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

Tags

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.

National Cathedral Celebrates Supreme Court Rulings with LGBT Service, African Drums

Tags

Dean Gary R. Hall, Episcopal, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Gary Hall, Gay Marriage, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Washington National Cathedral

Beth Pattison, front right, and husband John Pattison, wave rainbow flags during a prayer service for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community to mark the Supreme Court’s ruling at the National Cathedral on June 26 in Washington. (Photo Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/Washington Post)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

Washington National Cathedral officials hosted a special service for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) persons the day of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and effectively overturned California’s voter-approved Proposition 8.

Advertised as “a service of thanksgiving celebrating an increase in compassion and equality,” the June 27 ceremony sought to place the Supreme Court rulings within the narrative of liberation struggles.

A congregation of approximately 300 clustered at the front of the Episcopal cathedral, still undergoing repairs from a 2011 earthquake. Chairs were arranged to face the procession. While the congregation was overwhelmingly middle-aged whites, songs were often African in origin, such as “Siyahamba” in which participants declared “we are marching in the light of God” accompanied by djembe drums. Several congregants enthusiastically waved rainbow flags emblazoned with the word “equality” as choir and clergy processed in to the Zimbabwean song “Uyai Mose” (Come, All You People).

“It’s a great night, isn’t it?” asked Cathedral Dean Gary Hall in his opening words of welcome, prompting sustained applause, hooting and cheers.

“Was that standing ovation for God or the court?” Hall joked, declaring his belief that “we have turned the corner in the faith community’s life.”

In a short homily, Hall recalled his own wedding 35 years prior, in which the Epistle reading was the same as at the LGBT service: Ephesians Chapter 3:14-19, in which Paul prays for the church in Ephesus to be “rooted and grounded in love.”

“In God’s view, something deep, holy and precious is going on when any two people commit themselves,” Hall announced.

Declaring that the church has been “on a trajectory,” Hall traced changed views of marriage from polygamy, unequal heterosexual unions, egalitarian heterosexual unions, to now same-sex unions. He offered no prediction on what was next.

“The sacrament of marriage is a divine gift – regardless of sexual orientation,” the Cathedral Dean pronounced. Stating that the Christian church has only been in “the marriage business” for 1,000 years, Hall bypassed early church teaching on marriage, as well as the wedding at Cana in John Chapter 2 and Jesus’ teaching about marriage in Matthew 19 in which he quotes Genesis Chapter 2.

“Let us extend that promise until it extends to every couple of all sexuality or gender,” Hall concluded. Following the reflection, the congregation was led in singing a version of “Surely it is God who saves me,” modified with gender-neutral language. A concluding prayer invoking Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and other contemporaries, along with petitions for the healing of Nelson Mandela, further buttressed the civil rights imagery of the service.

The National Cathedral service follows an announcement last year that the church would begin hosting same-sex weddings. Throughout the day, a string of Episcopal Church bishops and seminary deans issued statements in support of the ruling. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington extolled the court ruling as moving the country “closer to this vision of equality and unity” and called for Episcopalians to recommit to this “holy work.”

Similarly, Los Angles Bishop Jon Bruno declared: “we rejoice at the repeal of DOMA’s [Defense of Marriage Act] discrimination against LGBT families.” In his announcement, Bruno touted “provisional” liturgies for the blessing of same-gender couples that was adopted by the church’s General Convention last summer.

Arizona Bishop Kirk Smith was equally celebratory, proclaiming an indiscriminate inclusion and assessing that the United States “has come closer to a truth which has been ours as Christians from the beginning, that God loves everything and everyone God has made, and that we are called to reflect God’s love for us in how we love each other.”

National Cathedral Rings (Same-Sex) Wedding Bells

Tags

Episcopal, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Gary Hall, Gay Marriage, Institute on Religion and Democracy, marriage, Washington National Cathedral

The National Cathedral has mostly been known for hosting funerals, such as former President Gerald Ford. (photo: Daniel R. DeCook, Wikimedia Commons)

The Dean of the Washington National Cathedral has announced that the Episcopal Church’s flagship congregation will begin solemnizing same-sex marriages immediately.

The move by Cathedral Dean Gary Hall will come as a surprise to few. The Episcopal Diocese of Washington was one of the first in the church to offer blessing of same-sex unions, beginning the practice long before the denomination formally authorized a “provisional” rite at July’s triennial Episcopal General Convention. Additionally, the diocese allowed its Washington, D.C. churches to conduct same-sex marriages when the District of Columbia began granting marriage licenses for same-sex couples in March of 2010. Several suburban Maryland counties are also in the diocese, that state began allowing same-sex marriage this month.

The Cathedral will use a version of the recently approved “provisional” rite for the blessing of same-sex unions, modified into a marriage rite. The “provisional” rite is itself a light modification of the church’s marriage service, found in the Book of Common Prayer.

Like other Episcopal dioceses and congregations that have moved to authorize same-sex blessings or marriages, the cathedral has listed a series of guidelines. These rules are supposed to alleviate concerns that the Episcopal Church is not serious about marriage, even as it unilaterally redefines it contrary to almost all of Christendom:

“At least one person in the couple, therefore, must have been baptized. Only couples directly affiliated with the life of the Cathedral—as active, contributing members of the congregation; as alumni or alumnae of the Cathedral schools; as individuals who have made significant volunteer or donor contributions over a period of time; or those judged to have played an exceptional role in the life of the nation—are eligible to be married at the Cathedral.”

So rest easy, those of you who fret about the National Cathedral becoming the gay marriage equivalent of a Las Vegas wedding chapel: couples seeking marriage must actually be involved in the Cathedral – unless they are “significant” donors. Such integrity!

The Cathedral’s embrace of same-sex marriage follows Hall’s commitment last month to place the congregation at the center of the nation’s debate on firearms restrictions.

In an October interview with the Detroit Free Press (Hall was formerly Rector of Christ Church in Cranbrook, MI) Hall tellingly revealed “I’m not about trying to convert someone to Christianity. I don’t feel I’m supposed to convert Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or Native Americans to Christianity so that they can be saved. That’s not an issue for me.”

Hall was also direct in his common cause with those who did not profess a faith in Jesus Christ.

“I have much more in common with progressive Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists than I do with certain people in my own tradition, with fundamentalist Christians. The part of Christianity I stand with is the part in which we can live with ambiguity and with pluralism.”

Hall has frequently spoken of the church’s role as being “at the center” of American public life. While no one contests that the Cathedral’s grand setting atop the highest point in Washington, D.C. has hosted important prayer services and funerals, I’m betting that most of the 311 million Americans would not name the Episcopal Cathedral as the center of the nation’s public life. Indeed, its membership is far, far less than any number of other D.C.-area mega churches, some of which draw seven to eight times the Cathedral’s attendance on a typical Sunday.

On the surface, the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, as the church is officially known, looks healthy: an attendance of just over 1,600 (massive by Episcopal standards) that has only gradually edged down since 2007. Deeper digging reveals numbers that don’t add up, however. Other Episcopal congregations with similar attendance receive far larger plate-and-pledge income than the Cathedral’s relatively meager $2 million a year. The large (now Anglican) parish of the Falls Church in nearby suburban Virginia has a plate-and-pledge of nearly $5 million, while the similarly-sized St. Martin’s in Houston, Texas has plate-and-pledge income of over $9 million. In short, a church claiming attendance equal to the National Cathedral should have plate-and-pledge income several multiples higher than what the Cathedral reports. Either the Cathedral is counting camera-wielding tourists and other visitors in its self-reported statistics, or the Cathedral’s own churchgoers are surprisingly tight-fisted in their tithes.

Approximately half of the churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington are in a state of decline, according to Bishop Maryann Budde.

Follow Jeff Walton on Twitter @JeffreyHWalton

Episcopal Church: I’ve Got 99 Problems but a Priest Shortage Ain’t One

Tags

Diocese of Virginia, Episcopal, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Falls Church Episcopal, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jo Belser, Maryann Budde, Shannon Johnston

The Falls Church (Episcopal) recently hosted a service for the Diocese of Virginia in which nine new priests were ordained. (photo: Falls Church Episcopal)

On a Saturday morning earlier this month a gathering of 900 supporters from across the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia crowded into the main sanctuary of the Falls Church Episcopal (won from departing Anglicans in May through a court verdict). The special service celebrated nine transitional deacons ordained to the Episcopal priesthood by Bishop Shannon Johnston.

The service partly filled the role of using the reclaimed church campus for diocesan purposes (the diocese recently relocated its Northern Virginia office from Goodwin House in Alexandria to the Falls Church.) The service also showed how a diocese that has suffered a significant drop in attendance over the past decade is not lacking for new priests.

Unlike steep declines in membership, finances, and number of parishes that have negatively impacted the life of the Episcopal Church, the denomination has seen a more gradual decline in priests, maintaining – in some areas like Virginia and Texas — more than enough to meet its needs. While rural congregations do struggle to attract or support full-time paid clergy, an overall ample supply of priests is surprising, given that a recent report on the state of the clergy in the Episcopal denomination identified a 26 percent drop in ordinations over the past six years.

The Roman Catholic Church, in contrast, has faced a sharp decline in vocations for much longer. It would be tempting to link the Episcopal clergy abundance to a larger pool from which to draw: the Episcopal Church does not require its clergy to practice the discipline of celibacy, opening the priesthood to more men. But the number of new male priests has actually dropped by over half since the early 1970s. Probably a more likely explanation for surplus priests is that women and – increasingly – openly gay candidates for the priesthood are either commonplace or swiftly becoming so.

All of the Episcopal Church’s 11 accredited seminaries enroll women, and many have had majority-female graduating classes for years, often filled with second career aspiring clergy (the average age of Episcopal priests has steadily increased every year, with the typical woman ordained now in her 50s). As for gay clergy, some liberal dioceses of the church have openly ordained them since the mid-1980s, and once-moderate dioceses like Virginia have even begun doing so (the December ordination service at the Falls Church included one openly lesbian priest, Jo Belser, who is the first openly homosexual candidate to be ordained by the diocese).

The average age at ordination is now 44 (up from the early 30s in 1970) and the average age of active Episcopal clergy is 58.

In 2011, the neighboring Episcopal Diocese of Washington temporarily suspended the diocesan discernment process for those seeking ordination, citing an overabundance of priests. In January of 2012, Bishop Maryann Budde extended the suspension through December 2012 “and longer, if necessary.”

“Given the number of relatively healthy congregations and the appeal of our location, the Diocese of Washington has far more people interested in pursuing ordination than can reasonably hope to find employment in the Church,” Budde wrote in January 2012. “There are currently almost 30 people in the ordination process, a number that well surpasses the diocese’s current need for clergy for traditional parish positions. In addition, there is a significant number of unemployed and underemployed priests in the diocese who are seeking to be called to stipendiary ministries.”

To date, the diocese has not announced plans to resume discernment for ordination.

Even with declining numbers of new ordinations nationally and a corresponding increase in the average age of active Episcopal clergy, fears from 10-15 years ago that the church would suffer a clergy shortage seem unfounded. The overall decline in Episcopal Church attendance (down 23 percent in the past decade) has, quite simply, reduced a need for new priests. As Bishop Budde candidly wrote in her letter explaining discernment suspension: “A Roman Catholic colleague once asked me if the Episcopal Church was also experiencing a clergy shortage. ‘No,’ I said. ‘What we have is a shortage of lay people.’”

Interfaith Officials Call for Restricting Gun Ownership

Tags

Episcopal, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Gabriel Salguero, gun control, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Maryann Budde, Michael Livingston, Michael Weaver, National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of Churches, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Richard Cizik, Theodore McCarrick, United Methodist, Washington National Cathedral

Former NCC President Michael Livingston (L) and New Evangelical Partnership President Richard Cizik (R) call for more restrictive gun control measures during a press conference of interfaith officials on December 21 at Washington National Cathedral.

A gathering of religious officials from across several religious traditions called for stricter gun control measures this morning. Speaking in the Bishop’s Garden at the Washington National Cathedral, whose dean advocated gun control in a sermon this past Sunday, the officials touted their own history of gun control advocacy and rededicated their faith groups to further restricting firearms.

The officials outlined three goals: banning semi-automatic assault weapons, banning high-capacity magazines, and better care for those suffering from mental illness. A few of the speakers also called to “confront the culture of violence,” as Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, former Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, voiced.

While most of the speakers were from Oldline Protestant and Reform Jewish traditions (the gathering was facilitated by Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism), reporters also heard from Sikh, Muslim, Orthodox Jewish, and two Evangelical officials.

“We can’t stop every random act of violence, but we can do more,” insisted the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. Salguero singled out violent video games and “of course, gun control,” as two areas of special concern.

Former National Council of Churches President Michael Livingston said it was time to move past a Second “Amendment crafted for a time that bears little resemblance to our own.”

Highlighting the ecumenical council’s move to declare January 6 “gun violence prevention Sunday,” Livingston called for closing a gun show sales “loophole” and enact regular background checks of buyers there.

“Enact within 50 days of returning to work legislation that will end madness,” the former NCC official requested of the incoming U.S. Congress.

Speaking next to Livingston was past National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) government affairs official Richard Cizik, now president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.

Explaining that he was speaking as a “new” Evangelical, Cizik described his previous employer NAE as “old” Evangelicals.

“We need a conversion,” Cizik said of Evangelical Christians, adapting his common refrain on climate change to gun policy, calling for an end to the sale of “weapons of war” and to close down a gun industry that was profiting from their sale.

Positing that the main question in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings was not “where was God?” but rather “where were we?” Washington Episcopal Church Bishop Maryann Budde declared that “God has no body on Earth but ours,” and that advocacy action was required.

“We commit ourselves to end violence across our land,” Budde prayed, pledging “to honor [shooting victims] memory by doing what we all know to be right.” During the prayer, the cathedral bell tower tolled 28 times, once for each death at last Friday’s shooting.

Budde was followed by a string of additional officials, each stating that those in their traditions would take action to ban guns. Bishop Peter Weaver, executive secretary of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, promised Methodists would “turn tired tears into thick action,” and “be a community of conscience.” Noting that United Methodist churches were declared “weapons-free zones,” Weaver reported that the UMC General Conference this past Spring had “almost prophetically” laid out an 11-point plan to end gun violence. Weaver concluded by calling for “social policies and personal lifestyles to end the culture of violence.”