Retrograde General Convention: Episcopal Church Fails To Challenge Homophobia By Embracing Windsor Report

Following the decisions of The Episcopal Church in the USA to conform to the terms of the Windsor Report, The Revd Richard Kirker, Chief Executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement [LGCM] has issued a statement (30 June 2006) saying: “I deeply regret the retrograde resolutions of the recent General Convention and deplore their abandonment of a Holy principle to pander to the evil that persists in many Christian hearts against us.”

The General Convention decisions will make it impossible for a partnered lesbian or gay priest to be consecrated a bishop and Mr Kirker says that the American Episcopalians were “coerced” into changing their stance.

Mr Kirker said he believed the Windsor Report commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury following the consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop was “profoundly flawed” and that it “contains the seeds of destruction for our Communion”
“Our Church does have a sickness, the sickness of institutional homophobia, but the illness has been misdiagnosed and the treatment will mortify that what is good and leave the disease untouched.” He said.

Referring to the paper The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/41/50/acns4161.cfm published by the Archbishop of Canterbury this week which sees the Anglican Communion dividing into full and associate members, Mr Kirker says: “I have no wish to see a divided Communion, this will not serve the mission of the Church as we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, and it will increase the sense of rivalries with ever more contentious and bitter arguments over jurisdictions.”

But Mr Kirker believes that the plan laid out by the Archbishop of Canterbury will never be completed as other forces in the Anglican Church take control, ““We will indeed see a very different Church develop from our current divisions, but a large part of it will not be centered on Canterbury and the fall out to win unity and power will leave to those who remain with Canterbury a legacy they would not want.” He said.

Mr Kirker looked back at the joy and celebration that greeted the consecration of Gene Robinson and concluded: “Lesbian and gay Anglicans are still celebrating the faith, they still celebrate their sexuality and loving partnership, they look again for another day when they are celebrated by their own Church. Ends

Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement [LGCM]
Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, London, E2 6HG, UK
Office Tel & Fax 00 44 (0)20 7739 1249
Director of Communication Rev Martin Reynolds
00 44 (0)1633 215841
Registered Charity No 1048842.

The full text of the statement follows:

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America meeting at their triennial General Convention in Columbus Ohio in June 2006 have made a series of concessions in response to the Windsor Report which had been commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury following their 2003 General Convention.

The Revd Richard Kirker Chief Executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, issued a statement today in the light of those concessions and the subsequent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams entitled The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/41/50/acns4161.cfm    

“Three years ago millions of lesbian and gay Christians throughout the world joyfully celebrated the confirmation by the 2003 General Convention of Canon Gene Robinson as the bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire. For the first time in modern Church history a main stream denomination had recognized the gifts and calling of a man regardless of the fact he was openly gay and partnered and made him a bishop of the One Church.”

“After a millennium of Church led persecution resulting in the deaths and incarceration of countless lesbian and gay people our calling as faithful servants of Christ and honourable ministers of his Gospel was openly recognized and at last we felt the evil cloak of homophobia rolling back in a way that would be an example to all.” 

“We all knew there would be a reaction, particularly from those who honour our Holy Scriptures in such a way as to make them the only arbiter of Christian discipleship and invest its teaching with a view of same sex love that can only, and for all time, be sinful. For them our journey from being outcasts, capital criminals and dangerous heretics to leaders of the faith has been a testimony of failure and corruption of the true faith, while we celebrate it as the victory of the good news of Jesus over the entrenched homophobia falsely embraced by so many as the will of God.”

“Despite all we now know of sexual orientation, despite all the plain evidence of holiness in the lives of partnered lesbian and gay people both today and throughout the ages most Christians still find it impossible to recognize our love as a blessing for us and the Church. Indeed as civil law opens the way for our relationships and families to flourish some faith communities have launched a desperate and frantic rear-guard action to arrest our social inclusion and huge efforts have been made at a theological level to bolster the homophobic reading of scripture in an attempt to make our very nature inimical to Christian life.” 

“There seems to be a fear that despite the efforts of these Church leaders lesbian and gay relationships and the families around them will be widely perceived as a blessing for the people involved, a blessing for the wider community and a blessing for the Church. While the Church continues to refuse to sanctify our families we will continue to sanctify them by our ever more open presence.” 

“In the context of this struggle I deeply regret the retrograde resolutions of the recent General Convention and deplore their abandonment of a Holy principle to pander to the evil that persists in many Christian hearts against us. This evil is manifest in the law that will deny us the basic human rights of advocacy and association currently before the Nigerian Parliament and which has the fulsome support of the Nigerian Church.”

“We believe that General Convention was coerced into making these decisions and that they will soon deeply regret their compliance with the Windsor process. We believe that this process is profoundly flawed and that the Windsor Report itself contains the seeds of destruction for our Communion. Our Church does have a sickness, the sickness of institutional homophobia, but the illness has been misdiagnosed and the treatment will mortify that what is good and leave the decease untouched.”

“The Church has a long history of blaming the victims of it abuse for the institutional evils that have grown up within it, this is yet another example of how persistent evil has been transformed into Holy Writ and how the Church fails to deal with its failures and face up to its mistakes.”

“I have no wish to see a divided Communion, this will not serve the mission of the Church as we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, and it will increase the sense of rivalries with ever more contentious and bitter arguments over jurisdictions. We already see the beginnings of this with the appointment of an American priest as a bishop of the Church in Nigeria to serve in the United States.”

“The vision of Anglicanism and its future we have now received from the Archbishop of Canterbury, blighted as it is by our present divisions holds little hope of success and betrays the fact that he is not the master of events. Others have different agendas and different visions for the Church and there are those in the Global South willing to cast him aside to ensure they achieve their goals.”

“We believe that events will immediately accelerate and soon overtake him and that he will be left floundering even more in an attempt to achieve some semblance of multi layered unity in a Church that has become the victim of a few powerful and manipulative individuals, one of them, the Archbishop of Sydney [Most Revd Peter Jensen] has already said as much, declaring his present strategy as futile.”

“Rowan Williams’s long view will not be allowed to come to fruition, in a world of instant communication his ten year plan will be swept away by the short and medium term objectives of the key players who have little love or respect for him.”

“We will indeed see a very different Church develop from our current divisions, but a large part of it will not be centered on Canterbury and the fall out to win unity and power will leave to those who remain with Canterbury a legacy they would not want.”

“I do not think we have to wait for these developments, I believe they are happening now and they have been some time in the planning. Rowan Williams has asked many to fall on their swords as he pursued his vision of unity, he is a Godly man and has suffered much for it but in the end he will find the sword pointing at himself, I have no doubt he will do as he has asked of others.”

“Lesbian and gay Anglicans are still celebrating the faith, they still celebrate their sexuality and loving partnership, they look again for another day when they are celebrated by their own Church.” 30 June 2006

Ends

Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement [LGCM]
Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, LONDON, E2 6HG, UK
Office Tel & Fax 00 44 (0)20 7739 1249

Director of Communication Rev Martin Reynolds
00 44 (0)1633 215841

Registered Charity No 1048842.