Last week, the Episcopal Church considered two prominent measures regarding gay and lesbian couples and clergy at its General Convention. The church lifted a de facto moratorium on ordaining gay and lesbian bishops, and voted to give bishops wide latitude with regard to local clergy blessing same-sex unions, particularly in states where same-sex marriage is legal, authorizing them to provide a “generous pastoral response” to gay and lesbian couples.”

These measures were largely responses to rapidly changing public opinion and shifts in the political landscape on gay and lesbian issues. For example, when the Episcopal Church General Convention last met in 2006, same-sex marriages were legal in only one state, Massachusetts; just three short years later, same-sex marriages are legal in six states, each with sizable Episcopal populations.

Despite explicit affirmations expressing the desire to stay in “deep communion” with the wider Anglican Church, several prominent conservative Anglican leaders in other parts of the world have accused the American church of choosing to “walk apart” from the wider community. While it is difficult to measure the accuracy of those assertions, a recent nationwide study of Episcopal clergy makes one thing clear: the American General Convention is not walking apart from the opinion of its own clergy. According to the Clergy Voices Survey conducted by Public Religion Research,* Episcopal clergy strongly support both the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy and performing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.

First, Episcopal clergy are highly supportive of the idea that “God has called and may call” to ministry gays and lesbians in committed lifelong relationships.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of Episcopal clergy say that gays and lesbians should be eligible for ordination without special requirements. About 1-in-4 (23%) say that only celibate gay and lesbian people should be eligible for ordination, and only 5% say gay and lesbian people should not be eligible at all.

The views of Episcopal clergy are largely consistent with the views of clergy from most mainline denominations. Among clergy in the seven largest mainline Protestant denominations, all but two register majority or plurality support for ordaining gay and lesbian clergy with no special requirements. Episcopal clergy express stronger support than every other denomination except the United Church of Christ (UCC). Among the two denominational exceptions (two of the larger mainline Protestant denominations), United Methodist and American Baptist clergy, only 33% and 28% respectively support ordination of gays and lesbians. Overall, 46% of mainline Protestant clergy say that gays and lesbians should be eligible for ordination without any special requirements.

Second, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, Episcopal clergy disagree with the statement, “Even if it were legal, I would not be willing to perform a civil union or marriage for a same-sex couple” (59% disagree vs. 31% agree). As a matter of general policy, nearly half (49%) of Episcopal clergy support same-sex marriage, 37% support civil unions for same-sex couples, and only 13% say there should be no legal recognition for same-sex relationships. Episcopal clergy are also strongly supportive of other rights for LGBT families and individuals, such as adoption rights, hate crimes laws, and workplace discrimination protections.

Like other mainline Protestant clergy, Episcopal clergy also report that their views on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues are evolving in more progressive directions. Close to half (48%) of Episcopal clergy report that their views on LGBT issues are more liberal today than they were a decade ago. About 4-in-10 (41%) say their views have not changed, and only 14% say they have become more conservative.

The Clergy Voices Survey also offers evidence that the evolution in the Episcopal Church is not merely driven by external changes. Fully 8-in-10 Episcopal clergy agree (56% strongly agree) that “the gospel message requires full inclusion of gay and lesbian members in the life of the church.” These new positions by the Episcopal church, allowing clergy to preside at the marriage ceremonies of their gay and lesbian parishioners and opening the way to ordination and all leadership roles for gay and lesbian clergy, can be seen as the result of the confluence of societal change, theological conviction, and the need, as one of the resolutions puts it, for a “generous” and “renewed pastoral response by this church.”
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By not polling Roman Catholics, the single largest group in the USA, the survey drastically undercuts its descriptive capacity for American religion as a whole (granted, this is stated at the bottom of the article, but the body of the article does not incline one to think that its authors really understand this fact).  In terms of American churches, these groups are also rather small - see the statistics at the Pew Forum for more details.  If one adds the statistics, we are looking at only about 10% of the church-going public.  What is more, these groups are for the most part shrinking.  Thus, it is an interesting survey, but why should I - or anyone else - really care?

Good observations Benjamin.  The other issue to consider is that while the proportion of those holding progressive/liberal views may have gone up in all the mainline denominations, this has occurred during the same period that there has been nothing less than an exodus out of those denominations.  Much of that exodus can, I believe, be explained 1) by the alienation that the generally more conservative laity felt from their clergy and denominational institutions over these and other issues and 2) the frustration of people on all sides with conflict in general.  So yes, in the end, why should anyone care about what the majority of Episcopalian clergy think when the denomination is declining at around 19,000 people a year (adding in births and assuming all the children stay, and not counting people who leave because of conflict) and the average age at ordination has continued to climb (at least the last time I checked).  Give us 30 years and none of our arguments over sexuality will mean a thing.

Craig Uffman - 23 July 2009 06:25 PM

Like other mainline Protestant clergy, Episcopal clergy also report that their views on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues are evolving in more progressive directions. Close to half (48%) of Episcopal clergy report that their views on LGBT issues are more liberal today than they were a decade ago. About 4-in-10 (41%) say their views have not changed, and only 14% say they have become more conservative.

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This sounds somewhat similar to the changing attitudes of the population in general.

I would like to build on Fr Jody’s comments. According to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), “Mainline denominations” (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian/Anglican, and United Church of Christ) “showed the greatest losses, declining sharply in numbers and dropping from 18.7 percent of the 1990 population to 12.9 percent today.” The survey’s authors wrote, “The historic mainline Christian churches have consistently lost market share since the 1950s, but since 2001 there has been a significant fall in numbers. The Methodists and Episcopalians have been particularly affected by losses. Much of this decline in mainline identification is due to the growing public preference for the generic ‘Christian’ response and the recent growth in the popularity of the ‘nondenominational Christian’ response.” [ARIS 2008, pt. 1A; Jane Lampman. “Survey Sees a Drift Away From Religion in America.” Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 10, 2009, at ]http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090310/ts_csm/areligion]

Given the numerical decline of mainline churches in the United States, some now refer to them as “sideline churches.” In short, we see that this clergy survey’s statistical “universe” is a shrinking group (now less than 13 percent of the U.S. population).

To me it appears that these “progressive” clergy are progressing downhill, along with their denominations.

In closing, I have two related questions:
(1) Will the downward progress of mainline churches accelerate or is it likely to stabilize at some point (e.g., before 5 percent)?
(2) Are the findings of this clergy survey likely to encourage orthodox believers to remain in their mainline church (e.g., TEC) or depart for other faith communities?

Dick Wire

The Public Religion Research poll is an interesting one. Baptist Press contacted us about it back in May and produced this story. Unsurprisingly, IRD takes issue with some of the ways the poll was conducted. It was funded with a grant from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which this past year gave out some sizable grants to Integrity and its other mainline counterparts, such as the Reconciling Ministries Network in the United Methodist Church.

Study called slanted regarding pro-homosexual mainline clergy
By Erin Roach
Baptist Press
May 22, 2009

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—Mainline Protestant clergy are generally more supportive of homosexual behavior than the broader population, according to a study released May 20 by Public Religion Research.

But a spokesman for the Institute on Religion & Democracy told Baptist Press the study is slanted and actually shows a significant divide among mainline clergy on the topic of “gay rights.”

If the survey had been of mainline members or if it had been of clergy from all Christian denominations, Alan Wisdom, IRD vice president for research and programs at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, said the responses would have been much more favorable to traditional Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality.

Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research, said in a news release, “Clergy in these denominations have wrestled with theological questions around sexuality and report that they’ve been moving toward more supportive positions on equal rights in society and full inclusion in the church.”

Mainline Protestants make up 18 percent of all Americans and nearly a fourth of all voters, PRR said. The survey included the seven largest mainline denominations: United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

PRR found that 67 percent of mainline clergy support hate crimes legislation, 66 percent support workplace protections for homosexuals and 55 percent support adoption rights for couples of the same gender. One-third support “gay marriage” and a similar number support civil unions.

Approval of “gay marriage” increases significantly when clergy are given assurance that churches won’t be required to perform same-sex ceremonies, PRR said. Also, 45 percent of those surveyed said they support the ordination of homosexuals.

Mainline clergy, the study reported, have become significantly more accepting of homosexual issues in recent years. Nearly half described their views as more liberal today than a decade ago.

Mark Coppenger, pastor of the Chicago-area Evanston Baptist Church, said what he has seen in his community tracks with the study’s findings.

“Evanston is a case in point. It was once a Methodist Zion, reflected in such street names as Wesley and Asbury, and on the Northwestern University seal, with portions of John 1:14 in Greek. But now the First Methodist Church sign proclaims their utter indifference to ‘sexual orientation,’ the Methodist Garrett-Evangelical Seminary and its near-dead, across-the-street sister, the Episcopal Seabury-Western Seminary, make ethical room for homosexuality.

“And the Methodists are not alone; other churches have displayed pink triangles, rainbows and words of assurance that homosexuality is fine with them,” Coppenger, a professor of Christian apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told BP.

“The last U.S. census showed Evanston to lead other Chicago suburbs in self-avowed gay households, and the Evanston United Way recently tossed out the Boy Scouts since they wouldn’t allow gay scoutmasters,” Coppenger added. “Not surprisingly, devotion to biblical inerrancy and responsible hermeneutics departed Evanston’s mainline churches years ago.”

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, said the survey is another tragic marker in the spiritual decline of America.

“When ‘Christian’ pastors adopt pro-homosexuality policies, they become complicit in society’s abandonment of God’s Word as a standard for Christian living,” LaBarbera told BP. “In fact, as supposed men of God, they especially will have to answer to the Lord as to why they chose worldly values over godly values.”

LaBarbera said the Bible calls homosexual acts an abomination, so the entire homosexual agenda is antithetical to God’s Word.

“The great tragedy of homosexuality being mainstreamed by pastors is that they have abandoned their role as God’s truth agents on earth,” LaBarbera said. “By celebrating people as homosexuals, they in effect celebrate sexual sin and deny Jesus Christ’s proven ability to rescue sinners from that sin.

“The only hope for America is that we return to a biblical standard of right and wrong and that the liberal mainline churches would continue to shrink, and Bible-believing churches would grow,” LaBarbera said.

Wisdom, of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, noted that the source of the study is far from neutral on the subject. Jones, PRR’s president and coauthor of the report, recently wrote a book titled “Progressive and Religious.”

“Jones held previous positions with the Center for American Progress (the unofficial think tank of the Obama administration) and People for the American Way (dedicated to attacking the ‘Religious Right’),” Wisdom said in a statement to BP.

“This survey was financed with a grant from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, a major supporter of gay and lesbian causes. The survey targeted an audience—mainline clergy—that would be likely to give the most pro-homosexuality responses,” Wisdom said.

A closer look at the survey results, he noted, reveals that only 29 percent of mainline clergy could be characterized as a supportive base committed to normalizing homosexuality and treating same-sex relations as morally equivalent to marriage.

An equal bloc of 30 percent of clergy surveyed are opposed to the homosexual agenda, Wisdom noted, and the balance lies within an “uncertain middle” of 41 percent who have conflicting views on the topic. PRR referenced the uncertain middle but emphasized the supportive base in its report.

“It seems as if there may be a parting of ways in the mainline,” Wisdom said, “with some going over to a thoroughgoing theological and sexual revisionism and others remaining more attached to historic Christian orthodoxy. There is good reason to believe that the largest number will end up in the latter camp, and the mainline will not become the base for gay liberation that PRR imagines it to be.”

Also, Wisdom said the attitudes of mainline clergy are far from identical to the views of the people in the pews who tend to be more conservative on a range of issues. He cited a PCUSA study as an example.

“The ministers, educated in mostly liberal seminaries and under the influence of the denomination’s mostly liberal leadership, are not at all in step with a membership that holds more traditional Christian views,” Wisdom said.

Even so, Wisdom said it’s not surprising that the mainline should be so divided on the issue of homosexuality because they are the part of the American church that is most open to influences from the wider culture.

“Those demands have found sympathetic responses from many leading mainline circles, which were already inclined toward ‘progressive’ and revisionist views on many other topics,” Wisdom said.

“But a spokesman for the Institute on Religion & Democracy told Baptist Press the study is slanted”.

That may very well be true. The only issue I have is with the IRD or Peter LaBarbera making accusations about a publication being “slanted” to suit the agenda of it’s authors or those who financed it’s publication. I am reminded of the old saying about “the pot calling the kettle black”.