Episcopal head seeks gay compromise (asks members to roll back their support for gays, for now)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/28/07 | Rachel Zoll - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK - Appearing on a live webcast, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop began the painful task Wednesday of persuading members to roll back their support for gays — at least for now — so the denomination can keep its place in the world Anglican fellowship.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, who personally supports ordaining partnered gays, told a studio audience, callers and those who submitted questions by e-mail that they should make concessions that Anglican leaders are seeking to buy time for reconciliation.

"To live together in Christian community means each member takes seriously the concerns and needs of other members," Jefferts Schori said. "If we can lower the emotional reactivity in the midst of this current controversy, we just might be able to find a way to live together."

Asked whether she was abandoning gay and lesbian Christians, Jefferts Schori said, "My view hasn't changed, but I'm called to be pastor to the whole church."

Anglican leaders emerged from a closed-door meeting in Tanzania last week with an ultimatum for the U.S. denomination: They gave Episcopalians until Sept. 30 to unequivocally pledge not to consecrate another partnered gay bishop or authorize official prayers for same-sex couples. If it doesn't, the church risks a much-reduced role in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

The Episcopal Church, which represents Anglicanism in the United States, caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson. The decision put the liberal Christian focus on social justice directly at odds with the traditional biblical view of sexuality.

On Tuesday, Robinson made his first public comments on Anglican demands, saying the church should reject the ultimatum and instead "get on with the work of the Gospel" no matter how communion leaders react. Several other Episcopal bishops have issued similar statements.

Most of the calls and questions submitted during the webcast were equally fraught.

One woman said her daughter is a lesbian seeking to become an Episcopal priest who was "brokenhearted" by the restrictions on gays. Another asked whether Anglican leaders were actually promoting division instead of healing.

Jefferts Schori answered each in the same calm, measured tone, saying "an ethic of justice and inclusion would seemingly also urge us to include the dissenter." Theological conservatives are a minority in the 2.3 million-member church, but are the majority among Anglicans overseas.

The presiding bishop cautioned that a rush to break from other Anglicans would hurt Episcopal humanitarian work, disconnecting the U.S. church from sister churches overseas. She said she understood the fear created by the crisis, but a split would not solve the problem.

"We are being pushed toward a decision by impatient forces within and outside this church who hunger for clarity. That hunger for clarity at all costs is an anxious response to discomfort in the face of change which characterizes all of life," she said. "The impatience we're now experiencing is an idol — a false hope that is unwilling to wait on God for clarity."

The Episcopal House of Bishops will take up the proposal for the first time at a closed-door meeting in March. Jefferts Schori said she was also trying to find a way that the House of Deputies, which represents clergy and lay people, could weigh in on the decision without calling a special convention, which would be expensive and time-consuming.

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On the Net:

The Episcopal Church: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/

[NormsRevenge]

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, center, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the USA and first woman elected primate in the Anglican Communion, sings a hymn during the Solemn Eucharist, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007 at the Anglican cathedral in Zanzibar. Leaders of the world's 77 million Anglicans, in Tanzania for a closed, six-day conference, traveled by boat from the mainland for a Solemn Eucharist in the only Anglican cathedral on this predominantly Muslim archipelago on the Indian Ocean.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

[RichInOC]

Anthony Bourdain is an Episcopal bishop? Who knew?

[boomop1]

Give an inch they'll take a mile.

[Comus]

I'll bet Queen Elizabeth I would have "Kathy's" head on a pike before quick could get ready, what?

[NormsRevenge]

"We are being pushed toward a decision by impatient forces within and outside this church who hunger for clarity. That hunger for clarity at all costs is an anxious response to discomfort in the face of change which characterizes all of life," she said. "The impatience we're now experiencing is an idol — a false hope that is unwilling to wait on God for clarity."

---

Has God's word changed, Rev. Schori ,, or is it subject to change over time as you say? You want clarity? Why? You obviously can't comprehend what was written long ago.

[olezip]

Asked whether she was abandoning gay and lesbian Christians, Jefferts Schori said, "My view hasn't changed, but I'm called to be pastor to the whole church."

Here is an example of a hypocrite and heretic! Claiming that holy scripture supports homosexuality is heresy, plain and simple. Homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity, and are contrary to natural law. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

However, many men and women do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. Unjust discrimination must be avoided. These people are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. Basically they are called to chastity.

IMO the schism in the Episcopal church is because they have no "adult leadership."

[Agent Smith]

There are still living Episcopalians?

Who would have thunk it?

Somebody get the Discovery Channel on this ASAP!

[kalee]

Anglican ping

[fini]

What she is saying is that she is going to try to wait them out. She doesn't have enough strength in her convictions to make a stand, regardless of the cost- unless it is to punish those congregations under charge for disagreeing with her. If there was evidence of her courage or lack there of, then we have it now.

[freeangel]

"I'm called to be pasror to the whole church"

I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with a revenue drop./s

[Condor 63]

Jefferts Schori answered each in the same calm, measured tone, saying "an ethic of justice and inclusion would seemingly also urge us to include the dissenter."

The dissenters are you and your supporters Rev. Schori and what you are dissenting from is centuries of previous Christian teaching.

It really is as simple as that.

[joebuck]

"That hunger for clarity at all costs is an anxious response to discomfort in the face of change which characterizes all of life," she said."

Bishop Shori must have missed those hundreds of places in the Bible where it is emphatically stated that God's word is eternal and never changes. Secular humanism at its best.

[altura]

Well, yeah, I'm one. (if you call that living!)

[johniegrad]

What she is saying is that she is going to try to wait them out. She doesn't have enough strength in her convictions to make a stand, regardless of the cost- unless it is to punish those congregations under charge for disagreeing with her. If there was evidence of her courage or lack there of, then we have it now.

Don't even bother reading the article. Fini has it in a nutshell here.

[Cicero]

Well, if she really wants to repair the damage to the Anglican communion, the best first step she could take would be to quit her job.

Traditional Anglicans are never going to be happy with a woman bishop, especially a feminist bishop whose primary agenda is political, not religious.

Electing her to preside over the Episcopal Church was in exactly the same spirit as electing Vicky Gene Robinson bishop of New Hampshire.

[Stand W]

"Electing her to preside over the Episcopal Church was in exactly the same spirit as electing Vicky Gene Robinson bishop of New Hampshire."

Exactly. Affirmative action bishops.

[PAR35]

She seems adept at ignoring the part about putting the lawsuits on ice.

[WorkingClassFilth]

They're toast. Get out now.

[Calvin Locke]

Vicky Gene Robinson

You don't think an non-recovered alcoholic that left his wife and kids to shack up with a member of the same sex has the moral authority to lead a a diocese?