The Episcopal Church moved Monday toward affirming their acceptance of gays and lesbians for all roles in ministry, despite pressure from fellow Anglicans worldwide for a decisive moratorium on consecrating another openly gay bishop.
Bishops at the Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim, Calif., voted 99-45 with two abstentions for a statement declaring "God has called and may call" to ministry gays in committed lifelong relationships.
Lay and priest delegates to the meeting had comfortably approved a nearly identical statement, and were expected to adopt the latest version before the meeting ends Friday....
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, had attended the Episcopal national meeting in Anaheim, Calif., in its opening days last week. He said, "I hope and pray that there won't be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart."
[For the full article, see here.]
This is good news, particularly since other mainline denominations in the United States are dealing with this issue and are more than likely to take their cues in this matter from the Episcopal Church.
Rowan Williams seems to think that "unity" at the expense of the "Gospel" is desirable! He's wrong!
When professing Christians seek unity amidst discrimination against others; institutionalize pariah status of some Christians; seek peace amidst injustice, they miss the point of the Gospel message that Christians are to be like soldiers who don't entangle themselves with worldly values, but seek to be agents of God's grace in this world, and seek to make this world, to use St. Augustine's phrase, "a colony of heaven."
And any member of the clergy, or any professing Christian for that matter, who seeks to keep a massive bureaucracy together, and keep it growing, and keep it unified at the expense of others, betrays the Gospel and God Whom they purport to represent to the world!
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