God’s Tears
By Patricia Shillingburg © 2007

    Is God laughing or crying?
    For an example of man’s folly, look to the schism threatening the Anglican Communion today.
    It all began, of course, with Henry VIII who disobeyed the Pope in Rome by divorcing Catherine of Aragon in 1526 because she had not produced an heir. That schism played out over five generations with much destruction and death: all Catholic lands were seized and monasteries ransacked and burned; and through the reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II, and James II heads rolled, literally.  Finally the situation stabilized with the 1689 arrival of new monarchs from The Netherlands, William and Mary of Orange over 160 years later. The Church of England came to be Protestant in doctrine and Roman Catholic in appearance, flavor and ritual.
    Episcopalians built the great cathedrals of North America. Churches like Romanesque Trinity Church in Copley Plaza in Boston, designed by H. H. Richardson in the 1880s is extraordinarily ornate and could be Catholic in persuasion. So also could be St. Alban’s, the National Cathedral in Washington, and St. John the Divine in New York, which are Gothic.  Each was greatly influenced by the American architect Ralph Adams Cram of Boston in the early 20th Century, who believed that ecclesiastic meant Gothic. He modeled his churches after the great Medieval Gothic cathedrals, right down to the “rose window” at the west end of the nave. Even small town churches such as Calvary in Summit, New Jersey and Saint Mary’s on Shelter Island are Gothic in nature. It is the Episcopal way.
    Cram had been strongly influenced by the Gothic cathedrals he saw on his travels to Europe as a young man, and spent his summers throughout his life visiting France and England. He did not travel to Spain or Greece until late in his life, and therefore was little influenced by ancient Greek or Moorish architecture.
Cram was a very prolific architect. With his partner Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, he designed the Military Academy at West Point, Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, Sweet Briar College in Virginia, and Rice University in Houston, Texas. One of the few residences he built was Harbour Court in Newport, Rhode Island for Mrs. John Nicholas Brown, which is now owned by the New York Yacht Club. Also for the Brown family, he designed Emmanuel Church in Newport, which is actually more Romanesque than Gothic and heavily decorated inside with painted frescos of the saints, and much later, the Chapel at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhodes Island which is reminiscent of King’s Chapel, Cambridge. These represent only the iceberg of his work. 
One of the more bizarre aspects of Cram’s record is the effort of his biographer, Douglass Shand-Tucci, to identify him as a homosexual. Cram may or may not have been. He was a young man discovering himself and his nature as a Bohemian, which was the rage in Boston in the 1890s at a time when homosexuality had not yet been defined. He married in 1900 and had two children.
Even today in what are called high-Episcopal rites, it is not unusual to have incense in the procession. The major obstacle to unification of the Anglican and Catholic churches, as I understand it, was for a long time that for Anglicans the bread and wine at communion represent Jesus’ body and blood while for Catholics they are his body and blood. Now there are other issues that separate them more seriously -- such as the role of women, birth control, abortion, celibate priests, the treatment of homosexuals as sinners -- but even today, now that Catholic services are conducted in English in America, either service would be familiar to the other.
    The American Anglican church began with the arrival of second and third sons of titled Englishmen who came first to Virginia with wealth but no titles to seek adventure and fortune. Other early settlers – with the exception of the Puritans and other religious dissidents who settled New England and Long Island fleeing religious persecution in turbulent England in the early 1600s – were also Englishmen who adhered to their Anglican faith. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all attended the Anglican Church in Williamsburg when they were conducting business there, although their personal belief systems were more individual and complex – typical of Episcopalians even today.
Following the Revolutionary War, the Anglican Church in America became the Episcopal Church, and democracy became the rule of law ecclesiastically. Congregants choose their pastors and elect their bishops. This means that, in the end, the people themselves decide on their faith, and this can make things rather messy with the rest of the Anglican Communion. The present schism, therefore, was inevitable.
    Eventually, Great Britain became an empire over which the sun never set. Missionaries followed the flag, and were particularly effective in Africa, where there are now more Anglicans than anywhere else in the world. They have become the tail that wags the dog, and they adhere strictly to a literal reading of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, and a 2,000 year old tradition beginning with the selection of the Gospels in the centuries following Jesus’ death. “Gospel” means “good news,” and the good news was that of God’s love, often forgotten over a millennium. Hell became a reality, and Dante’s Inferno describes vividly the place where sinners will eventually go. And, we are all sinners, Christianity preaches, and logically, we will all end up in Hell. It was the fear of Hell, not the love of God that motivated Christians for centuries.
    Many Episcopalians are suspicious of Catholicism, and they resist the so-called “divine” authority of the Pope and the hierarchy that demands celibacy of priests -- so “unnatural” in their view -- which was instituted in the Middle Ages for economic reasons, and deprives the congregants control over their own parishes. The authoritarian attitude of the Anglican bishops in Africa is anathema to Episcopalians: the Africans are behaving more Catholic than Catholics.
    I do not wish to suggest that there are not problems in the hierarchal system in the Episcopal Church. Men with power enjoy exercising it. The hiring of a new rector requires a year of complicated work on the part of the church community, and after a new rector has been identified, it is not uncommon for a Bishop to nix the appointment, and then suggest to the exhausted parish his own choice. Since my own parish began this process a few months ago, we have heard of two within our own diocese to have this happen under our present bishop.  Both appointed ministers not of their choosing and are now in disarray.
    Typical of Americans in all things that we do, the Episcopal Church marched forward to the beat of its own drummer. When I was a child, God was angry and a strict father figure. Sermons were still about fire and brimstone. I remember spending a Good Friday afternoon, when I was about 10 years old, participating in a service that was interminable. We suffered, as was appropriate, because Jesus had suffered. Then, in 1979, the American church produced a new Book of Common Prayer, and God was no longer wrathful, but now loving. Episcopalians embraced their new loving God and they no longer marched into Sunday School to “Onward Christian Soldiers” but talked about loving one’s neighbor, doing good works, and thinking generous thoughts.
    Our American society moved forward as well. Civil right activities of the 1960s brought the possibility of economic equality not only to African-Americans but also to women.
The Episcopal Church itself took on a different hue as people immigrated from Jamaica, Barbados, and other islands in the Caribbean colonized by the British. There are Episcopal churches, such as in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey, where people from the Caribbean islands have settled, which are all black. The Episcopal churches in South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey are decidedly mixed. In communities where there are few African Americans, the congregations are white.  But, that is more representational of where people live, not of an article of faith. “We are all made in God’s imagine” is the creed of their loving God.
    It was as natural as the daily rise and setting of the sun, that all of God’s children were equal in His eyes. One cannot “love one’s neighbor as oneself,” and include some but not others in the communion of God. Which led, of course, to the ordination of women, and the eventual acceptance of homosexual men and women as equal members of God’s family. The Episcopal Church remains the only member of the Anglican Communion that ordains women. And, it is the only one that does not preach that homosexuality is a sin.
    This acceptance of gay members is based on the fact that Episcopalians believe them when they tell us that they realize their own differences from other men and women as teenagers, or as young men and women exposed to others like them as young adults. They are attracted to people of the same sex because they are, because that is the way God made them. Episcopalians know that God’s ways are mysterious, so they accept this as just one of his many mysteries.
    As 21st Century thinkers, they know that the Bible, although it is full of great wisdom, was written by people who did not know then what we know today. They know that the story of creation is a story, and do not read it literally. They know that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. They know that Adam and Eve were not thrown out of the Garden of Eden because they were enticed by a snake to eat the fruit of wisdom. And, they know it is all right to eat pork because that meat is now free of tapeworms and no longer causes trichinellosis. They also know that the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were selected as the Gospels by men who rejected many others, some of which were written by women. Many believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a special relationship, that she was not a prostitute, as she has been vilified as being for centuries, and do not scoff at the idea that she may have been Jesus’ wife. “Why not?” they say.
    In my conversation about the schism, my minister referred to Joseph Fletcher and situational ethics. That was a new concept to me who does not study theology. Fletcher was an Episcopal priest who in the 1966 wrote a book called Situation Ethics. He proposed: “The situationist enters into every decision-making situation fully armed with the ethics, maxims of his community and its heritage, and he treats them with respect as illuminators of his problems. Just the same he is prepared in any situation to compromise them or set them aside in the situation if love seems better served by doing so.” The only absolute is love (agape); only love is universally good. “Any thing and everything is right or wrong, according to the situation,” says Fletcher, because the good is the most loving and concerned act. Love can rightly be directed only toward a person and not toward some abstract good.
    This concept does not sit well with many Christians who understand the Old and New Testaments legalistically as containing clear-cut moral laws. They scoff at it as relativism, which means that there are no rules at all. And, that is heresy!
Episcopalians in the modern Church, in general, believe that there are definitely rules that determine one’s moral responsibility, but that those rules change as we come to understand what science has proven and they grow in a faith of love. So, for instance, for Episcopalians, poor people are not poor because of their own moral depravity, which is how others may see them, but because of other social forces beyond their control: Like poor health services for their children, inadequate education, bad luck, economic discrimination, or the lack of access to family planning.
Most Episcopalians believe in family planning, birth control, and the necessity of the right to choose abortion. Women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, who were forced to deal with unwanted pregnancies before Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973, know that the solution in their day was adoption or illegal abortions in back alleys performed by unsavory characters. Adoption meant abandoning a child, and the thousands of  women who did so have never forgiven themselves. They remain appalled by the decision that society forced them to make, and they would not wish that upon their own daughters. Unwanted pregnancies are a fact of life. Abortion is not a perfect solution, but abstinence is not either. The latter is wishful thinking, especially when those who preach abstinence also do not approve of birth control. To fulfill God’s design of love, a woman must have control of her life, and therefore of her own body.
    Then there is the quandary of the Republican Party. There was a time, for most of the last century, when Episcopalians were primarily wealthy, white and Republican. The modern Evangelical hijacking of the Republican Party – with its ranting against birth control, abortion, same sex marriages, and homosexuality – is particularly confusing to Episcopalians because the Party now preaches a theology that is antithesis to their belief system. They still tend to knee-jerk vote Republican, the party of their fathers, but it is becoming harder and harder to do so.
Although some Episcopalians and their bishops refused to accept the new way of thinking and do not ordain women, most did. And, eventually, women became bishops. It was, however, the election of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who was elected in 2003 by all of the congregations of his diocese, which caused not a rift, but a great divide. Forty-five congregations in certain very conservative communities across the nation of 7,200 congregations, seeking a new communion, latched on to the dioceses in Africa. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, tried to make peace, but to no avail.
    The American church has not been willing to back down.
    It added salt to the wounds for the Episcopal Church to elect a woman, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, as presiding bishop in 2006.
    The Anglican Communion of strict constructionists would have none of this heresy: women and gays bishops! The gauntlet was cast down.
    When the Anglican Communion meet in Tanzania in February 2007, representing 77 million souls, a number prelates refused to take communion with Bishop Jefferts-Schori, and within days, the Communion demanded that the Episcopal Church, now 2.4 million, cease and desist from ordaining any more openly gay bishops or from blessing same sex unions. It gave the Americans until September 30 to issue a strong statement of compliance.
    In response to this ultimatum, Elizabeth Adams of Montreal wrote to the New York Times on February 21, “While the leadership of the word-wide Anglican Communion wrangles about authority and scriptural literalism, the large majority of American Episcopalians are quietly living out their baptism vows to ‘respect the dignity of every human being’ through the creation of inclusive, loving church communities that are fully open to all regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation.
    “While conservative Anglican leaders try to keep gay priests and gay couples in the closet, and use homosexuality as a cover for the primary issues at the heart of the worldwide conservative and progressive division – the ordination of women – most of us in the pews have already moved far beyond this.”
    When I asked my own minister about this impending schism, he said, “The important thing on the local level is not to allow the parish to be railroaded into taking a position that finds them in one extreme or the other. We must remain inclusive or we’re in deep trouble… We need to be open to everyone’s needs and spirituality… [God] loves us all!”
    On February 28, the presiding Bishop wrote to the Episcopal community: "We are being pushed toward a decision by impatient forces within and outside this church who hunger for clarity… That hunger for clarity at all costs is an anxious response to discomfort in the face of change … The impatience we are now experiencing is an idol, a false hope that is unwilling to wait on God for clarity, an idol that fails to ... expect that the spirit will lead us."
    She added, "God is with us and will continue to be with us whatever this church decides."
She further said, gays and lesbians in the church should be assured "We are about affirming the equal dignity of all human beings ... I see no desire from anyone to retreat from this position."
    Although the Anglican Communion is a loose federation of churches with no hierarchical structure, the Bishop of Canterbury, first among equals, has respected the stand that the Anglican Communion took, even though some have questioned their authority to do so. Bishop Jefferts-Schori said, that the Bishop’s acquiescence “may be the only thing that matters at this point.”
     This is not only a canonical issue. It also has to do with property. Most churches are owned by the Diocese in which they reside, not by the local parish body, and this ownership has been confirmed in court on a number of occasions. So, can the 45 parishes which seek alliance with Dioceses in Africa stay in their parish churches? One would doubt it. This issue will end up in court. Many courts. Possibly, all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
    The ultimate irony, when the dust has settled on this ecumenical mess, is that, as in all things, it may finally come down to the money. The Anglican Communion, through the developing world – in Africa, Asia, and South America – is loved and admired for its missions: It provides needed medical clinics and schools in many of the poorest parts of the world. And the Episcopal Church provides much of the money and manpower for these efforts. According to a front-page article in the New York Times on March 20, 2007, the Episcopal Church sent $18 million in 2006, one-third of the world-wide contribution. Episcopal Relief and Development sends another $15 million oversees each year to relieve hunger, provide health care, and to respond to disasters. In addition, 80 out of the 110 American dioceses have adopted dioceses in desperately poor countries as have individual churches, so the contributions are much greater. (Only Uganda, the leader of the efforts to punish the Episcopal Church rejects American money. The Nigerian Church, apparently, is self-supporting.)
    Marvelously, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Communion’s central coordinating body, with one breath asked the Episcopal Church to increase its contribution by ten percent each year for the next three years, while with another breath asked it to withdraw from the decision making process. The Anglican Communion’s bishops meet every ten years at the Lambeth Conference in London, and it has been the tradition for every Episcopal bishop attending to pay the way of a bishop from the developing world. The Conference meets again in 2008, and the American bishops may not be invited. Is it not unwise to bite the hand that feeds you?
    Episcopalians know that most of the world is not with them. Not even other main line churches in America – such as Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans – have gone as far as they have in “affirming the equal dignity of all human beings.” Although most now ordain women, to them, homosexuality remains a sin.
    So, is God laughing at the Episcopal Church for affirming Jesus’ message of love, or is he crying for the lack of humanity’s ability to understand that every man and woman is made in His image, and therefore acceptable to Him?
    That is the question that remains unresolved.

March 2007