Episcopal Church: Largest to Approve Same-sex Union Blessing

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Delegates to a convention of the Episcopal Church voted to approve a blessing for the unions of same-sex couples. This blessing is distinct from that used by the church to marry a man and a woman.

INDIANAPOLIS – The U.S. Episcopal Church on Tuesday approved a liturgy for clergy to use in blessing same-sex unions, including gay marriages in states where they are legal, becoming the largest U.S. religious denomination to approve such a ritual.

Delegates to its triennial convention voted 171-50 to approve the liturgy, titled "the Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant." Episcopal bishops had voted overwhelmingly on Monday in favor of the text.

The U.S. Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is the 14th largest U.S. religious denomination, with about 2 million members, according to the National Council of Churches.

The proposed blessing will be introduced in early December and will be evaluated over the next three years, according to a church spokeswoman, Nancy Davidge.

The resolution does not mention the word "marriage" and it does not alter the church's standard liturgy for a marriage between a man and a woman, but offers an alternative liturgy for blessing same-sex couples. (+ video) » | Susan Guyett, Reuters | Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Announces Plan to Retire Early
THE GUARDIAN: Long-running controversy, including death threats, "takes its toll" on Right Rev Gene Robinson who plans to call it day seven years ahead of schedule

US Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, the church's first openly gay bishop, is to retire early. Photograph: The Guardian
An openly gay bishop whose appointment split the Anglican church is to resign, saying the last seven years had "taken their toll" on him, his family and his flock.

The Right Rev Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, revealed his plans yesterday, at at annual diocesan meeting. He will be 65 when he steps down, seven years below the retirement age.

He told the convention that being in the eye of the storm had proved too much.

He said: "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, you.

"While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate."

He said he would continue his work with the "unchurched" and "dechurched" on college campuses and public forums, showing no intention of retiring from public life. >>> Riazat Butt, religious affairs correspondent | Sunday, November 07, 2010

Episcopal Committee Is Working on Gay Rite
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Armed with a new $400,000 grant and the support of the Episcopal Church, a Berkeley seminary is convening priests from across the country to craft the liturgical rite for same-sex couples to receive religious blessings.

The new rite, which will take years to complete, will most likely consist of a series of original prayers, Bible readings and two essays: one on the theological meaning of same-sex blessings, and one advising priests who administer the new rite. If approved, the new blessing would be just the third addition to Episcopal liturgy since 1979.

“This is very significant,” said the Rev. Ruth Meyers, chairwoman of the church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, who is heading the effort. “It does acknowledge a fuller participation of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.” >>> Richard Parks | Thursday, July 29, 2010

First Lesbian Bishop to Be Consecrated by Anglican Church in America
THE TELEGRAPH: The first openly lesbian bishop in the Anglican church will be consecrated this weekend, deepening divisions over homosexuality.

The Rev Mary Glasspool will become Assistant Bishop of Los Angeles in a “grand event” taking place at a 13,500-seat arena on the Californian coast.

Her appointment is being made despite warnings from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, about the “serious questions” it will raise for the 80 million-strong Anglican Communion.

It is being viewed by traditionalists as another “provocative” move by the ultra-liberal Episcopal Church of the USA in “defiance” of pleas not to go against tradition and Scripture by ordaining homosexual bishops.

The Communion was first driven to the brink of schism over sexuality in 2003 when the Episcopal Church, the official Anglican province of the USA, consecrated the first openly homosexual bishop, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson.

Since then hundreds of orthodox American clergy and congregations have joined other provinces or formed breakaway movements, triggering bitter legal battles over the ownership of church property. >>> Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, May 15, 2010

Episcopal Church Approves Consecration of First Lesbian Bishop
THE TELEGRAPH: America’s Anglican church has approved the consecration of its first openly lesbian bishop, in a move likely to worsen divisions over homosexuality.

The Episcopal Church of the USA, the most liberal province within the Anglican Communion, had been under pressure not to allow the Rev Mary Glasspool to become Assistant Bishop of Los Angeles.

Its leaders had been warned personally by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, not to take any decisions that would deepen the crisis over sexuality within the worldwide church.

But bishops and dioceses across the national church have now approved the consecration of Miss Glasspool, after she was elected last year, and a ceremony has been scheduled for May 15th. She and the Rev Diane Bruce will become the first women bishops in Los Angeles.

Miss Glasspool, a Canon in the Diocese of Maryland who has been with her female partner since 1988, said: “I am also aware that not everyone rejoices in this election and consent, and will work, pray, and continue to extend my own hands and heart to bridge those gaps, and strengthen the bonds of affection among all people, in the Name of Jesus Christ.” >>> Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Thursday, March 18, 2010

U.S. Anglicans Converting en masse to Catholicism
MAIL ONLINE: About 100 traditionalist Anglican parishes across the United States have decided to convert en masse to the Roman Catholic Church, it emerged yesterday.

They have voted to take up the offer made by Pope Benedict XVI in November that permits vicars and their entire congregations to defect to Rome - while keeping many of their Anglican traditions, including married priests.

The Pope had been accused of attempting to poach Anglicans unhappy about decisions taken in their church to ordain women and sexually-active homosexuals as priests and bishops.

But the Vatican insisted that the move to create self-governing 'personal ordinariates' came as a result of requests from at least 30 disaffected Anglican bishops around the world.

The Anglican Church in America will now enter the Catholic Church as a block, bringing in thousands of converts along with their own bishops, buildings and even a cathedral. >>> | Saturday, March 06, 2010

First Openly Gay Episcopal Bishop Says St. Paul Was Condemning Homosexual Acts by Heterosexuals


CNS NEWS: To the news article >>> Karen Schuberg | Thursday, February 04, 2010

Fury as Lesbian Is Chosen by Anglican Church to Be a Bishop
MAIL ONLINE: The worldwide Anglican Church has been plunged into a fresh crisis after a lesbian was chosen as its second gay bishop.

In a move that will dismay the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, Canon Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop for the diocese of Los Angeles. >>> Jonathan Petre | Sunday, December 06, 2009

TIMES ONLINE: Election of lesbian bishop 'is very serious', says Dr Rowan Williams >>> Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Sunday, December 06, 2009

Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop Offers Apology to Hindus over Conversion Attempts
VIRTUE ONLINE: The ultra liberal Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles J. Jon Bruno offered a formal apology to Hindus for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination including attempts by Christians to convert them.



He then authorized a joint Hindu-Anglican service at St John's Cathedral in Los Angeles permitting Hindu devotees to receive the consecrated elements.



According to a statement read on his behalf by suffragan Bishop Chester Talton, he vowed not to proselytize non-Christians. "I believe that the world cannot afford for us to repeat the errors of our past, in which we sought to dominate rather than to serve, in this spirit, and in order to take another step in building trust between our two great religious traditions, I offer a sincere apology to the Hindu religious community," said the bishop's statement reported by the Los Angeles Times.



A Hare Krishna provided music along with the St John's cathedral choirs. When the Eucharist was celebrated Hindus were invited to receive the consecrated elements. Some Hindus who abstain from alcohol received only the host, the Los Angeles Times reported.



An icon was venerated at the Communion service. While a Hindu band sang a hymn the Anglican celebrant anointed the icon with sandalwood paste, draped a garland of flowers over the icon and lit a lamp, "as a sign of Christ, the light in the darkness." >>> David W. Virtue | Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Gay US Bishop Attacks Treatment of Gay and Lesbian Clergy by Church of England
THE GUARDIAN: Gene Robinson chides Archbishop of Canterbury for talk of two-tier Anglican communion

Gene Robinson, the Espiscopalian bishop of New Hampshire, says gay and lesbian clerby are treated by the Church of England as a problem to be solved. Photo: The Guardian
The first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion has launched an outspoken attack on the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, criticised the policy of the Church of England towards gay and lesbian clergy. Alluding to the significant number of clergy who are gay, he said: "I think gay clergy in the Church of England are thought of as a problem to be solved or at least lived with, rather than a gift from God."

Robinson, who is in Britain to speak at the Greenbelt festival at Cheltenham Racecourse this weekend, added that he could not accept the archbishop's recent comments that if the Episcopal church refused to uphold the current moratorium on consecrating actively gay bishops or blessing civil unions, the communion might have to be reorganised into a two-tier, or "two-track" model. "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church," he said. "Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God." >>> Aida Edemariam | Friday, August 28, 2009

Archbishop of Canterbury Foresees 'Two-track' Church to Avoid Gay Schism
THE TELEGRAPH: Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has admitted the Anglican Communion may divide into a “two-track” church due to deep divisions over the ordination of homosexual clergy.

Dr Williams acknowledged for the first time that believers may have to accept "two styles of being Anglican" in order to avoid schism.

The decision by Episcopal bishops in the US earlier this month to press ahead with the ordination of homosexual priests and bishops – effectively overturning a ban on the practice – has pushed the 80 million-strong global church to the brink of an irrevocable split.

Traditionalists in the US and Canada have already formed a rival province to the Episcopal church to resist against the liberal tide.

Dr Williams appeared to accept that his efforts to preserve the unity of the communion had failed as he sketched a new Anglican structure that would allow local churches to loosen their ties with the main church body.

"This has been called a 'two-tier' model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure. But perhaps we are faced rather with the possibility of the two-track model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage," he wrote.

"It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican." >>> Matthew Moore | Monday, July 27, 2009

Gay Marriage Approval Sounds Death Knell for Anglican Unity
TIMES ONLINE: Bishops in the US dealt a death blow to hopes for unity in the worldwide Anglican Church when they approved in principle services for same-sex partnerships. The decision will finally split the Communion between Bible-based conservative evangelicals and liberal modernisers.

The bishops at the Episcopal General Convention voted by 104 to 30 to “collect and develop theological resources and liturgies” for blessing same-sex relationships, to be considered at the next convention in 2012.

The resolution notes the growing number of states that allow gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, and gives bishops in those regions discretion to provide a “generous pastoral response” to couples in local parishes. It was passed on Wednesday, hours after the Episcopal Church voted on Tuesday to allow the consecration of gay bishops. The motion passed by 99 to 45 among the bishops and by 72 per cent to 28 per cent among church deputies, made up of clergy and laity.

The decisions on gay consecrations and same-sex blessings end the uneasy truce agreed after the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

The General Convention in 2006 agreed a resolution that pledged the Episcopal Church to abide by two moratoriums on same-sex blessings and gay consecrations as requested by Dr Williams and the other 38 Primates. The resolutions now passed bring that truce to an end, and will be seen in the conservative-dominated evangelical churches of the “Global South” as an open declaration of war.

It ends years of tense and costly ecclesiastical polity, and finally nails the hopes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who has sacrificed his own liberal principles on the altar of church unity, to no avail. Dozens of meetings of bishops, archbishops, canon lawyers, clergy and lay theologians in Britain, Ireland, Jamaica and elsewhere, pages of dense reports and hours of prayer have been rendered redundant by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the US in Anaheim, California.

Church leaders led by Dr Williams must now manage the disintegration of a 70-million strong Communion of 38 provinces that can no longer maintain the facade of unity. >>> Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Friday, July 17, 2009

Bishop Orders Episcopal Priest to Renounce Islamic Faith
USA TODAY: PROVIDENCE — An Episcopal priest in Seattle is fighting attempts by Rhode Island Episcopal Bishop Geralyn Wolf to defrock her for practicing Islam and Christianity at the same time.

Ann Holmes Redding, who marks the 25th anniversary of her ordination on March 25, says she believes she can practice both faiths and should not have to recant her Muslim beliefs.

Redding, a former Brown University student and parishioner at St. Stephen's Church in Providence, was ordained by Wolf's predecessor. Wolf is her canonical superior because Redding never shifted her canonical residence to Seattle.

Wolf has told Redding that her conversion to Islam constitutes an abandonment of the Christian faith and she must recant by March 30 or lose her status as a priest. [Source: USA Today] AP | Monday, 16, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA) >>>

US Anglicans Form Breakaway Church
THE TELEGRAPH: Traditionalist Anglicans in North America are to set up a new church to settle their differences with the liberal views of the Episcopal Church.

The new Anglican Church in North America will include four Episcopal dioceses which recently split from the US church, as well as breakaway parishes from Canada.

Conservative Episcopalians have long been upset by the stance of the church's leadership on various issues, particularly homosexuality. >>> By Tom Leonard in New York | December 3, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Jefferts Schori in Gay Row
Photo of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori courtesy of the BBC
BBC: The head of the Anglicans in the United States has accused other churches, including the Church of England, of double standards over sexuality.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, told the BBC her church is paying the price for its honesty over sexuality.

The threat of schism in the Anglican Communion was prompted by the appointment of a gay bishop.

The US church appointed an openly gay man Gene Robinson as a bishop in 2003.

Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori defended her ministry.

"He is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop, he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop," she said.

"He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status." US Anglican head in sexuality row >>> By Christopher Landau

LISTEN TO BBC AUDIO:
US Anglican sexuality row

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Church Tries to Avert Schism by Plan to Expel Rebel Provinces
TIMESONLINE: The Church of England took a step towards averting schism over gays yesterday when the General Synod backed a process that would allow the expulsion of rebel provinces from the Anglican Communion.

Some liberals in the established Church oppose the introduction of an Anglican “covenant” outlining a common doctrine that is to be endorsed across all 38 provinces worldwide, because they fear it will limit the traditional diversity that has become a hall-mark of Anglicanism.

But the Synod, meeting in York, voted overwhelmingly to “engage positively” in the creation of the covenant after a series of speakers warned that the dispute over homosexuality had exposed deep flaws in how Anglican unity is maintained. The covenant would prevent any province from consecrating an openly gay bishop, as the US did in 2003 with the election of Gene Robinson to New Hampshire, without risking expulsion.

But the Synod also heard that it would put in place a curial-type structure that would mean other doctrinal innovations would also be jeopardised. One speaker warned that the ordination of women would never have got through had such a covenant already been endorsed. Church takes a step back from schism with gay expulsion plan (more) By Ruth Gledhill

Mark Alexander

The Rev Ann Holmes Redding Inhibited by Her Episcopal Bishop
THE SEATTLE TIMES: SEATTLE — An Episcopal priest who announced last month that she is also a practicing Muslim has been suspended from the priesthood and other Episcopal leadership roles for a year.

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, who until March was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral here, should "reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam," the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to church leaders.

For the next year Redding "is not to exercise any of the responsibilities and privileges of an Episcopal priest or deacon," Wolf added. Episcopal priest suspended after saying she also is Muslim (more)

Mark Alexander

The Gay Issue Continues to Bedevil Unity Of Church
TIMESONLINE: The head of the Anglican Church in Nigeria says that his 120-plus bishops will boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference unless the US Church halts its liberal agenda.

In an interview with The Times published today, Dr Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria and Archbishop of Abuja, says that he has lost faith that the Episcopal Church of the United States, which precipitated a schism with the ordination of the gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003, will ever listen to the conservative evangelical leaders of the Global South churches of Africa and Asia. African bishops ready to boycott conference in row over gay clergy (more) By Ruth Gledhill

Mark Alexander

Chaos in the Episcopal Church
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE: The General Convention of the Episcopal Church decided this past week not even to vote on a resolution saying Jesus Christ was the "only name by which any person may be saved," but heard the newly elected presiding bishop of the church - the first woman in that role - give a sermon using the expression "Mother Jesus."

The canon theologian for the Diocese of North Carolina, the Rev. Eugene McDowell, saw evil residing in the resolution. "This type of language was used in 1920s and 1930s to alienate the type of people who were executed," he was quoted as saying. "It was called the Holocaust." Episcopal chaos (more) By Jay Ambrose

Mark Alexander

Episcopal Church Moves One Step Closer to Splitting the Anglican Communion over Gay Issue
THE GUARDIAN: The impending division of the worldwide Anglican communion came a step closer yesterday as the rift over the way the church deals with homosexuality descended into acrimony.

The US Episcopal church rejected the demands of the rest of the church, headed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that it should fall into line by refusing to conduct blessing services for gay couples or elect more gay bishops and allow disaffected conservative US congregations to have their own leadership. Anglican split comes closer as US church rejects demand over gays (more) By Stephen Bates

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