A Duty for the “Orthodox” if they decide to remain in the ECUSA? Dialogue between “The Network” and the “Gay” members of ECUSA

If The Network Bishops do not declare themselves out of communion with those bishops and dioceses where the innovatory sexuality is in sway, and if they have decided to stay within the Episcopal Church for as long as is possible, working and hoping for reform and renewal, then I suggest that they are duty-bound to engage in dialogue with the leaders of the “Gay” lobby. In fact, such a way forward has been recommended by the Lambeth Conference, Primates’ Meeting and other bodies.

But before the dialogue begins, I suggest that the representatives of the Network should read at least four documents: The Windsor Report; the submission of June 2005 of the Presiding Bishop’s theological team to the Anglican Consultative Council entitled, To Set Our Hope on Christ ; my response to it entitled, Same-Sex Affection…A Response to Presiding Bishop Griswold (available at http://www.anglicanmarketplace.com/ and from 1-800-727-1928), and the recent, substantial book, Gays and the Future of Anglicanism: responses to the Windsor Report ( edited by Andrew Linzey & Richard Kirker, O Books, New York, 2005, ISBN 1-905047-38-X).

The latter book has essays in it by over 20 well-known academics from the UK and the USA. Not all are homosexual persons but all believe that the time has arrived for such persons to be fully recognized in the Church. Further, all believe that the plans to centralize the Anglican Communion in the Windsor Report will destroy the Anglican Way as it has been known.

From my study and observations, it seems to me that a dialogue could take the following form. I offer it as a starter to serious discussion not as a final statement:

1. Agreement as to the authority of Scripture, the truth of the Creeds, the truth of the classic Anglican Formularies of the Province.
2. Agreement that sexual norms and relations are secondary doctrines in that they presuppose not only the great dogmas of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, but also the doctrines of revelation, creation, sin, salvation, redemption and sanctification.
3. Agreement that the two great commandments are to love God and to love the neighbor and that the Church is to obey the Great Commission to evangelize, teach and baptize.
4. Agreement that right now each Province is autonomous and has the right to make its own decisions before God, even as it is seeks advice from other Provinces, always attempting to stay in meaningful communion with them.
5. Agreement on the following areas of sexuality and human relations:
   (a) That God has made all of us in his image and after his likeness.
   (b) That God has made all of us to be in a right relation with him in order to serve and obey him in this life and the life to come.
   (c) That each of us is biologically a male or a female.
   (d) That it is possible that some of us have a sexual drive or orientation that is not wholly in accord with our biological make-up.
   (e) That each of us as a baptized child of God and with the help of the indwelling Spirit, is to remain chaste, avoiding all forms of fornication.
   (f) That isolated, irregular sexual intimacies with the same or opposite sex are sinful before God. Fornication and/or adultery are always sins.
   (g) That living-in arrangements between a man and a women, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, which are not within a clear, covenanted and blessed union are sinful, one aspect of fornication.
   (h) That the Scriptures and the Lord Jesus call for the union of a man and woman as one flesh for life in holy matrimony as that which is pleasing to God.
   (i) That serial monogamy and easy divorce and remarriage for church members as practiced in the ECUSA is not right or pleasing to God.
   (j) That God calls some people to a deliberate celibacy as a vocation before him.
   (k) That holy friendship between persons of the same sex can be wholly good.
6. Agreement that there is substantial disagreement in two areas: first, whether God calls all who do not marry to a life of purity and chastity with sexual abstinence; and second, whether God does bless faithful, covenanted unions of same-sex couples who genuinely seek to love God and service him.
   

If the Gay leadership were to hear from the Network leadership a genuine commitment to a traditional, biblical and high view of sexual relations then I do no doubt but that it would recognize that its “opponents” were changing, ready to abandon their own lax discipline in terms of pre-marital sex and remarriage of clergy and laity in church after divorce. Right now the Network leadership seems very hypocritical to the Gay leadership for it condemns same-sex partnerships while tolerating in its midst living-in arrangements by heterosexual couples and serial monogamy amongst clergy and laity.

If the Network leadership were to hear from the Gay leadership how they read and interpret Scripture, that they claim to use the same methods as those which led to the acceptance of women’s ordination, and that they believe that human experience testifies that same-sex covenanted unions can be blessed of God, then it may be more understanding & tolerant of this one and only one aspect of homosexuality – the possibility that some genuine, faithful, covenanted unions can and do exhibit signs of the love of God.

It is possible that this Dialogue will not achieve any specific resolutions and agreements. However, it will increase understanding and it should enable the Network to be clear as to why it will either stay in the ECUSA or leave it to attempt to form a new North American Province of the Anglican Communion of Churches.

A final comment. If The Network chooses to leave the ECUSA very soon, then it still needs to sort out its doctrine and practice of sexuality for there is some truth in the charge of hypocrisy made by the Gays in terms of the lax attitudes to heterosexual relations tolerated by the Network in its membership, its teaching and its pastoral practice.

petertoon@msn.com November 17, 2005