Posted on 01/10/2004 3:37:13 PM PST by altura
Vote on gay bishop still echoes in Dallas church St. Michael rector's support of Gene Robinson puts him at odds with many of his parishioners
05:39 PM CST on Friday, January 9, 2004
By GRETEL C. KOVACH / The Dallas Morning News
One Sunday not long ago, James Carry stood in the pews at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church and wondered if it would be his last day as parishioner in the church he loved.
Months after the Episcopal Church elected its first openly gay bishop, St. Michael, one of the country's largest Episcopal congregations, is still struggling with the aftermath.
The rector, the Rev. Mark Anschutz, was the only one of eight deputies from the Dallas diocese who voted for Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire when the Episcopal Church had its national meeting in Minneapolis last August.
That vote put Father Anschutz at odds with his own bishop – and with the views of many at St. Michael. The congregation has sought to make peace with itself on the issue ever since. (Father Anschutz did not respond to repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.)
Mr. Carry, an international architect, said he has close gay friends and a liberal outlook. He doesn't object to homosexuality but is pained by the divisiveness in the church in the wake of Bishop Robinson's consecration.
"The problem isn't that there's a gay bishop. What happened could literally cause the entire Episcopal Church of the United States to split," he said. "The leadership should not have forced this issue."
Charles Sartain, another St. Michael member, agreed. "It's less of a disagreement about theology than about governance," he said.
Those who oppose the election of Bishop Robinson give varied reasons. Some think homosexuality is a sin. Others, like Mr. Carry, say church leaders should have better prepared their congregations. Still others say Bishop Robinson's election simply came at the wrong time.
"Who's to say we won't get used to it and accept it?" said Mr. Sartain, an attorney. "But at this point, it is too radical a move for many Episcopalians."
St. Michael, on Douglas Avenue near Northwest Highway, is home to one of the most affluent Episcopal congregations in the country. More than 1,500 worshippers gather at the contemporary brick-and-glass complex each Sunday, many from Preston Hollow and the Park Cities. Yet, its membership is more diverse than stereotypes might suggest: Several female priests and gay parishioners call it home.
The discussions at St. Michael about Bishop Robinson echo those taking place at Episcopal churches across the country. As members have sought ways past the controversy, they've been forced to confront a central question in their spiritual lives: What does it mean to be a good Christian and a good Episcopalian?
And those questions are part of a broader debate – between the Episcopal Church (USA) and others in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Leaders of some of the largest provinces in the communion have threatened to end more than a century of fellowship with the American church over the vote for Bishop Robinson.
The Episcopal Church is a relatively small denomination, representing, with its 2.4 million members, less than one percent of Americans.
But St. Michael's struggle is echoed in many other places. Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans, among others, are dealing with deep divisions over homosexuality that threaten to split church from church and pew from pew.
The architect
Mr. Carry, a member of St. Michael since 1989, said he felt blindsided by his pastor's vote on the New Hampshire bishop. Afterward, he said, he prayed for guidance, he wrote to church leaders to appeal for unity. He even cried. He still considers himself a member of St. Michael. But he's started going to another Episcopal church in his neighborhood. The last time he attended services at St. Michael, in November, he looked around at the people he's known since college, at little girls he's watched grow into young women.
"I want to see the church work through this together as a family," he said. "I expect my church to be a place of refuge, not of turmoil."
The singer
Greg Cotton and his male partner sing in the choir at St. Michael. Mr. Cotton was nominated by Father Anschutz to be a delegate to the Dallas diocese's convention in Texarkana, Texas, last October. At that convention, the diocese called on Bishop Robinson to step down, defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and voted to protest the national church's actions by diverting more than $500,000 in contributions to other charitable causes.
"That was not a happy time for gay people," he said.
Mr. Cotton, 52 – who has retired from his job as manager of a furnishings store because of AIDS – said he has always felt accepted at St. Michael. A one-time singer with the Dallas Opera, he said he converted to the Episcopal faith in part because of his love of music.
"When we were looking for a church home we were welcomed both in the pews and by the clergy" at St. Michael, he said.
Before that, he tried Cathedral of Hope, the largest gay church in America. It wasn't a good fit.
"I went to St. Michael because, like anyone, I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself," he said. "I don't want to harp on the gay issue. There is so much else to do."
The mother
Laura Allen was a lay deputy to the Minneapolis convention. Unlike her rector, she voted against Bishop Robinson. She believes that practicing homosexuality is a sin. Still, she has no intention of leaving St. Michael, her parish "through weal and woe" for 43 years.
"I want to stay and stand for what I believe," she said in a soft voice strained with emotion.
For her, the debate over homosexuality is a personal one. She said she was "deeply wounded" when her youngest son, a former St. Michael choir member, revealed that he was gay. She cradled him in her arms as he died of AIDS in 1991.
The bishop
The head of the Dallas diocese, Bishop James Stanton, remains a leading critic of Bishop Robinson's consecration. A former head of the conservative American Anglican Council, he believes that having a gay bishop contradicts centuries of Christian teachings. He said the faction of the church that approved of Bishop Robinson's election rushed to prevail in Minneapolis. He likened the process to a vestry's deciding on a plan for a new building.
"If one half of the vestry, one large group of the vestry, said we want a very traditional church and the others said we want a very modern church, you'd talk that out and come to an agreement before you started doing anything," the bishop said.
"But when one side said, well, we've had enough talk, ... if you had people going out and buying bricks and mortar and putting up the church of their dreams, the other side would not look kindly on that," he said. "And that's kind of where we are.
"What we see at St. Michael's we see reflected at the national level, we see it reflected in the international Anglican community. There are deep divisions over this matter, and people are in deep inner turmoil about whether they can belong to the church."
Later this month, a church in his diocese will host a national meeting of conservatives who want to replace the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion.
The doctor
Thomas H. McConnell is an admirer and friend of Father Anschutz. He supports Bishop Robinson's consecration while recognizing that some of his friends at St. Michael are "very, very distressed about this." The 66-year-old pathologist and former paratrooper calls himself a "rock-ribbed" conservative on fiscal and foreign policy – and just about everything else. But not on the question of homosexuality.
"Everything that I know about biology and medicine says to me that homosexuality is very strongly genetically influenced. Therefore it is not a moral choice," he said. "That's the end of the argument for me."
He quoted a bedrock Episcopalian belief, saying that one's faith must rest on a "three-legged stool" of Scripture, tradition and reason.
And just as the Episcopal Church survived the ordination of women, he said, it will survive this.
"I expect us to respectfully disagree, on the death penalty, on abortion, on divorce. And yet we go right down the same aisle together to the communion rail," he said.
The rector
On the St. Michael Web site, he calls himself, simply, "your friend, Mark." The 59-year-old with the boyish smile is noted for his energy, charisma and accessibility. Even those who criticize his handling of the Robinson matter praise Father Anschutz for invigorating the church. Since becoming rector in 1996, he's encouraged people at St. Michael to reach out to the sick in Uganda, to the homeless in Dallas, and to youths seeking vocations in ministry.
His father was an Episcopal priest. So was his grandfather. So is his daughter.
Father Anschutz grew up in Washington, D.C., and was nominated to become bishop there in 2001 but wasn't selected in the end.
Some at St. Michael say he is a talented rector who nevertheless has sometimes seemed out of place in Dallas. He is an avid sailor far from the sea, and a Democrat in a heavily Republican state. Aside from oblique references to the importance of being neighborly and the perils of narrow-mindedness, he has not brought up the the fight over Bishop Robinson in sermons. He's asked the St. Michael clergy not to comment to the press, according to one clergy member, explaining why he couldn't be interviewed.
Eventually, a group of concerned parishioners forced the rector to explain his thinking on the matter in nearly a dozen small gatherings in the church library and one lively "town hall" meeting. According to people who attended, Father Anschutz said the New Hampshire diocese had a right to select the bishop it wanted. (When pressed, those people said, he conceded that he, too, believed a gay man could be bishop.) The meetings were occasionally punctuated by applause and catcalls.
Mr. Sartain, the attorney, said he likes Father Anschutz, but that the rector – and other church leaders – share responsibility for the current troubles.
"I think the church would have been better advised to talk about it beforehand and bring along the rank-and-file Episcopalians," he said.
Others, however, said no one should have expected such a bold change in church life to be easy.
"What he did was in many ways a brave and prophetic stand," said the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, a national organization of gay and lesbian Episcopalians.
"It's another step forward for the church," she said. "And when you make such a step ... unfortunately, you're going to leave some folks behind."
Bishop Stanton said he remains hopeful that the Anglican Communion will heal. "If I had had any doubts about the future of the church or the ministry, I wouldn't be ordaining people at this point," he said.
Mrs. Allen, too, has faith. "I know we're going to get past this, I just don't know what it's going to look like," she said.
E-mail gkovach@dallasnews.com
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... nor was it a gay time for happy people.
:)
Back in the 60s, cowardly American liberal/socialist/communists students dodged the draft by enrolling in seminaries. Under the cover of the cloth they found they didn't have to produce anything and were totally unaccountable for their actions. These parasites now are in the upper reaches of their churches' hierarchies. And they are determined to shove their twisted political philosophy, e.g. homosexuality, down the throats of normal righteous Americans.
Until congregations admit their self-annointed leadership is evil and take back their churches, they will remain bewildered and heartbroken.
I have seen and heard enough leftists calling themselves conservatives (even on local radio talk shows, only to be quickly found out) to understand, if for no other reason, that the Left has a very different definition for "truth" (and guess what? it's highly mutable).
And the question isn't even about "homosexuality" (orientation), it's about homosexual practice/
If this guy calls himself "a rock-ribbed conservative" and then cites the "three-legged stool," he's (take your choice) :
- poorly-educated,
- a fool,
or a liar.
My guess is his "end of the argument" is still to come...
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