Some Thoughts On Catholicity: More Updates…

I’ve read a lot of pain around the Net from folks on all end of the spectrum within TEC and the AC. Some have suggested my ponderings do not adequately address the pain or violence, or that I've too quickly spiritualized the matter. That very well could be.

Those who have followed my pilgrimage, nay, our pilgrimage since I started this blog know that as an anonymous priest in the confessional once declared to me: “Your journey has seemed hard, even impossible, but it is joyous.”

I know much of the worst my fellow members of the Body can dish out sometimes without malice or meaning to do harm and sometimes out of sincere differences of opinion about what to do with being homosexual and responding to the all-gracious love of the Holy and Most Blessed Trinity: Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit.

But that is where I begin, with responding in thanksgiving to the Holy and Most Blessed Trinity.

Nate suggested below that orthopraxy comes before orthodoxy. This is what we often find in more liberal Protestant settings. I sincerely disagree. Orthodoxy is not simply correct dogma or doctrine about God either. What we often find among certain of concervatives who think in terms of propositions rather than worship. That isn’t the place to begin.

Orthodoxy is first and foremost about our praising God, the act for which we are made. Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy are one: proper praise is our proper action. All that we do is to be oriented in unceasing praise of God shown to us in the Crucified Risen One (to borrow from Moltmann). Or to use the Benedictine motto: ora et labora (prayer and work. It is from this Orientation that we must ongoingly and unceasingly examine our actions and daily lives.

And the dogma we have, which are fewer than some might suppose and can be adequately found in the Oecumenical Creeds, are meant to provide bounds for that act of praise that prevents us from affirming some rather negative things: that Creation is neutral or evil, that the Creator God is a lesser or evil deity, that God did not truly and verily come to us in the flesh, that God is a plethora of lesser beings and ultimately a monad, that we can escape our bodies as not being part of us or as being the evil part of us, that some of us have greater knowledge than others and this is the source of our salvation or not, that how we respond to God foremost in worship, which is what all of our living should be anyway, doesn't matter. How we respond matters for our actions shape us more or less into an image, an icon of the Holy Compassionate Merciful One, but that response is rightly and chiefly praise and thanksgiving.

We rather praise a God who is Being-in-Relationship eternally, whose very being is love arising in relationship, who created and creates out of that love a Creation whose being is God's will (which is love according to St. Maximos) to be in relationship with God and one another, who pronounces Creation good, indeed very good, who loves us so much, that in our falleness as seen from Eternity and who we were/are meant to become and expressed in our destroying of one another, He became one of us, loved us even unto death, forgives our willingness to destroy even very God and loves us anyway, and who gathers us into that Loving Image by His Spirit who dwells in us, that we too might be partakers of the divine love life becoming images of God, icons of the Holy Spirit each in our own way. Our bodies, our being are the very ground through, with, and in which we praise God. Our actions matter, for in them we do or do not offer all that we are to God in praise. (more on that in a moment)

The Trinity is as Derek the AEnglican put it so well, that dogma which Christians came to in recognizing how God was working among them. This is what +++Benedict calls logos—the very fabric of things, in his little work "The Spirit of the Liturgy".

At heart, Christianity begins in the receptivity and response to this Crucified Risen One, in Whom we partake of and participate in the very life of God Who loves us to the uttermost even unto death, death on a cross, and Whom we eat and drink under bread and wine. This is the place from Whom to begin.

And then I move to how this works out in my own particularity, my partiality, my finitude. To do otherwise places us in danger of works righteousness, in the words of the Reformation Fathers, to suggest that we can do it on our own. All is by grace, even our works. We more or less are swept up into the Spirit's praise.

But we are called to live out that gracious Encounter. What we have is a disagreement about ethos (how we respond to God in our lives to God’s gracious sweeping us upon His lap). I have done a lot of soul-searching on that count, as have countless others, and I found myself not called to celibacy as a response to God in praise and thanksgiving in my life. If I’ve had difficulty in that discernment, is it really a surprise that others would? For same sex sexual activity and relationships in which such intimacy occurs in general have long been associated with domination, uncontrolled desires, lack of fruitfulness, in other words, with unreason, with unnatural--with not praising God as our proper orientation in all things. And therefore an improper response (ethos) to the Crucified Risen One. Not in all times and in all places, but in many or most.

What is being raised is perhaps for some this is not outside of the fabric of things, outside of a proper response to God, and that just as revisiting of the Law as proper response by the Gentiles came down to not eating strangled things, blood, things sacrificed to idols, and sexual immorality, in our time proper response among homo/bi sexuals and heterosexuals is celibacy or monogomous relationships characterized by fidelity, lifelong commitment, fruitfulness, and upbuilding of the Body.

This leads some to dismiss me as a heretic. Others to consider me a sinner—I am most certainly a sinner! What we disagree about is in what manners of life I might live out my sexuality (which is itself rooted in our ability to connect) and not tear at my relationship through alienation with God, the Fellowship, and who God intends me to become—for that is SIN.

Sins are those things which tend toward alienation, toward SIN. I have stepped out in faith that one can live a faithful monogamous life in a same sex union and grow in holiness, grow in the image of God, which is our growth by God’s grace—God’s very Holy Spirit, in the virtues: faith, hope, love, or in the vows of our Holy Fratrimony: stability, obedience, and ongoing conversion of life.

But I will go a step further. Even in faithful monogamy, opposite or same sex, we will from time to time sin against one another in our lovemaking, for our desires are always a mixed and messy conglomeration of praise and passions. For we are complex and messy creatures, and holiness is never a direct link from response to God to our acting ethically. The desert elders, Cassian, Augustine, and ++Williams get that quite well.

And if we are honest with one another, Fr. AKMA is correct. There is a solid case for both points of view at the moment. I have chosen in fear and trembling to live work out my salvation in partnership with another man, as a brother in the Spirit with all that entails, offering together our lives in thanks and praise to God. Time and community will tell if this is a faithful response. If not, I trust the graciousness of God to overcome my error.

Which brings me to violence.

I know something about absorbing violence, no not everything, but something.

Half of my family and I don’t speak to one another: my being Roman Catholic was bad enough, but wanting to become a monk, then coming out as gay and Catholic? Now I’m probably just considered an apostate being partnered and Episcopalian.

I stood at GC00 in Denver with members of Soul Force, was told to my face by Integrity delegates that we should go away: “That we had no business interfering with the business of the Church.” and “You’re only making it worse”, and was taken away in handcuffs in a paddywagon for processing at the local police station. Most of us present were Episcopalians. We sang as we were hauled away.

For the last two years in our relationship, C and I have experienced all manner of assaults upon our household, sometimes by well-meaning liberals who support our inclusion as his parish and he have worked through his coming out process. I nearly had a nervous breakdown, pondered more extreme measures, our relationship barely survived and I shudder to think I nearly lost the one who mirrors back to me my “growing edges” so brother-like in our bonds of affection. We are now emerging from that wounded place, and the fruits are just beginning to burst forth from the bloody blooms.

But I don’t know the worst—imprisonment and death. That is what faces faithful lgbt Anglican Christians elsewhere in the world if they even dare to speak, and it is for them and their kith and kin, many of whom I trust are more in touch with their humanity and others than we may have given them credit, that I hope for more conversations even if I must bear some pain—even the pain of the cross laid upon us in GC06.

I don’t like it, but I’m willing to do it—note will-ing for this is beyond how I feel at the moment. I don’t like the way GC06 went about many things, but I do hope we’ll still be able to have conversations. I’ll be deeply troubled if we cannot begin to find a way to make spaces for listening, conversation, converstion. For it is here, not in pronouncements or legislation, that the way forward is most likely to unfold. It is here that our characteristically Trinitarian polity holds the most promise. Windsor failed this being largely juridical and legal. Can we model other ways? Perhaps if we would give ourselves the space, as Brian McLaren has suggested we could move beyond polarizations that threaten to tear us apart and have made me weary and wary:

The couple approached me immediately after the service. This was their first time visiting, and they really enjoyed the service, they said, but they had one question. You can guess what the question was about: not transubstantiation, not speaking in tongues, not inerrancy or eschatology, but where our church stood on homosexuality.

That "still, small voice" told me not to answer. Instead I asked, "Can you tell me why that question is important to you?" "It's a long story," he said with a laugh.

Usually when I'm asked about this subject, it's by conservative Christians wanting to be sure that we conform to what I call "radio-orthodoxy," i.e. the religio-political priorities mandated by many big-name religious broadcasters. Sometimes it's asked by ex-gays who want to be sure they'll be supported in their ongoing re-orientation process, or parents whose children have recently "come out."

But the young woman explained, "This is the first time my fiancée and I have ever actually attended a Christian service, since we were both raised agnostic." So I supposed they were like most unchurched young adults I meet, who wouldn't want to be part of an anti-homosexual organization any more than they'd want to be part of a racist or terrorist organization.

I hesitate in answering "the homosexual question" not because I'm a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we must also be . . . pastoral. That means understanding the question beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that motivates the question.

We pastors want to frame our answer around that need; we want to fit in with the Holy Spirit's work in that person's life at that particular moment. To put it biblically, we want to be sure our answers are "seasoned with salt" and appropriate to "the need of the moment" (Col. 4; Eph. 4).

Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony over this question. We fear that the whole issue has been manipulated far more than we realize by political parties seeking to shave percentage points off their opponent's constituency. We see whatever we say get sucked into a vortex of politicized culture-wars rhetoric--and we're pastors, evangelists, church-planters, and disciple-makers, not political culture warriors. Those who bring us honest questions are people we are trying to care for in Christ's name, not cultural enemies we're trying to vanquish.

Frankly, many of us don't know what we should think about homosexuality. We've heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say "it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us." That alienates us from both the liberals and conservatives who seem to know exactly what we should think. Even if we are convinced that all homosexual behavior is always sinful, we still want to treat gay and lesbian people with more dignity, gentleness, and respect than our colleagues do. If we think that there may actually be a legitimate context for some homosexual relationships, we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex. We aren't sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn.

Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements. In the meantime, we'll practice prayerful Christian dialogue, listening respectfully, disagreeing agreeably. When decisions need to be made, they'll be admittedly provisional. We'll keep our ears attuned to scholars in biblical studies, theology, ethics, psychology, genetics, sociology, and related fields. Then in five years, if we have clarity, we'll speak; if not, we'll set another five years for ongoing reflection. After all, many important issues in church history took centuries to figure out. Maybe this moratorium would help us resist the "winds of doctrine" blowing furiously from the left and right, so we can patiently wait for the wind of the Spirit to set our course.

Later that week I got together with the new couple to hear their story. "It's kind of weird how we met," they explained. "You see, we met last year through our fathers who became . . . partners. When we get married, we want to be sure they will be welcome at our wedding. That's why we asked you that question on Sunday."

Welcome to our world. Being "right" isn't enough. We also need to be wise. And loving. And patient. Perhaps nothing short of that should "seem good to the Holy Spirit and us."

We may never agree in my lifetime about how a homosexual or bisexual person should respond to God in the living out of their sexuality; we even disagree among ourselves. I’ve repeatedly recommended two possibilities: celibacy and monogamous commitment according to God’s call on one’s life. But we need the time to test this more fully and allow others to “come and see”. I have written how this is presently beginning to happen in our own life though it may have been missed in my GC postings immediately following. And in the meantime, pastoral responses in ritual and prayer, provisional though they may be, needs come forth, and beginning locally isn't a bad place to start.

Catholicity is about discerning the Body that begins first and foremost in our partaking together of Christ in the Most Holy and Blessed Sacrament. At heart, St. Paul gets it better than any lover of Christ I can think to read. His multiple images of Eucharistic Fellowship, the Church as the Body of Christ, the Body as verily and Truly Christ, and the call to participate in one another’s sorrows and joys. Before we turn one another away, do we have the faith and fortitude to see more deeply?

pax,
*Christopher