The question posed by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered members of the church to the Anglican Communion is, how are you going to make room for us, for our spiritual journey, for our ministry, for those of us whom God has called and is calling into faith and service?
We are already present in the church. However, we are clearly not fully present. Our presence is fully welcomed and accepted in a few Provinces, tolerated in others and invisible in the majority of Provinces.
Where it is now legally possible, we are contracting Civil Partnerships and Marriages. Elsewhere we are creating relationships equivalent to marriage - loving, lifelong, faithful and monogamous.
We are present at every level of church ministry, lay and ordained, readers, deacons, priests, bishops and archbishops, celibate, single and partnered.
We are present across the whole Anglican Communion, LGBT people of faith, the majority of us invisible to and unrecognised by the church.
The attention of the Communion is absorbed by consideration of the Anglican Covenant, questions about church order, authority and doctrine and an obsession with homosexuality.
Our very presence demands an answer to the question we pose, a question that will never go away because we LGBT people will never go away. LGBT people will continue to be born and drawn into a life of faith by the Holy Spirit in OUR as yet unwelcoming Anglican Communion.
How IS the Anglican Communion going to make room for us? I know how the church is pragmatically making room for us in England and Wales, the USA and Canada, in South Africa and New Zealand. I know how the church is trying to deny room in Nigeria and Uganda, the Sudan and Kenya, the Southern Cone and South East Asia.
The conservative tactic has been to focus on the USA and Canada as the Provinces presenting the Communion with a problem. These Provinces present the Communion with a challenge, one which will engage every Province. LGBT people are in the midst of the church, woven invisibly into church life. We are constructing healthy, creative and holy lives in response to the call of God, inspired by political change in the secular world.
We are a minority in the church. We are caught in a trap. We cannot easily show the church how profoundly committed and faithful we are to God because the prejudice and hostility directed against us intimidates us into silence and invisibility.
How is the Anglican Communion graciously going to open herself and make room for us?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
OMG...you´ve gone and done *it* Reverend Coward! You´re writing about REAL PEOPLE at Church...what will ++Rowan say as he frowns and ponders ¨life style¨ frivolities (as if he knew anything about fashion trends/sexual ¨fads¨ in the first place...something/someone in pink? Lavender? Neon? Breast inplants anyone? Puffed up lips? Enhanced cheek bones?)...yup, you´ve done it, you´ve taken this claptrap nonsense to the lowest common denominator...TRUTH! Yikes, it´s so much easier than running off at the mouth endlessless about abominating faceless Gays at the Anglican Communion...hark, we´ve always been here sitting next to other Christians in the PEWS (and listening to endless nonsense about LGBT people) or serving at the alter in PLAIN VIEW!
ReplyDeleteReality just takes some getting used to. (I borrowed part of your comment and linked to the rest, hope it´s ok).
Leonardo