Face Declining Membership : Episcopalians Grapple With Sexuality Stand

The Episcopal Church is struggling through a quagmire of controversy over sex, while also straining to reverse a gradual decline in membership.

Efforts to increase adherents through greater evangelism had wide support as the denomination today begins its triennial governing convention in Detroit.

But conflict over sexuality was rippling through the 2.7-million-member denomination on several fronts--liturgical language, abortion and sexual relationships.

At the center of the controversy is a report on sexual morality from the church’s commission on human affairs and health, which was directed three years ago to examine the issue.

Study Guide Controversial

Also firing up the conflict has been a 110-page study guide, “Sexuality: A Divine Gift,” issued by a church headquarters unit. Several bishops have charged that it ignores church standards of celibacy in singleness and sex only in marriage.

Further exacerbating the issue was action early this year by the Newark, N. J., diocese encouraging ministry to those “living out alternate patterns of sexuality.” This was interpreted as condoning clergy blessings of committed homosexual unions.

However, the churchwide study commission, headed by Bishop George N. Hunt of Rhode Island, makes no such recommendations, but expresses differences of opinion within the church over the morality of some sexual unions apart from marriage.

It affirms that “lifelong, monogamous marriage is the normal or ideal context for intimate sexual expression between Christians” and says extramarital sex is immoral because it violates the marital bond.

However, the report adds that some premarital and postmarital “sexual relationships intend to mirror, at a significant level, the faithfulness of marriage.

Witnessing to Promiscuity

“Some of them surely have the potential to be life-giving and not life-draining. However, a widespread and increasing number of these relationships appear to us to witness more to promiscuity than to fidelity. . . . “

Consequently, such relationships should not be affirmed by the church as acceptable, the commission said, although it could not agree on whether some sex relations apart from marriage are moral.

The commission, which heard testimony at seven meetings during the last three years, said the “debate is perhaps even more important than the conclusions. The moral standards of our society are in flux.”

“Old standards may yet prevail in the future. New standards may well be the traditional standards adapted and redefined to meet new circumstances. . . . One thing of which we are certain is that yesterday’s standards are being challenged profoundly in this generation.”

The “conventional moral stance of the church proclaiming faithful marriage or celibacy as the only moral options open to a Christian has been weakened considerably in the practice of our people,” the report says.

Cites ‘New Realities’

“The majority of our church is committed to an attempt to call society to traditional sexual standards,” but “a significant minority . . . is convinced the time has come to begin a process that will enable Christians to think through new moral and sexual options in the light of new realities.”

Citing the AIDS epidemic, the report says “society is painfully learning that sexual activity is not an individual matter. One has sex, with life and death consequences, with everyone who has slept with one’s sexual partner. . . .

“We are once more realizing that sexual activity has both private and corporate significance.”

The report recommends stiffening the church’s stand on abortion, condemning it “as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or for any reason of mere convenience.”

Abortion “always has a tragic dimension,” the report says, deploring the numbers of abortions but saying that legislation should not prohibit all abortions but should protect individual conscience about it.

‘An Exotic Fossil’

In regard to the church’s loss of about 500,000 members in the last 25 years, a report by a commission on evangelism and renewal says:

“It is obvious to us that if nothing is done to remedy this situation, the Episcopal Church is in very real danger of becoming an exotic fossil.”

Quoting the church’s presiding bishop, Edmond L. Browning, the report says: “The time has come for active evangelism. We Episcopalians are often accused of talking to much of our heritage and too little of God and God’s work among us.”

A blurred “theological vision” has sapped the church of evangelistic drive, the report says, adding:

‘Philosophical Skepticism’

“Much of the contemporary theology of our church has espoused philosophical skepticism, which is opposed to certainty, commitment and conversion. A historical God may be affirmed, but not an empowering God who leads to life-changing renewal. . . .

“We have become a trendy people, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. . . . The result is a witness shorn of power.”

The report cites this attitude: “Evangelize? We Episcopalians don’t do that.”

But the report says the church must get at it, and recommends actions rallying all members to work at sharing their faith with others and urging congregations to be centers for extending the Gospel.