What happened yesterday in the House of Deputies?

According to many, not much. According to some, full steam toward Anglican Schism. It depends who you read.

A resolution was passed (D025) by wide margins in the House of Deputies that was clearly understood to be a compromise. It intends, according to the committee that wrote its final form, to do nothing more than state the truth of where we are and what are practice is and has been. It states that we have many partnered gay and lesbian clergy in the Episcopal Church, and that the Episcopal Church does not intend to change that. It states that our constitution specificially forbids automatically closing down an ordination process because of a candidate’s orientation. (Our constitution actually doesn’t speak to whether a person is partnered or not.) It does not mention B033 at all.

During the debate on the floor, a number of folks asked the parliamentarian whether or not this resolution had the effect of repealing B033. There was no clear answer. Apparently the resolution’s ambiguity is intentional. At least you can say that the House of Deputies acted to pass that resolution fully aware that it was ambiguous. In fact, ambiguity was part of the appeal to a number of conservative voters, at least according to what they told me. They didn’t support the resolution in principle, but they could live with it.

It is an honest attempt to express where the Episcopal Church is at the moment. Which is that the Episcopal Church is living in an ambiguous moment in its life where the tension created by lack of clarity is something that is being embraced rather than rejected.

I voted for it. It is to my mind honest.

Reading online this morning I see that people are already projecting onto its lack of specificity whatever ever they are desiring. Some authors and some in the Church of England are claiming that this action represents a “thumbing of the nose” at the Communion by the House of Deputies. If that’s what this is, then truth be told, it’s pretty weak sauce. This resolution is explicit in stating the Episcopal Church’s desire to be a full participant in the life of the Communion. It does, admittedly, express the Episcopal Church’s full resolve however to not move to repeal the progress made thus far on the question of the full inclusion of Gay and Lesbian Christians.

I see other voices, in the LGBT community, who see this as yet another half-assed compromise that is a form of appeasement toward those for whom no appeasement has yet to have been enough. For them, if this is a repeal of B033, it’s pretty thin gruel. I have to admit that I think they have some validity for their frustration. As written, it’s a compromise and not the ringing rejection they hoped for, and certainly there’s no sense of apology to the LBGT community.

Other voices in the LBGT community are delighted with the passage, and heartned at the strong margins that the voters on the floor delivered. They are willing to live into what is possible in democratic processes and hear the Episcopal Church’s resolve to not back down any further at the very least, and to be willing to edge forward a bit more. (Which I believe is a fair reading of the language.)

All of this is going to be moot of course depending on what the House of Bishops decideds to do with the legislation. If they do not pass it, it’s dead. If they ammend it, it’s probably going to face a difficult passage back through the House of Deputies. It’s really going to be up to them to pass it unammended if there is going to be a unambigious ambiguous response…

The sense here at Convention is that no one can tell what the Bishops will do. Many of them are in favor of moving on this resolution and some are dissappointed that this resolution doesn’t go further. But watch over the next couple of days to see how the ambiguity of the resolution is spun in the press. If the press and the blogsphere, in their pursuit of a good summer conflict story, decide to claim that D025 represents a repudiation of 2006-B033, then the chances of D025 passing the House of Bishops drop significantly. I’m told the bishops are not going to send that sort of a signal to the Communion. If the press and others are able to see D025 as the compromise it was understood to be by so many in the House of Deputies, perhaps it will have a chance of passing.

Funny thing that D025’s passage depends not on what it says at the moment, but on what people say that it represents.

But that’s the way things have been for a while now in the Anglican Communion. We’re not actually reading with a hermenuetic of charity what each other is saying, we’re reading it with the lens of what the blogsphere decides was meant.
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Won’t conservatives overseas treat Do25 as a rebuff to Communion? You nearly admit such by saying,

[regarding the status of LGBT]...hear(ing) the Episcopal Church’s resolve to not back down any further at the very least, and to be willing to edge forward a bit more. (Which I believe is a fair reading of the language.)

If “edging forward a bit more” is a fair reading, then why not openly repeal Bo33? The end result is the same? My guess: Conservative Anglicans in Lambeth won’t miss this “fair reading” and “edging forward” and act accordingly.

Nicholas:

We’re not actually reading with a hermenuetic of charity what each other is saying, we’re reading it with the lens of what the blogsphere decides was meant.

But with the way that the PB, Bruno, et.al. have used and cynically abused language over the past several years, it certainly seems to me to be prudent and wise to be very suspicious about any ambiguous resolution that GenCon would pass if there is a potential interpretation to it that could be abused.  We are to be innocent as doves, yet wise as serpents.

This lack of “charity”, as you call it, simply seems to be another sign of the complete absence of trust that exists right now in TEC.  We have had example after example of our PBs saying one thing, then doing another; of diocesan bishops denying something was happening in their diocese the day after that very thing was being publicly done with their permission.  My question, Nicholas, is why WOULDN’T we look at this sort of GenCon resolution with skepticism and suspicion???

This resolution is explicit in stating the Episcopal Church’s desire to be a full participant in the life of the Communion.

I think that the Communion is tired of TEC’s words, and when I read this kind of “desire”, I immediately look for the “but” that is sure to follow.

Perhaps before you ask others to accept TEC’s words as being honestly meant, you work to ensure that TEC speaks honestly for awhile first.

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, which call is tested through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church;

What is ambiguous about this?

Charlie:  I would suggest to you that to the Anglican Communion, TEC leaders will say “We affirm that God calls these folks to ministry, but we as a church will not consecrate them bishops for now out of deference to the Communion”; then in terms of internally within TEC, TEC leaders will say “We affirm that God calls these folks to ministry, so go ahead and consider them, and we’ll deal with the consequences when the next GLBT candidate is elected bishop”.

James, that sounds like a likely interpretation. Or alternately: “Integrity, we didn’t say we wouldn’t consider homosexual bishops.”

Integrity’s spin, as it happens: “In a special session today, the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church approved a resolution, 151 to 66, which effectively overrides the three-year ban on gay bishops within the church.”

Charlie:  I would suggest to you that to the Anglican Communion, TEC leaders will say “We affirm that God calls these folks to ministry, but we as a church will not consecrate them bishops for now out of deference to the Communion”; then in terms of internally within TEC, TEC leaders will say “We affirm that God calls these folks to ministry, so go ahead and consider them, and we’ll deal with the consequences when the next GLBT candidate is elected bishop”.

This will no doubt happen.

The question is, will someone call out that the emperor is naked?

C056 removes a lot of ambiguity.

Charlie:  But you know that to the Anglican Communion, TEC’s leadership will say “Surely it is clear that no same-sex blessing or marriage liturgies have been authorized!  We are merely considering possibilities for 3 years from now.  And nowhere are ‘pastoral responses’ not permitted.  So we are fully in compliance with all Windsor requests.”

And internally, TEC’s leadership will say “Heh, go ahead and start those same-sex blessing and marriage liturgies as part of your ‘pastoral responses’.  After all, why would we authorized different ‘pastoral responses’ depending on state law, or why would we have included a conscience clause protecting clergy from being required to perform liturgies?”

It will be interesting to see if the HoB signs on and what the reaction will be from Rowan Williams and the Communion.

Dean Knisely,

As I said in my comment on Fr. Martins’ thread earlier, I don’t expect a reply anytime soon—you folks are busy.  Hopefully this thread (or the other one) will turn into a fuller conversation after Convention is done.  Anyhow, here’s my question: If this resolution, as you said, “goes forward a bit more,” where does it go?  All the talk earlier was about not explicitly repudiating B033, but instead “going beyond” it and saying “where we are now.”  And where we are now, by that logic, is somewhere “beyond” our former position.  Correct?  So, doesn’t that mean that we’re no longer in the same period of “restraint” as we were before?

By the language of the resolution, it would seem that we’ve now said that we’re not to restrain ourselves by anything other than our Constitution and Canons, which themselves of course do not mandate “restraint” in the discernment and ordination process toward persons in same-sex partnerships.  Which is, then, quite precisely to move “beyond” the position of B033.

As I commented below Fr. Martins’ post, I just don’t see what the purpose of the resolution was if not for that.  Clearly it represents a change from our previous position; otherwise, why go to the trouble of passing it?  If I were charged with electing or giving consent to a bishop, it would seem to me that this resolution would direct me to consider candidates in same-sex relationships no differently than any other candidates.  Is that not the point of the resolution?  If not, what is?

Thanks much for your hard work! 

Jordan