When Episcopal bishops from throughout the United States this month approved their denomination blessing same-gender relationships, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania voted with the majority.
“There are many gay and lesbian Christians and same-gender couples who often sit unobtrusively in our pews and quietly share with us in the faith,” said the Right Rev. Nathan D. Baxter, Episcopal bishop of 24 midstate counties.
View full sizeThe Right Rev. Nathan Baxter, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, recently returned from denomination convention at which bishops voted to approve using same-gender blessing liturgy. “There are homosexual persons living in a lifelong, monogamous, spiritually committed relationship,” Baxter said. “Their covenants are as holy in their union as heterosexual persons in a lifelong, monogamous, spiritually committed relationship.”
Baxter emphasized that the trial Episcopal liturgy called “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant” is not a marriage rite. He said he will only approve of its use in the diocese if the rector or priest-in-charge and the vestry of an Episcopal church agree and formally petition him for permission to use it.
“I will not approve where the collective, prayerful wisdom of congregational leadership chooses not to make such witness or offer such blessing,” he said. “No priest or congregation will be coerced into accepting or practicing the rite nor be treated as second-class Episcopalians if they are not in agreement with it.”
Saying that people must respect each other, Baxter called for the rejection of “pejorative labels such as homophobic, fundamentalist or revisionist. We are all on a journey, sincerely seeking to know God’s will. We may not all end in the same place in this matter.”
The issues of same-gender blessing remains a divisive one even at the national Episcopal convention. A lively discussion preceded the vote on July 9 at that convention.
The Right Rev. John Bauerschmidt, Episcopal bishop of Tennessee, spoke against the proposal, saying the proposed liturgy “does not have the basis in Scripture, tradition or reason for us to authorize its use.”
The Right Rev. Edward Little, Episcopal bishop of northern Indiana, said the resolution “would put the Episcopal Church out of the Christian mainstream. The Christian world is going to understand us as having changed the nature of the sacrament of holy matrimony.”
Yet the Right Rev. Thomas Ely, Episcopal bishop of Vermont, said he saw “a place in this process for every Episcopalian regardless of their level of support for the material.”
Baxter says the issue is about full inclusion of all people in the Episcopal Church.
The Episcopal Church believes that homosexuality is not a sin. Yet many Episcopalians around the world, including those in Africa, consider homosexuality sinful.
In voting for the resolution, the Episcopal Church has joined a small but growing number of American faith communities that have approved rites celebrating same-sex unions.
Gay marriage is allowed by several branches of Judaism, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers and the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) recently rejected a resolution sanctioning same-sex marriages. The United Methodist Church canceled its vote on a similar resolution at its convention in May.