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Loading ...Episcopal lesbian bishop calls election liberating
12.09.2009 3:26pm EST
(New York)The lesbian priest who was elected assistant bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles said Tuesday that she was upset by claims that her role in the church is divisive.
The Rev. Mary Glasspool said that she was aware her win troubles some people, but that she believes her election last weekend was mostly “liberating” for the denomination.“I’ve had hundreds, probably a thousand, e-mails from people all over the world who don’t know me but who are expressing through the fact of my election a pride in the Episcopal Church,” Glasspool said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
“I’ve committed my life as a life of service to the people of Jesus Christ, and what hurts is the sense that anybody might have that my name or my servanthood could be perceived as divisive.”
Glasspool is the second openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church and the world Anglican fellowship. The first was New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, whose 2003 consecration caused an uproar and widened long-developing rifts over what Anglicans should believe.
Just hours after Glasspool’s election, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, said in a statement that the vote raised “very serious questions” for the divided church, and he urged restraint in moving forward with her consecration.
Glasspool needs the consent of a majority of Episcopal dioceses before she can take the job of bishop suffragan. The 55-year-old clergywoman, who has been with her female partner since 1988, said she read the archbishop’s comments on her laptop in her California hotel Sunday and found the statement “a tiny bit absurd” because he doesn’t know her.
“Our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori does have a personal relationship with the archbishop of Canterbury, and I need to let them work that out,” Glasspool said.
On Tuesday, the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, issued a statement from England echoing Williams’ request for restraint. Jefferts Schori is expected to travel to London next week for a previously scheduled Anglican meeting.
Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno, who leads the diocese, has been defiant in the face of the criticism of Glasspool’s win. Bruno on Tuesday said Williams was “the titular head of our church, and I don’t think we should capitulate to a titular head.”
The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. In 2004, Anglican leaders asked Episcopalians for a moratorium on electing another gay bishop while they tried to prevent a permanent break in the fellowship.
Since the request was made, some Episcopal gay priests were nominated for bishop, but none was elected before Glasspool. In July, the Episcopal General Convention, the U.S. church’s top policy making body, effectively overturned any moratorium, affirming that gay and lesbian priests were eligible to become bishops.
Breakaway Episcopal conservatives, with the support of several leaders of Anglican national churches around the world, have formed a rival church, the Anglican Church in North America, which they hope Williams will officially recognize.
Glasspool, the daughter of an Episcopal priest, was ordained in 1981 and has served for eight years as an adviser to the Diocese of Maryland’s bishop.
When Glasspool heard she had narrowly won on the seventh ballot Saturday, she “choked up.”
“It was a powerful moment,” she said. “I’ve just been trying to be faithful to God and to God’s call throughout my entire life. I never expected to be in this position.”
You meant to say that her election was liberal, a political gay move. Typical of a Laodicean church.
Revelations 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.churches.
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Its obvious to you that your alone in your thoughts and that the Christian episcopal church and everyone else who understands and wants equal rights for Americans of all different types of sexual orientations is at fault. Your definitely entitled to your own opinion just like everyone else is entitled to equal rights. When your an old man sitting on your death bed, you will see how the people who you speak against have gained all the rights that they are fighting for today and you will either die feeling defeated or die asking forgiveness for the hatred you allowed yourself to believe during the time you lived on this Wonderful planet. Have a nice day.
The election as Bishop of the Rev. Mary Glasspool, like the election of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, is liberating to me as a Gay man, but even more liberating to me as a Christian.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian is the support and promotion by so-called “Christians” in countries like Uganda and Nigeria to laws that criminalize LGBT people and even speaking out in support of LGBT equality.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those so-called “Christian leaders” who support imprisoning and executing LGBT people.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those so-called “Christian Churches” who refuse to welcome and affirm God’s LGBT children.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those so-called “church stalwarts who protest anti-Christian oppression in Islamic countries, but what the same kind of oppression against LGBT people, Muslims, atheists and non-religious people here at home.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those who abuse the word of God to justify ignorance and denying modern scientific and psychological knowledge that supports the fact that LGBT people are not evil or sick.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those in church schools (public or private) who block or prevent the passage of school and school district policies in any school to stop homophobic bullying and harassment on the ground that such policies “encourage homosexuality.
What is oppressive to me as a Christian are those in the religious right who demand protection of their religious freedom, but then deny that same religious freedom to those who do not agree with their narrow opinions and biases.
The American Episcopal Church is exercising its prophetic ministry to proclaim that GLBT people are heirs to the Kingdom, and joint-heirs with Christ.
I don’t think the Holy Spirit, who oversees such elections, is much involved in “gay politics.”
If there’s a Laodicean in the mix, it’s the Arch-Weasel of Canterbury, who is fouling his knickers over the inclusion of GLBT people in God’s Church, but is curiously silent when bishops of that same Church advocate genocide AGAINST GLBT people.
Wow, I never thought I’d applaud a Christian organization, but this is pretty cool!
Harry Hay, I think that the act of quoting scripture passages is completely lost on Christians who don’t believe in the philosophy of biblical literalism, biblical inerrancy, biblical infallibility, etc. To them, it is entirely possible for a spiritual reality to contradict such very narrow readings of paper-printed scripture passages.
Besides, the Bible as it exists today was not compiled as a single canon until by vote of Byzantine political committees centuries after the time of Jesus, under the then-non-Christian Emperor Constantine the Great. Before that time, many variations of individual scriptural works existed. Not all of them were accepted by everybody. And many of these works were mutually contradictory (as they can be in more subtle ways now).
Some people decide to be Christians but decide not to believe as late antiquity Byzantines while they’re at it. They may keep copies of some or all of a scriptural canon, but they may hold some of them to be apocryphal, fragmentary or flawed. For these people, scripture is not the last word, but a matter of study – they do their own soul-searching with their own thoughts and their own prayers until they come to the conclusions that they believe are right and just.
If you care to try to convince anyone with whom you disagree that you are right and they are wrong, you should definitely not do it entirely on your own theological terms (without regard to their own complex philosophy and spirituality). Because, if you are seen as cynical or disrespectful, your efforts are not likely to achieve a great deal of success. On the contrary, those efforts would only serve to inspire people regard you with irritation or even disdain.