Oh, Happy Day
The new presiding bishop of the U. S. Episcopal
Church speaks the truth on homosexuality.
Katharine Jefferts Schori has been elected as the
first woman leader of the 2.3 million member Episcopal Church, of which I am a
member. This is a hopeful move for several reasons. It is first and foremost a
validation by the political church that wisdom, tolerance, and the capability to
love as Jesus taught are not only not restricted to members of one gender. These
qualities are to be found to such a degree in women that they can serve equally
in the capacity of leadership previously reserved only for
men.
Although I have long been a gay
activist, I have long supported equal rights for all women. Since the early
1970's I have seen that sex discrimination is the fundamental inequity in our
society that generates both misogyny and homophobia. Why so? A certain
unfortunate analogy has long been embedded in church history: the Church is the
bride of Christ, essentially a male, and the family is to mirror this, with the
man as Christ and the woman as the Church. Paul says fairly plainly, that in a
marriage, the man is to be the head and rule the woman, who presumably supplies
the "heart," at least the feelings.
We
don't have to call this patriarchal presumption, and we don't have to call it
poppycock or even more a more vulgar substance. But we do have to call it for
what it is: an untruth that was told to the Church by leaders in an ancient
society dominated by men. That's what it was, and that is what it remains. Of
course, there will always be the rationalizations of this position by those
devoted to it in the face of all counter evidence. Perhaps there will even
always be the ultimate rationalization: that this blatant inequity is God's
will.
I have decided in my old age that
the best way to combat these distortions or untruths, or whatever you might call
them is simply to never stop speaking the truth. Speak it plainly,
non-violently, and patiently, but persistently. God did not create women without
a head, and God did not create men without a heart. They both have both.
Equally. For all time.
And though it
is possibly a somewhat redundant addition, I will comment also on the idea of
same-sex ordination and marriage as equal to opposite-sex ordination and
marriage. When it is fully understood that both men and women equally have
hearts and minds, then it will not seem so necessary that they marry only each
other to complete themselves, and it will not seem so improbable that men could
love men and women could love women, since they are already complete. Then it
would be seen that the purpose of marriage is not to make two halves a whole,
but to make two wholes into a greater whole, a relationship for the benefit of
both and grounded in Christ.
According to a Reuters news release, when
interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual,
to which she replied.
"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us
with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different
collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us
to bless the world around us. Some people come into this world with affections
ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this
world with affections directed at people of the other
gender."
This is the truth, Bishop Jefferts Schori. Just keep
repeating it again and again in the face of all irrational resistance to it.
With these words you are bringing the Anglican Communion closer into the embrace
of the Jesus Christ that we all share in.
Posted: Mon - June 19, 2006 at 09:00 PM
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