Subscribe to Christianity Today
Subscribe to Christianity Today
Donate to Christianity Today
login | my account
February 13, 2012

Home > 2000 > August 7Christianity Today, August 7, 2000
Episcopal Church: No Balm in Denver
Episcopalians defer debate over same-sex blessings for another three years.

Liberal Episcopalians lost a battle over symbols in trying to persuade the denomination that homosexual couples deserve the same pastoral blessings as married heterosexuals.When the Episcopal Church's General Convention last met in Denver in 1979, it declared that ordaining active homosexuals (or heterosexuals engaging in nonmarital sex) as clergy was inappropriate.Liberal activists, including Episcopal priests and bishops, have tried to reverse that decision ever since. In recent years, activists have added the cause of winning the church's pastoral blessing on homosexual couples.At this year's General Convention in Denver, a committee of bishops and deputies proposed that the church prepare rites to "support relationships of mutuality and fidelity other than marriage which mediate the grace of God."Three bishops on the committee dissented, expressing concern that the resolution's language gave equal weight to marital and nonmarital relationships.An earlier proposal from the church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) urged that individual dioceses decide whether to ordain active homosexuals as clergy or to bless same-sex couples. (Critics call the notion "local option.")But that resolution met with widespread distrust. Conservatives considered it too permissive and liberals considered it too weak. The conservative American Anglican Council (AAC) published Mixed Blessings, a 56-page critique of the proposal.On the left, folk singer Judy Collins abruptly canceled her participation in a concert to raise funds for the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. In a news release on July 6, Collins said she considered the SCLM's proposal for local option "tantamount to accepting and supporting discrimination."

This article is currently available to CT subscribers only. To continue reading:




Christianity Today


  


Subscribe to Christianity Today and get 3 free trial issues. No credit card required.

Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only.

If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The three trial issues are yours to keep, regardless.


Click here for international orders2-for-1 Gifts!

You must be a Christianity Today subscriber or have created a FREE registration to post comments
[Browse More Christianity Today]



Search
Search
Search
Scripture Search
Go Deeper

Books & Culture
Christianity Today
Church Law & Tax Report
Church Finance Today
Leadership Journal
Men of Integrity
Kyria.com
ChristianityTodayLibrary.com
PreachingToday.com