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St.
Paul’s Cathedral San Diego
Integrity
Post ECUSA General Convention Conference
Integrity
Alabama Represented
By
David Gary
November
12, 2003
Hosted
in an Episcopal cathedral where the Very Rev. Scott Richardson said a
motivating factor in his accepting the position as Dean was seeing an open
and affirming congregation which included a visibly active Integrity
chapter, more than 60 Integrity members from across the nation gathered
the weekend after Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop to hear a series of
addresses by current leaders of the American inclusion movement.
Called
“Giants” of the “justice and inclusion movement” by Richardson,
Louie Crew, Susan Russell and Michael Hopkins were often interrupted by
applause during their respective presentations which collectively
challenged those attending to ‘seize the moment’ provided by the
events pre- and post-General Convention 2003 and to spread the word of
God’s inclusive love.
Integrity
Alabama members Brad LaMonte, convener, and David Gary attended.
+++
A
festival Eucharist, which included an altar party of 21 with 10 priests
co-celebrating, opened the conference.
The procession was led and followed by servers carrying rainbow
streamers attached to 25-foot poles.
The Cathedral and Integrity banners were included in the order of
procession that included a thurifer.
The
Rev. Andrew Green, rector of St. Paul in the Desert, Palm Spring, Calif.,
delivered the sermon.
Green’s
insightful reflection on the appointed Gospel reading (Luke 11:9-13) began
with a reminder that, “Baptism is where it all begins.”
Green
pointed out that as Christians we all drink from the same stream as our
adversaries. “Susan Russell and David Anderson drink from the same
stream,” he said, referring to the leaders of Integrity and the American
Anglican Council. Green
added, “None of us own the stream…(we are) called not to let people
put up fences around the stream and not put up fences of our own.”
Reflecting
on Luke’s recounting Christ’s words to ask, search and knock, Green
challenged the congregation to do “whatever it takes” to keep the door
open. “It is about keeping
our foot in the door or wedge in there – what ever it takes – to keep
the door open,” he said, “… to proclaim there is a wideness in the
Episcopal Church.”
+++
Kicking
off the November 8 conference was Louie Crew, Ph.D., Executive Council
member, Integrity founder and Alabama native, who reminded those attending
that lgbt people are well within the church, even though it may not feel
like it to some in the wake of related events in Minnesota and New
Hampshire this summer.
"General
Convention 2003 said 'Enough Already' to endless talk without
action by passing very important resolutions," he said.
Crew
advised attendees to heed a Christian calling to “be gentle” and
support those in authority as they learn how to support the marginalized.
“The only triumph is the cross,” he said, reminding
participants there will still be times to, “… pick up that cross and
carry it."
Crew
summed up events of late within the church as sending a message that,
“Taboos don’t make any sense any more,” when he reflected on Pauline
scripture passages detailing early church arguments over the need for
circumcision.
“We
can move past taboos concerning sexual identity and sexual behavior,” he
said, jokingly referring to St. Paul as a true Anglican because of his
ability to, “… muddle up the conversation to come up with a phrase on
circumcising one’s heart.”
“We
are the one religion that remembers the first command that we love God
with our minds,” Crew said.
Addressing
probable changes within the church, Crew drew parallel to similar activity
in the American civil rights movement.
“No
American wanted to live in the old mindset after King’s death,” he
said, referring to the slain civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr.
“More and more, the work will be done by the majority.
Seminarians now will serve a post-Gene-Robinson’s-election
church,” Crew said of future church leadership.
Crew
also addressed the leadership skills of Russell and Hopkins who, “take
abuse and turn it into a gospel opportunity.”
“They
have been stunningly effective, never yielding to basic instincts of our
humanity,” he said referring to the manner in which the two had
addressed opposing forces over the summer.
Concerning
detractors of the lgbt liberation movement, Crew emphasized his desire
that people not leave the church, adding that demonizing detractors,
particularly their leadership, is “not Christian.”
“We
are so much further along when we love those who hate us because it is so
much easier after they change their minds,” he said.
+++
Speaking
on the topic, “What About My Blessing?” the Rev. Susan Russell,
executive director of Claiming the Blessing, All Saints Church Pasadena
and president of Integrity, said
she is increasingly convinced, “… that what we actually passed, C051,
will eventually be of greater benefit to the church than what we went to
Minneapolis asking for, which was a liturgy for blessing in the Book of
Occasional Services.”
According
to Russell, the Presiding Bishop has received requests to provide
liturgical guidance in dioceses currently performing or interested in such
blessings
Acknowledging
that 30 years after the church resolved to allow women priests, and three
of some 100 diocese still reject the practice, Russell said, “… maybe
it won’t take that long,” for church tradition to embrace same-sex
blessings.
She
reminded those attending to work for justice and inclusion as a gospel
agenda. “It is time to get
over fighting for the crumbs under the table and get on with our fight for
a piece of the pie,” she said as she reflected on the collaborations of
a large number of justice groups working directly with Claiming the
Blessing over the past three years.
Russell
cited the collaborative efforts, where “justice, inclusion and
evangelism” are understood, are key to nurturing secular humanists,
lapsed church members and people who have never been part of a church in a
post September 11th world.
“They
don’t know Christianity has anything for them because the other side has
had the microphone too long,” she said, adding,
“We have something to offer and people are coming when they see a
church where we can drink from the same stream.”
“We
take scripture too seriously to take it literally,” she said, reflecting
on conservatives who have turned classical Anglicanism into a narrow
literalism.
Russell
pointed out a small percentage of conservative leadership in the church
has worked, since the 1970s, by planning and funding an exclusive message
to render the Episcopal church into looking “nothing like” the church
that many cradle Episcopalians of her generation knew.
“We
are bigger, stronger and smarter than schism. What binds us together is
more important than what threatens us,” Russell added.
+++
“Welcome
to Nineveh” was the presentation theme for The Rev. Michael Hopkins,
Integrity past president and rector St. George’s Church, Glenn Dale,
Maryland, who drew parallels between the Bible story of Job and the
Episcopal church of today.
(For
complete text of Hopkins' remarks, click here)
“Inclusion
has been realigned, Jesus-style,” he said, and “mercy is wider than
human imagination,” in a world where a new Sunday morning form of
segregation has taken shape via ideology rather than race, and repentance
“has been high jacked by the Right.”
Speaking
further on shifts in culture and the church that have produced
“lightning rods of anxiety,” Hopkins advised those present to,
“embrace our vocation,” rather than perpetuating victim’s status.
Hopkins
proposed that collaborative efforts will be important for groups like
Integrity as the course of events for social justice groups has prompted a
need to unite, “for the good of the whole.”
“Collaboration
IS the future,” he said, as “the journey continues to get harder and
riskier” in an environment where he called for glbt people and others to
revive their energy with collaborative efforts, blending narrow agendas
for a stronger witness.
+++
Reflecting
on the actions of general convention and the focus of the conference, Dean
Richardson said churches would not have enough seats to accommodate people
interested in attending if declarations of openness were to be made of the
“good news.”
“Millions
are waiting for the church to say it believes in reaching out on justice
and inclusion,” he said.
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