National Cathedral Dean Slams “Filthy Enactment” of Voting Rights Ruling

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Dean Gary R. Hall, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Episcopalians, Gary Hall, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, same sex marriage, Supreme Court, The Episcopal Church, Voting, Washington National Cathedral

Gary Hall, center, dean of Washington National Cathedral, recently led a delegation from the cathedral at the annual Capital Pride Parade in Washington. (Photo credit: Sarah L. Voisin / The Washington Post)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

A recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court “essentially gutted” the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and recalls the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850s, according to the dean of the Washington National Cathedral.

In a Sunday sermon celebrating recent Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage and lamenting a ruling on the Voting Rights Act, Dean Gary Hall sought to link the church’s public engagement with Jesus Christ’s turn towards Jerusalem in Luke Chapter 9.

Already thrusting the Cathedral into debates over firearms control and same-sex marriage, voting rights is just the latest in a string of politically charged issues championed by the activist Episcopal Church official.

Hall celebrated court marriage decisions overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 as “victories for all of us who support marriage equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people.”

“Those who had suffered so much discrimination savored a cultural and legal turning point in our shared march towards justice,” the Episcopal priest reported of a special Wednesday service for LGBT persons at the cathedral. Hall also noted “as we exalt in the joys of our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters, we must also weep with the pains and the losses of our brothers and sisters of color.”

“On Tuesday I found myself as dejected as I would find myself elated on Wednesday,” Hall told of the VRA and DOMA rulings. Recalling his own participation in the civil rights movement as a high school junior, Hall said it brought him into contact with Christian people and the life and ministry of the church.

Designating the VRA ruling “a filthy enactment,” Hall quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson’s declaration that he would not obey the Fugitive Slave Act, which required residents of Free states to return escaped slaves to the south.

Acknowledging his own record of political sermons, Hall insisted Sunday’s message from the pulpit wasn’t just “another instance of the Dean going all political on you” but was instrumental to following Jesus Christ.

“Jesus sets his face to go towards Jerusalem both literally and figuratively,” Hall pronounced of Luke chapter 9:51-62, in which Christ begins his journey towards the Jewish capital, the center of public life.

In going to the capital city, Jesus “is taking his critique to the heart of Roman and Jewish life,” Hall assessed. The cathedral dean termed the week’s events as “triumph and tragedy in our own capital.”

“We are a public church and public churches cannot be neutral where issues of justice are concerned,” Hall charged. Adding that Jesus went to Jerusalem “not out of anger but out of compassion,” Hall portrayed Jesus’ journey as one of solidarity “with and for those who are up against it.”

Declaring that God “loves and blesses and accepts everyone as they are,” Hall pronounced that “Jesus does not go to Jerusalem alone” and calls Christians to go with him.

“Therefore, following Jesus as he sets his face to go towards Jerusalem is part of what it means to be a Christian,” Hall interpreted. “If we are really following Jesus – and not just being personally pious in a private way – we try to care as much about the sufferings of people we don’t know as our own children, parents, spouses and friends. The only way you can care for people you don’t know is by establishing justice.”

In a call to the U.S. Congress “to rebuild what the court has taken away,” Hall insisted that Christianity has never been about only private suffering or personal joy, but rather about public social struggles. The cathedral dean asserted that Christians experience persecution “because they dare to make their private compassion a public virtue.”

“Today we both rejoice and lament,” Hall concluded. “Tomorrow we take up again the work again of standing with Jesus and God for those Jerusalem and Washington would oppress.”

Update: Full text of Hall’s sermon has been made available by the Washington National Cathedral. Access it by clicking here.

Episcopal Bishop: Reflect “Divine Glory in Fully Alive-ness” on Climate Activism

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Anders Werjyd, ELCA, Environment, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Global Warming, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Julio Murray, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Lutheran, Marc Andrus, Mariann Budde, Mary Minette, Richard Cizik, Shannon Johnston, Willis Jenkins

Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Werjyd and Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori present their signed climate change statement at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. on May 1. (Photo: Mariann Budde/Episcopal Diocese of Washington)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church encouraged a church climate change gathering to stand firm “in the face of those who would destroy God’s reflection in creation.”

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s words came as Swedish Lutherans and American Episcopalians entered into an agreement on climate change in which the two churches committed to “serve as the hands of God in working to heal the brokenness of our hurting world.”

Release of the joint statement signed by Jefferts Schori and Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Werjyd came during the event on “Sustaining hope in the face of climate change” held May 1-2 at St. John’s Episcopal Church Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. The full statement can be viewed here.

The event featured panel discussions on international and local church responses to climate change, as well as a morning of lobbying Congressional and Administration officials on climate policy. The May 2 panels were heard by several Episcopal and Lutheran officials, including Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, Bishop of Virginia Shannon Johnston, Bishop of Maryland Eugene Sutton, Bishop of California Marc Andrus, Anglican Bishop of Panama Julio Murray and New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good President Richard Cizik, among others.

In a noonday homily at St. John’s, Jefferts Schori recalled St. Athanasius and his opposition to the heresy of Arianism, which espoused a human Jesus fully distinct from God the Father.

“If Jesus were not fully God and fully human it would deny any possibility that beings who inhabit flesh and blood human bodies could have a real relationship with God, whom we call the Holy One,” Jefferts Schori intoned. “It is not only God in human flesh who images the Holy One. All parts of God’s creation must reflect their maker in some way.”

In reference to “the riotous diversity of the flowers of the field,” the creatures of the sea and the sparrows, Jefferts Schori noted that God intends that each should flourish.

“When Jesus says that ‘you will be hated because of what you teach’, well, watch out if you advocate for justice for all the world’s people and all the other parts of creation,” The Episcopal Church official warned. “But don’t be afraid to speak out and tell what you know, for your soul will find life in doing that.”

Quoting Saint Irenaeus, Jefferts Schori remarked “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

“Fully alive human beings know themselves made in the image of God. Created as brother to the sun and sister to the moon, friend to the deer and ant and sparrow as well as to the enfolding blanket of atmosphere and ocean we are one family, related through the one who created us to reflect the divine glory in fully alive-ness,” Jefferts Schori declared. “There is no room in that for misusing our brothers and sisters, human or otherwise. There is abundant hope for all given the image we reflect and the ever-creative one in whom we live and move and have our being.”

The Episcopal Church official declared that Athanasius “stood firm in the face of those who would deny God’s presence in human flesh — we must do the same in the face of those who would destroy God’s reflection in creation.”

The midday homily was followed later the same afternoon by a panel on international response to climate change with Murray, scientist Kevin Noone, Professor of Social Ethics Willis Jenkins of Yale Divinity School and Mary Minette, Director of Environmental Education and Advocacy for the ECLA’s Washington Office.

During the panel, Murray advised the church audience to “give the information” that people need to know, rather than answering “wrong questions” reporters may ask. This, he laughed, was risky as “they won’t give the microphone back to you.”

Minette also expressed dissatisfaction with media coverage of climate issues, asserting that reporters cover the issue as an argument, “give voice to dissenters” and elevate a position that she felt was not on equal footing with climate activists.

Asked about mainline Protestant response to climate matters, Minette observed that there was “little interest” in the media among what mainline denominations espoused about the climate, with greater interest directed towards Evangelical Christian responses.

Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Cosmic Earth Day

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Dean Gary R. Hall, Environment, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Gary Hall, Global Warming, gun control, Gun Violence, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Washington National Cathedral

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori spoke recently at a Washington National Cathedral service themed around Earth Day. (Photo: The Living Church)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

Salvation is a cosmic act about all creation “not simply a few human beings,” according to the Episcopal Church’s top bishop. Speaking April 21 at the Washington National Cathedral, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori gave an Earth Day sermon on becoming “effective shepherds and pasture tenders for the whole creation” but seemed to downplay mankind’s preeminent position in creation, placing humanity on equal footing with microbes.

The Presiding Bishop’s sermon illustrated the interconnectedness of all life with an examination of how humans coexist with bacteria.

“Microbes are part of us, in a very real sense our intimate neighbors or members, and the task is to learn how to manage the system for better health as a whole and in all its parts,” Jefferts Schori proposed.

“This work is about consciousness of our connection to the whole, and tender care of the other parts of that whole,” Jefferts Schori intoned. “It is simply another form of loving our neighbor as ourselves, for the neighbor is actually part of each one of us.”

During the processional hymn “God the sculptor of the mountains” congregants sang of “God the potter of the land: you are womb of all creation.”

The service recalls two of Jefferts Schori’s previous sermons. As Presiding Bishop-elect in 2006, Jefferts Schori stated “Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children.” At Episcopal General Convention in 2009 the Presiding Bishop denounced “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

Addressing Violence

Jefferts Schori sat down with Cathedral Dean Gary Hall the same morning for an hour-long discussion in which she responded to church controversies, environmental stewardship and openly speculated about women’s ordination in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Asked by Hall to respond at the end of a week of difficult news, the Presiding Bishop reported that the church could assist in building a network of relationships “that provide balance and encourage resilience in the face of challenge.”

“Violence is a response to challenge, loneliness, loss, lack of meaning in life,” Jefferts Schori said. “I think that is a creative place for us to be engaged.”

Jefferts Schori also called Christians to consider their use of language in responding to violence, but was not just referring to intemperate words.

“Is the language we use intrinsically violent, or does it lead towards peace?” the Episcopal Church official asked.

“Think of all the martial hymns we have in the church,” Hall added.

On the Environment

Asked how her background in oceanography informed her understanding of humanity’s interconnectedness with the planet, the Presiding Bishop replied that oceanographers are trained to think systemically and “You can’t study anything in isolation.”

Affirming that the Gospel changed the relationship between human beings and God, Jefferts Schori added “it changed something about the relationship between all of creation and God.”

“We tend to focus very parochially on our own interests” Jefferts Schori observed, asserting it is part of the “eternal human challenge to widen our perspective over who is part of this community.”

On climate change, Jefferts Schori encouraged individuals to make daily decisions about the use of fuel, food, and water to “grow a consciousness” in addressing a “disconnect between daily life and the reality of climate change.”

Recalling his time as Rector of an Episcopal parish in Malibu, California, Hall cited beach erosion as evidence of a changing climate, pegging it to what he asserted were rising sea levels.

Asked about the church’s role in evangelism, Jefferts Schori praised bishops’ gun control advocacy and the Cathedral “being bold and forward in proclaiming what your vision of a healthy society looks like, what the kingdom of God needs to look like in this place.”

The Presiding Bishop also pointed to “movement outside the walls of the church” and “engagement where people spend their lives.”

“We are leaning how to do that, because it’s been so long since we have,” Jefferts Schori revealed.

Addressing Church Controversies

Asked to respond to a statistic that the Episcopal Church is significantly more white than the U.S. population, Jefferts Schori replied that there are places in the Episcopal Church that have been more intentional about embracing diversity but “we’ve got a long way to go.”

Asked to respond to claims that the Episcopal Church is declining due to its embrace of social issues such as same-sex marriage, Jefferts Schori did not contest the claim, instead noting that all mainline traditions are facing numerical decline over the past 30-40 years. The growth of conservative denominations was not mentioned.

“The reality is that any time you take a clear position on something, some people decide that they don’t want anything to do with it,” Jefferts Schori determined. “At the same time, a clear position is also an invitation to those who do want something to do with it.”

Asked about how to match the national church’s emphasis on climate change at the congregational level, Jefferts Schori suggested “you have to be intentional” and that local clergy were concerned about getting burned “preaching about something that is supposedly controversial”.

“I think it is a basic challenge to our understanding of sin,” Jefferts Schori claimed. “We are being self-centered in the way we live on this Earth and it is impacting other people. Sin has consequences. We are dumping our garbage in places that make it more difficult for other people to live.”

The forum concluded with a question about the Presiding Bishop’s legacy and the role of women in the church, Jefferts Schori noted that Mary Magdalene, the first to proclaim the resurrection, is still called by the Eastern Orthodox Church “Apostle to the Apostles”.

“The Orthodox haven’t yet ordained women, although it would appear they are at least theologically more open to it than the Roman Catholic tradition. Women have been essential to the leadership of the church since the very beginning, even though the roles they have been permitted to fulfill have changed.”

Integrity Official Argues Opposition to Homosexuality Rooted in Opposition to Change

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@GagliaAC, Aaron Gaglia, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, evangelical, homosexuality, HRC, Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD Blog, RCRC, Rev. Caroline Hall, Rev. Harry Knox, Richard Weinberg, Washington National Cathedral

Rev. Caro Hall on right with Integrity USA founder Louie Crew (Photo Credit – Sharon Sheridan

By Aaron Gaglia (@GagliaAC)

“Homosexuality has become the symbol of the changes which are happening in our society” claimed Integrity USA President Caroline Hall last night at an event discussing her book, A Thorn in the Flesh: How Gay Sexuality is Changing the Episcopal Church. Hall argued that the controversy about homosexuality within the Episcopal Church and beyond is not mainly about theological arguments but more fundamentally about deep changes in our society and what relationship the church should have to these changes. The event was sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).

Richard Weinberg, director of Communications at Washington National Cathedral gave introductory remarks about the Cathedral’s commitment to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) persons. RCRC President Harry Knox introduced the speaker. Knox is well-known in the LGBT community, having worked previously for both Integrity USA, the unofficial LGBT caucus in the Episcopal Church, and the Human Rights Campaign, a national homosexual advocacy organization in addition to serving on the President’s Faith-Based Council. Knox is also an ordained minister in the Metropolitan Community Church, a majority-homosexual denomination. Though abortion is the predominant focus of RCRC, the coalition also has an interest in related issues of sexuality.

In addition to being president of Integrity, Hall is priest-in-charge at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church in Los Osos, California. She begin by showing  why the issue of homosexuality is so important to her, chronicling her journey as a lesbian through trying to make herself straight in an Evangelical church to still having lingering doubts after she was ordained as an Episcopal Priest on whether her opposition in the church was right.

Hall intended to write a theological work exploring the arguments used in the Episcopal Church against being both gay and Christian, yet she realized “we really have not been having a theological argument.”

The California clergywoman explained that the Episcopal Church is changing and “it’s changed in the same way that are society is changing and that’s really what this is about.” As the Episcopal Church is a derivative of a state church, the Church of England, it thus has “very porous boundaries” in regards to society. “I think that that history, that DNA, if you would like, makes the Episcopal Church far more influenced by what’s happening in the wider society” than other denominations.

Hall saw the biggest changes in society relating to equality. “Since the civil rights movement there has been a great shift toward equality as a value.” This expressed itself in both women’s rights and in gay rights. She argues that this shift toward public affirmation of homosexuality does not threaten heterosexual marriage as conservatives argue but instead threatens the patriarchal system where “white male power was privileged.” Hall argued that homosexuality has been brought to the forefront in the last three decades because of what it threatens, namely “the patriarchal system,” “purity codes,” and “the political use of those things.”

The Episcopal priest partially attributed controversies in the Episcopal Church about sexuality to the resurgence of evangelicals in the church in the 1970s through the charismatic renewal movement. Hall noted that many evangelicals departed the Episcopal Church in the 1870s when the Reformed Episcopal Church split off. The author asserted that evangelical Episcopalians returned to prominence during a rise in evangelical Christianity in the 1970s. Hall reported that those same evangelicals then largely left in the late 2000s to form the Anglican Church in North America.

Hall explained how evangelicals became focused on homosexuality as a sin in this way: “The political right were able to harness these people who were very excited about God and were very excited about the Bible. And they were able to harness them politically by setting up homosexuality as this bogeyman which the Bible was against and therefore they as evangelicals should be against.”

In Hall’s estimation, homosexuality was not condemned by the church because it is considered a sin by the Bible and the church throughout the ages, but rather because of politics and fear.

The Episcopal priest concluded by briefly talking about the East African country of Uganda and the Christian influence there in regards to sexuality. Hall charged that evangelical Anglicans are reinforcing an idea among Ugandans that gay sexuality is a Western decadent phenomenon and is not African.

In closing, Hall mentioned that her research revealed that the church is having a debate about “what it means to be Anglican and who gets to define it” and those same questions as relating to Christians in general.  In her estimation, this debate is much bigger than theology.

Hall’s talk is a good reminder that the issue of homosexuality inside the church is not an isolated issue but is integrally related to questions of authority and how the church should relate to the world.

SMU Chaplain Affirms Christ’s Resurrection

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Episcopal Church, John Dominic Crossan, John Shelby Spong, Mark Tooley, Southern Methodist University, Stephen Rankin

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The chaplain at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, himself United Methodist, has a superb blog critiquing ostensibly Christian thinkers who dogmatically reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here’s what Rev. Stephen Rankin says:

But there’s one group I admit I’ve grown weary of: Christian resurrection-deniers. Not resurrection deniers in general, but those who claim to follow Jesus, who blithely assert that thinking people simply cannot believe the hocus pocus about Jesus rising bodily from the dead. If resurrection means anything, so this line of thinking goes, it can only have metaphorical/symbolic significance.

Let me narrow my charge a little more. A Christian struggling intellectually with belief in Jesus’ bodily resurrection, who honestly wants to know the truth and pursues it with transparent intensity and a willingness to learn; for this kind of Christian I have utmost respect. After all, one of the major characteristics of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection is how Jesus’ own followers doubted! But the easy, breezy, smooth-talking, read-the-latest-John Spong-Marcus Borg-Dominic Crossan-and-now-we-know-what-really-happened Christian, tries my patience mightily. A Christian who confidently denies the resurrection is an oxymoron.

Kudos to Rev. Rankin, with whom, years ago, I believe I served on the board of Good News, the United Methodist evangelical renewal group. The chaplaincies at United Methodist schools are not always renowned for affirming orthodoxy. I suspect that he uniquely combines strong intellect committed to Wesleyan beliefs with an effective pastoral sensibility. May God keep blessing his ministry. Here’s his blog.

Meanwhile, the scoffers Rev. Rankin cites have been busy among Virginia Episcopalians of late. Jesus Seminar teacher John Dominic Crossan taught at a recent Virginia Episcopal Diocese Lenten event about which IRD’s Jeff Walton reported. Of course Crossan explained how the resurrection was not bodily but symbolized political uprising. And on Good Friday Jeff was with retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong at historic St Paul’s Church in Richmond, where Spong dismissed the core meaning of Easter, touting a “non-literal” version. Virginia Bishop Shannon Johnston, who claims to be a “creedal” Christian, was also there.