A WORD OF HOPE & A RESPONSE TO OUR PRESIDING BISHOP FROM BISHOP ROBINSON

I met Bishop Robinson three years ago this month when I had the privilege of meeting him when I went to New Hampshire for his investiture as Bishop of New Hampshire. He autographed my prayer book with the following inscription: "For Gordon-Blessings on you and your ministry of inclusion."

I was wearing my inclusion button and had taken the few I had left with me to New Hampshire. That was before we had our own button machine. Folks from St. Mark's and St. Andrew's Episcopal churches contributed to the fund to be able to have a local company make them.

When Bishop Robinson gave me a hug that evening and commented on the button and wrote what he wrote in my prayer book, a light went on in my head and realized that no, I'm not a member of the clergy, I'm not an elected official, but I do have a ministry which I didn't realize at the time.

I wondered what Bishop Robinson has been thinking about since the Episcopomess our Presiding Bishop brought home with her from Tanzania.

The Gentle Bishop has made TWO statements which I am proud to post here. Please keep Bishop Robinson in your prayers. There are very mean people who wish him harm.

A Word of Hope to my lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters in Christ:

From: +Gene Robinson

In light of the recent Primates Meeting and our Presiding Bishop’s communication to the Church, I received the following plea from a dear and trusted sister:

“Gene, I don't know how you are this night, or if you can summon a word of hope, but the eyes of many LGBT people and our faithful allies are looking to you, tuning the ears of our hearts to hear where you see the hand of God in what feels like deep, deep betrayal.”

After a good number of sleepless nights and prayerful days, let me tell you where this gay man and Bishop of the Church stands, with respect to our beloved Church and our trustworthy and faithful God:

Let’s remember that, for now, nothing has changed. The Episcopal Church has been bold in its inclusion of us, “risking its life” for us in dramatic ways over these last few years. Not perfect, but bold. Just because The Episcopal Church has been invited to subvert its own polity and become a Church ruled by bishops-only, a Church that is willing to sacrifice the lives and ministries and dignity of its gay and lesbian members on the altar of unity, does not mean that we are going to choose to do it. That is yet to be determined. Let’s not abandon hope simply because that is possible. The Primates have the right to make requests of us (nevermind the threatening tone of those requests). We do not have to accede to those requests in exactly the terms in which they are made.

Nothing is surprising in this development. None of us thought this issue was settled, did we? None of us expected our detractors to stop their efforts – whether their goals be genuinely about the authority of scripture and its playing out in our lives as Christians, or whether those goals have more to do with power and money and influence. (BOTH are represented in the actions taken.) We are fighting a larger battle here. As you have heard me say before, we are engaged in the beginning of the end of patriarchy. Did any of us believe that such a battle would be won without resistance? Did any of us believe there would be no more bumps in the road? Did any of us foresee smooth sailing into the future?

We still have countless allies. We are not engaged in this struggle alone. There are countless heterosexual members of this Church who now “get it.” They have heard our stories, felt our pain and taken up our cause as their own. There are countless heterosexual families who have joined The Episcopal Church (they are numerous in my own diocese) because they want to raise their children in such an inclusive Church. There are countless lgbt people who have come to our churches for the comfort and solace and grounding in Christ that we offer – and we dare not lose hope or momentum for them as well as ourselves.

Most importantly, God is still with us. And by “us,” I don’t just mean gay and lesbian people. God is still with God’s Church – frail, cowardly and misguided as it can sometimes be, human nature being what it is. The Church is not ours to save or lose – the Church belongs to GOD, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I believe that we are meant to use the institution of the Church – yes, even boldy risk its existence – to further NOT our own agenda, but the agenda of God. I do not equate the two. Our vision of the Church is only partial; our grasp of what God wants is as susceptible to our self-focused distortion as anyone else’s. But we are called to witness to OUR vision of God’s will and combine it with all the other imperfect visions of God’s will (yes, even those of our detractors), and come up with as perfected a vision as we can muster. The Church has been wrangling over those different visions since its inception – and that will never change. The question for US, however, is: Will we continue to put forward faithfully and respectfully and tenaciously OUR vision into that mix, or will we be intimidated into doubting our own vision of God’s will for the Church – or worse still, leave?

God will continue to show forth God’s glory and God’s goodness in our lives. The reason that we have made progress with our brothers and sisters in the Church is that GOD has shown forth God’s glory and goodness in our lives so strongly, that God cannot be denied at work in us. Many of the faithful have changed their views on homosexuality because they see GOD showing up in our lives, our ministries, our relationships and our families. That is the witness we can and must continue to make to the Church – not pointing to ourselves, but to the God we know in our lives. As I have said before, and will continue to say: JESUS is our agenda – the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, and the sins of the whole world, so that we might know God’s love and goodness in our lives. In the end, God will reign, and all will be well. I believe that with my whole heart.

Lastly, I give thanks every day to God for the fellowship we share. Part of what gives me relentless hope is my fellowship with YOU. What an honor and privilege it is to hold you in my heart as brothers and sisters in the faith, colleagues in ministry and faithful members of the Church. Can you imagine a more wonderful, fun and courageous group of “companions along the way?” Let our joy, our humor, our devotion to the Lord and to His Church be signs of the abundant life given to us in Christ. Let gay and lesbian people everywhere witness our joy, let them wonder how we can be so hopeful in the face of such overwhelming odds against us, that they want what we’ve got – a relationship with the living God that brings deep joy and abiding peace. Let us be ready to tell them the story of our own salvation at the hands of a loving God. And let us welcome them into our blessed fellowship, the Church.

I don’t know if this is the “word of hope” my friend asked for. It has little to do with events in Tanzania or even the Episcopal Church, and everything to do with God. But it is the hope that keeps me going. My faith is not in myself or in our “cause.” My faith is not in the House of Bishops or the General Convention to get it “right” anytime soon. It is, rather, the faith that people of countless generations and innumerable circumstances have found in our loving and trustworthy God. It is the faith Jesus said it was “blessed” to be persecuted for. It is the faith that Christians have always found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – and God’s desire, willingness and power to bring an Easter out of ANY Good Friday. It is the faith that in and through the Holy Spirit, God continues to fulfill God’s promise “to lead us into all truth.”

I may utterly fail; I will undoubtedly disappoint God in my inability to be the person God created me to be; I will predictably confuse my own will with God’s will. But whatever the next weeks, months and years may bring, whether the Episcopal Church “comes through” for us or not, GOD will not fail, GOD will never disappoint, and GOD will never cease to pursue God’s will for my life – and yours – and for the world.

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A Response to: A Season of Fasting: Reflections on the Primates Meeting, the Presiding Bishop’s message to the Church

FROM: The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire

I have the utmost regard and respect for our new Presiding Bishop. Her leadership in these difficult times, not to mention her sheer courage, continues to inspire me.

As I vowed at her investiture as Presiding Bishop, I will do everything I can to support her in this ministry. That includes disagreeing with her views when I think it would build up the Body. What follows are my responses to those portions of her communication to the American Church dealing with the demands/threats made to The Episcopal Church related to those members of Christ’s Body who happen to be gay. Allow me to offer a different reading/critique of our Presiding Bishop’s words, and then propose a different way forward.

“What is being asked of both parties is a season of fasting – from authorizing rites for blessing same-sex unions and consecrating bishops in such unions on the one hand, and from transgressing traditional diocesan boundaries on the other.”

I am reminded of the joke about the chicken and the pig, each asked to contribute to breakfast – the chicken’s eggs require a significantly smaller sacrifice than the pig’s bacon! Let us be clear: what is being asked of both parties is “a season of fasting from” accepting the Church’s gay and lesbian people as full members of the Body of Christ, a season of fasting from “respecting the dignity of every human being.” If The Episcopal Church decides to do that, let’s call it what it is: a sacrifice borne most sacrificially by its gay and lesbian members.

[In citing the early church’s debate over dietary laws] “The needs of the weaker members, and the real possibility that their faith may be injured, are an important consideration in making the dietary decision.”

If there ARE “needs of the weaker members, and the real possibility that their faith may be injured,” they belong to the faithful members of the Church – in The Episcopal Church AND around the Anglican Communion – who are being denied full membership in the Body of Christ because of their same gender love. Is there even a single instance in which Jesus was willing to forego ministry, love and inclusion of the marginalized in order to protect the “sensitivities” of the Pharisees and Sadducees?! What would Jesus’ reaction have been to those same Pharisees and Sadducees if THEY had claimed to be the victims of Jesus’ insensitivity?“

The current controversy brings a desire for justice on the one hand into apparent conflict with a desire for fidelity to a strict understanding of the biblical tradition and to the main stream of the ethical tradition. Either party may be understood to be the meat-eaters, and each is reminded that their single-minded desire may be an idol. Either party might constructively also be understood by the other as the weaker member, whose sensibilities need to be considered and respected.”

There are MORE than TWO parties here. I would maintain that NEITHER the Episcopal Church NOR the vast majority of the Churches represented by the Primates are the “weaker members.” Rather I would say that the “weaker members” are those gay and lesbian members of the Church of Nigeria, whose Church is supporting the criminalization of all association between them in their country. The “weaker members” are the gay and lesbian members of the Episcopal Church, who have to go looking – sometimes in vain – for a congregation who will accept them as full members of the Body of Christ. The stronger/weaker dichotomy is NOT between The Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion, but between the Anglican Communion in all its manifestations and the gay and lesbian Christians around the world trying to find a place within it. For the first time in its history, and at the hands of the larger Communion, The Episcopal Church may be experiencing a little taste of the irrational discrimination and exclusion that is an everyday experience of its gay and lesbian members.

“Each party in this conflict is asked to consider the good faith of the other, to consider that the weakness or sensitivity of the other is of significant import, and therefore to fast, or ‘refrain from eating meat,’ for a season. Each is asked to discipline itself for the sake of the greater whole, and the mission that is only possible when the community maintains its integrity.”

I certainly believe Paul when he says that no part of the Body can say to another, “I don’t need you.” On the other hand, I don’t ever recall Jesus saying that the “greater whole” is the be all and end all. Doesn’t Jesus challenge the greater whole to sacrifice itself for those on the margins? Preaching good news to the poor, binding up the broken hearted, releasing the prisoners and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor involves SACRIFICE on the part of the greater whole. That’s part of what angered his own hometown synagogue when he preached these powerful words from Isaiah. Touching the leper required SACRIFICE of ancient and firmly held beliefs. Eating with sinners was a SACRIFICE of the greater whole’s sensitivities. I would humbly submit that such sacrifice is the only way that our “community maintains its integrity.”

“Justice, (steadfast) love, and mercy always go together in our biblical tradition. None is complete without the others. While those who seek full inclusion for gay and lesbian Christians, and the equal valuing of their gifts for ministry, do so out of an undeniable passion for justice, others seek a fidelity to the tradition that cannot understand or countenance the violation of what that tradition says about sexual ethics. Each is being asked to forbear for a season.”

Where is the “justice, (steadfast) love, and mercy” for the Church’s gay and lesbian people in this threat from the primates? While the vast majority of the Anglican Communion AND the vast majority of Episcopalians may be willing to “forbear for a season,” the world’s gay and lesbian Anglicans long to hear the words spoken to Jesus at his baptism: “You are my beloved. In you I am well pleased.” Who will speak those words to them, while the rest of the Church forbears for a season? How will we explain this “forbearance” to all those gay and lesbian Christians who have come to The Episcopal Church because, for the first time ever, they have believed that there is a place for them AT God’s table, not simply BENEATH it, hoping for fallen scraps? Are THEIR souls not worthy of salvation too? Does anyone relish the notion of trying to explain all this “forbearance” to GOD?

Allow me to offer an additional reading of scriptural references to “fasting.” In addition to St. Paul's “pastoral” fasting, should we not also consider Isaiah’s notion of “prophetic” fasting?

4Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.6Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58: 4, 6-7, NRSV)

Fasting that focuses only on the self is not, in Isaiah’s mind, the most pleasing to God. For the past many months, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion has spent far too much time and money and focus on this debate. I believe that the majority of us – certainly in The Episcopal Church, and possibly in the Anglican Communion as well – want to set this aside and get on with the work of the Gospel. What would it be like if we fasted in the way that God, through Isaiah, suggests: to fast from our internal squabbling for a season, and turn our focus to the world’s homeless, hungry and poor, in this and every land? What if we focused on what we say is our top priority – ministry to a world in pain through the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals – and simply fasted from this self-focus?

The changes in our polity proposed by the Primates can only properly and canonically be responded to by the laity, clergy and bishops gathered in General Convention in 2009. The Primates’ demands can be seriously, prayerfully and thoughtfully considered at that time. What if we stated, simply and calmly, that the Primates’ September deadline is impossible under our polity, and pledge ourselves to feeding, housing, and clothing the poor and binding up the physical and spiritual wounds of the world’s neediest for this season, until 2009? What if we gave up our internal squabbling for a season, took no precipitous action, and turned our focus to the world that Jesus Christ gave his life for?

This way forward may not be acceptable to many in the Communion who want this settled now, once and for all. So be it. Nothing we do will settle this once and for all. Does anyone believe that our full compliance with the Primates’ demands, our complete denunciation of our gay and lesbian members, or my removal as bishop would make all this go away?! We cannot determine what the response to our actions will be. We can only decide what our faithful response will be to the demands made of us.

If the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury to our prophetic fasting should result in our not being invited to the Lambeth Conference, then let us offer that denial as part of our fasting. Let us dedicate the diocesan and personal resources that would have been spent on Lambeth to projects involved in furthering the Millennium Development Goals.

During the debate over the consent to my election, I am told that the Bishop of Wyoming noted that not since the civil rights movement of the 60’s had he seen the Church risk its life for something. Indeed, I think he is right. This is such a time. A brief quotation hangs on the wall of my office: “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” Now is the time for courage, not fear.

I pray that in the days ahead, as the Executive Council meets in Portland, the House of Bishops meets in Texas, and the General Convention (the ONLY body which has the authority to respond to the demanded changes in our polity) meets in 2009, that we contemplate our call to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” to those who have been denied it for so long and commit ourselves to the kind of fast that is pleasing to the Lord.

A WORD FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

Why the Anglican Communion matters

By Dr Rowan Williams

In some people's eyes, keeping the Anglican Communion together as a worldwide institution looks like prolonging the life of a dysfunctional or abusive marriage; isn't it more honest and humane to head for the divorce courts?

Why should we be mortgaged to other people's prejudices - if we're liberal - or other people's irresponsibility - if we're traditionalist? Isn't what matters the life and vigour, and indeed the integrity, of the Church on our doorstep?

There were moments in the meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania when I guess most of those present felt a bit like this. The fact that they weren't prepared simply to leave things there suggests, though, that more needs to be said. There remains a strong belief that this kind of worldwide Christian institution means we all agree to take responsibility for each other in some way, and to recognise that none of us has ultimate interests and concerns that are exclusively local or personal.

So what is the problem at the moment? When Anglicans in America decided, in 2003, to appoint as a bishop someone in an openly gay partnership, the widespread reaction was that there hadn't yet been the kind of discussion in the worldwide setting that might convince others of the rightness, in principle, of blessing same-sex relationships - and that this discussion needed to happen before anyone decided whether an active gay person might be a candidate for being a bishop. Not too surprisingly, most in the Communion felt that the conclusion had come before the argument.

This created two sorts of difficulty. One was the question of limits. For most Anglicans, questions about sexual ethics belonged in that category of teaching that was not up for negotiation as a result of cultural variation or social development. As with the central doctrines of the Creed and the biblical world view, people could only say: "This isn't mine to give away."

They needed more than an assurance that it had been thought about in America and that a lot of people there had concluded it was all right. The other question followed on: if an issue just might be in the "not mine to give away" category, how did the Church as a whole decide whether it really was in that category or not? How did it decide as a Church, not as a conglomerate of local independent bodies? And if it couldn't decide as a Church, how could it carry on talking with other worldwide Christian bodies on the same foundations?

Not a wholly new question: the often bitter controversies over women's ordination had already raised some of these matters. But at least on that, a conviction had emerged that it was possible to treat it as something people could disagree about and still leave intact the basics of common faith. For a variety of reasons, this current question has not felt like that for many. And - worst of all in some ways - the possibility of detailed and patient scrutiny of the underlying question about sexual ethics was rather derailed by the feeling that the outcome had been decided in advance by one group in the Communion. Trust suffered badly.

To digress for just a moment: one of the hardest things in all this has been to keep insisting on the absolute moral imperative of combating bigotry and violence against gay people, and the need to secure appropriate civic and legal protection for couples who have chosen to share their lives. These are different matters from whether the Church has the freedom to bless same-sex unions. A negative or agnostic answer to this latter question is frequently heard as a negative attitude to the imperatives of care and respect - and sometimes that perception is sadly accurate, judging from the postbag that arrives here. Yet they are different, and quite a lot of Christians know it and try to act accordingly.

What happened in Tanzania in the last week or so represents an effort to define what could restore trust - all round, since the point is made that interventions from overseas in the American Church also have destructive effects in some ways. What has come to be called the "Listening Process" was discussed and strongly affirmed the continuing work on finding means for homosexual men and women in the Communion to speak about their experience in a safe environment.

This work has not been restricted to the West, and shows surprising signs of vigour. The outline of a "covenant" document for local Anglican Churches suggests ways in which we could commit ourselves to a future process where consultation was fully built in. The requests to the American Church for further clarification and a moratorium on certain actions while the covenant process is going forward are essentially requests to show that their desire to stay with the Communion is strong enough to cope with a halt for the sake of continuing to move and work together. The suggestion of a structure in America to care for the minority tries to remove any need for external intervention.

Whether it can all come together remains to be seen. But the leaders of the Communion thought it worth trying - not because enforced unanimity matters more than anything, but because the relations and common work of the Communion, especially in the developing world, matter massively. And also because the idea that there might be a worldwide Christian Church that could balance unity and consent seems worth holding on to, for the sake of the whole Christian family and even for the sake of human society itself.

I think that those who gathered in Tanzania believed that their vocation was to look for a way of embodying this balance. Losing that possibility is not a small matter. Working for it (when I think back to the painful intensity of some of our discussions) is not looking for an easy option. THE GUARDIAN END Interpretation: Blah, blah and blah,blah. The Archbishop is continuing his trying to make nice and reconcile everybody. But he really wants the gay folk and their supporters to shut the hell up and stop asking the Anglican Communion for inclusion. Many in the AC don't want non-heterosexuals included in all matter of church life. So according to the Archbishop, we can all do our social justice thing in civil life and in the courts, but keep your homosexual crap out of the church. But he's got it all mixed up. The Anglican Communion is NOT a church, but a rather loosly knit body of Anglicans who agree on some things and don't agree on others.

The Episcopal Church: Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori: Compassionate Communicator

There have already been many things written all over blogland about our Presiding Bishop's visit to the Research Triangle in North Carolina where she recently spoke at the meeting of the Episcopal Urban Caucus. One of the things I admire about our Presiding Bishop is that she's a breath of fresh air. She speaks from the heart and is open. No double speak, no lofty platitudes or intellectual airs. Instead, Bishop Jefferts Schori chooses to be a communicator. She does it in an open and warm manner and people leave her presence understanding what she said and where she stands (unlike the Archbishop of Canterbury who goes to an ethereal place whenever he opens his mouth). Rev. Pauli Murray was the United States first female African American Priest. Our Presiding Bishop was honoring her at Chapel Hill, NC last Thursday. This is one of several great interviews reflecting the beautiful way with words of Bishop Jefferts Schori: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1197774/ News reports of the Presiding Bishops visit to N.C. reported, "Jefferts Schori, 52, said Thursday she would not waver from forging a new way forward for the 2.4-million member Episcopal Church. That new way includes a commitment to the full equality of gays and lesbians, which she and many others in the denomination see as a new civil rights issue. "Our labors in this church continue to sing of hope for the full flourishing of all God's children, black, white, native, Asian, women, men, gay and straight," Jefferts Schori said. "As long as any of us is restrained by custom, law, prejudice or bigotry, we all remain in chains." WOW!! Thank you Bishop Schori. There's an important meeting of the Anglican Primates in Tanzania next week. Bishop Akinloa and his buddies most certainly do NOT want our Presiding Bishop seated. Even if it wasn't her support for gay folk, they STILL wouldn't want her seated because she's a woman. The Primate members of the Anglican conservative movement are PWP's (Primates With Penises) and they don't want women preaching in their churches let alone taking good paying jobs in positions of power. Actually, I think that the men want to be primates because they can get away with wearing pretty purple dresses and let's not even discuss the jewelry! So the global south wants The Episcopal Church thrown out of the Anglican Communion. In addition, a small handful of conservative Episcopal parishes in the U.S. want the same thing. But I doubt that anything much will happen. They will talk, discern and agree to meet again. Things in the church move slowly. If some of the churches in the U.S. leave the Episcopal church it won't have any bearing on my manner or worship at all. Besides, I can't see TEC ever becoming a really huge denomination where thousands gather in mega popcorn churches. I'd rather belong to a smaller church where members don't need to check our brains in at the door and aren't intimidated for believing in evolution. Last but not least, The Episcopal Church now has an official church blog. It is worth checking out at: http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/ Regards, Gordon

OPEN LETTER TO THE ARCHIBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND PETITION FOR U.S. EPISCOPALIANS

Presiding Bishop Jefferts-Schori

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams

The ABC has been suffering with a terrible disease for many years. For a long time, there was not a diagnosis. In more recent years he' s finally got a diagnosis:

Spinelessflipflopanglicanosis.

Next week the Anglican Communion Primates are having a primates meeting in Tanzania. Some of the global south primates have there underwear all in a wad because the ABC decided to invite the primate of The Episcopal Church (well, yeah. TEC pays a lot of money to the coffers of the Anglican Communion.) The global south primates are furious with him for inviting her without their permission. They just can't stand the thought of being in the same room with the American Primate, PresidingBishop Katharine Jefferts -Schori.

So much for the Anglican principals of discernment and listening.

Last night I received an email from Jeff Martinhauk, seminary student and computer whiz.

Being a very active social justice person, I was thrilled that Jeff had taken on the task of writing an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury with a petition for folks to sign. I'm not going to explain all of what Jeff says when I can put it here in Jeff's own words.

Link to Jeff's Blog: http://leaningtowardsjustice.wordpress.com/about

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February 6th, 2007 An Open Letter to His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury Prior to the Meeting of the Primates in Tanzania February 6, 2007 Your Grace, I write to you not as a part of any organization or group, but on my own accord as a member of the Episcopal Church and of the Anglican Communion. As a gay man in this great church, I am slowly realizing the mistakes we in the gay and lesbian community have made in our efforts to bring our unique perspective on the Gospel message to our brothers and sisters in Christ within this church. Perhaps in an effort to assimilate into heterosexual society, we have been overly prepared to make apologetic arguments based on similarities with our straight counterparts. We seem to have placed our trust in the established leaders and processes of the church, hoping that if our arguments are strong enough that our case will be heard with a sympathetic ear. Of course history has never, to my knowledge, shown that the oppressed have made much progress by placing hope in the powers of the institutions that oppress them. We cannot make progress with apologetic arguments, attempting to assimilate into institutions held by primarily heterosexual males who have never experienced our oppression. Isn’t that why the high priests rejected the message of Jesus, a fellow Jew? I need not remind Your Grace that the fear of change is a powerful resistance to the prophetic voice, as it was for Caiphus. “What will it do to our institutions?” “What will it do to our own positions?” “How will we be remembered as leaders?” These must have been difficult questions for the Sanhedrin as they conspired against Jesus. Questions with answers that Jesus apparently felt were worthy of martyrdom.

Some argue that the “nature or nurture” discussion has an impact on our fate. I say to them that being “gay” or “lesbian” in the U.S. is a social construct. Sexual attraction is not something we choose, but claiming our identity as “gay” or “lesbian,” is. Just because our identity is a social construct does not de-value it. Gender roles are social constructs. There are, I hope, few that would say that the gender roles of women in the patriarchal society of the Old Testament (or even the New Testament) should be held up in today’s society—although, as Your Grace knows well, exactly which gender roles are appropriate today is still a heated topic in the Communion, depending on the cultural context of the discussion. Just as racism is a social construct with very real consequences, gathering its existence from the brokenness of humanity, those suffering from the oppression of racism must claim their identity and move forward shining light into the blindness of their oppressors that they may see, and in so doing freeing themselves from the chains of oppression. So too we gay and lesbians, as a distinct people of God, must claim our identity and move forward, letting our own light shine with the light of the Gospel that we might be free in Christ Jesus, even as we struggle to loosen the blindfolds within our own church that others might see.

What has been lost in the discussion in the Communion is how our identity is directly tied to the debates we are having. It seems to me that discussions about whether or not to have gay and lesbian bishops and whether or not to have gay and lesbian marriages, have been removed from the point at hand—what it means to gay and lesbian people.

We need gay bishops because of the significance of having prominent, Christian leaders who can speak out about our lives. They can rid us of the closet. They can prevent oppression. When a young man is attacked because he is gay and left for dead, strung up on a fence in Wyoming by his murderers, would his attackers have known better had they seen an active gay Christian, preaching and teaching the Gospel? When a young teenager stands in the bathroom of her parents’ house, contemplating suicide because she knows that she is the only one in the world that feels the way she does, might she feel different if she had a role model providing a healthy Christian model of living, who also happened to be a lesbian? When an aging gay couple must face life or death decisions and have only each other for family but are denied the same decisions as a heterosexual couple in the hospital, with the state, and in the church because they were not able to get married and so now prepare for death as single people, they face an unnecessary and terrible agony. The list goes on. If the church in any way judges our lives differently, the church participates in the violence that is perpetrated against us. If the church sends our culture a message that it is ok to discriminate against gay and lesbian people—whether through the rites of the church or in its theology—then it also tells the straight people in our culture that it is ok to perpetuate violence, agony, and suffering upon us. Love and discrimination simply are not compatible. Our culture has learned that. Separate is not equal.

Though I have already said that appealing to a position of power from a position of oppression has historically been fruitless, I still write in the spirit of God’s eternal hope for the hopeless. Will Your Grace be an instrument of hope for ALL of us? Will Your Grace help create a Communion in which difference does not diminish under a central authority, but thrives because it is cherished and celebrated as the diversity of God’s full creation?

As the Focus of Unity for our Communion, I beg Your Grace not to appeal to irrelevant procedural issues which may or may not have been followed, nor to the red herring of possible communication difficulties in other parts of the church. Rather, I beg you, to consider those of us within your care as the Focus of Unity who are marginalized, who deserve God’s love, who are part of this great diverse Creation, and who need to hear what we have not heard directly yet: namely that God loves us, that God does not endorse violence against us, and that the way to prevent that violence is through Jesus Christ as our liberator and savior. Can the Anglican Communion be a place where all of the Body of Christ is welcome?

Yours in Christ, Jeffrey J. Martinhauk Please sign the Petition to the Archbishop here or

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/archbishop/