Will ECUSA express regret for openly gay bishop or will it elect another one?
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, February 22, 2006
The stakes continue to get higher for the Episcopal Church (USA)’s 2006 General Convention which will be held June 13-21, 2006 in Columbus, Ohio.
Along with deciding the denomination’s response to the Windsor Report, which calls for the ECUSA to express its “regret” for electing and consecrating a gay bishop, the convention may also be casting a vote for a second homosexual bishop.
Bishop William E. Swing of the Diocese of California has announced his plans to retire. Of the five nominees for the job, two are openly homosexual, according to Integrity, the ECUSA’s pro-homosexual advocacy group, and whoever is elected by the diocese must be approved by the General Convention.
The Integrity press release praised the diversity of the five nominees, which they claimed “included both a gay man (the Very Rev. Robert Taylor) and a lesbian woman (the Rev. Bonnie Perry).”
“It was inevitable that another gay/lesbian person would eventually be nominated to the episcopacy. Whether or not Robert or Bonnie is elected by the Diocese of California, it is inevitable that another gay/lesbian person WILL eventually be elected, confirmed and consecrated to that order of ministry as the Episcopal Church continues to live into its call to fully include all of the baptized into the body of Christ.”
The press release acknowledged that other provinces in the Anglican Communion “will be dismayed” by the nomination, and “perhaps, regard it as deliberate disregard for the Windsor Report. However, it must be remembered that the Windsor Report is a set of recommendations with no binding authority. Both the Diocese of California and the Episcopal Church must discern and obey the will of God as faithfully as they know how, even if doing so in not consonant with the understanding of other members of our communion.”
Perry was ordained in 1990 by the Rev. John S. Spong, bishop of the Diocese of Newark, and has been the rector of All Saints’ Church in Chicago, Ill., since Nov. 1, 1992. She lives with her partner, M. Susan Harlow, an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the Angus MacLean Associate Professor of Religious Education at Meadville Lombard Theological School.
On its Web site, All Saints’ is described as “a loving, welcoming, inclusive and prayerful Christian community in the Anglican Communion, which celebrates and embodies the love of God for all people in and outside of our church community.”
Taylor is dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle, Wash. According to a 2000 article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Taylor was the “first openly gay man chosen to head an Episcopal cathedral in the U.S., which is permitted under church law but still raises thorny debates.”
In a Seattle Times article about the nomination, Taylor said, “I feel just honored and humbled by the trust and faith of the diocese in including me on their list of nominees.”
Taylor said that he hoped the church would focus on issues such as poverty, health care and ministering to the larger society instead of the issue of gay clergy.
“I would say that the major global issue for the Anglican Communion is not the discussion of human sexuality,” he said. “That’s a side show. It’s about the ministry we should be engaged in ending global poverty.”
The Seattle Times article quotes the Rev. Jack Eastwood, an adviser to Swing, who said that including two homosexuals in the slate of five nominees was not meant to be a political statement. “We’re trying to find the best person to lead this diocese,” which is diverse in its ethnicity, sexuality and income levels.
“I think the elected leadership really has to respect the fact that we do have differences throughout the church worldwide,” he said.
Taylor, a native of South Africa, left the continent in 1980 with the help of Archbishop Desmond Tutu after experiencing police harassment for anti-apartheid activities. He was also facing mandatory military service.
The other nominees are:
- The Rt. Rev. Mark Handley Andrus, bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Alabama;
- The Rev. Jane Gould, rector of St. Stephen’s Church, Lynn, Massachusetts;
- The Rev. Canon Eugene Taylor Sutton, canon pastor of Washington National Cathedral.
On the other side of the Episcopal spectrum David Virtue, who operates VirtueOnline the Anglican Communion’s largest Biblically Orthodox Online News Service, said of the nominees, “To no one’s surprise not a single candidate was remotely orthodox.”
The diocese’s election will be May 6. The diocese’s choice will have to be approved by a majority of bishops and deputies to the 75th General Convention in Columbus, Ohio. Swing has said that he will retired on the day the new bishop is consecrated.
According to the diocese other names may be submitted through a petition process from members of local churches before March 13.
The ECUSA’s General Convention will start two days before the PCUSA’s 217th General Assembly which will meet June 15-22 in Birmingham, Ala., where commissioners will decide whether to adopt the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. The PUP report calls for a form of local option, in which each presbytery could decide if the fidelity-chastity ordination standard – requiring fidelity in a marriage between one woman and one man and chastity in singleness – was essential, and, if not, could therefore be ignored.