Dear Bishop Schori, I am writing to share with you some thoughts grounded in my experience as a gay man baptized and raised in the Episcopal church, who has had to go elsewhere, to a local UCC parish, to find a congregation willing to receive my family—myself, my male partner, and our daughters--as it is around the communion table.
I am also writing to share with you the joy and hope I feel at your selection as Presiding Bishop, and to assure you that I will continue to pray for you as you lead the Episcopal church though these challenging times.
I know you are aware of the discouragement faced by those of us who are in committed same-sex relationships in dioceses such as this one of ***, just as I am aware of the apparent dilemma you face as a leader of the Church in trying to balance the Gospel calls to do justice and to preserve communion among Christians, at a time when Christians are divided about what justice demands. I will not waste words trying to convince you of what I am confident you already have experienced to be true: that it is unjust to refuse to engage in full communion with those of us are bound in love with someone of the same gender.
That refusal is just what my family has experienced in the Episcopal diocese of ***. There is no parish here that would sacramentally celebrate, or even publicly countenance, the loving bond between myself and my spouse.
I suspect that, for you, the question is not so much, “Is this unjust,” but, “How should a Christian respond to such injustice?” At present, you seem inclined to recommend that, in the interest of maintaining communion, we exercise patience and not break the external bonds of communion with those who perpetrate such injustice. When I was single, I was inclined to agree. But, as my daughters grew older and more susceptible to imbibing the implications of our church’s stance toward families like ours, I realized I should not impose on them conditions I might accept for myself.
This experience emboldens me to write you out of a concern that the dilemma the Church faces is not what I fear you may take it to be: We are not being asked to choose between justice and communion, for these cannot truly contradict each other. True communion is lacking where justice is denied. We are not being asked to choose between acting justly and demonstrating our willingness to remain in communion, but rather, between two versions of communion: one that excludes gay and lesbian people in the fullness of their lives, and one that does not. A communion that excludes people on that basis is truly impaired, and responsibility for that impairment lies at the hands of the excluder, not the excluded.
In Tanzania, the gathered Primates challenged the Episcopal Church to clarify its commitment to communion, even when this demands sacrifice. And, they are right to do so. But, the sacrifice communion demands is not what some of the Primates appear to believe: Communion demands we sacrifice precisely those idolatrous attachments that cut us off from our sisters and brothers and hence, from God. In refusing to cut off gay and lesbian people from full participation in the life of the Church, we extend communion, we do not break it. We do not even break communion with those who insist on continuing to exclude gay and lesbian people. For, in their case, communion is already broken.
You recently cited Saint Paul’s rejoinder to Christians to act charitably and patiently toward their “weaker brethren,” to be willing even to make concessions in order to give the latter time to grow into what Paul and his audience believed to be a more mature grasp of the implications of the Gospel. But, these concessions were matters of innocuous constraints. The constraints some people in the Church would place on gay and lesbian people are not innocuous, and the two situations are not analogous. I could give up certain types of meat without sacrificing anything fundamental to my personhood. But, to ask me and my spouse, Sam, to sacrifice our love as a condition for full participation in the Church is to break communion with us and our daughters, however we respond to that demand. And, I do not believe Paul ever intended to recommend to anyone that they break communion, or accept being excluded from communion, in the interest of the “weaker bretheren.”
I hope you will lead the church into fuller communion by courageously refusing to cut any of us off from a place at the table, even if that means others will refuse to join you there.
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