Pray for the Pope: Words from Gene Robinson

From my friend Gene Robinson, the retired bishop of New Hampshire...

By Gene Robinson2 hours agoThe Daily Beast

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I love this new pope. I pray for him every day—for his ministry, his safety, and the daunting tasks that lay before him. I like all the connotations of “Francis,” the papal name he took, conjuring the saint whose humility, sympathy for the fragile condition of humankind, and his commitment to the poor still are both exemplary and legendary.

Perhaps most dramatic in that change of tone came in his question, after he was asked about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?” Who indeed?  His immediate predecessors seemed not to hesitate in heaping judgment on homosexuals, women (especially those who made the excruciating decision to have an abortion), the divorced, and a vast array of people who fell short of the Vatican’s moral ideal (exempting at times, of course, members of the Church’s own clergy and hierarchy from those same ideals).But I am under no illusions that the journey ahead will be easy for this new pope, assuming that he continues to move in the directions he has thus far signaled.  And let’s be clear:  Pope Francis has, so far, only changed the tenor and tone of the voice of the Church he leads. That is no small thing, of course, when most Catholics and non-Catholics alike experienced his predecessor as aloof, hierarchical, and pretentious.

How odd that the leader of the Catholic Church would make big news, espousing an attitude promoted by Jesus of Nazareth himself. Jesus dramatically lived out the command to “judge not,” so why would it be such news when his followers (not to mention the Pope!) would follow in his humble, non-judgmental footsteps?!  It is only a newsworthy development because there had been little evidence of non-judgmental and loving acceptance by his predecessors.

In other words, so far, so good—but it is only a good beginning. The hard work lies ahead: There is more to the Christian enterprise than merely being more kind, more sympathetic.

One of my favorite old sayings goes like this:  “It’s not enough to pull drowning people out of a raging stream; we must walk back upstream, and see who is throwing them in in the first place!”  Charity (pulling people out of whatever raging stream they’re in, like poverty, disease, discrimination, hunger) is a great and cherished tradition. Nothing wrong with it—as far as it goes. In addition to rescue and charity work, people of faith—indeed all who long for justice—must also do the hard, systemic work of changing the systems that cause and trap people in demeaning, dehumanizing conditions in the first place.  Some of those oppressive systems are found in the Church itself! Not just the pope’s church, but my church and every religious community of believers.

If Pope Francis is to be believed in all the kindly pronouncements of his first year (and I do), his good tone should be followed by the tough work of changing the systems of belief, doctrine and religious practice which perpetuate the victimization of those he seeks to serve. It is a small step forward to say of homosexuals, “Who am I to judge?”  Yet the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that homosexuals are “intrinsically disordered.”  Not a lot of wriggle room in that, is there?  That judgment and teaching about LGBT people is the basis for discrimination, rejection and violence the world over. It is fine to verbally decry the ecclesial “circle the wagons” approach to the child sexual abuse exposed in the last two decades, but real commitment to the safety of vulnerable children will require the Church to take steps to value and protect those children over the careers and reputations of its abusing priests.  Positive comments about the contributions of women in and to the Church sound fine, but what is needed is a long, hard look at its entire approach to human sexuality and gender which still treats its female adherents as “less than.”

I do not mean to be uncharitable here, nor naive. Such systemic overhaul of an institution that has existed for the better part of two millennia cannot and will not happen overnight, if it is seriously tried at all. Under the leadership of Pope Francis, the Church may have the best chance at giving it a serious try since the Second Vatican Council under Pope John XXIII.  But the Vatican Curia was there before he was elected pope, and it will be there long after his ministry ends.  There will be resistance to any change, much less the kind of change to which Francis’s humble ways point.  Over the years, we have learned what happens to people who are just too good for us!  But this pope seems to know that sacrifice is part of the deal of living with God.

I hope this pope keeps surprising and delighting us, sitting a boy in his papal chair and allegedly sneaking out of the Vatican at night to work with the homeless!  I hope he continues to show us the mind of Christ by his acts of humility and compassion. I pray that he persists in eschewing luxury and pretension. And I pray that he will stay close to the Son of God he is supposed to represent on earth, despite the institution’s every effort to tame their new leader and rob him of his pizazz.

The Catholic Church is a mighty big ship to turn around, even with a beautiful, charismatic, and inspiring captain at the helm. But God is good, and God will be at Francis’ side as he challenges the Church to live up to its lofty, humble, servant values. Like I said, I pray for him every day.

Anglican divisions: A view from Australia

A few days ago I suggested we hear voices seldom heard in our North American cloisters, and I posted here a commentary from Brazil about our Anglican predicament. Here is another voice from the Communion worth hearing, from Andrew McGowen, the warden of Trinity College, Melbourne, Australia.

He is critical of both Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and our American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, but also suggests that much of the Anglican world is now turning to her for leadership. This is an interesting commentary, a bit dense with nuance, but well worth reading. McGowen's commentary is reprinted in full below:

The Anglican Babel: A view from AustraliaBy Andrew McGowen

Although historians will point to Gene Robinson’s consecration as a bishop in 2003 as the catalyst for the reconfiguration of global Anglicanism, Pentecost 2010 may turn out to have been a watershed of sorts too. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Letter, Renewal in the Spirit, and the responses to it, particular that of Presiding Bishop ++Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church, have ushered in a new era not only of frank disagreement but of practical disengagement.

The Australian Church has not been central in these discussions. We have our own microcosm of Anglican diversity, which often makes us hesitant to wade into Anglican Communion wars, lest we further destabilize our own delicate or illusory balance. Where we are contributing to the broader conversation at all, it is in correspondingly contradictory ways.

Primate ++Phillip Aspinall plays a leading role in the Anglican Consultative Council, working to defend or create a centre for the global Communion; others have had significant roles in inter-Anglican bodies. Yet ++Peter Jensen and his colleagues in Sydney, our most numerous and powerful diocese, are deeply involved in the GAFCON/FCA movement, and in the self-described ‘Global South’ (one of many signs that a particular conservatism and material resources are as good a ticket in to that company as any real issue of human and political geography - ask the Brazilians, Filipinos and South Africans).

Our divisions locally are arguably as deep as those in TEC a few years ago, but we Australian Anglicans generally believe in the Church. And in case or where we do not, the Australian Anglican Church is a fairly loose confederation of autonomous dioceses (which allows our spectacular diversity) and unlike our TEC sisters and brothers we do not have a strong sense of ‘national’ Church as an important ecclesiological category.

++Rowan is also held in real affection here, even in some (not all) of the more evangelical corners of the Church. Australian Anglicans have not wanted to weaken his position, and we—even those who disagree with him more and more about the Anglican Communion and its politics—still look to him for theological leadership. After these events however, I suspect there will be an increasing number here who look to ++Katharine and others for that leadership, as well or instead. I do hope it will be ‘as well’, myself; I think ++Rowan is sometimes better at being wrong than ++Katharine is at being right. This may be another sign that they need each other, and that the rest of us need them both.

++Katharine is right, I believe, in her more expansive articulation of the Spirit’s work as ongoing and dynamic. She is also right to reject centralization as alien to our Anglican heritage and to the roots of our more modern attempts to create a Communion.

However ++Katharine’s language of colonialism and control (or the romanticized take on Celtic Christianity, pursued further in Diana Butler Bass’ comment piece) in her pastoral letter responding to ++Rowan's will be unconvincing to many outside the TEC Choir being preached to, however sympathetic some of us are to the issues involved. Excluding some from obscure inter-Anglican bodies can be depicted as more-in-sorrow-than-anger discipline by the perpetrators, or as grasp-for-power oppression by the objects, but the reality all amounts to far less.

Appeal to the specifics of the (impressive) ‘Baptismal Covenant’ of TEC as a basis for distinctive action does not cut much ice here either (granted that we were not the audience); we Australian Anglicans want to talk about the demands of our common baptism, rooted in Christ for 2000 years, and resort to what characterizes TEC in the last 30 is not reassuring. This is where our admiration for TEC’s courage and leadership pauses, recognizing an apparent self-sufficiency which we refuse to attribute to ourselves. This is both what we admire most and what we find frustrating in TEC. This is where we are not sure whether ++Katharine’s being right, or similar forms of being right, will be enough.

++Katharine is still right here, however, and ++Rowan wrong. He is wrong in a tragic way—seeking, doubtless at great personal cost, a unity in the terms that existing Anglican Communion structures assume or require, but which in fact has now escaped us.

++Rowan is wrong in identifying the TEC ‘Communion Partners’ or others ‘who disagree strongly with recent decisions’ as those who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments. I believe the vast majority of the members of TEC, including its leaders, do want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and are, with specific and well-known exceptions. I have no more desire than the Archbishop of Canterbury to brush past the difficulties those exceptions present; but when did attitudes to homosexuality, rather than to the Creeds or the Sacraments, come to define the ‘Communion’s general commitments’?

This is an ecclesiological as well as a theological mistake, in that it characterizes the Communion not by its vast common depth of faith and hope, framed in specific and diverse history, but by the conversations of the thin layer that constitutes the ‘instruments of unity’, whose success has of late been desultory, and future significance increasingly uncertain.

++Rowan is also wrong in equating the positions in Inter-Anglican bodies such as IASCUFO with representation of the Communion as a whole. This is precisely the sort of context where Anglicans need to have the breadth of visions and voices that might take us forward in faith and charity, even if it is to a place of mutual disagreement and realignment. The removal of a TEC member of IASCUFO makes it a weaker body in all respects.

The position is slightly different regarding exclusion of TEC from the ecumenical dialogue groups, but the result no more inspiring; our dialogue partners may indeed now have a better chance of knowing ‘who it is they are talking to’—they will know precisely that they are talking only to some of us.

And while numerous commentators have suggested there are power grabs or constitutional problems with the dis-invitations, few have noted that membership of such bodies has never before been seen as a question of delegation, or of representing national Churches; rather their members have been chosen for expertise, and with a necessary diversity that reflects our own (than you Bruce Kaye for this point).

Not all blame, even for these specific missteps, should be laid at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury or of the Anglican Communion Office. It is patronising to conservatives in the 'Global South' and elsewhere to absolve them of responsibility. But here is where the singling out of TEC, at least as it appears in Canon Kenneth Kearon’s subsequentletter, becomes inexplicable (nb., after a week or two of no clarification, maybe change ‘inexplicable’ to ‘outrageous’). Most groups who have disregarded the other moratorium, of cross-border interventions, have not been mentioned in the prescriptions for dis-inviting participation in international bodies.

This apparent inconsistency turns the events of recent weeks from depressing but inconsequential to depressing but deeply troubling. Not that it would have been much better, I hasten to add, for conservatives to be similarly sanctioned; we need these brothers and sisters no less than others, whether they know it or not. At present however many of them are seeking communion only among the superficially like-minded, and would hardly notice their or our exclusion from these structures.

From this southern vantage point, I cannot hear the events of Pentecost 2010 either as a new centralizing will-to-power or as a rallying-call to liberal or progressive indignation. Rather, in a perverse reversal of the original Pentecost, we see ourselves further reduced to Babel, scattered abroad and unable or unwilling to understand one another’s speech. If the Anglican Communion’s central instruments are bound by circumstance to provide us with less than they were intended to, Australian Anglicans will not abandon them; but we will not abandon sisters and brothers in TEC or elsewhere either, as we all begin the long slow work of finding common language by other means, in the Spirit’s power.

The Anglican Railroad: Rumbling down the tracks, a train to somewhere (but where?)

There is considerable commentary in recent days on the latest conflicts in the Anglican Communion, which, at last notice, we are still a member in good standing. You may be excused if you find this topic tedious and not worth reading further.

Truthfully, I find this topic tedious, too, and much of it smacks of ecclesiastical inside baseball at its worst. You may rightly ask: What does any of this have to do with me, or my family, or my work, or even what does this really have to do with the life of my local church? All fair questions, and questions for which I have, at best, partial answers. I hope you will keep reading but I would not blame you if you stop here.

I want to start by saying I do not question the faith or sincerity of the advocates on any side of this. I leave that judgment to God alone. If everyone could subscribe that statement we might get somewhere. But not all do, and so into the swamp we go.

Before we get our ankles muddy, let’s take a few steps back. This conflict predates the election of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire. The fight 30 years ago was over the prayer book and the ordination of women; before that it was a fight over whether African Americans were included in a predominantly white upper class church. Now it is an argument over whether gays and lesbians are included. Yet it is Robinson’s election in 2003 that sparked the latest fire in the Anglican Communion, and that fire is not going out anytime soon.

I highly recommend reading the commentaries of recent days put forth by advocates of differing points of view (and thanks to several of you for bringing these to my attention). Among the best I’ve seen recently is by Jim Naughton in the U.K. Guardian; you can it read HERE. Another, by Frank M. Turner, on the Episcopal Café blog, is a good critique of the mythology of the Anglican Communion as an “imagined community.” You can read Turner's piece HERE.

On the conservative side, Fr. Dan Martins from Indiana offers thoughtful comments as he works through how he and his diocese attempt to remain in an Episcopal Church even though he and his diocese see themselves much at odds with the majority in the church. His questions are genuine and should engage all of us. You can read Martins' comments HERE.

On the extreme side, you can read David Anderson’s commentaries, though I hesitate to send you to his screeds. They are worth reading if for no other reason than he reveals much about the motives, tactics and divisions among his right-wing allies. You can read his website HERE.

Now that I have sent you there, fair warning: I want to express in the strongest possible terms my disagreement with Anderson, who heads up the American Anglican Council, a self-appointed schismatic organization aligned with those seeking to create a new Anglican communion based on an exclusionary view of the Gospel. He long ago claimed the mantle of being “orthodox” though he has acted as anything but. He received an ordination as a bishop that was, at best, irregular and outside of any Episcopal election or confirmation process.

Anderson's use of language is no small thing. Most disturbing, Anderson uses creepy rhetoric of war and warriors to make his case for purging the Episcopal Church of gays, liberals and other ilk he finds heretical. In a recent commentary he talked of the church needing “war chiefs” and “peace chiefs.” How that is scripturally based is beyond me. Note well the tone and content of his words in his Sept. 4 newsletter:

"As with a nation, so does the church require an appropriate leader for the time and the circumstance. What do these days in the Anglican World Communion call for, a Peace Chief or a War Chief? I would argue that this present time requires a War Chief for the defense of the Gospel and the Anglican Communion."

It should also be noted that Anderson and his allies are using same tone as the extremist “tea-bagger” anti-Obama forces so vocal this August in a supposedly secular debate over health care. Anderson and his allies stand for continued militaristic confrontation with the Islamic world; are against a two-state Israel-Palestine solution; and are stridently anti-gay and anti-abortion.

That is no coincidence – the same people who are underwriting the schism in The Episcopal Church are the same people underwriting the attacks on President Obama in Washington DC and in townhall meetings, including the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife (who underwrote the scurrilous film that accused the Clintons of murdering Vincent Foster). Make no mistake: these people have a larger political agenda beyond the Episcopal Church. As Naughton points out:

“[A]warding the Anglican brand in North America to the schismatics would reverse the trend by handing the American right the opportunity to wrap its agenda in the endorsement of a major mainstream religious organisation.”

All this leads to one basic fact: The conflict in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion remains an argument over power, and it is playing out in the arena of who gets ordained and who does not, who may be married and who may not. Various interests have attempted to dress this up as an argument over the authority of Scripture and the divinity of Christ, asserting that it is self-evident that there is only one interpretation of the Bible possible (their own).

Weaponizing the Bible, by the way, is as un-Anglican is it gets; one of the bedrock values of Anglicanism is the acknowledgment that it is just possible that there are competing interpretations of Scripture, so we best be humble when we throw our Bible verses at each other (see Article 20 in the Articles of Religion, p. 871 of the Book of Common Prayer).

Everyone in this conflict interprets the Bible, and none are abandoning their vow of discipleship of Jesus Christ as they see it. I do not doubt that David Anderson is a deeply devoted disciple of Jesus, though I wish he would acknowledge the same in Susan Russell and Louie Crew of Integrity.

In reality, there is precious little in the Bible to go on to guide us about who may be ordained and who may not, which is one reason everyone can claim to have the Bible on their side.

And while this sounds esoteric – and it is – and while this may not directly affect you if you have no intention of being ordained, it does boil down to this issue: Who holds power in the Church and how they get it. And that should concern you.

That brings us to where we are now: This past summer, the General Convention – the once-every-three years legislative meeting of elected Episcopal church leaders – approved two significant measures which roiled the waters further throughout the rest of the Anglican Communion. One resolution lifted a moratorium on ordaining new bishops who are openly gay, and the other resolution allows bishops to sanction same-sex blessings if they so wish.

And that brings us the Anglican Railroad.

After General Convention, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is the titular head of the Anglican Communion (Note: he is the first among equals and not the Pope) stated that there ought to be two “tracks” in the Anglican Communion. He has no direct power to create such tracks, but his voice carries considerable weight throughout the Communion.

In Williams’ scheme, the first track would subscribe to his complicated proposal for an “Anglican Covenant” that would, in effect, declare that no province of the communion may do anything significant without consensus from the rest. Issues including the ordination of openly gay people and women would presumably remain on the backburner on the first track until everyone reaches a consensus.

How such a consensus would come about is not clear. The archbishop has pushed hard for the adoption of his covenant, and he appears to be proposing this “First Track” as an incentive for the provinces to sign up and fall into line.

The second track would be churches that don’t sign up for the covenant, but can remain within the communion at a lower status level. The consequences of being relegated to secondary status are not entirely clear.

There are a number of practical issues at stake, first and foremost which national province is running on which track and who gets to decide. The first track presumably would be those Anglican provinces subscribing to the more traditional structures of ordination (i.e., no gays and women), and those provinces it so happens coincide with the poorest countries in the

communion (Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan, etc).

To add a new layer of complexity, seven American Episcopal Church bishops met with Rowan Williams last week to explore whether they could bring their dioceses onto the first track while the rest of the Episcopal Church remained on the second track.

The seven American bishops signed a statement following General Convention stating that they have no intention of leaving the Episcopal Church but they are trying to find a way of co-existence without compromising their beliefs.

We shall see where this goes, but it begs the question: If individual dioceses can get onto the first track, what about single parishes, or individuals? This railroad could end up with many side spurs.

The second track is likely to be inhabited by the more liberal communion members who, it so happens, are mostly of the industrialized world – the U.S., Canada, Scotland, South Africa, and maybe even the Church of England itself.

The second track, it should be noted, is the track with the most money, begging the instant question about which track would, in reality, end up the first track. Even David Anderson sees that point and raised that issue in his Sept 4 newsletter:

"Opposing Dr. Williams is Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the pronouncer of heresy on the historic faith, the Presiding Bishop of the competing Anglican Communion, who will assume that if she is in a tier or track, it will be the favored and most blessed one."

The question of which track will end up the favored first track should give Rowan Williams pause about his two-track proposal. He is setting about to create a supposedly “separate but equal” system of church life. While at first glance that may seem of interest only to those bishops who crave invitations to Lambeth and tea with the Queen, there are real-life consequences to this for real people.

It is as basic as mosquito nets.

By creating two tracks, the archbishop would be sanctioning a great tragedy: the developed world could find an excuse to abdicate its responsibility to the poorest regions of the world; and the government-church power structures in the poorest regions could avoid enlisting assistance from the developed world.

Sanctioning two tracks will make it more difficult than it already is for church relief workers to operate in the undeveloped world. Lest you think this is theoretical objection, our Virginia diocesan missionary in Sudan last summer was ejected from that country at the behest of the Anglican bishops there because she had the temerity to suggest that the Sudanese people really do not care who marries whom in America. Her ejection was met with silence by Canterbury and the rest of the Anglican Communion. That is not a good sign.

I would also suggest the Archbishop of Canterbury’s proposal of two tracks further degrades his own position. His legitimacy rests entirely on the idea that he is an “instrument of unity.” In the name of unity, he is now proposing disunity. Unity cannot be won with a piece of paper called a “covenant,” nor can it be won by coercion from the top down based in a class system of multi-track communion members. I do not recall that Jesus had two tracks at his table, nor did he require signatures on a legalistic covenant to share at his table.

Sadly, Rowan Williams appears not to have learned the lessons of his own truly inspired leadership last summer at the Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops. He was at his best when he got the bishops to sit and listen to each other and their individual stories without ginning up reams of toothless resolutions. Rather than pounding on tables, the bishops discovered true unity in their shared discipleship of Jesus Christ. All of us share in that call as a people of faith, and we can discover this unity, one day, one prayer, one disciple at a time. Even bishops can find that unity, and they don't need a piece of paper or a railroad track to find it.

The photo of mosquito nets is from Oxfam, an amazing organization. For more information about Oxfam, please click HERE.

Cartoon by Dave Walker; apologies to the USC Trojans.

General Convention: Resolution on new gay bishops moves forward

It is time to check back in on General Convention where developments are cooking. But before we return to the politics of the church I do hope you will scroll down and look at the photos from our Shrine Mont weekend. We had fishing derbies, hikes and dances and a good time was had by all.

Ok, back to convention...

I got a call last night from our own Paul Brockman, an alternate deputy at convention, reporting passage by the House of Deputies of a carefully worded resolution that affirms The Episcopal Church's commitment to remaining a full and supportive participant in the life of the Anglican Communion, and (here's the kicker) also affirming that gays and lesbians, like others who are baptized, must be allowed to discern and respond to their call to serve God in the church. That call may include being ordained a deacon, priest or bishop.

Please note: The action by the House of Deputies does not take effect unless also approved by the House of Bishops. We know that the bishops held a closed-door session over the weekend to discuss the issue, and most are predicting that passage by the bishops is a close call at best. I will keep you posted in this space as developments unfold.

The resolution, entitled D025, would essentially lift the moratorium on ordaining any new bishops who are openly gay. That moratorium had been approved by General Convention three years ago to give the rest of the Anglican Communion "breathing space" in the wake of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. The new resolution, however, does not repudiate the earlier resolution but, as one of its authors pointed out, is attempting to describe a "comprehensive description of the church's current reality."

You can read the full text of the resolution as it passed the House of Deputies last night by clicking HERE (and it is worth a careful read).

You can also bet that if both houses pass this resolution there will be sharp reaction on both sides of the issue. My prediction is that a diocese will soon elect another openly gay bishop, for example in the Diocese of Los Angeles where the search is underway for new suffragan bishops (assisting bishops). 

How the rest of the Anglican Communion will react is hard to predict; our relationships with some provinces, for example Nigeria and Argentina, are already broken for all practical purposes. There may be more churches who breakaway from the Episcopal Church, but they would probably break away anyway.

You can read the Episcopal News Service story on this by clicking HERE.

General Convention: Welcome baskets, hugs and hope

The first full day of General Convention is now past, and judging by my email and the Episcopal News Service reports, it was a crush of activity. The top of the news was dominated by a committee hearing on proposals for developing same-sex marriage rites, and the testimony was impassioned on both sides of the issue. No vote was taken. You can read about the hearing the reaction by clicking HERE.

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams held a private 30 minute meeting with advocates for the inclusion of gays and lesbians, but by agreement, no one was talking about what happened in the meeting. The Archbishop later appeared on a panel discussion on the global economic crisis and his comments were quite thoughtful.

"We have suddenly discovered we have been lying to ourselves," he said. "For the last decade or more there has been a steady erosion of trust in our financial life. Our word has not been our bond. We have learned to tolerate high levels of evasion and anti-relational practices. We have lied to ourselves about the possibility of profit without risk."

You can read more about his remarks by clicking HERE.

With all that, what struck me the most were the reports of infectious hospitality amongst those at convention. There was a panel discussion by representatives of four dioceses that are rebuilding after voting to leave the Episcopal Church: Pittsburg, Quincy, San Joaquin and Fort Worth. The representatives of the rebuilding dioceses  reported finding welcome baskets in their rooms, placed by another diocese, and hugs in the hallways. Everyone I heard from told me of warm greetings and wonderful reunions.

And Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the openly gay bishop whose ordination as a bishop has caused such worldwide controversy, had this to report last night, and I leave you this because it gives me hope:

It's hard for me to move from one place to another because of being stopped by countless numbers of people who want to say hello, tell me they have been praying for me, and to wish me well. More humbling still are the many people (surprisingly many, and usually young people) who want to tell me that my election is the reason they're in The Episcopal Church, or more usually, why they've returned to the Church, after year of being disillusioned with the institutional church. Wonderful, but exhausting too. Many seem so very grateful for the witness of New Hampshire to the wider Church. It is often easy to forget what our life and ministry and witness mean to the greater Body of Christ -- and it is a humbling expression of support for all of us in New Hampshire.

Who is the guy in the green jacket?

General Convention watchers are wondering: Who was the guy in the loud green jacket and bow tie who introduced Bishop Katharine and Bonnie Anderson yesterday? He is none other than The Rev. Dr. Gregory S. Straub, executive officer and secretary of General Convention. Here is his job description:

The Executive Officer is appointed by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies. As Executive Officer he/she oversees all aspects of the work of Church governance, from site selection through supervision and funding of the work mandated by the convention. The Executive Officer may also be elected to serve as the Secretary of the House of Deputies and, if elected by both houses of General Convention, Secretary of the General Convention.

Pastors Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery inaugural prayers

Several folks have asked for Pastor Rick Warren's prayer from this morning. I posted Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer yesterday, and while some see this as a war of prayers, I don't. All our prayers are imperfect even as God hears them perfectly. For good measure, I am also posting the Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction with its overtones from "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Here's Pastor Warren's followed by Pastor Lowery's prayer:

Invocation by the Rev. Rick Warren:

Almighty God -- our Father. Everything we see, and everything we can’t see, exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, ‘Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’ And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King, and a great cloud of witnesses, are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice-President Biden, the cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom, and justice for all.

When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.

And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes -- even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation, and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day, all nations and all people will stand accountable before you.

We now commit our new president, and his wife Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life -- Yeshua, Isa, Jesús, Jesus -- who taught us to pray:

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

Benediction by the Rev. Joseph Lowery

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen --

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.

Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer few heard

New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson offered the opening prayer at yesterday's We Are One inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Few heard Gene's prayer. HBO did not broadcast it and my friends standing on the mall tell me they couldn't hear it - the sound system inexplicably cut out. You can hear and see video of the prayer at EpiscopalCafe by clicking HERE, and read reactions positive and negative.

Prayer is prayer, and God hears the cries of God's people. God bless the United States of America and the President-elect and his family. Here is Gene's prayer:

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Gene Robinson at the first inaugural event next week

I hope you caught this news yesterday -- Bishop Gene Robinson will be offering the prayer at the Lincoln Memorial at the first inaugural event. 

By the way, if you haven't read Gene's book, In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God, it is much worth your time (and critics of Bishop Robinson ought to read his book before they render an opinion about his Christianity). 

Bishop Gene was interviewed yesterday on NPR. You can hear the interview by clicking: NPR website.

Here is the story from Episcopal News Service yesterday:

Robinson calls participation in Lincoln Memorial concert 'humbling'

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, January 12, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson will give the invocation January 18 at the first event in a week of celebrations marking President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.

Robinson told Episcopal News Service that his participation in the "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. is "a wonderful opportunity for the Episcopal Church and certainly the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New Hampshire to be represented at this historic event and I am honored and not a little overwhelmed at the responsibility."

"I just hope I can live up to it," he added.

Robinson said he was invited by the inaugural committee to participate in the event about two-and-a-half weeks ago and that he had cooperated with the team's request that an announcement be held until some details were worked out.

His participation in the event stands in contrast to the December 17 announcement that Obama had asked theRev. Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church and a leading conservative evangelical, to deliver the invocation at the January 20 swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Robinson, who is openly gay and in June entered into a legal civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrews, was prominent among those who criticized the president-elect's choice of Warren, who has equated gay relationships to incest and child abuse.

When Warren's invitation was announced, Robinson told the New York Times that "it was like a slap in the face," adding that "the God that he's praying to is not the God that I know."

Robinson told ENS that "the [Obama] transition team was in touch with me about that and I with them and I was very forthcoming in my feeling that this was a very troublesome choice not because Rick Warren's voice shouldn't be at the table but that this particular venue where he was being invited was not a roundtable discussion of a lot of different opinions" but that instead Warren would be "the prayer voice at the most-watched inaugural in history."

He praised parts of Warren's ministry. "I feel very positively about Rick Warren in some ways. He has broken from his evangelical brothers and sisters around his compassion of AIDS victims and his working on alleviating global poverty," Robinson said. "It's just that the views he holds about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are pretty awful and he even confirmed the statements that he has made comparing our relationships to incest and child abuse. That is extraordinarily troublesome."

However, Robinson told ENS January 12 that he did not think the invitation to participate in the Lincoln Memorial event was meant to balance out Warren's participation. Instead, Robinson suggested, the invitation was based on his early support of Obama, with whom he met several times during the New Hampshire primary.

"I became very convinced that his message against polarizing the nation but in fact drawing it together was one that everyone needed to hear so I became quite supportive of him and his campaign," Robinson said, adding that  he advised the campaign and Obama "behind the scenes" particularly around gay and lesbian issues.

"It's certainly the case that the LGBT community will notice [Robinson's invitation] and it will matter a lot but I don't think that was the primary impetus for this," the bishop said.