Browning Tells Lesbian and Gay Episcopalians to 'Hang in' Despite Church's Ambiguity
Episcopal News Service. July 30, 1992 [92154]
During what some observers called a "dramatic pastoral visit," Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning issued a strong clarion call to lesbian and gay Episcopalians to "keep the faith" and continue to "tell their stories" in a church that sometimes does not want to listen.
"You've got to know how important it is for you to hang in," Browning told the nearly 200 members of Integrity, an organization of lesbian and gay Episcopalians and their supporters, during its 14th annual convention in Houston, Texas, July 9-12.
Browning's presence at the convention was the first by a presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. The visit took place almost exactly a year after a highly contentious General Convention in Phoenix recognized the ambiguity Episcopalians have in addressing the issue of homosexuality.
"Phoenix called the church into a dialogue on the issue of homosexuality, and it seems to me that my visit to the Integrity meeting is an important way of modeling the church's willingness to be in dialogue on the issue," Browning said in an interview prior to the Houston visit. He noted that dialogue is a two-way conversation and "it is very important for the gay and lesbian community to be included in the dialogue, too."
Dialogue was the first item on the agenda of the convention and the watchword throughout. Members of the church's Standing Commission on Human Affairs held an open hearing and invited participants to "share their everyday experiences in the church." Representatives from the commission asked members of Integrity, "Have you been welcome? How have you been treated? Do you have full and equal claim with all other persons in your baptism?"
For three hours, members of Integrity told the commission that they had received a double message from Episcopal Church -- a history of both acceptance and rejection, particularly in local congregations. One priest called it a "checkerboard of experiences."
Several persons reported that there are subtle messages of discrimination in most parishes against gay and lesbian persons, while others reported examples of outright hostility.
Tom Martin of Lakeland, Florida, reported that he was run out of his church after his pastor warned him about God's punishment. "He said to me, 'If you become a practicing homosexual, you will have your blessings withdrawn from the Lord,"' Martin said.
A woman from the Diocese of California reported that she and her partner were denied communion by their priest unless they "confessed the sin" of their lifestyle.
A priest in the Diocese of Minnesota decried the "number of lies and deception on the part of us who are ordained already who are being open and honest. It is time for the church to wake up," he insisted.
"We are not asking for special consideration -- just the same consideration," said the Rev. Jim Ferry, a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada who was recently removed from his congregation because he admitted to his bishop that he was involved in a gay relationship. "Not stones for the minority while bread for the majority," he asserted.
At the heart of the convention, 500 people packed the Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church for a festival Eucharist in a setting that blended incense, organ and trumpets, and a procession of colorful banners from many of the 50 Integrity chapters across the country.
In a sermon that played off the theme of the convention, "All God's Children," Browning spoke of his eight-month-old grandson, Joshua. He said that he had both optimism and dread for the kind of world in which his grandson would grow up -- a world that included bigotry, war and loneliness, but also compassion and reconciliation.
Browning paid tribute to members of Integrity for their perseverance in the struggle for acceptance in the church. "I thought about your origins. I thought about what it has cost you to be honest about who you are. I thought about how accustomed you must have become to having people, who have never met you, form judgments about you based upon what you are rather than who you are.... And I wish with all my heart that you had never had to get used to that," he said.
Yet Browning also called on Integrity members to reject the "world's values" where all struggle is pitched in a "win-lose" scenario. "Is it possible to know the pain of what you have known and still find it within yourself to remain in the body where so much of that pain has occurred?" Browning asked. "Can you be the reconcilers Christ calls all of us to be without either denying the reality of your pain on the one hand or denying the possibility of its coming to an end on the other -- without either minimizing what you have felt or allowing it to overcome you?"
"May you always seek earnestly after the reconciling love Christ offers you in such abundance," Browning added. "May you gather strength and courage from one another and from the communities in which you live...."
During the communion, smiles and tears expressed the emotion of the congregation as individuals approached the altar rail. Browning later said of the Eucharist that "for just a moment I had a glimpse of the church that I have dreamed and visioned."
Members of Integrity greeted the presiding bishop with two thunderous standing ovations and gave him a stole that included symbols of Integrity and the lesbian and gay community. Local dignitaries and clergy welcomed Browning to the city of Houston, and Texas Governor Ann Richards sent a greeting praising Browning as "a strong and important leader in the Episcopal Church [whose] efforts to reach out to every member are deeply appreciated by all."
"I think he said what needed to be said, that no one will be reconciled unless it is in the manner of Christ," said Bruce Garner of Atlanta, president of Integrity. "I doubt he will ever be the same -- and probably Integrity won't either. His visit represented a portion of acceptance at God's table that we've been working for. We're not completely there yet -- but this was another step."
"I am very glad he was here although he may take some flak for it," said Patti O'Kane of New York. "His visit was an affirmation of our ministry. We are evangelists. We work to reconcile the world to Christ, and we do that work despite our own pain. We've stayed. We're here."
Bryant Hudson from the Diocese of Dallas said that he had wept throughout the service. "It was gratifying and encouraging that the presiding bishop would come to Texas.... He gave us courage and hope to hang on when some of our homophobic bishops do not."
In an hour-and-a-half open session with Browning the following morning, members of Integrity engaged Browning in a face-to-face dialogue about their pain and hopes for their life in the church.
One priest reported that she had been asked to leave several parishes when it was discovered that she was a lesbian. She said that the experiences had been difficult, not only for her, but also for her partner and the two young children they are raising. "What do I tell my children?" she asked. She said that her children had always taken the bad news "better than I do. They said, 'Mama, things like that happen when you're gay.'"
Another woman told Browning that she and her partner had received the support and blessing of her local congregation, but the church had an uneven record in relating to gay people and she is worried about the future. Drawing on the image from Browning's sermon the night before, she told him, "If your grandson turns out to be gay, I hope he could have his relationship blessed, that he would find the church the safe and affirming place that many of us have found it, and envision it."
Patrick Waddell, who served as a deputy to the 1991 General Convention from the Diocese of El Camino Real, decried what he called the "timid and palsied statements that don't give any relief for gays and lesbians" adopted by the convention.
Browning urged members of Integrity to participate in the dialogue requested by the 1991 General Convention. "It's going to depend on you. You have to be willing to press your diocesan bishops. You need to see that this study material is used and be involved so that your voices can be heard.
"You are contributing to the health and well-being of the whole church. You are a part of this church," Browning said. "All over the country I say to the church that the gay and lesbian community is tired of being treated as an issue. They want to be treated as people."
"His [Browning's] visit was extremely encouraging. He spoke personally and from the heart," said the Rev. David Norgard, director of the Oasis Ministry with the lesbian and gay community in the Diocese of Newark. "We still have a ways to go on the road towards full acceptance of lesbian and gay people in the Episcopal Church, and I hope that he will be a part of that."
"The presiding bishop's ministry of presence really struck me," said Carol La Plante of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. "To have such a visible symbol of the organized church among us to preach and celebrate was extremely important." Asked what she would take back home with her, La Plante said, "not only his witness but also ours, too. We, too, are working on being a church that has no outcasts."
Despite being dismissed a political lobby by some of its critics, the Integrity convention had a decidedly evangelical flavor. Throughout a variety of forums at the convention, speaker after speaker addressed two questions that seemed to form a kind of informal mission statement for the group: How can we share the Gospel of Christ in the lesbian and gay community? And how do we share our experience as lesbian and gay Christians with other members of the Episcopal Church?
The convention's business sessions and workshops resembled meetings of almost all other organizations in the church. Participants tinkered with details about budget and bylaws, shared ideas on how to encourage deeper participation by local chapters in the national organization, encouraged each other to promote a more inclusive racial and ethnic participation in the membership, and talked about how to be effective evangelists.
"The pain in the church over this issue is excruciating," said Sue Thompson of the Diocese of Atlanta as she reflected on the convention. "I want to dream of a church that is big enough for everyone. Everything I say is always taken as a political statement. I don't want those opposed to me who stay in the church to feel like they've lost if I stay. I want them to feel like it is their church, too."
Others expressed impatience. "It is time to get on to other work," said a woman from the Diocese of El Camino Real in one of the forums. "We've spent 20 years studying this issue. I would think that people in the church who are not gay or lesbian are tired of talking about this -- we [in the lesbian and gay community] are certainly tired of it. There is so much more Christians can do with their time and money than debate this issue."
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