Gay Issues Remain Focus of Friction for Episcopalians

To many in the Episcopal Church, the two front-running bishops who vied this week to lead their divided church into the next millennium could not have been more different on the divisive issue of homosexuality.

Conservatives attending the church’s General Convention, which ended Friday, backed the Rt. Rev. Herbert Thompson of southern Ohio. He signed a 1994 statement affirming traditional marriage, and voted in 1991 for a canon that would have required clergy to abstain from sex outside of marriage.

Liberals and others supported the Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold III, a moderate from Chicago who was among 70 bishops who signed a different 1994 document called the “Koinonia Statement,” which declared that homosexuality and heterosexuality are “morally neutral.” Both sexual orientations, the statement said, “can be lived out with beauty, honor, holiness and integrity, and both are capable of being lived out destructively.” It also said gay priests in a committed sexual relationship could be “wholesome examples.”

When the last ballot was counted Monday, the struggle for the soul of the church seemed to have been won by the liberals and moderates--but not by much. Griswold polled 110 votes from fellow bishops to Thompson’s 96, with 103 needed for election. Later, priests and lay members who make up the House of Deputies, who vote separately, confirmed the bishops’ choice.

An even closer vote took place just days earlier on a resolution directing the church to prepare rituals for blessing same-sex unions. That measure lost in separate pollings of priests and lay members in the House of Deputies, both times by a single vote.

On Friday, however, the convention approved a three-year study of same-sex unions and offered an apology to gays and lesbians for past treatment by the church.

Few doubt that Griswold faces a daunting task of consensus-building when his nine-year term begins in January, least of all outgoing Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning.

A liberal who made “inclusion” a rallying cry of his administration, Browning had an enthusiasm for inviting what he called the “outcasts”--minorities, women and gays and lesbians--into the church that left many conservatives feelings as if they were on the outside.

In his farewell address, Browning lamented that the last several years of his term had been more than difficult.

“I want to share with you that there was a time during these 12 years when I wasn’t sure our church could hold together,” Browning said. He spoke of the “unparalleled embezzlement” of $2.2 million by the church’s former national treasurer. “There have been days,” Browning said, “when it was almost more than I could say grace over.”

The church also was divided in 1996 by a rare heresy trial of a bishop for ordaining a non-celibate gay man. A church court dismissed the charges against retired Bishop Walter Righter after finding that there was no doctrine in the church prohibiting such ordinations.

But the ruling intensified a struggle by conservatives to make the church’s position clear. It also encouraged gay advocates to press their case for the blessing of same-sex unions.

“Our witness, which should and could be vigorous and strong, has been divided, and at times ludicrous to our society, because we do not agree on what a ‘wholesome’ relationship means,” Browning said. “Some of the most extreme among us have used the disagreement within our body to foment difficulty and advance themselves and their causes. This is not of God. Surely, this is not of God.”

Browning then launched into an attack on biblical literalism, saying that just as a literal reading of the Bible was used in the past to justify slavery and denigrate women, it is now being used to attack gays and lesbians.

“It is time to move past literalistic readings of the Bible to create prejudices against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters,” he said.

His speech drew both applause and outrage, which further pointed to divisions in the church. One lay delegate, Russell Reno III of Nebraska, rose to the floor to denounce Browning’s remarks as shocking. “I certainly respect and allow that he could speak to his own convictions,” Reno told delegates. “However, the violence of his remarks against those who have disagreed with him is deeply disturbing.”

It was in this context of division that conservatives saw the election of the next presiding bishop as a chance to redeem the church. But none of the four candidates selected by the church’s nominating committee suited them. They mounted a grass-roots campaign to nominate Thompson from the floor.

If Thompson had been elected, said Los Angeles Bishop Frederick H. Borsch, his leadership of the church might not have been very much different than Griswold’s, who holds centrist views and has called for more discussions on same-sex marriage. But many attending the General Convention perceived distinct differences between the two men.

That Thompson garnered 96 votes was persuasive evidence not only of his ability and stature among his fellow bishops, but also of the angst among traditionalists and conservatives.

So it was of more than passing interest that on the day after his election, Griswold was momentarily taken aback during a prayer and healing service for people with AIDS and other illnesses.

Griswold, Thompson and a third candidate for presiding bishop, the Rt. Rev. Richard Shimpfky of Monterey, had been anointing the foreheads of the sick with holy oil. As the anointing came to a close, Griswold said he looked up to see Thompson approaching.

“He stopped in front of me and invited me to anoint him,” Griswold recalled. Silently, the new presiding bishop took the oil and traced the sign of the cross on Thompson’s forehead. Moved, Griswold said he then asked to be anointed by Thompson. Then the two men embraced.

“People told us afterward that [was] an incredible sign--not that there was a difficulty in our relationship--but that the two principal persons in the election process physically embraced,” Griswold said. “Christ was putting us there and saying, ‘OK, my friends, I want you to manifest to the community your reconciliation, your wholeness.’ ”