"Which Way" All of Us?

I don't speak that much about the human sexuality issue that some might think is THE issue for the Anglican Communion these days. I think this is for two basic reason--one good and one less good. The "good" one is that homosexuality deep down doesn't bother me. I have no problem with an openly homosexual bishop in New Hampshire; in fact, some of the things he says and some of his responses to the meanness dealt out by others to him is a model we should all seek to follow. I have no issues with same sex marriages and I certainly don't feel that my marriage is threatened because of it.

The "less good" reason is that, while I see no reason to treat gay and lesbian people any differently, when I hear or read of it happening, I don't get outraged as I should, probably because at a superficial level part of me says, "It doesn't affect me." And there I am wrong. As the English poet (and Anglican priest!) John Donne wrote (I knew English Lit in 74-75 would be useful),

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

Any mistreatment of my fellow men and women diminishes me, to put Donne's words into a modern context, "because I am involved in mankind." To put it in a more directly religious context, when I renew my Baptismal Covenant, I promise to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and [to] respect the dignity of every human being." Obviously, I still have some work to do with myself.

This is a long introduction to a post I am copying from "Telling Secrets", a blog you can see listed on the right by Elizabeth Keaton, an Episcopal priest from New Jersey, who is currently in England observing the Lambeth Conference. The post speaks for itself and perhaps you can see why it pierced the comfortable haze that can blind me sometimes on this issue.

Which Way Africa?



I love this picture because I have come to love the women in it.

Queen is the woman sitting on the left and Rose is the woman sitting on the right. Both women are from Nigeria, here with Davis Mac-Iylla.

I'm asking for prayers, right now, for Rose Ngeri. As I write this, she is up on the Campus of the University of Kent, trying to meet as many African bishops and their wives as she possibly can.

I passed her this morning, standing in front of the wall in the Church yard, praying. There was no denying that she was in prayer. There was no ignoring the power of that moment of her prayer.

I had no idea that it would lead to her feeling called to an act that can only be described as prophetic, if not something that may place her in danger when she returns home to Nigeria.

A few hours later, I was asked to proof read a leaflet she had prepared. Her intention is to put this in the hands of every African bishop she meets today.

When I first read this, it brought me to tears. As I just typed them into my computer, I found my hands trembling. I knew I had to share them with you.

One other preface: When Michael, who acted as her scribe, asked her if she was not putting herself in no small amount of danger, she said, with no discernible alarm in her voice, that we must understand that when the sexual orientation of gay men becomes known, they are tortured and/or killed.

What becomes of lesbian women, she was asked.

Oh, she said, they just send men to rape us. But, she added, deeply distressed, gay men are tortured and killed.

Here are her own words to her bishops and their wives:

"The Lambeth Conference, to me, is a place where you meet Bishops and people from all walks of life to share different views about lots of things we see and hear.

I gather that LGBT are welcome in the House of God by some people . . yet, denied the right of place in the same house of God by others.

Please, our African spiritual fathers, let us have a place in our churches. REMEMBER, WE WERE BORN OF YOUR FATHERS, MOTHERS, SISTERS, AUNTIES, COUSINS AND NEICES.

Our mothers did not ask for this group of children. Rather it is the content of the man deposited in the woman that came out the same way it is made by God.

African leaders keep passing laws against LGBT. Please, if I may ask, what crime have we committed?

Mothers, will you fold your arms and let your children die through torture? Why can't you ask them what crime your children have committed before they kill more of your children?

How long should we keep quiet about issues like this?

Which way Africa?"

Please take a moment from whatever it is you are doing and pray, right now, for Rose Ngeri.

Thank you.

Posted by Elizabeth Kaeton

Which way, indeed, for all of us?

Wheat or Weeds?

[Our readings were Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 86:11-17, Romans 8: 12-25, and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.]

“Let anyone with ears Listen!” What wonderful words to hear right before a sermon!

In our reading from Genesis, we have the story of Jacob going to sleep and using a stone for a pillow. I recently heard a recording of a sermon by our Presiding Bishop where she said that it was not only amazing that Jacob could sleep on a stone, but that he could sleep at all, considering the evil things he had done! But there, despite all this, Jacob does sleep and he has a dream in which God promises that land for Jacob and his offspring, who “shall be like the dust of the earth.”

While God is making this promise, Jacob sees a ladder stretching from the earth up to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. Over 30 years ago, I had the chance to see this visualized on the West Front of the Abbey Church of St. Peter in Bath, England. There, carved in the stone walls, are two ladders with the figures of angels on them. Some of the angels are upside-down, with their heads closest to the ground. As our guide explained to us, how else could you show in stone that angels are descending?

Jacob’s ladder has an important meaning to him and to us. That ladder which connects heaven and earth is there for us. It connects humanity with heaven. When we say we want to be part of the Kingdom of God or heaven, we are claiming the role of the angels in Jacob’s dream as we connect the world in which we live with heaven at the other end.

Climbing is hard work. In this case, it involves doing things to bring God’s love to the world. When we do things which support the Millennium Development Goals, we climb that ladder. This Thursday, the bishops of the Anglican Communion and their spouses, along with other religious, will march through the heart of London to urge our governments to live up to our promises to fulfill these goals. But they do not march alone. We will be with them in spirit, and even more, as God told Jacob in his dream, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

God’s choice of Jacob has another meaning to us. We sometimes think of those whom God calls as being different, more holy perhaps, than the vast majority of humanity. God’s choosing Jacob shows that this is not so. If God were looking for a perfect person, He probably would not have chosen Jacob, who did some pretty despicable things to his brother Esau. Most of us would have probably decided that Jacob wasn’t good enough.

That leads us to Jesus’ parable of the weeds. I have never planted wheat, but I can visualize the problem. In the early stages of growth, the wheat and weeds are indistinguishable to the human eye and their roots are intertwined. If we do what the householder’s slaves suggested and try to pull the weeds up now, we’ll pull up the wheat and the weeds. The thing to do is wait for the harvest, when the harvester will be able to separate safely the weeds from the wheat and only the weeds will be destroyed.

There are a lot of people these days who are willing to do the sorting now. In the Anglican Communion, we have people, some of them in high places who claim the ability to tell the wheat from the weeds right now based on gender or orientation or many other characteristics. But we aren’t called to be weeders. That’s God’s job. If we try, and some are willing, we’ll pull up a lot of wheat. If God can wait until the harvest, why can’t we wait?

Churches aren’t called to be museums for saints, but hospitals for sinners. If we try to purge every sinner out of the Church, we’ll be like the congregation that purged itself down to the last couple. “Only John and I are left,” said Alice, “and I don’t know about him.” Instead, let us trust in God’s ability to choose, not ours.

Christians in Government

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

An exchange of e-mails yesterday with Bruce Garner, a member of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council along with several others posted on the House of Bishops-Deputies mail list got me thinking on this subject.

The immediate incident which brought this up was the case of Lillian Ledele, a registrar in the Borough of Islington, whose job is to perform marriage ceremonies (I assume among other duties), as well as now same sex partnership ceremonies which are now legal under English law. She asked to be excused from performing same sex ceremonies because she said her "orthodox Christian beliefs" caused her to conclude such ceremonies were wrong. There are other registers who can perform the services. The Islington Borough Council began disciplinary procedures and she appealed to the Central London Employment Tribunal. The Tribunal concluded that the Council discriminated against her on the basis of religion.

A couple of things are unclear in the story on her case in The Independent. First, did she actually refuse to perform the services or did she just ask if other registers could do them? I see nothing wrong with her asking and, if an accommodation can be made without impeding the efficiency of the Register's Office, for example, by keeping each register's workload at about the same level, allowing it. But the article sounds as if she has an actual right to refuse, no matter the impact.

This bothers me as a lawyer and as a civil servant, which I have been for over 22 years. At the beginning of this story is the oath of office all Federal officers and employees take (except for the President, whose oath is in the Constitution). Nowhere does it say I am to support the doctrine of the Episcopal Church or any other church.

My job is to implement the policies of the Administration in office at the time as long as they are consistent with the law. Whether or not I agree with them or like them isn't the point. Whether or not I think they are consistent with my religious beliefs is also besides the point. No one elected me to push my personal positions.

Similarly, Ms. Ledele wasn't elected to make subjective calls on whether people of the same sex should be able to enter into civil partnerships; that decision was made by the Government backed by a majority of the House of Commons who was elected to make those decisions.

For example, I am opposed for several reasons, some religious in nature, to capital punishment. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has said repeatedly that under the right circumstances, the death penalty is constitutional. If they said it, it is constitutional. If my job required me to argue in favor of capital punishment (thank God it doesn't!), I would have these choices:

1. Argue for capital punishment, recognising that my job is not to put forward my own opinions, but to advocate the position of the United States.
2. Ask to be excused from the case because I could not faithfully represent that position.
3. Resign my position.

Obviously, if I got turned down on #2, I'd have to choose between 1 and 3. Ugh. But nowhere do I see a right to use my Government position to advance my position in opposition to capital punishment. It may be that English law grants Ms. Ledele a right I lack. I suggest that isn't a good thing.

Assume my job allowed me to perform marriages in the State of Georgia. My role is to see that the people coming before me meet the requirements of law, not my own requirements. What if my beliefs said people of different races must not be married? What about a restriction to having only one spouse at a time? What if I don't believe there should be a minimum age?

This isn't new. A few years ago, Roy Moore, then the Chief Justice of Alabama, argued that his religious beliefs allowed him to post the Ten Commandments (actually one version of the Commandments, but that's another story) on State property. He lost, and when he refused to comply with the law, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him from office. And they were right. What if instead of the Ten Commandments, it was a religious document of Islam? In our system, the Government can't make that distinction.

Campaign Against Torture

As a retired Air Force reserve lawyer, our breaking the rules on torture are particularly irksome to me. Here's a letter of mine published in today's Macon Telegraph:

Seven basic reasons to ban torture

Your recent series on the abuses at Guantanamo was disappointing, not because you reported it, but because of what you had to report. The unquestioned abusive tactics our government used there and in other places did not make us safer, damaged our standing in the world, and may even someday contribute to abuses of captured U.S. service members.

Policies that permit torture do not reflect the values of the America I am proud to call home and which I served as an Air Force Reserve officer for 28 years. Moreover, security experts and military leaders agree that the use of torture does not result in actionable intelligence. It is time for those of us who reject policies that degrade our values to make our voices heard.

The National Religious Campaign against Torture, Evangelicals for Human Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture have crafted a Declaration of Principles that calls for a Presidential Executive Order banning torture and cruelty. The Declaration offers a blueprint for executive action by delineating core principles of humane treatment which can serve as a basis for a new standard for U.S. interrogation policy that is sensible and humane - a standard that allows us to effectively defend our homeland from terrorists while preserving America's values. With public support, the president can move towards restoring America's moral standing in the world.

There are seven basic reasons to ban torture: To preserve our character and values, to ensure reliable, actionable intelligence, to protect U.S. soldiers serving overseas, to strengthen U.S. standing in the world, to encourage military and intelligence cooperation from key allies, to allow prosecution of terror suspects, and to preserve the universal condemnation of torture.

These organizations are made up of many faith groups, including The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist General Board, and numerous Roman Catholic organizations. Please visit www.campaigntoban torture.org and join the call to end to torture.

Religion Can Be Good for Your Health!

A story on the Science Daily web site reports that a community's religious environment has an impact on mortality rates in the community.

Troy Blanchard, an associate professor of sociology at LSU, said that the type of church seems to make a difference and that people live longer in areas with a large number of Catholic and Mainline Protestant churches.

"First, these types of churches have what's known as a 'worldly perspective.' Instead of solely focusing on the afterlife, they place a significant emphasis on the current needs of their communities," he said. These religions commonly organize outreach efforts for the needy and homeless, invest in the health infrastructures of their town and participate in other forms of public charity.

"Secondly, these congregations tend to create bridging ties in communities that lead to greater social cohesion among citizens," said Blanchard. This enhanced sense of connection between people provides collective encouragement for healthy behavior.

"In contrast to Catholics and Mainline Protestant congregations, Conservative Protestant churches have a mixed effect on community health. The 'otherworldly' character of Conservative Protestantism leads congregations in this tradition to focus on the afterlife. Conservative Protestantism is also a more individualistic faith, one in which the believer's personal relationship with God is paramount. These types of churches are thought to downplay the importance of using collective action, including human institutions, to improve the world. Communities dominated by Conservative Protestant churches tend to have higher mortality rates."

As summed up by co-author John Bartkowski from the University of Texas at San Antonio, "The religious environment in communities throughout America really is a matter of life and death."

It really does matter where you go!

America

[This Sunday, we commemorated our nation's independence. The lessons were Deuteronomy 10:17-21, Hebrews 11:8-16, and Matthew 5:43-48.]

As we commemorate the 232nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should recall a unique aspect of that new Government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These words from the Declaration of Independence had a new idea—that all men (and women) are created equal and that their rights come from God, not an earthly King. We know, of course, that our ancestors did not always live up to these ideals. Nor do we today. Being human, they sinned and fell short. Women were not considered “equal” to men. Some men and women were so unequal that we treated them as mere property. We fell short and still fall short today. But the ideals remain, calling us to be better than ourselves, speaking to what President Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

Some people question whether a commemoration of Independence Day is appropriate in the context of our liturgy. In fact prayers and readings for that day were not provided in the Book of Common Prayer until 1928! Some are concerned that many of the hymns may sound as if we claim that God is on our side. (I am reminded, though, of Lincoln’s statement that he was less concerned whether God was on our side than with whether we were on God’s side!) Others express concerns whether prayers which celebrate freedom and liberty are appropriate when they seem to overlook the imperfections in our society.

These concerns have some validity, but I believe that we can and should properly celebrate those early faltering steps on the road to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” while also recalling that we have not even approached the end of that journey and that we must not forget that we must at times go back to make sure no one has been left behind on the journey.

We can be proud of many things our country represents. We have worked through these two-plus centuries to extend freedom to all our people and we have worked—again, imperfectly—to support the cause of freedom throughout the world. Our country has truly been a beacon of liberty to the world, drawing millions of people—my ancestors and yours—over the years to our shores.

But there is so much still to do. This year, we seem to be afraid of so much. We are afraid of those who are different from us, so we seek to build walls around our country and our communities and we have people seeking large scale roundups of immigrants, especially Hispanics, to ship them somewhere else out of fear that we will otherwise suffer culturally and economically.

We are rightly called a nation of immigrants. I’m reminded of the story of a woman who was proud of her heritage and at a dinner party told a man, “My ancestors came over on the Mayflower!” He smiled and said, “How wonderful! Mine met the boat.”

Unless you are pure native American, you are here because people made decisions to leave their homes and make often dangerous journeys to this land. (For some, unfortunately, the decision was made for them and against their will.) Their welcome was uncertain, often depending on where they came from and when they came. But, we are here because of them.

Immigrants have served this country well, even when it may not have deserved that service. Some of the fiercest fighters on our side in World War II were the Japanese-American units whose families were in internment camps back home. Acts of valor were committed by the descendents of slaves who returned home to find it was the color of their skin—not the color of the uniform they wore—that was important. Arlington National Cemetery contains the remains of some of these “strangers” who gave that “last full measure of devotion” for a country that had yet to fully accept them.

Remember, as our Presiding Bishop has said,

As Christians, we are called to embrace the stranger, to render hospitality to those who are most vulnerable, and to find Christ in all who come to us in need. We are commanded to love our neighbors as God loves us. We have promised at baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons. Therefore we share the pain of those workers being rounded up by our government for lack of legal status. Their families are experiencing the pain of separation and uncertainty, and untold hardship is being inflicted upon those struggling to support themselves and their families in a land which often wants their labor but denies them basic human dignity. As their brothers and sisters, we are diminished by their suffering.

Out of fear of terrorism, we act as a nation in ways that stand in stark contrast to the values we profess to honor. You may have seen the recent series in the Macon newspaper on how those imprisoned at Guantanamo have been treated. Setting aside for a moment whether "enhanced interrogation procedures"—otherwise known as torture—are effective (and most professionals say they aren’t), there is little doubt that that they violate the “dignity of every human being” which we promise to respect in our Baptismal Covenant.

But, not all is dark. Even with its flaws, our nation is still a beacon to the world. (In fact, that is why many in the world are so upset with how we have in their eyes betrayed their ideal image of America!) But, I can say what I am saying today without any fear of punishment. In November, I can vote as I choose without fear of beatings, starvation, or death, unlike the unhappy people of Zimbabwe. I can worship as I choose (or not!), without fear of a religious police!

Everywhere you turn there are examples of men and women doing what they can to bring the Kingdom of God into being. Faith groups, including our own Episcopal Relief and Development, are helping victims of natural disasters in our Midwestern states as well as the victims of Katrina three years ago. The One Vote campaign, which is supported by The Episcopal Church, works to unite Americans of all parties in the effort to eliminate extreme poverty, one of the Millennium Development Goals. We are called to do these things and more.

To conclude, I want to quote some more words of Abraham Lincoln, from his second inaugural address. With some slight changes of wording to reflect our times, they are a pretty good statement of where we should go:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.