I’m returning once again to write about my bishop, as well as the General Convention. This comes with some baggage. Not only did I write about this earlier this month, but it’s also something I discussed at Global Entropy
The bishop did put together a good summary of the actions taken at the General Convention (a summary of just the same-sex matrimony resolutions), which I really do appreciate. Gears of any large organization take a long time to move, the Episcopal Church is no different. It’s disheartening, especially since waiting to be fully accepted by your own church hurts, but it’s what we’re dealt, so we can just try to urge things to move along faster.
However, what threw me for a loop, and what I didn’t catch during my first wiring about the General Convention is this:
3. Established a Task Force on Communion Across Difference [A227].
Background: The language of this resolution was drawn in its entirety from Resolution B012 as originally offered. The commission establishes an on-going channel of communication to explore a way forward together, and to avoid future conflicts.
The 2018 General Convention:
• Set membership at no more than 14 clergy and laity, half who believe marriage is a covenant “between two people” and half who believe marriage to be exclusively “between a man and a woman”
This is, again, as we saw in Pittsburgh, bullshit.
Once again, the process is based on the forced inclusion of those who believe I should not have access to the same sacraments as other people in the church. The bishop writes:
steps were taken to include LGBT people more deeply in the life of the whole Church, and to honor their relationships
I’d love to know how (thankfully not me, as I’m not on any committee), having to sit in a room and defend your right to God’s love to people who want to force you into a loveless life honors and includes us?
The Episcopal church is leaps and bounds ahead of others, and has always been a home for me. My parish is easily one of the most liberal in the country, and I’m proud of that fact, but this kind of process drags us all backwards. This did not work in Pittsburgh, although I expect the larger church, with such a small committee, will have no problems filling up either side of the ‘debate.’
And for me, I’ve always been much more of the ‘doing’ rather than going to church every week, and that won’t change. I go, especially when I need a bit of recharging, but I’ve always been drawn more to the community events and volunteer work I can do through the church.
All my best,
Mike
