Hauerwas has argued it jocularly.)

Assume for the sake of argument that two men or two women can represent Christ and the church morally, as trainees in neighbor love: can they represent it sacramentally? Does it take a man to represent Christ and a woman to represent the church?

2 Something about symbols resists change, because they carry the social meanings by which members of societies think. Anthropologists of religion find it naive to imagine that we can change our symbols at will. In Natural Symbols, Mary Douglas observes that societies regularly conceptualize the world in binary oppositions—day and night, sun and moon, male and female—even if each society constructs those oppositions in its own way. Gender may vary with body shape, psychosexual identity and sexual orientation— and the queer theorist Judith Butler can still insist that we cannot "freeze, banish, render useless or deplete of meaning" terms like male and female. We can only "continue to use them . . . to displace them from contexts where they have become instruments of oppressive power." Otherwise they sink underground, where they continue to exercise power in hidden ways.

Liberals have argued that gay and lesbian people are not going away. Conservatives might agree with queer theorists that male and female are not going away either. But Christian traditions still have surprising things to teach us about how to expand the terms male and female—how to displace them from contexts in which they confine the realities of Christ and the church.

Though Christian typology has long gendered the church as female—as in Ephesians 5— this has never restricted the church to women. The church has always admitted male and female members. The history of male leadership only seals the case that the church, though gendered as female, may permit men to represent it. It does not take a woman to represent the church. The church is always Christ's bride, but her members are female and male.

As for Christ, orthodox theology makes him fully human and fully divine. As God, Christ occupies neither gender, since God is the source of it all. As the medieval axiom goes, God is not in a category, Deus non est in genere. The corollary reads like a translation: "God is not in a gender." Thus the seventh-century Council of Toledo could insist that the first person of the Trinity "gave birth" to the preexistent, heavenly Christ "from the womb of the Father."

Graham Ward has noticed that the maleness of Jesus is a curious thing. Lacking a human father, Jesus received no humanly produced Y chromosome, and yet he is circumcised. The Middle Ages has much to teach us about the maleness of Jesus as well. The language of Cistercian piety called Jesus the mother of monks. Male priests invited male monks to suck milk from Jesus' breasts. They urged them to crawl into the wound in his side, the better to enter his womb. That was how to be born again in the Middle Ages—from the womb of Jesus. Medieval authors never wavered from using masculine pronouns for Jesus, nor did they confine him to masculine images. Christ could be all to all. Christ was the bridegroom to women and to men. Indeed Christ's body, if male in Jesus, was female in the church.

Although the church has often used typology to enforce gender roles, the logic of typology opens roles up—because any gender can represent a type. This is part of the

3 mystery: Christ has never been the bridegroom for women alone and the church has never been a bride composed only of men.

Consider that in the Middle Ages an abbot could be gendered male, as a physical man; female, as a member of the church; male again, as a priest; female again, as a mother of monks; and female at prayer, as a soul before God. The complementarity theory of male and female turns out to be distinctively modern in confining a person to one gender—and to that extent untraditional. In the Middle Ages, gender could vary according to the greater reality represented.

Granted, medieval gender had features that no one would want to retain. It treated women as defective, and it allowed them to suffer disproportionately from men's sometimes self- serving suggestion that they regard their suffering as Christlike (whereas Christ overturned hierarchy in giving his life for his bride—the opposite of suttee). In the question at issue—does gender confine Christ?—the answer must be no. Christ, as God, is source and consummator of all gender. Christ, as human, assumes humanity, not maleness. Otherwise, he leaves women out of salvation—if "what is not assumed is not redeemed." Or else Jesus needed a woman to complete himself.

To sum up: Ephesians does not require heterosexual complementarity, even if it uses gendered language. A critic has called this interpretation "a refusal to see the obvious." But that's true only if gendered language requires gendered representation. And it doesn't. Otherwise, only women could lead a church gendered as female, and only men could be children of God on the pattern of God's Son. But that's absurd. We do permit men to represent the church, and we do admit women as children of God. An inflexible interpretation of gender confines the reading of scripture, restricts the resources of tradition, ignores the data of creation and reduces salvation to absurdity.

The mystery of Ephesians reaches deeper than that, into the mystery (rather than the superficial obviousness) of creation: the mystery that I am made for God, an Other not my own, a Good that exceeds my grasp, a Beauty beyond my control. "Male and female" exemplifies but does not exhaust that mystery—it images it. "Marriage," the panel wrote, "becomes a means by which God may bring a couple to himself, by exposing them to each other: They may grow into the love of God, by practicing the love of nearest neighbor." Same-sex spouses find this other—their moral complement—in someone of the same sex. They find in someone of the same sex the right spur to moral growth. For some men, to leave father and mother and cleave to a wife would evade that challenge. Some women, conversely, must leave father and mother and cleave to a wife, to find themselves signs of Christ and the church. They fit together as those who make each other better, to exemplify the love of God and God's people. This is no rigid complementarity. It is a christologically disciplined complementarity.

Galatians states the underlying principle: "In Christ there is no longer 'male and female.'" It's worth noticing Paul's conjunctions. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no longer 'male and female': for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Paul links the first two pairs of the series with nor (oude). He links the final

4 pair, "male and female," with and (kai). That's because Paul preserves the wording of Genesis ("male and female") with care. It is not gender as such that Paul denies. He does not deny that in Christ there are women and men. Paul denies that gender is final. Precisely because Christ is the all, the omega, there can also be "no 'male and female,"' where that means a final, compulsory, exhaustive ending of one in the other. It is only Christ who satisfies the desire of every living thing (Ps. 145:16). Christ trains—or orients—all desire to God. Saying there is "no 'male and female'" denies, therefore, strong forms of the complementarity theory, according to which a woman remains incomplete without a man or a man incomplete without a woman. That theory, taken to its logical conclusion, effectively denies the Christ in whom all things are "summed up" (Eph. 1:10).

"No 'male and female'" also reminded the early church of the examples of Jesus and Paul. They both kept mixed company without needing completion by someone of the opposite sex. Their recorded words never connected marriage with procreation. Jesus was born from a woman alone (as God made Eve from a man alone). The early church used such examples to defend Christianity's most shocking departure from Late Antique morals— the founding of monasteries. Chrysostom noted that the command to "be fruitful and multiply" continued with another clause, "and fill the earth"—from which he concluded, already in the fourth century, that the commandment had been fulfilled.

All this presses the question: Do bodies still matter? Same-sex couples know that bodies matter, because they find themselves committed to someone of the apposite (if not the opposite) sex. Transgender people know that bodies matter, because they find themselves choosing hormones and surgery. Parents know that bodies matter, because they find themselves with child. The sexuality debates do not teach us that bodies don't matter. They teach us that bodies matter in more ways than one. A christological account of gender gives bodies more, not fewer, ways to matter. Because the body of the medieval Christ both retains his circumcision and gains a womb, Christ resembles an intersex person. Because the body of Christ is male in the history of Jesus and female in the history of the church, Christ resembles a transsexual person. Because Christ can be the bridegroom to a male believer, he resembles the same-sex spouse. Gender does not limit Christ, because he is its Lord.

If Christ orients all desire to himself to satisfy every living thing, then it finally becomes clear what a sexual orientation must be. "Like other natural aptitudes," the panel wrote, "a sexual orientation is a christological condition; it shapes our ways of participating in the body of Christ." In sexual orientation, Christ trains "desire Godward through various capacities to desire others." The Spirit hovers over the waters of the womb "to prepare us for particular patterns of invitation to put our bodies on the line for others." Sexual orientation (gay or straight) names an aptitude for turning a limit to the good in our sexual lives, for practicing the love of Christ and the church through commitment to an embodied neighbor. Sexual orientation (gay or straight) provides a condition for turning eros into agape. It allows us to follow the incarnation in putting our bodies on the line for others as Christ did for his bride when he said, "This is my body, given for you." That was the bodily commitment that Christ did not abandon but fulfilled when he refused to

5 climb down from the cross. He remained in solidarity with the one who would have to remain aloft, the thief. In fidelity to the thief, Christ kept faith with his bride.

The cross calls to mind the blood of the atonement—another topic that hardly seems promising in this context. Theologies of Christ's blood look bad for women, since men often invoke them to impose sacrifice on others, and bad for people in same-sex relationships, who are sometimes told that their sex lives impugn the blood of Christ. Despite such abuses, blood makes another natural symbol that we dare not force underground but must reclaim, precisely in the context of marriage. For the words, "This is my body, given for you," tell us what bodies are for. They are for commitment in gift.

When Jesus says, "This is my body, given for you," it is among other things a marital remark: he commits himself to be where his body is, to put his body on the line for his bride. It is this commitment that Christian spouses undertake to imitate when they make promises for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and adversity, till death do them part. Both same- and opposite-sex couples aspire to such commitment, to which the church needs all the witnesses she can find.

A Proper Preface to the Eucharist connects marriage and the Eucharist this way: "In the love of wife and husband you have given us an image of the heavenly Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her bridegroom, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who loves her and gave himself for her, that he might make the whole creation new." Karl Barth put it more briefly: "Because God loves Israel, there is such a thing as love and marriage."

This then is the answer to the question of the "natural symbols" of male and female: they stretch out to accommodate Christ and the church—in all the genders they include— because the Eucharist is their wedding feast.

And so, because "in Christ there is no longer 'male and female,'" gendered language in the marriage rite should be understood to include same-sex couples.

6 . 13 - Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music: HB C056

TOPIC/TITLE: Liturgy: Liturgies for Blessings PROPOSER: Diocese of Missouri C&C PAGE: BB PAGE:

1 Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge the 2 changing circumstances in the United States and in other nations, as legislation authorizing or 3 forbidding marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian persons is passed 4 in various civil jurisdictions that call forth a renewed pastoral response from this Church, and for 5 an open process for the consideration of theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of 6 same gender relationships; and be it further 7 8 Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House 9 of Bishops, collect and develop theological and liturgical resources, and report to the 77th 10 General Convention; and be it further 11 12 Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House 13 of Bishops, devise an open process for the conduct of its work inviting participation from 14 provinces, dioceses, congregations, and individuals who are engaged in such theological work, 15 and inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion; and be it further 16 17 Resolved, That bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same- 18 gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral 19 response to meet the needs of members of this Church; and be it further 20 21 Resolved, That this Convention honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to 22 matters of human sexuality; and be it further 23 24 Resolved, That the members of this Church be encouraged to engage in this effort. 25 26 27 28

Printed 06/21/10 12:27 PM Page 1 of 1 Helping Dioceses Understand the response to 2009 GC Resolution C056 Liturgies for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships Understanding Resolution C056 How We Got Here The Episcopal Church’s General Convention working for 35 years: • 1976: First discussion and resolution: homosexual persons are children of God • 2000: Clarity about same-gender couples: such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and holy love • 2003: Liturgies celebrating/blessing relationship: within the bounds of our common life Discussions and resolutions also in 1985,1991, 1994, 1997 Resolution 2009-C056

Please quickly read 2009 General Convention Resolution C056. Briefly discuss: • What “action items” does this resolution call for? • What would you have expected the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to do in response? How DID the Commission Respond? Open Process

• Spring 2010: Created 4 Task Groups to work on the Liturgical, Theological, Pastoral & Teaching, and Civil/Canon Law aspects of the work. • July 2010: Secured funding for the work. The Task Groups met this month and 4 more times over the next 14 months. • September 2010: Consultation with the House of Bishops. • October 2010: Province I Hearing. At the hearing, 33 people, lay and ordained, testified about their experiences. Open Process (continued) • October 2010–January 2011: Church-wide Web-based Survey Regarding Pastoral Counseling and Teaching Materials. Received 1,131 responses to the survey, representing 111 dioceses and all 9 Provinces. • March 2011: Church-wide Consultation. Invited each diocese to send one lay deputy and one clergy deputy. 194 deputies from 96 dioceses attended. • July 2011: Review of Draft Resources. Received comments from 133 people, lay and ordained, representing all 9 provinces. • September 2011: Opportunity for House of Bishops to review final drafts. • Ongoing: Informal networks of bishops and task group members in and across dioceses. Inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion

• The Anglican Church of Canada shared insights and liturgies. • Bishops of The Episcopal Church invited to share Liturgical and Theological principles with Anglican bishops. • Reflection at the August 2011 International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC) included 55 people from 19 Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Thank you! Please share with your deputation: the two or three most important things you learned from the conversation

For further study: http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/ category/resources-for-same-gender-blessings/ Helping Dioceses Understand the response to 2009 GC Resolution C056 Liturgies for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships Liturgical Principles How We Got Here The Episcopal Church’s General Convention working for 35 years: • 1976: First discussion and resolution: homosexual persons are children of God • 2000: Clarity about same-gender couples: such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and holy love • 2003: Liturgies celebrating/blessing relationship: within the bounds of our common life Discussions and resolutions also in 1985,1991, 1994, 1997 Resolution 2009-C056

General Convention: • Acknowledged that changing circumstances in civil realities needed renewed pastoral response • Asked for an open process inviting wide participation • Asked the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to: . Work with the House of Bishops, collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for blessing same-gender relationships and report back in 2012 . Honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality . Encourage church members to engage in this effort In response, the SCLM . . . • Formed 4 Task Groups: Liturgy, Theology, Pastoral & Teaching, Civil/Canon Law • Met and consults with the House of Bishops • Held Province I Hearing (testimony from 33 people, lay and ordained) • Conducted church-wide survey regarding pastoral counseling and teaching materials (received responses from 1,131 people from 111 dioceses and all 9 Provinces) • Held Church-wide Consultation (included 194 deputies, lay and clergy, from 96 dioceses) • Asked outside consultants to review draft material (comments from 133 people, lay and ordained, from all 9 Provinces) • Invited reflection at the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (55 people from 19 Anglican Provinces) Liturgical Reflection Reflect on an Episcopal liturgy (such as a wedding, blessing, baptism, or eucharist) that you recently attended or find particularly memorable. Review the document Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials. Briefly discuss: 1. What about the liturgy was most memorable? What has remained with you to this day? 2. Did the liturgy reflect any of the “qualities” noted in the Principles? 3. Might such qualities also be present in a liturgy for blessing a same-gender relationship? Thank you! Please share with your deputation: the two or three most important things you learned from the conversation

For further study: http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/ category/resources-for-same-gender-blessings/

Helping Dioceses Understand the response to 2009 GC Resolution C056 Liturgies for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships Theological Reflection How We Got Here The Episcopal Church’s General Convention working for 35 years: • 1976: First discussion and resolution: homosexual persons are children of God • 2000: Clarity about same-gender couples: such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and holy love • 2003: Liturgies celebrating/blessing relationship: within the bounds of our common life Discussions and resolutions also in 1985,1991, 1994, 1997 Resolution 2009-C056

General Convention: • Acknowledged that changing circumstances in civil realities needed renewed pastoral response • Asked for an open process inviting wide participation • Asked the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to: . Work with the House of Bishops, collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for blessing same-gender relationships and report back in 2012 . Honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality . Encourage church members to engage in this effort In response, the SCLM . . . • Formed 4 Task Groups: Liturgy, Theology, Pastoral & Teaching, Civil/Canon Law • Met and consults with the House of Bishops • Held Province I Hearing (testimony from 33 people, lay and ordained) • Conducted church-wide survey regarding pastoral counseling and teaching materials (received responses from 1,131 people from 111 dioceses and all 9 Provinces) • Held Church-wide Consultation (included 194 deputies, lay and clergy, from 96 dioceses) • Asked outside consultants to review draft material (comments from 133 people, lay and ordained, from all 9 Provinces) • Invited reflection at the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (55 people from 19 Anglican Provinces) Theological Reflection Review the document Theological Reflection on Covenantal Relationship: Spiritual Practice for Same-Gender Couples. Briefly discuss: 1. Which of these themes (vocation, households, fruitfulness, mutual blessing) speak most directly to your experience of relationship, either your own relationship or one in your community? 2. Could these same themes apply to same-gender couples? What other ways would you describe the spiritual significance of such committed relationships in the life of your community? Thank you! Please share with your deputation: the two or three most important things you learned from the conversation

For further study: http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/ category/resources-for-same-gender-blessings/

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Liturgies for Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report After receiving requests for material to help diocesan deputations consider the work of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music when they meet in this fall, we are making these educational materials available before the General Convention Office releases the final version of resources for blessing same-gender relationships. They are designed for a small group and should take approximately 30 minutes for each session. We are providing a variety of approaches to help deputies understand the charge and work of the Blessings Project, which responds to 2009 General Convention resolution C056. We invite you to decide what would be most helpful for your deputation. For some, a review of “how we got here” might be helpful, especially if you have many new deputies. For others, jumping right into the theological and liturgical “meat” of the report might be best, and you can do this with the most recent revisions of theological and liturgical principles (they’ve changed a bit since the church-wide consultation in Atlanta). Others might want to facilitate a conversation about the similarities and differences between “blessing” and “marriage” (we think this will be helpful because so many comments have come back to the Commission regarding this question). We think all deputations will benefit from a basic introduction to the work of the Commission in response to Resolution 2009-C056 (Session A). Also available is some basic material for use at a Diocesan Convention: a brief PowerPoint presentation and a discussion guide for various topics that can be used at tables and/or in congregations. In addition, the material presented here could be easily adapted for congregational use. We hope that you find the following material helpful for your use and/or adaptation. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Commission at [email protected]. The educational material here is organized into five sessions: A. UNDERSTANDING RESOLUTION 2009-C056 AND THE WORK OF THE COMMISSION A short, interactive process invites participants to engage the resolution and understand the work of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. The handouts include an introduction from the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, Chair of the Commission, describing the rationale for the work, the breadth of the data and input received, and the open process the Commission implemented. The text of Resolution 2009-C056 is also included. We recommend that these two documents be shared with all of your deputies.

B. UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY: HOW WE GOT HERE A worksheet guides participants in reflecting upon how and for how long the Episcopal Church has been discussing same-gender relationships and blessings. A discussion follows. “A Review of General Convention Legislation” is distributed as a resource and discussed. C. THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON COVENANTAL RELATIONSHIPS Using a document summarizing the theological resources the Commission has developed, a facilitator invites participants to reflect upon their own relationships and then upon faithful, committed, same-gender relationships. D. PRINCIPLES FOR EVALUATING LITURGICAL MATERIALS Using the document, “Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials,” which guided the development of the liturgy, a facilitator invites participants to reflect upon and discuss qualities of Anglican liturgy. E. EXPLORING THE COMPLEXITY OF CIVIL AND CANON LAW Using an exercise to look at the secular and sacred benefits and obligations of marriage and of blessing, this session helps participants understand the legal, canonical, and spiritual issues which blessing a same-gender couple brings to the fore.

Appendices The following resources are included at the end of the document: • Introduction: Resources for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships • General Convention Resolution 2009-C056 • Worksheet: Understanding the History • A Review of General Convention Legislation • Theological Reflection on Covenantal Relationship: A Summary of “Faith, Hope, and Love” • Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Same-Gender Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report A. Understanding Resolution 2009-C056 and the Work of the Commission

Purpose: To help deputies understand the charge given in Resolution 2009-C056 and the way the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music responded.

Preparation: Ask deputies to read both Resolution 2009-C056 and “Introduction: Resources for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships” and bring their copy to the session.

1. Open with prayer.

2. Have everyone read Resolution 2009-C056.

3. Ask the participants: What are the “action items” this resolution calls for? What does it say to you?

[NOTE: The main action items the Commission identified are in the second and third “Resolved”: a. … devise an open process for the conduct of its work inviting participation … b. … collect and develop theological and liturgical resources…]

4. Ask participants: What might be some of the ways the Commission could or did go about meeting the requests of the resolution?

[NOTE: This should reflect people’s reading and understanding of the information in the “Introduction.” Encourage participants to refer to the document to help recall details. The deputies who participated in the church-wide consultation in Atlanta can describe their experience of that meeting, which was part of the Commission’s action plan. The purpose is to get people thinking about the charge from the resolution and to reflect upon the depth of the Commission’s work.]

5. As the conversation continues, invite participants to consider any resulting insights about the work of the Commission.

6. After about 30 minutes, begin to wrap up the conversation and invite an articulation of the three most important things to take away from the conversation.

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Same-Gender Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report B. Understanding the History: How We Got Here

Purpose: To help deputies learn about the history of the Episcopal Church’s official actions regarding the blessing of same-gender relationships.

Preparation: The facilitator prepares sufficient copies of “Worksheet: Understanding the History” and “A Review of General Convention Legislation.”

1. Open with prayer.

2. Distribute the worksheet and give participants about 10 minutes to complete it.

3. After everyone has had time to write something, ask everyone to share their answers to A (how long the Episcopal Church has been talking about same-gender relationships and its gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members). Continue by inviting deputies to share whatever is comfortable from B for each decade. Listen to see whether there is a thread or theme that runs through the memories.

4. Distribute the document “A Review of General Convention Legislation” and discuss it in light of the responses to the worksheet.

5. After about 30 minutes, begin to wrap up the conversation and invite an articulation of the three most important things to take away from the conversation.

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Same-Gender Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report C. Theological Reflection on Covenantal Relationships

Purpose: To engage deputies in theological reflection in response to the resources the Commission is developing.

Preparation: Ask deputies to read the one-page document “Theological Reflection on Covenantal Relationships: A Summary of ‘Faith, Hope, and Love’” and bring their copy to the session.

1. Open with prayer.

2. Invite participants to reflect on their own significant relationships using this question:

• How have you found God in your relationships? Give an example in your own life.

This discussion should last for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the group.

3. Next, review the theological themes that the Commission has articulated for same-gender relationships: covenantal vows as a form of spiritual practice, vocation, households, fruitfulness, and mutual blessing. Then, ask participants to reflect specifically on same-gender relationships, either the relationships of others they know or have blessed, or their own same-gender relationships, using these questions:

• Which of these themes speak most directly to your own experience of lifelong monogamous relationship, either your own or a relationship in your community?

• What other ways would you describe the spiritual significance of committed relationships in the life of your community?

4. After about 20 minutes, begin to wrap up the conversation and invite an articulation of the three most important things to take away with them from the conversation.

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music

THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Same-Gender Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report D. Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials

Purpose: To introduce deputies to the principles that guided the Commission in developing liturgical resources for blessing same-gender relationships.

Preparation: Ask deputies to read the one-page document “Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials” and bring their copy to the session.

1. Open with prayer.

2. Ask participants to take out the document, “Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials.” Then invite participants to reflect upon an Episcopal liturgy (such as a wedding, blessing, baptism or Eucharist) they have recently attended or that is particularly memorable, using this question:

• What was it about the liturgy that was most memorable or that has remained with you to this day?

This discussion should last for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the group.

3. Next, remind the group about the principles that have been articulated for liturgies to bless same-gender relationships. Then, ask participants to reflect upon how these qualities were present in the liturgies they described or in what they heard from the stories of the other participants.

4. Finally, refer to the document Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials, and ask participants if any of the other items jumped out or caught their attention. If some did, ask why they caught the person’s attention.

5. After about 20 minutes, begin to wrap up the conversation and invite an articulation of the three most important things to take away with them from the conversation.

Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music

THE BLESSINGS PROJECT Responding to the 2009 General Convention Resolution C056: Same-Gender Blessings

Preparing for General Convention Educational Material for Diocesan Meetings of Deputies held before the release of the Commission’s Report E. Exploring the Complexity of Civil and Canon Law Purpose: To help deputies reflect upon their own understandings of what it might mean to bless a same-gender relationship and get a sense of the complexity of the situation in the Episcopal Church and in the contexts of various civil jurisdictions.

Preparation: Set up two pieces of newsprint, each with two columns: One piece of newsprint: Marriage

Secular Benefits/Obligations Sacred Benefits/Obligations

The other piece of newsprint: Blessing

Secular Benefits/Obligations Sacred Benefits/Obligations

1. Open with prayer.

2. Invite people to brainstorm about the secular benefits and obligations of marriage, and note their answers in that column. Then ask about the sacred benefits and obligations of marriage and note their answers. Now, do the same under the heading blessing – secular benefits and obligations first, then sacred benefits and obligations. Step back and ask people what they notice about the four lists. Have a conversation.

NOTE: The following is a list of some of the kinds of responses people might give; the Commission is not advocating a particular position but rather is introducing the complexity we discovered as we developed the resources: MARRIAGE Secular Benefits/Obligation

Legal status given by the State: global for different-gender couple; local/state for same- gender couple

Defined by some States as only between a man and a woman – supporting the traditional view of marriage Part of the institution of marriage and its social benefits Potential financial benefits – joint tax returns, automatic joint ownership, etc. – global for different-gender couple; local/state for same-gender couple Clarity about the relationship – fits a known model, people know what you are talking about if you say you are married; clarity about monogamy and faithfulness Legal responsibilities shared by the couple Social status Usually, acceptance of parents, family and friends of the relationship

Sacred Benefits/Obligations God’s blessing proclaimed by the church Recognition of spiritual nature of relationship Public religious and spiritual commitment of love Spiritual preparation and counseling prior to ceremony “Church wedding” and social recognition and support of religious community Exchange and blessing of symbols of relationship (ring(s)) Done as part of the BCP and Episcopal Church norms – not true for same-gender couples

BLESSING Secular Benefits/Obligations Possible gained clarity about the relationship; commitment statements made to one another Possible social status Possible acceptance/recognition of parents, family and friends

Sacred Benefits/Obligations God’s blessing proclaimed by the church Recognition of spiritual nature of relationship; clarity about monogamy and faithfulness Public religious and spiritual commitment of love Spiritual preparation and counseling prior to ceremony “Church wedding” and social recognition and support of religious community Exchange and blessing of symbols of relationship (ring(s)) Falls within Episcopal Church norms, if permitted by bishop as pastoral response

SUMMARY: • When the church blesses same-gender couples such blessings seem to carry most but not all of the “sacred benefit” that one finds in marriage. • When the church blesses same-gender couples such blessings seem to carry much less of the “secular benefit” that one finds in marriage.

3. After about 30 minutes, begin to wrap up the conversation and invite an articulation of the three most important things to take away with them from the conversation.

Introduction: Resources for Blessing Same-Gender Relationships

prepared by The Episcopal Church Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music

For more than 30 years the Episcopal Church has been responding to the challenge to seek and serve Christ in its members who are gay and lesbian. In 1976, a resolution of General Convention affirmed that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.” Since then, we have been in a church-wide discernment process about how we live out that resolution. Some congregations and their clergy have welcomed same-gender couples and offered liturgical blessings of their relationships, and some dioceses have developed guidelines for such blessings. Resolution C051 of the 2003 General Convention recognized “that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions.” Six years later, General Convention called for the collection and development of resources for those blessings. Resolution C056 of the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church directed the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to “collect and develop theological and liturgical resources” for the blessing of same-gender relationships. This resolution instructed the Commission to work in consultation with the House of Bishops and to “devise an open process for the conduct of its work, inviting participation from provinces, dioceses, congregations, and individuals who are engaged in such theological work, and inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion.” We have understood the process for our work to be as important as the resources themselves. The Scope of Our Work Because Resolution C056 directed us to “collect and develop resources,” we have not debated whether the church should bless same-gender relationships. Nonetheless, we recognize that Episcopalians and Christians throughout the Anglican Communion have disagreed about whether such blessings are a legitimate development within Christian tradition or an unacceptable departure from biblical teaching. Resolution 2009-C056 (as well as previous General Convention resolutions) acknowledged this dispute in the resolve “that this Convention honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality.” As we developed the resources, many people asked whether we were actually preparing a rite for same-gender marriage. In accord with Resolution 2009-C056, the Commission has understood our charge to be the development of a liturgy of blessing, not marriage. Nonetheless, there are a number of parallels to different-gender marriage, as General Convention Resolution 2000-D039 suggested when it acknowledged that “there are currently couples in the Body of Christ and in this Church who are living in marriage and couples in the Body of Christ and in this Church who are living in other life-long committed relationships.” That 2000 resolution then set forth the expectation that “such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in

such relationships to see in each other the image of God,” and denounced “promiscuity, exploitation, and abusiveness in the relationships of any of our members.” These expectations have shaped the Commission’s understanding of same-gender relationships, which we recognize as having significant parallels to marriage: two people publicly make a lifelong, monogamous commitment to one another in a ritual that pronounces God’s blessing on their life together. The question of marriage is complicated by ongoing changes in American civil law. As of August 2011, six states and the District of Columbia issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples, five states allow civil unions, and seven recognize some form of domestic partnership; on the other hand, thirty states have adopted constitutional language defining marriage as between one man and one woman and thirty-nine states have statutes defining marriage in this way.1 The civil law in other countries where the Episcopal Church is located adds further complexity. Both The Book of Common Prayer and the Canons of the Episcopal Church require clergy to conform to the laws of the State regarding marriage and describe marriage as being between a man and a woman. Following the wording of Resolution 2009-C056, we are using the term “same-gender” rather than “same-sex” to describe these relationships. Previous General Convention resolutions, along with the diocesan resources we have collected, are not consistent in their choice of terminology. Collecting Resources The Commission has gathered a vast amount of material, including official studies, service leaflets from liturgies of blessing, and diocesan and provincial guidelines for these blessings. The Archives of the Episcopal Church established a digital archive for the project, http://www.episcopalarchives.org/SCLM/index.html, where anyone may review the materials we have gathered. Resolution C056 allows bishops to provide “generous pastoral response” to meet the needs of the church’s members, so in December 2009, the chair of the Commission asked all diocesan bishops to report what provisions they were making and what resources they were commending to their dioceses. Twenty-seven bishops responded to this request, and a number of these bishops included theological, pastoral, teaching, and/or liturgical resources. Seven other dioceses subsequently submitted materials. All diocesan materials that we received are available for review in the digital archive for Resolution 2009-C056. We gathered liturgical resources from many places. Clayton Morris, who served as Liturgical Officer for the Episcopal Church until 2009, had accumulated numerous materials over the course of nearly two decades. The Commission received resources from lay and ordained Episcopalians throughout the church, including some of our own members. Commission members reviewed all of these as we began the process of developing liturgies. A representative sampling of the resources is posted on the digital archive, and all of the resources will be permanently housed at the Archives of the Episcopal Church.

1 This information is from the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16430. 10

Developing Resources At our March 2010 meeting, the Commission began our work in response to this resolution with a day of theological reflection. That conversation resulted in a brief outline of the resources to be developed: • one or more essays setting forth scriptural and theological foundations for blessing same- gender relationships; • one or more rites for blessing same-gender relationships; • pastoral and teaching resources to assist clergy and congregations as they consider these blessings; and • resources designed to help communities understand and address canonical and legal matters. This proposed outline became the basis for four task groups formed to develop materials. These groups were advisory to the Commission. In forming the task groups, the Commission sought the wisdom and experience of lay people and clergy from both academic and congregational contexts. Members of the task groups reflected the diversity of the Episcopal Church: age, gender, race/ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation. The task groups met four times in 2010 and 2011, and the chairs of the task groups met monthly by telephone or video conference. The Commission discussed the work at each of its meetings during the triennium. An Open Process… Inviting Participation Consultation with the House of Bishops. In September 2010, the chair of the Commission and four of the task-group chairs presented to the House of Bishops a draft of theological and liturgical principles that would guide this work. Responses from the bishops helped refine those principles. At the March 2011 House of Bishops meeting, bishops serving on the Commission and/or the task groups updated their colleagues, and at the September 2011 meeting, bishops had an informal opportunity to discuss the final draft of the resources with the bishops who are members of the Commission.

Province I Hearing. In October 2010, the Commission meeting in New Hampshire included a hearing with bishops, other clergy, and same-gender couples from each of the seven dioceses in Province I, which comprises the six New England states. The evolving legal status of civil unions and marriage equality in those states has meant that many of the dioceses have been addressing questions of blessing same-gender relationships for many years. Province I is the only province of the Episcopal Church to develop a resource for clergy ministering to same-gender couples, and a majority of the dioceses in this province have guidelines for blessing these relationships. Thus Province I offered a good opportunity to consult with those engaged in this work, as directed in Resolution 2009-C056.

At the hearing, 33 people, lay and ordained, testified about their experiences. Many told the Commission that congregations were transformed when they joined in the celebration of a blessing; for one congregation, the blessing of a civil union as part of the regular Sunday liturgy was especially powerful. Clergy and couples alike were surprised at how jubilant congregations were. We also heard about the cost of secrecy in places where relationships had to be hidden and blessings could not be openly celebrated. Couples and clergy spoke of the joy that came when relationships could be openly acknowledged. A few couples told powerful stories of

reconciliation that happened within their families when their relationship was celebrated and blessed in a church liturgy.

Churchwide Survey Regarding Pastoral Counseling and Teaching Materials. In October 2010, the Task Group on Pastoral and Teaching Resources created a web-based survey asking what resources congregations were using to prepare same-gender couples who came to the church seeking a blessing, and what teaching materials and resources were used or would be needed to help congregations in a discernment process about welcoming the blessing of same-gender relationships. The Commission used both official and unofficial channels to invite responses to the survey: a press release sent to diocesan communicators, a letter to all members of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops, invitations on the unofficial list-serve for bishops and deputies, and networking by members of the Commission and the task groups. Between October 2010 and January 6, 2011, we received 1,131 responses to the survey from 111 dioceses and all 9 Provinces. Twenty-three percent of the respondents stated that the blessing of same-gender relationships already occurs in their congregations, and of these, 55% confirmed that their congregation had engaged in an educational and/or discernment process before the blessing of same-gender relationships began. With regard to preparing same-gender couples, 32% of respondents said that their preparation differed from that provided for different-gender couples, and 43% expressed a need for additional resources. The data from this survey helped guide the development of the pastoral and teaching resources. Churchwide Consultation. The Commission invited every diocese in the Episcopal Church to send two deputies, one lay and one clergy, to an overnight consultation at the conclusion of its March 2011 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Three goals were set forth:

• to inform deputies about the work of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music in response to Resolution 2009-C056; • to engage in theological reflection in response to the Commission’s work, and to give feedback that would inform the Commission and its task groups as they continued their work; • to equip deputies to report to the rest of their deputations and engage them in ongoing theological reflection about the blessing of same-gender relationships. Materials distributed to participants at the consultation are available for review in the digital archive, http://www.episcopalarchives.org/SCLM/index.html, which also includes links to the webcast of the entire consultation. One hundred ninety-five deputies from 98 dioceses registered for the gathering. Most responded enthusiastically to the process. A significant majority stated on the evaluation form that they felt either “completely equipped” or “somewhat equipped” to discuss this work in their diocese and at the 2012 General Convention. When asked what they valued most, one responded, “the thoughtful and prayerful way that people with differing opinions were able to discuss this important work.” Another deputy noted, “the opportunity to speak and listen to other people and the broader perspective I gained from those interactions; the opportunity to engage the process, principles and issues that are in play as we do this work together; the real and abiding sense that we are doing this work ‘together.’” A few deputies commented on the absence of opposing viewpoints in the plenary sessions. One wrote, “The only thing lacking for me was an opportunity for those who are new to engaging this conversation or who are opposed to have enough space to express their reservations, be heard, and maybe to hear constructive, respectful responses.” 12

Review of Draft Resources. After the task groups presented a complete first draft of the resources to the Commission in June 2011, we made the drafts available to a group of consultant reviewers. During July 2011, 133 people, lay and ordained, representing all nine provinces of the Episcopal Church, offered thousands of comments on the draft resources. In August, the task groups made extensive revisions, leading to final drafts for the Commission. Inviting Reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion In addition to the direction of Resolution 2009-C056, the Commission was mindful that the 2004 Windsor Report urged “all provinces that are engaged in processes of discernment regarding the blessing of same sex unions to engage the Communion in continuing study of biblical and theological rationale for and against such unions” (par. 145). Knowing that the Anglican Church of Canada has been addressing this subject for many years, we requested and received liturgies from several of the Canadian dioceses. The digital archive includes, under “Church-Wide Resources,” an issue of Liturgy Canada which gives an overview of the history in that Province of the Anglican Communion and summarizes the guidelines and rites available on diocesan websites in the Anglican Church of Canada. International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC). The IALC, a biennial gathering, includes liturgical scholars, representatives nominated and sent by Provinces of the Anglican Communion, and members of liturgical commissions of Anglican Provinces. Since Provinces may refer matters to the Consultation, the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music requested time on the agenda of the August 2011 meeting. The IALC Steering Committee not only granted a half-day for this discussion, but also met in March 2011 with representatives of the Commission to learn more about the work and prepare for the discussion in the full Consultation. The IALC meeting included 55 people from 19 Provinces of the Anglican Communion. The official representatives of the Episcopal Church, Ruth Meyers (Chair of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music) and Thomas Ely (Bishop of Vermont and a member of the Commission), presented a summary of the theological rationale and liturgical principles guiding the development of resources, along with a draft of the liturgy. Not all participants in the IALC meeting supported the Episcopal Church’s decision to develop these resources, but all joined in respectful conversation in a small-group format. In the written notes submitted from the small groups, some stated that the work of the Episcopal Church would be helpful for their own province, while others indicated that blessing same-gender relationships is not on the agenda for them. Participants in the IALC conversation asked for development of the scriptural foundations for blessing same-gender relationships and clarification of the concepts of blessing and covenant. They urged that the theological and liturgical resources make clear that the Episcopal Church is envisioning these relationships as monogamous and lifelong. Many found the liturgy to be strikingly similar to marriage. They encouraged greater clarity in the liturgy about the nature of the covenant and a more robust form of blessing. The task groups received a detailed report of the comments from the IALC meeting and took account of them as they prepared the final draft of the resources. Funding Resolution 2009-C056 calls for an open process inviting participation from provinces, dioceses, congregations, individuals, and also inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican

Communion. Funds designated in the Episcopal Church budget for the commission’s work have been used for this project, but the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music determined that an open process with widespread participation required more funding. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society contracted with Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) to support this work. CDSP secured major grants from the Arcus Foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Conclusion “I will bless you,” God declared to Abraham, “so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). At every step in this process, the Commission and its task groups have been reminded of the many blessings God has bestowed on our church. The unprecedented opportunities we have had to engage with our sister and brother Episcopalians in every province of the Episcopal Church and with Anglicans from the wider Anglican Communion, have illustrated for us the rich diversity of our life together in the Body of Christ. This work has been a divine gift and a blessing to us, which we are eager to share. We offer these resources with the hope that they will strengthen our shared witness in the Episcopal Church to the love and grace of God in Christ. As in every other aspect of our life together as God’s people, we offer these resources, not relying on ourselves alone, but on God, who “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,” and always for the sake of God’s glory in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Ruth Meyers Chair, Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music September 2011

Resolution 2009-C056

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge the changing circumstances in the United States and in other nations, as legislation authorizing or forbidding marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian persons is passed in various civil jurisdictions that call forth a renewed pastoral response from this Church, and for an open process for the consideration of theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same gender relationships; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops, collect and develop theological and liturgical resources, and report to the 77th General Convention; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops, devise an open process for the conduct of its work inviting participation from provinces, dioceses, congregations, and individuals who are engaged in such theological work, and inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same- gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church; and be it further

Resolved, That this Convention honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality; and be it further

Resolved, That the members of this Church be encouraged to engage in this effort.

Worksheet: Understanding the History

Please use this worksheet to record your memories and thoughts about the history of dealing with same-gender issues over the last few decades.

A. The Episcopal Church has formally been talking about same-gender relationships and its gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender members for how many years? ______

B. Under each decade list briefly - using just key words - what you remember about: 1. What was going on in your own life? 2. What was going on in the world and/or the church? 3. What was going on with issues of same-gender relationships?

Decade/What 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010 I remember

In my own life

In the world/church

With issues of same-gender relationships in the church and the world

A Review of General Convention Legislation

Introduction The legislative history here shows the development of General Convention deliberations about the place of gay men and lesbians in the life of the church, particularly with regard to the blessing of their faithful, monogamous, lifelong relationships. Successive conventions have both acknowledged the work of their predecessors and reached new decisions. Resolution texts are from the website of the Archives of the Episcopal Church: http://www.episcopalarchives.org/e- archives/acts/.

Minneapolis, 1976: For the first time, General Convention adopted a resolution that acknowledged and affirmed the presence of persons of homosexual orientation in the church: Resolution 1976-A069: Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That it is the sense of this General Convention that homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.

Anaheim, 1985: General Convention reaffirmed the 1976 resolution and encouraged dioceses to deepen understanding: Resolution 1985-D082: Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 68th General Convention urge each diocese of this Church to find an effective way to foster a better understanding of homosexual persons, to dispel myths and prejudices about homosexuality, to provide pastoral support, and to give life to the claim of homosexual persons "upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral care and concern of the Church" as recognized by the General Convention in 1976.

Phoenix, 1991: General Convention affirmed the traditional understanding of marriage as between a man and a woman, and acknowledged “discontinuity” between that teaching and the experience of many members of the Episcopal Church: Resolution 1991-A104 Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 70th General Convention of the Episcopal Church affirms that the teaching of the Episcopal Church is that physical sexual expression is appropriate only within the lifelong monogamous "union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind" "intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord" as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer; and be it further

Resolved, That this Church continues to work to reconcile the discontinuity between this teaching and the experience of many members of this body; and be it further

Resolved, That this General Convention confesses our failure to lead and to resolve this discontinuity through legislative efforts based upon resolutions directed at singular and various aspects of these issues; and be it further

Resolved, That this General Convention commissions the Bishops and members of each Diocesan Deputation to initiate a means for all congregations in their jurisdiction to enter into dialogue and deepen their understanding of these complex issues; and further this General Convention directs the President of each Province to appoint one Bishop, one lay deputy and one clerical deputy in that province to facilitate the process, to receive reports from the dioceses at each meeting of their provincial synod and report to the 71st General Convention; and be it further

Resolved, That this General Convention directs the House of Bishops to prepare a Pastoral Teaching prior to the 71st General Convention using the learnings from the diocesan and provincial processes and calling upon such insight as is necessary from theologians, theological ethicists, social scientists and gay and lesbian persons; and that three lay persons and three members of the clergy from the House of Deputies, appointed by the President of the House of Deputies be included in the preparation of this Pastoral Teaching.

Indianapolis, 1994: General Convention added sexual orientation, along with marital status, sex, disabilities and age as categories of people to whom non-discrimination in church membership is assured. Resolution 1994-C020: Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That Title I, Canon 17, Section 5 be amended as follows: No person shall be denied rights, status [in], or [access to] an equal place in the life, worship, and governance of this Church because of race, color, [or] ethnic origin, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, disabilities or age, except as otherwise specified by [this] Canon.

Indianapolis, 1994: General Convention called for a study of “the theological foundations and pastoral considerations involved in the development of rites honoring love and commitment between persons of the same sex”: Resolution 1994-C042: Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 71st General Convention direct the Standing Liturgical Commission and the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops to prepare and present to the 72nd General Convention, as part of the Church's ongoing dialogue on human sexuality, a report addressing the theological foundations and pastoral considerations involved in the development of rites honoring love and commitment between persons of the same sex; and be it further Resolved, That no rites for the honoring of love and commitment between persons of the same sex be developed unless and until the preparation of such rites has been authorized by the General Convention; and be it further Resolved, That the sum of $8,600 be appropriated to support this work, subject to funding considerations.

Philadelphia, 1997: General Convention reaffirmed the traditional understanding of marriage and called for continuing study: Resolution 1997-C003: Resolved, That this 72nd General Convention affirm the sacredness of Christian marriage between one man and one woman with intent of life-long relationship; and be it further Resolved, That this Convention direct the Standing Liturgical Commission to continue its study of theological aspects of committed relationships of same-sex couples, and to issue a full report including recommendations of future steps for the resolution of issues related to such committed relationships no later than November 1999 for consideration at the 73rd General Convention.

Denver, 2000: General Convention acknowledged relationships other than marriage: Resolution 2000-D039: Resolved, That the members of the 73rd General Convention intend for this Church to provide a safe and just structure in which all can utilize their gifts and creative energies for mission; and be it further

Resolved, That we expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God; and be it further

Resolved, That we denounce promiscuity, exploitation, and abusiveness in the relationships of any of our members; and be it further

Resolved, That this Church intends to hold all its members accountable to these values, and will provide for them the prayerful support, encouragement, and pastoral care necessary to live faithfully by them; and be it further

Resolved, That we acknowledge that some, acting in good conscience, who disagree with the traditional teaching of the Church on human sexuality, will act in contradiction to that position; and be it further

Resolved, That in continuity with previous actions of the General Convention of this Church, and in response to the call for dialogue by the Lambeth Conference, we affirm that those on various sides of controversial issues have a place in the Church, and we reaffirm the imperative to promote conversation between persons of differing experiences and perspectives, while acknowledging the Church's teaching on the sanctity of marriage.

Minneapolis, 2003: Acknowledging continuing differences, General Convention recognized “that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions”: Resolution 2003-C051: Resolved, That the 74th General Convention affirm the following:

1. That our life together as a community of faith is grounded in the saving work of Jesus Christ and expressed in the principles of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral: Holy Scripture, the historic Creeds of the Church, the two dominical Sacraments, and the Historic Episcopate.

2. That we reaffirm Resolution A069 of the 65th General Convention (1976) that "homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church."

3. That, in our understanding of homosexual persons, differences exist among us about how best to care pastorally for those who intend to live in monogamous, non-celibate unions; and what is, or should be, required, permitted, or prohibited by the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church concerning the blessing of the same.

4. That we reaffirm Resolution D039 of the 73rd General Convention (2000), that "We expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God," and that such relationships exist throughout the church.

5. That we recognize that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same- sex unions.

6. That we commit ourselves, and call our church, in the spirit of Resolution A104 of the 70th General Convention (1991), to continued prayer, study, and discernment on the pastoral care for gay and lesbian persons, to include the compilation and development by a special commission organized and appointed by the Presiding Bishop, of resources to facilitate as wide a conversation of discernment as possible throughout the church.

7. That our baptism into Jesus Christ is inseparable from our communion with one another, and we commit ourselves to that communion despite our diversity of opinion and, among dioceses, a diversity of pastoral practice with the gay men and lesbians among us.

8. That it is a matter of faith that our Lord longs for our unity as his disciples, and for us this entails living within the boundaries of the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church. We believe this discipline expresses faithfulness to our polity and that it will facilitate the conversation we seek, not only in The Episcopal Church, but also in the wider Anglican Communion and beyond.

The Episcopal Church Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music Addressing General Convention Resolution 2009-C056, Liturgies for Blessing

Theological Reflection on Covenantal Relationships: A Summary of “Faith, Hope, and Love”

October 2011

Baptism, Eucharist, and the Paschal Mystery

All Christians are called to bear witness to the good news of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are empowered for such witness by our covenantal relationship with God. Baptism initiates us into that covenant, making us Christ’s own forever and members of Christ’s Body, the Church. The eucharist sustains us in that covenantal life and strengthens us to be Christ’s witnesses in the world.

Our covenantal life with God can shape and be expressed in our relationships of commitment and faithfulness with others. Our committed relationships can thus reflect a sacramental character (making diving grace visible) and evoke eschatological hope (our ultimate union with God). These relationships thus invite further reflection on the mission of the Church, what it means “to bless,” and the distinguishing marks of a covenantal relationship.

Themes for Theological Reflection

A sacramental framework for covenantal relationships suggests several other key theological themes for reflection and shared discernment, including the following:

• Vocation: God calls people into various kinds of relationship, whether as single people, in monastic communities, or as intimate couples. These vocational callings can empower our witness to the gospel. The decision to enter into a covenantal union is likewise a vocation marked by these characteristics: “fidelity; monogamy; mutual affection and respect; careful, honest communication; and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.”

• Households: Covenantal relationships are often lived in households in which we practice daily the giving of ourselves for the good of another. While households take many different forms, they create a space of mutual trust and accountability. The joy, intimacy, and shared vulnerability of households can thus help us learn the spiritual disciplines of compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation in lives of committed monogamy and fidelity.

• Fruitfulness: The divine grace that sustains a covenantal relationship bears fruit in countless ways, not only for the couple but for the wider community as well. Covenanted couples manifest this grace in their shared gifts for ministry and in lives of service, generosity, and hospitality.

• Mutual Blessing: A blessed relationship is set apart for a divine purpose: to bear witness to the creating, redeeming, and sanctifying love of God in the world. As the Spirit empowers the couple for this witness, the Church is likewise blessed and strengthened for its mission and ministry.

In all of these ways and more, the blessing of a same-gender relationship invites the couple and the whole Church to renew our commitment to the Baptismal Covenant. That commitment is expressed by faith in the good news of Jesus Christ, in the hope for union with God that Christ promised, and with the love that knits us together as the Body of Christ. As the apostle Paul says, we live our life together as God’s people with faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

The Episcopal Church Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music Addressing General Convention Resolution 2009-C056, Liturgies for Blessing

Principles for Evaluating Liturgical Materials

October 2011

Materials proposed for blessing same-gender relationships must above all be consistent with the implicit theology and ecclesiology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This would suggest, for example, that they must reflect the Prayer Book’s underlying assumption that the entire life of the Church finds its origin in baptism.

Nearly as important is that the proposed liturgical materials embody a classically Anglican liturgical ethos and style. Recognizing the varying notions of what makes public prayer recognizably Anglican, the task group identified these qualities:

• It resonates with Scripture and proclaims the gospel. • It is rooted in Anglican theological tradition. • It has high literary value; it is beautiful according to accepted and respected standards. • It uses the recurring structures, linguistic patterns, and metaphors of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. • It is formal, not casual, conversational, or colloquial. • It is dense enough to bear the weight of the sacred purpose for which it is intended. • It is metaphoric without being obtuse. • It is performative: that is, it effects what it says.

At the same time, these rites must resonate as natural speech in contemporary ears. A religious or sacred tone must be achieved without the use of arcane or antiquated words or patterns of speech.

The rites should provide explanatory notes and rubrics. The material must be considered as the script for an event, not merely a collection of texts.

Any rite of blessing must be an expression primarily of the entire Church, not of the couple seeking a blessing. These rites must allow for robust communal participation, reflecting the baptismal ecclesiology of the Prayer Book. Related to this, since the eucharist is the symbol of the unity of the Church through unity with Christ, these services of blessing should normatively take place within a celebration of the eucharist.

Such rites must enact the notion of sacramental reciprocity by suggesting that, even as the Church blesses the relationship of the couple, the relationship of the couple is a blessing to the Church.

Options for various elements of the rites, particularly Scripture and the Prayers of the People, must be provided so that this action of the entire Church—this common prayer—does not degenerate into a generic rite.

Any rite of blessing a couple must hold up the two people making the covenant as the primary ministers within this action of God and of the entire Church. Such rites should give expression to the Church’s understanding that the couple is freely assuming a vocation that can be expected to yield the fruits of mutual fidelity for the couple, for the Church, and for the entire world, and that points ultimately toward the fulfillment of all human relationships and unity in the eschatological Reign of God, when God will be all-in- all.

The rites must be what they purport to be—liturgical prayer—not didactic or polemical statements in the guise of liturgy.

Online Archive of Consultation Materials re Blessings Project

The Standing Liturgical Commission has been working with the Archives of the Episcopal Church to create an online archive of materials associated with the Blessings Project. This is a work in progress, but the online archive now includes key documents from the Atlanta Church-Wide Consultation, in English and Spanish. You can find it here: http://episcopalarchives.org/SCLM/.

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The 2009 General Convention of The Episcopal Church directed the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for blessing same-gender relationships (Resolution C056). The Commission has formed several task groups to help it with this work:

• theological resources;

• liturgical resources;

• pastoral and teaching resources, to assist congregations who are considering whether to host such blessings, and to assist clergy preparing couples for a liturgical blessing.

We invite your participation in this dialogue about blessing same-gender relationships. Your responses and observations here will help inform the work of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music in our work of developing theological and liturgical resources for such blessings. We hope that this conversation will also be a way to renew and enliven a shared vision of the church’s mission in the world.

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has created this blog (address below) to invite responses and reflection on our current work.

http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/resources-for-same-gender-blessings/

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Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of The Episcopal Church

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http://generalconvention.org/ccab/roster/2 Tabs available for the following areas: Roster, Mandate (tab name, ‘About’), meeting/minutes, documents.

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Contents of CD Preparation for General Convention 2012 Resources for Proposed and Possible Resolutions General Information . Clergy and Lay Deputies and Alternates, Diocese of North Carolina . An Introduction to General Convention by Gregory Straub, Executive Officer and Secretary of General Convention: A short explanation of General Convention . Preparing for General Convention 2012: A longer explanation of General Convention in an FAQ format.

Resources for Proposed and Possible Resolutions I. Anglican Covenant 1. The Anglican Communion: An Overview An explanation of our faith, our churches, the Instruments of Communion and other organization information. Written by Josephine Hicks and John Tampa of our diocese. 2. A Brief Overview of the Anglican Covenant— Written by Josephine Hicks and John Tampa, this short document answers these questions: What is the Covenant? How did it come to be? Will it strengthen the Anglican Communion? 3. Anglican Covenant: PowerPoint presentation—written by Josephine Hicks, this presentation answers the questions what the Covenant is and what it means to The Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. This presentation can be used effectively for an adult forum. 4. A Covenant for the Anglican Communion—A Study Guide prepared by the Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Communion Working Group. This 54-page guide is designed for use in 3 sessions, 90-120 minutes each but can be tailored to your particular situation. The information is from a Canadian Church perspective but has much good material that is applicable to The Episcopal Church USA. 5.Report on Anglican Covenant: The Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons, 2.15.2011 This report details constitutional and canonical issues arising from the text of the draft Anglican Covenant 6. Task force releases report on Anglican Covenant Episcopal News Service June 24, 2011 News article summarizes the findings in the Report on Anglican Covenant (above) II. Blessing Same Gender Relationships 1. Writings on Marriage: Journal of the Bishop’s Task Force on Marriage (2009)

2. Blessing of Committed Unions: A Pastoral Statement The Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry (2004).

3. To Set our Hope on Christ: A Response to the Invitation of Windsor Report ¶ 135

4. A Brief Survey of the Church’s Discussions on Homosexuality: John Tampa

5. Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church Offered by The Theology Committee of the House of Bishops (Lent +2010 )

6. Same Sex Complementarity: A theology of marriage by Eugene F. Rogers Jr. Christian Century May 11, 2011

7. Resolution C056-2009: Liturgies for Blessings

8. Resolution C056: Outline of Theological Principles and Liturgical Principles

9. Understanding Resolution C056-2009 (October 2011)

10. The Blessing Project of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music

A. Educational materials for diocesan meetings of deputies B. Liturgies for blessing same gender relationships: liturgical principles and reflection C. Theological reflection on liturgies for blessing same gender relationships

11. Online Archive of Consultation Materials re Blessings Project III. Restructuring The Episcopal Church 1. Becoming a Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society: An Adaptive Moment (Power Point presentation)

2. Bishop Stacy Sauls: Becoming A Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society: An Adaptive Moment (includes the notes for presenting the Power Point above)

3. Restructuring discussions continue after House of Bishops meeting ENS September 23, 2011

IV. Other resolutions of interest to people in the diocese? 1. Consideration to be added to calendar of Holy Women, Holy Men A. Manteo and Virginia Dare B. Pauli Murray

2. Anything else?

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY

An Adaptive Moment

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM? BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Why Reform?

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs) Agenda Committee of Executive Council House of Bishops Committee on Theology Board Development (GAM) House of Bishops Planning Committee Board for Transition Ministry House of Bishops Spouses' Planning Group Board of the Archives of the Episcopal Church House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church Budgetary Funding Task Force House of Deputies Study Committee on Church Governance and Polity Constable Fund Grant Management (GAM) BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) INC 055 Task Force (UTO) Court for the Trial of a Bishop Joint Audit Committee of the Executive Council and the DFMS Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop D004 Task Force on Older Adult Ministries Joint Standing Committee on Nominations Disciplinary Board for Bishops Joint Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements EC of JSC on Planning and Arrangements Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) Episcopal News Service Advisory Committee Presiding Bishop's Council of Advice Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission SCLM Chairs of Task Forces on C056 Executive Council Archives Strategy Committee SCLM Task Force - Animal Rites Group Executive Council Committee on Anti-Racism SCLM Task Force - Canonical and Legal Considerations Executive Council Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility SCLM Task Force - Creation Season Group Executive Council Committee on Indigenous Ministries BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) SCLM Task Force - Joint Creation/Animal/Science Discussion Group Executive Council Committee on Science, Technology and Faith SCLM Task Force - Liturgical Resources Executive Council Committee on Strategic Planning SCLM Task Force - Pastoral and Teaching Resources Executive Council Committee on the Status of Women SCLM Task Force - Theological Resources Executive Council D020 Task Force Standing Commission for Small Congregations Executive Council Economic Justice Loan Committee BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns Executive Council Executive Committee Standing Commission on Communication and Information Technology Executive Council Investment Committee Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Governance and Administration for Mission Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations Executive Council Jubilee Ministries Advisory Committee BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) Standing Commission on Health Executive Council Standing Committee on Advocacy and Networking Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Formation and Education Executive Council Standing Committee on HIV/AIDS Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music Executive Council Standing Committee on Local Ministry and Mission Standing Commission on Ministry Development Executive Council Standing Committee on World Mission Standing Commission on Social Justice and Public Policy BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) FFM SubCommittee on Finances Standing Commission on Stewardship and Development GAM 009 Consultation Standing Commission on the Mission and Evangelism of The Episcopal Church GAM-005 (GAM) Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church General Board of Examining Chaplains Standing Commission on World Mission Governance & Policies (GAM) Strategic Partnerships (SC on World Mission) House of Bishops BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Commissions, Committees, Agencies and Boards (CCABs continued) Task Force on B014 House of Bishops Committee on Pastoral Development Title IV Review Committee House of Bishops Committee on Religious Communities

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Church Center Departments Office of the Presiding Bishop Canon to the Presiding Bishop Pastoral Development General Board of Examining Chaplains Federal Ministries Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe Building Services Human Resource Management Technology Mission Funding Legal Counsel Office of General Convention Board of Archives BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Church Center Departments (continued) Archives Finance, including the Treasurer’s Office and the Controller’s Office Office of Communication, including Episcopal News Service, Corporate Communications and Digital Media

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Church Center Departments (continued) Church Planting and Redevelopment Transition Ministries Congregational Research Congregational Vitality Stewardship Events Native American & Indigenous Ministries Latino/Hispanic Ministries Black Ministries Jubilee Ministries, Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation Economic & Environmental Affairs Asian American Ministries Intercultural Ministries BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Church Center Departments (continued) Adult Formation and Lifelong Learning Young Adult Ministry & Campus Ministries Lifelong Christian Formation & Youth Global Networking United Thank Offering Mission Personnel Global Partnerships Middle East Partnership Global Partnerships Global Relations Latin America & the Caribbean Asia/Pacific BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Church Center Departments (continued) Province IX Africa Ecumenical and Interreligious Partnerships TBA Episcopal Migration Ministries Office of Government Relations

Plus General Convention Committees,

9 Provinces,

and 110 Dioceses. BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM? BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

How Resources are Allocated

Mission Administration Other Governance General Convention

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Why Reform? BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY WHY REFORM?

Why Reform? BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY MISSIONAL STRUCTURE

Becoming Missionally Structured Governance is canonically mandated. What’s left for mission? What if we reversed priorities: - Mission at churchwide level to encourage mission at local level - Utilize best-practice standard for % of overhead 47% (current) 35% Better Business Bureau 30%? 15-20% Non-Profit Standard

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY MISSIONAL STRUCTURE

Total budget $27,000,000

2011 Mission Spending 70% BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY MISSIONAL STRUCTURE

How to fund $27,000,000?

Investment Income: $9,500,000 Rental Income: $950,000 Total Income: $10,450,000

Balance: $16,450,000

1% of Congregational Income: $16,594,000

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY MISSION OR OVERHEAD?

Is the budgetary problem mission creep or overhead creep?

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 1 : FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

Principle 1 Form Follows Function. Simplify. At the churchwide level: 1. Mission within The Episcopal Church 2. Mission beyond The Episcopal Church 3. Promoting Justice and Peace 4. Anglican, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations 5. Governance 6. Supporting Mission through Administration and Finance BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 2 : SEPARATE MISSION FROM FIDUCIARY

Principle 2 Separate Mission Decisions from Fiduciary Decisions

General Convention   Executive Council DFMS Board of Trustees Missional Leadership Financial, Fiduciary and Administrative Leadership BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT

Principle 3 Investment Follows Engagement

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT

The Current Governance Pyramid

General Convention

Church Members BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT

Common Missional Structure Flattens the Pyramid

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT

A Flattened Pyramid Allows Participation at all Levels - Diocesan Commissions - Provincial Networks - Standing Commission - Executive Council Committee - General Convention Committee

for Mission Within; Mission Beyond; Justice and Peace; Anglican/Ecumenical/Interfaith; Governance; and Finance

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT

Consultation on Missional Needs

Collaborative Solutions to Benefit the Local

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 3 : FORM FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 4 : EMPHASIZE THE LOCAL

Principle 4 Emphasize the Local

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 4 : EMPHASIZE THE LOCAL

General Convention Cost to DFMS $8,300,000 Cost to Church Center Departments $353,000 Cost to Dioceses $3,500,000 Cost to Individuals? BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY PRINCIPLE 4 : EMPHASIZE THE LOCAL

General Convention Frequency of Meeting - every 4 years saves 25% - every 5 years saves 40% Length of Meeting Size of Meeting How Business is Presented On-going Work BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY ADVANCING THE CONVERSATION

Advancing the Conversation

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY ADVANCING THE CONVERSATION

Resolved, the House of ______concurring, there shall be a Special Commission on Missional Structure and Strategy, the composition of which shall be at the discretion of the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies and the members of which shall be appointed jointly thereby not later than thirty days following the adjournment of this 77th General Convention. The Special Commission shall be charged with presenting a plan to the Church for reforming its structures, governance, administration, and staff to facilitate this Church’s faithful engagement in Christ’s mission to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk. 4:18) in a way that maximizes the resources available for that mission at all levels of this Church.

Resolved, the Special Commission shall endeavor to issue its report and recommendations along with resolutions necessary to implement them, including proposed amendments to the Constitution and Canons of this Church, so that they might be considered by a special General Convention prior to the convening of the 78th General Convention in 2015, but in any event, not later than February 1, 2015.

Resolved, the General Convention requests the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $100,000 for the implementation of this resolution.

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY ADVANCING THE CONVERSATION

A Faith Statement about the People of the Episcopal Church

The people of the Church want to engage God’s mission.

The people of the Church want to participate in decisions about engaging God’s mission.

The people of the Church want to fund God’s mission.

BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY ADVANCING THE CONVERSATION BECOMING A DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY

An Adaptive Moment

The Episcopal Church

Office of Public Affairs

Bishop Stacy Sauls presents to the House of Bishops:

Becoming A Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society:

An Adaptive Moment

The Governance of The Episcopal Church: This information is another in an ongoing series discussing the governance of The Episcopal Church.

[September 23, 2011] Becoming A Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society: An Adaptive Moment, presented by Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer of the Episcopal Church, to the House of Bishops on September 19, is available here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/oc/Becoming_A_DFMS_9.23.ppt (Accompanying notes are included at the end.)

“The presentation represents thoughts and ideas that have been growing for a long time and in conversation with many other people throughout the church,” Sauls said, “but they are not intended as being presented as anything other than my own.”

In his presentation, Sauls asked for a broad discussion and examination of the Episcopal Church’s governance mechanisms, funding, and resource allocation. Addressing the concerns of dioceses and citing examples, he illustrated the need for reform through charts and graphs.

Sauls presented options for discussion, including collaborative solutions and concrete funding suggestions.

He also presented model resolutions, asking that the bishops return to their dioceses and discuss the proposal with their elected deputies to General Convention 2012. (resolutions in English and Spanish copied below).

He concluded with a Faith Statement: “The people of the Church want to engage in God’s mission. The people of the Church want to participate in decisions about engaging God’s mission. The people of the Church want to fund God’s mission.”

1 A Model Resolution Dioceses to Submit a Resolution for Structural Reform

To the 77th General Convention

Resolved, the [Convention or Council/Executive Council] of the Diocese of ______[or the Synod of Province __] directs that the following resolution be filed with the Secretary of the General Convention for consideration by the 77th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

Resolved, the General Convention requests the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $100,000 for the implementation of this resolution.

Explanation

The administrative and governance structures of The Episcopal Church have grown over the years so that they now comprise approximately 47% of the churchwide budget and sometimes hinder rather than further this Church’s engagement in God’s mission. Reform is urgently needed to facilitate this Church’s strategic engagement in mission and allow it to more fully live into its identity as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society in a world that has changed dramatically over the years but that also presents extraordinary missional opportunity.

2 Resolución Modelo para que las Diócesis presenten una resolución para la Reforma Estructural de la 77a Convención General

Se resuelve, que la [Convención o Consejo/Consejo Ejecutivo] de la Diócesis de ______[o el Sínodo de la Provincia ___] dispone que la siguiente resolución sea presentada por la Secretaria de la Convención General para consideración por parte la 77a Convención General de la Iglesia Episcopal:

Se resuelve, que la Cámara de ______concurrente, habrá una Comisión Especial sobre Estructura y Estrategia Misionera, cuya composición quedará a discreción de la Obispa Primada y de la Presidente de la Cámara de Diputados y de los miembros que se designarán conjuntamente como resultado de la misma en un máximo de 30 días tras el levantamiento de la 77a Convención General. La Comisión Especial se encargará de presentar un plan a la Iglesia para reformar sus estructuras, gobierno, administración y personal para facilitar el fiel compromiso de esta Iglesia con la misión de Cristo para proclamar las buenas nuevas a los pobres, liberar a los cautivos, para la recuperación de la vista de los ciegos, para liberar a los oprimidos, y el año aceptable del Señor (Lucas 4:18) de tal manera que se maximice los recursos disponibles para la misión en todos los niveles de esta Iglesia.

Se resuelve, que la Comisión Especial se esforzará en emitir su informe y recomendaciones junto con las resoluciones necesarias para implementarlas, incluyendo enmiendas propuestas a la Constitución y Cánones de esta Iglesia, de modo que puedan ser consideradas por una Convención General especial previo a la convocatoria de la 78a Convención General en el 2015, pero en cualquier caso, no más tarde del 1 de febrero de 2015.

Se resuelve, que la Convención General le solicite al Comité Permanente Conjunto de Programa, Presupuesto, y Finanzas que considere una asignación de presupuesto de $100.000 para la implementación de esta resolución.

Explicación

Las estructuras administrativas y de gobierno de la Iglesia Episcopal han crecido en el transcurso de los años de tal manera que en la actualidad comprende aproximadamente el 47% del presupuesto de toda la iglesia y algunas veces dificulta el compromiso estratégico de la Iglesia en la misión de Dios, en lugar de facilitarlo. Se requiere de manera urgente, una reforma para facilitar el compromiso estratégico de la Iglesia en la misión, y permitirle una expresión mas plena de su identidad como la Sociedad Misionera Nacional y Extranjera en un mundo que ha cambiado dramáticamente en el transcurso de los años pero que también presenta una oportunidad misionera extraordinaria.

3 Becoming a Domestic and Foreign Society:

An Adaptive Moment

Presentation Notes

Slide 1—Introductory Remarks

• The presentation represents thoughts and ideas that have been growing for a long time and in conversation with many other people throughout the church, but they are not intended as being presented as anything other than my own.

• Jim Waggoner has been very important in developing these ideas.

• A number of other bishops and other leaders in the church.

• A lot of my thinking has been influenced by conversations in the Budgetary Funding Task Force, but my presentation in no way represents the work of that group or a proposal of that group or something endorsed by that group.

Slide 2—Picture

• There are a number of pictures in this presentation. They are intended to represent mission in some way.

• This one is my favorite because it sums up the relational aspect of mission and its mutually transforming possibilities.

Slide 3—Why Reform?

• The reason is simple: to facilitate what we saw in the previous slide.

• There are several things that combine to make this important to do at this time. Slides 4-11—CCABs

• Committees, Commissions, Agencies, and Boards

• My theory is that TEC has grown by accretion over the years as things have been added without an overall strategic plan.

• There are at least 75 of them.

4 • Not all of them are funded.

• There are others I am finding all the time. Slides 12-15—Church Center Departments and Offices

• There are at least 42 of them.

• Again, I’m not sure I’ve found all of them.

• To make matters more complicated, there are at least three reporting structures for the DFMS staff. o Presiding Bishop Directly o Secretary of the General Convention o Chief Operating Officer and indirectly to the Presiding Bishop

• To make matters even more complicated, there are three boards with some level of authority. o Executive Council (to which everything reports; only board with fiduciary responsibility) o Archives (no fiduciary responsibility)

. Project with separate committees o Transition Ministries (no fiduciary responsibility) Slide 16—General Convention

• Each House has committees (total of about 46), which meet together in approximately 23 cognate committees.

Slide 16—And in Addition

• 9 Provinces with networks, coordinators, synods, etc.

• 110 dioceses

• 3 regional areas

5 Slide 17—Picture

• Giving us this result

• From EYE Slide 18—How Resources are Allocated

• Three categories of expenses

o Canonical (corresponding roughly to governance)

. General Convention

. Other, including CCABs o Corporate (corresponding roughly to administration) o Program (corresponding roughly to mission)

• Not as easy to figure out as it might at first seem o The version I am using is from an analysis done by Steve Smith, advisor to the President of the House of Deputies on finances and budget matters o I have also asked for an analysis to be done by the Treasurer o I have done my own analysis

• Different ways to analyze this

• Some things don’t fit neatly into a category (e.g., Presiding Bishop)

• DFMS budget allocations by category o Canonical/Governance—Almost 21%

. General Convention—7.6%

. Other—13% o Corporate/Administration—26.3% o Program/Mission—53.2%

6 Slide 19—Income Problem at Diocesan Level

• Different ways to analyze this

• Diocesan income peaked in 2007 and has been in decline since.

• Diocesan income represents approximately 12% of congregational income. Slide 20—Income Problem at Churchwide Level

• Projecting drop from 2011 to 2012.

• This is a model, not a forecast, of what might happen if current trends continue. (Not saying that they will, and in fact, I do not believe they will. This is a model only.)

• Interesting note, what comes to the DFMS is 1.6% of congregational income and about 13% of diocesan income. I.e., what DFMS receives from the dioceses is just about the same percentage as what dioceses receive from the congregations.

Slide 21—Becoming Missionally Structured

• Current assumption: canonical has the priority

• Something of a misunderstanding. o Generally, the canon says “amount reasonably necessary” for work, which means there’s discretion as to amounts allocated as “necessary.” o Canons subject to amendment.

• What if we reversed the priority and funded mission first.

• Non-profit accountability standards o Better Business Bureau: No more than 35% on overhead. o Preferred: 15-20%

• What if we reversed the priority and funded mission first? Slide 22—Hypothetical Budget

• Entirely hypothetical; actual 2011 DFMS budget is around $35 million.

7 • Put mission in first

o 2011 program/mission spending is about $19 million

• Put overhead in at a reasonable amount within non-profit standards. Hypothetically 30%, which is still high but within the minimal guidelines.

• Would produce a budget of $27 million. Slide 23—How to Fund $27 million

• Fixed Income o Investment income: $9.5 million

o Rental income: $950,000

o Total: $10.5 million

• Leaves $16.5 million to be funded from dioceses

• I find this very interesting

o It so happens that 1% of congregational income is about $16.5 million ($16,594,000) o This means that reasonable, missionally-oriented DFMS budget could be funded with 1% of congregational income o For dioceses trying to meet their full asking, in most cases this would be a dramatic decrease, thus making more money available for mission at the local level. o To make it work, however, would require that everyone participate, i.e., all dioceses. There are ways to help that happen. It is a jubilee opportunity.

Slide 24—Mission Creep/Overhead Creep

• Actual quotation Slide 25—Principle 1: Form Follows Function

• How might this be possible to do?

• What are some ways to reduce overhead?

8 • 4 Principles

• First: reduce CCABs to these five functions

o Mission within TEC

o Mission beyond TEC

o Promoting Justice and Peace

o Anglican, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations

o Governance

o Supporting Mission through Administration and Finance Slide 26—Principle 2: Separate Mission Decisions from Fiduciary Decisions

• Let people do what they’re best at

• Executive Council best at mission

• DFMS Board of Trustees is different (currently vested with Executive Council)

Slide 28—Principle 3: Investment Follows Engagement

• The structure of TEC is a hierarchical pyramid with the General Convention at the top and ordinary members at the bottom. Resources flow up; decisions flow down.

• This results in a lack of engagement on the part of the grass root level Episcopalian.

• Giving, and the interest in giving, diminishes along with distance from the decision-making.

Slide 30—A Flattened Pyramid Allows Greater Participation

• One way to do this would be to create a common organizational pattern at all levels of church decision-making.

Slide 32—Flattening the Pyramid

9 • A common organizational pattern would allow collaboration to consult across the church, rather than up and down the church, on missional needs.

• The intention is to facilitate investment through greater engagement. Slide 34—Emphasize the Local

• Mission primarily occurs at the most local level possible. Slide 35—General Convention

• General Convention is the least local level of the church hierarchy.

• Every three years, General Convention costs: o $8.3 million to the DFMS budget in direct costs. o $353,000 in costs such as staff travel to attend General Convention.

• The total costs to dioceses is conservatively estimated to be $3.5 million (average of $35,000 per 100 dioceses)

• Cost to individuals—unknown.

• Total cost--$12.2 million; over $1 million per day of General Convention. Slide 39—General Convention

• There might be ways to reduce this cost so that it is less than 7.6 % of the DFMS budget. These are some ideas (not proposals, or even suggestions; just ideas).

• Change the frequency of meetings.

• Change the length of the meetings.

• Change the size of both houses.

• Change how business is presented (e.g., restrict to dioceses, provinces, and interim bodies) in order to reduce volume and make the business more manageable.

• Have General Convention committees engage their work during the course of the triennium so that they are prepared to begin immediately when General Convention convenes.

10 • General Convention leadership can be made more accessible by having it go on during the period between Conventions.

Slide 40—Advancing the Conversation

• This was unplanned, but that happens to be the deputation of the Diocese of Lexington.

Slide 41—A Model Resolution

• Resolutions may come to General Convention from dioceses and provinces.

• Dioceses could ask the General Convention to ask the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies to take action so that a comprehensive plan with what would be necessary for implementation could be presented to the General Convention.

• The resolution calls for a special commission to do this work.

• It might be advisable to have this presented to a special meeting of General Convention before the next regularly scheduled Convention in 2015. o A special Convention can only consider matters proposed in the agenda. Thus, Convention would be freed from other business that might interfere with consideration of this important matter. (Sometimes very important legislation receives inadequate consideration because it is not able to be considered on the floor until the end of Convention due to the press of other business.) o The 2015 Convention will elect a Presiding Bishop. It might be best not to confuse this discernment with the consideration of structural proposals. It also might be useful if the Presiding Bishop were elected knowing what the structural direction was going to be. o This would allow dioceses to elect their deputations with the issue of structural reform in mind. (Deputies to a special Convention are those most recently elected, not those elected to the last regular Convention.)

• This proposal is intended to foster grass roots participation, conversation, and engagement so as to engage all the baptized to the extent possible; not just those with churchwide office.

• Ways to take diocesan action on the model resolution. o Convention action would be preferable.

11 o Even if a resolution deadline has passed, in many dioceses resolutions necessary to implement the Bishop’s Address are always in order.

o It is possible to suspend rules for late resolutions. o Alternative bodies for action, depending on local canons, would be Executive Councils or Standing Committees.

o There is no need for the model resolution be adopted exactly as is. Everyone should feel free to use it or not, or to modify or amend, as they think best.

Slide 42—A Faith Statement

• These are things I believe about Episcopalians.

• A general word of caution about continuing this conversation.

o The problem is a systemic one and not an individual one.

o There will be reactivity to these proposals. That is the nature of systemic issues.

o This is not a problem with the leadership of the House of Deputies or with anyone individually.

o Let me say something about the President of the House of Deputies.

. This is not a problem about Bonnie Anderson.

. Bonnie Anderson is a good and faithful person who loves Jesus and loves the Church and is devoted to serving the Church.

. To be perfectly honest, the level of conversation in the House is sometimes not helpful on this issue and, in fact, the people of the Church deserve a higher standard of leadership from their Bishops.

. When I need to ask Bonnie about something she has said or done, or when I need to consult with her on something, what I do is pick up the phone and call her. I have never, not once, had Bonnie do anything other than have a collegial and helpful conversation with me. I suggest you do the same.

Questions for Table Discussion

• A question left unanswered is what do we mean by “mission.” How would you define “mission”?

12 • We have not begun to exhaust all the possible ideas to solve this problem. What concrete ideas can you suggest?

• Would you be willing to see that your diocese has a chance to consider the model resolution?

13 Restructuring discussions continue after House of Bishops meeting Chief operating officer calls for 'testing to see if there's grassroots support'

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, September 23, 2011 [Episcopal News Service] The on-going conversations about whether and how to restructure the Episcopal Church got a boost this week when the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, a member of the House of Bishops who is also the church's chief operating officer, presented his fellow bishops with what he called a way of testing the "grassroots support" for such change.

On Sept. 23, the PowerPoint of Sauls' presentation and the model of a resolution that diocesan conventions could submit to General Convention were made available online here. The Spanish version of the resolution is available here. Sauls' transcription of the notes he used to narrate the PowerPoint presentation is here.

Sauls told Episcopal News Service during a Sept. 22 interview that what he offered "was in no way intended to be a proposal or resolution or even a suggestion, particularly. It was more that these are the ways that we might could go about doing something." Sauls added that his presentation "didn't begin to be the sum total of ideas" that have been and are being discussed elsewhere in the church.

"This is not a bishop-imposed [initiative]; this is testing to see if there's a grassroots support for this kind of thing," Sauls said.

A range of reactions has greeted his presentation made Sept. 20 to the House of Bishops meeting in Quito, Ecuador. Some people have commented on the broad outlines of his suggestions while others have focused on his decision to make such a presentation to the bishops.

Sauls suggested that bishops engage the laity and clergy in their dioceses in conversation about potential structural reform that he said could shift the church's focus toward mission.

He also offered them a model resolution that dioceses could submit to the 77th General Convention in 2012 for consideration. It would have convention call for a special commission to be charged with "presenting a plan to the church for reforming its structures, governance, administration, and staff to facilitate this church's faithful engagement in Christ's mission…." Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson would appoint members to the commission.

The resolution would have the commission present its recommendations to a special meeting of General Convention before the 78th General Convention in 2015. A special convention may be called by a majority of the church's bishops for a specific purpose and the meeting can consider no other business. The scope of the agenda for the 2012 meeting of convention has nearly been set and the 2015 convention will feature the election of a new presiding bishop.

Thus, a special convention is seen in this instance as a way to allow bishops and deputies to concentrate on the restructuring issue. In addition, any needed constitutional changes must be approved by two successive meetings of convention. A special convention would allow that approval process to end in 2015.

Sauls' presentation to the bishops included an overview of trends in the church's income and how that money is currently spent. He told ENS he outlined some changes that would reduce the cost of administration and of General Convention, including having the governing body meet every four or five years instead of the current three-year cycle, reducing the size of both houses and changing the way business comes to the convention. He said that his concern "is not as simple as cutting up the existing pie the right way." Instead, he suggested that rebalancing the percentages of what the church spends on administration, governance and mission had the potential to "make the whole pie grow larger."

"One of my fundamental faith beliefs is that the people of the Episcopal Church want to fund the church's engagement in God's mission and I think that if they were confident that that [engagement] is what they were giving to, I think the size of our resources would increase," he said.

He said he wants to help the church live into its corporate name as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society as what he called the "trustees" of its resources for the poor in ways that engage the members of the church. However, he said, "at the church-wide level we are not leveraging our resources to that end."

Sauls told ENS that his presentation to the House of Bishops was meant to follow up, at his colleagues' request, on remarks he had made at the group's March meeting.

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson told ENS by e-mail Sept. 21 that she had not seen the substance of his suggestions, but is "encouraged by the knowledge that Bishop Sauls shares my appetite for reforming our structures in the service of God's mission, and hope we can collaborate more closely in the future."

"The laity and clergy of the church look forward to seeing what he has shared with the bishops," she said.

Executive Council member Bruce Garner noted Sept. 21 on an e-mail listserv open for discussion to bishops, General Convention deputies and Episcopal Church Center staff, that Sauls' presentation is "nothing more than an idea, a proposal, a suggestion" that hasn't been put to a vote.

"Ideas and plans do not come out of large committees," Garner said on the listserv. "They initially come from the thoughts and ideas of one or two people who think about something and then go from there. Once an idea has been 'floated' it then goes to the next step to be discussed, fleshed out, altered, thrown out or whatever." Garner gave ENS permission to quote from his e-mail but cautioned that he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of Executive Council, which, he noted, had been receiving and discussing throughout the triennium reports about changing the governance structure of the church.

Council has also been considering a "long-range financial modeling tool," which the council's Finances for Mission Committee Chair Del Glover said showed annual multi-million-dollar deficits from 2012 through 2015 and "growing to a substantial amount in 2021" if changes are not made. Council has changed the way it will develop a draft 2013-2015 budget. That work has included a survey about the church's programs and its funding priorities. The results of that survey are due to be released soon.

The Rev. Canon Mark Harris, a council member from Delaware, told ENS in a telephone interview Sept. 22 that Sauls' presentation was part of the calls for structural change that are "bubbling up" all over the church. He noted that both Jefferts Schori and Anderson have "challenged" the church's structures since the beginning of the 2010-2012 triennium.

Still, he wrote Sept. 21 in his blog, "Preludium," it took "considerable courage" for Sauls "to put the proposition on the table." In his most recent post, Harris said "the upcoming General Convention could begin the process by using a budget-making process that does not simply build (or deconstruct) its line items from an internal contest among offices and duties for the remnants of the pie."

Harris warned that restructuring "should not be about cutting spending, although it does require a realistic understanding of budget limitations" but, rather, coming to a "clear understanding of just who we are as a church and what we understand our work to be."

Diocese of Nevada Bishop Dan Edwards wrote Sept. 20 on his blog that the point of Sauls' suggestion of structural change "is not just to spend less."

"It is to redirect money and human resources from governance to mission, from centralized to local, while streamlining the governing bodies of the church," Edwards wrote from Quito, Ecuador, where the bishops met.

Conversations about changes in the church's structure are already occurring elsewhere in the church. John Cheek, a lay deputy from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, told ENS via e- mail Sept. 22 that his deputation had spent part of its meeting the night before Sauls' presentation talking about structural change and what he called "misplaced budget priorities." It was clear from that discussion, he wrote, that "future development of these ideas would involve (as stated by Sauls) extensive conversations with laity and clergy as well as bishops."

Cheek said reorganization has to be aimed beyond "merely putting more people in the pews to pay our bills."

"If we do not offer something really worthy of the Gospel then we deserve to die out," he wrote. "Putting mission first would be a huge step in that direction."

Sauls said that several bishops have told him since his presentation that they intend to begin discussions of it in their dioceses with their convention deputations. He called for even wider discussions.

"I don't think this conversation can happen in too few places," he said, adding that his suggestion for conversation about structural change is not meant to "pre-empt" other conversations that are taking place, "but it is intended to broaden the conversation."

Restructuring ideas have indeed been floated or formally proposed for years. General Convention has been traditionally reluctant to make major changes in structure and governance. Ideas that have reached convention included various proposals to reduce the size of the House of Deputies or change how deputies are chosen (those suggestions date to as early as 1874) and reduce the length of convention (in fact, council asked that the 2012 meeting of convention be eight days instead of 10).

There also have been periodic calls to move the Church Center out of New York City. The church center staff has been reorganized more than once in recent years, beginning in 2007 in an effort to "provide greater flexibility, decentralization, and increased responsiveness toward the mission of the church," according to a council resolution at the time.

Sauls' proposal comes close to four months after the church's Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church, at the council's request, gathered representatives of the church's committees and commissions that have been discussing strategic planning and possible changes in the structure and governance of the church. Sauls told ENS that some of the ideas he discussed with the House of Bishops are similar to a presentation he made to the Budgetary Task Force last October. He was a member of that group when Jefferts Schori appointed him as COO.

Becky Snow, Structure's chair, has said that the commission would include a report on the gathering in its report to General Convention in 2012.

Snow told ENS Sept. 21 that the commission discussed reports about Sauls' House of Bishops presentation that day during a previously planned telephone conference.

"Making a proposal at this moment in [the convention's three-year] life cycle essentially guarantees that it's not going to be actionable by anybody else – by any of the existing structures – before General Convention," she said.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service. http://episcopalchurch.org/79425_129916_ENG_HTM.htm EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF NORTH CAROLINA Res. 196.5. On Calling for Creation of a Special Commission on Missional Structure and Strategy

The 196th Annual Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina resolves:

The Secretary of the Convention shall file the following resolution with the Secretary of the General Convention for consideration by the 77th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

“Resolved, the House of ______concurring, there shall be a Special Commission on Missional Structure and Strategy, the composition of which shall be at the discretion of the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies and the members of which shall be appointed jointly thereby not later than thirty days following the adjournment of this 77th General Convention. The Special Commission shall be charged with presenting a plan to the Church for reforming its structures, governance, administration, and staff to facilitate this Church’s faithful engagement in Christ’s mission to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk. 4:18) in a way that maximizes the resources available for that mission at all levels of this Church.

Resolved, the General Convention requests the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $100,000 for the implementation of this resolution.”

Submitted by the Rev. Sarah Hollar, the Rev. John Tampa, the Rev. Beth Wickenberg Ely, the Rev. Kevin Matthews, Alice B. Freeman, Joseph S. Ferrell, Martha Bedell Alexander, and Josephine H. Hicks

Comment: This resolution is sponsored by the clergy and lay deputies to General Convention from this diocese. Its purpose is to lend the endorsement of the Diocese of North Carolina to the call of the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer of The Episcopal Church, for the creation of the special commission described above.

Resolution 2009-C002 Number: Title: Refer a Resolution to Add Pauli Murray to the Church Calendar Legislative Referred Action Taken: Final Text:

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention commend the name of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for its consideration of the possible addition of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to the Calendar of The Episcopal Church recognizing July 1st, the date of her death, as the date of commemoration and request that it report on this matter to the 77th General Convention.

Citation: General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of...The Episcopal Church, Anaheim, 2009 (New York: General Convention, 2009), p. 793. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY Author: Diocese of Newark Originating House of Bishops House: Originating Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music Committee:

House of Bishops

The House of Bishops Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music presented its Report #22 on Resolution C002 (Commend the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to LFF) and moved to refer the resolution to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.

Original Text of Resolution:

(C002)

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention commend the name of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for its consideration of the possible addition of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to the Calendar of The Episcopal Church recognizing July 1st, the date of her death, as the date of commemoration and request that it report on this matter to the 77th General Convention.

Motion carried

Resolution referred to a Standing Commission

(Communicated to the House of Deputies in HB Message #219)

House of Deputies

The House of Deputies Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music presented its Report #22 on Resolution C002 (Commend the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray to LFF) and moved to concur with referral to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.

Motion carried

Resolution referred to a Standing Commission

(Communicated to the House of Bishops in HD Message #365)

Resolution Referred to a Standing Commission by Both Houses.

Abstract: The 76th General Convention refers to a Standing Commission a proposal to add Pauli Murray to the Church Calendar.

GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 2009 ARCIDVES' REsEARCH REpORT

RESOLUTION No.: 2009-C058

TITLE: Commend Manteo and Virginia Dare to LFF

PROPOSER: Diocese of North Carolina

COMMITTEE: Prayer Book, Liturgy & Church Music

Directly Related: (attached)

None

Indirectly Related:

None

In preparing this report, the Archives researched the resolutions ofGeneral Convention for the period 1976 through 2006, selecting "direct" resolutions that have a substantive bearing on the proposed legislation. Committee members who are interested in obtaining copies of "indirectly related" resolutions, legislative history before 1976, or who require other research assistance should contact the Archives at 800-525-9329 before Convention or at Convention in the General Convention Secretariat.

The Acts ofGeneral Convention 1976-2006 ~ Research report provided by The Archives of the Episcopal Church 13 - Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music: DB C058

TOPIC/TITLE: Commend Manteo and Virginia Dare to LFF PROPOSER: Diocese of North Carolina C&CPAGE: BB PAGE:

1 Resolved, the House of concurring, That the 76th General Convention commend 2 the names of Manteo and Virginia Dare to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and 3 Music for its consideration of the possible addition of Manteo and Virginia Dare to the 4 Calendar of The Episcopal Church, recognizing August 18th, the date of Virginia Dare's 5 birth, as the date of commemoration, and request that it report on this matter to the 77th 6 General Convention. 7 8 9

EXPLANA TION: Manteo was a chief of a tribe of coastal Algonquians who, in the 16th Century, inhabited the inner banks and barrier islands of what is now North Carolina. He traveled to London in 1584 and, on August 13,1587, was baptized at the first English settlement in the New World on Roanoke Island. At his baptism he was named Lord of Roanoke. Manteo's baptism is the first recorded Christian sacrament according to Anglican rites in the New World. Ten days later, Virginia Dare was baptized. She was the first child born of English parents in the New World. The child's mother, Eleanor, was the daughter of John White, governor of the colony. Her father, Ananias Dare, served as one of the governor's assistants. Virginia was born on August 18, 1587, just days after the colonists arrived on Roanoke Island. Her baptism took place on the following Sunday, August 23.A Commemoration of the Baptisms of Manteo and Virginia Dare took place on August 17,2008, at the site of the "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island near the Town of Manteo in the Diocese of East Carolina, and the Diocese has added a local commemoration to its liturgical calendar.CollectO God, you have created every human being in your image and each one is precious in your sight: Grant that in remembering the baptisms of Manteo and Virginia Dare, we may grow in honoring your gift of diversity in human life; become stronger in living out our own baptismal vow to respect the dignity of every human being; and bring into the fellowship of the risen Christ those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.ReadingsEcclesiastes 1:4-7Psalm 33:13-15, 18-22Ephesians 2:13-22 or Revelation 7:9-17John 10:14-18Color: WhiteProper Preface: Baptism

Sponsor(s):The Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniel III

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