One Utah » Blog Archive » Mitt Romney and The Mormon Question

My frustration, like so many who have faced their church of birth, is that in my own mind only, obviously not in reality; but in my own pain, is that if I inhale hugely, the structure trembles, and threatens either to kill me or to collapse; and if I exhale, I blow it away, so much so that it can’t help me, and I really need it’s help; and I can’t help them, since I’ve tried so very hard to do so, and I’ve had success only once, in MX.

This post starts out as a meditation on the political realities of Utah; no matter how much "the powers" may protest to the contrary, authority in Utah flows uphill from the Temple to the Capitol, not the other way around.

It moves on to this painfully realized and vulnerable statement. I'm reminded that in my own faith, there are people who have been hurt by "church" or "religion," and when they find refuge and acceptance somewhere, there are still people in this country and of my faith who think they are an abomination, so that they AND their places of refuge must be marginalized and even destroyed.

The Washington Post article linked above puts it succinctly:

The alliance of the Fairfax Phobics with Archbishop Restaurant Monitor is just the latest chapter in the global revolt against modernity and equality and, more specifically, in the formation of the Orthodox International. The OI unites frequently fundamentalist believers of often opposed faiths in common fear and loathing of challenges to ancient tribal norms. It has featured such moving tableaus as the coming together in the spring of 2005 of Israel's chief rabbis, the deputy mufti of Jerusalem, and leaders of Catholic and Armenian churches, burying ancient enmities to jointly condemn a gay pride festival. The OI's founding father was none other than Pope John Paul II, who spent much time and energy endeavoring to reconcile various orthodox Christian religions and whose ecumenism prompted him to warn the Anglicans not to ordain gay priests.

John Paul also sought to build his church in nations of the developing world where traditional morality and bigotry, most especially on matters sexual, were in greater supply than in secular Europe and the increasingly egalitarian United States, and more in sync with the Catholic Church's inimitable backwardness. Now America's schismatic Episcopalians are following in his footsteps — traditionalists of the two great Western hierarchical Christian churches searching the globe for sufficiently benighted bishops.

In recent years Anglican churches have experienced their greatest growth in the developing world, which could tilt the entire global Anglican Communion toward more traditionalist norms. Only 13 of the 38 national churches within the communion ordain women as priests; only three — the United States, New Zealand and Canada — ordain women as bishops.

It's a sad and painful fact that some of my co-religionists wish to align themselves with a reactionary and oppressive movement, financed from this country but based in the Third World. Some of their leaders have spent years setting this deal up, playing the "gay card" to strengthen their hand and raise the issue in the public mind since at least 1995, and their sheep are blindly following them into intolerance. They are going to have a rude awakening someday, when they are under the power of an autocratic and imperious Bishop using them for his own political ends, and realize that they gave up a little thing we like to call "democracy" in their new church polity.

The original 10 bishops (or dioceses) who kicked things off 10 years ago (by bringing heresy charges against a Newark bishop who ordained an openly gay man in 1990) are still mostly deep in the fray. They couldn't get enough outrage worked up against the ordination of women, I guess, but the gay thing is really working out for them. I wish them joy of their journeys, when they eventually decide to take their pointy hats and go.

In the micro-view of this topic, we've bid farewell in my own small church of Holy Moly to a number of people in the last year, who probably tired of hearing "the gay thing" spoken of by our former vicar and went away. Some of them went away just because they were provided with a pretty good excuse. The rest of us are dealing with the unpleasantness of the end of beloved things, places, and dreams. When we celebrate our closing liturgy, some people who were hurt (and, frankly, who did the hurting on either side) will be present. I've laughed and said "well, what a magnificent opportunity for reconciliation," but I'm not so worried that there will be ructions between antagonistic parties who hurt each other, and then left. There might be a bit of resentment on the part of those of us in the remainder who were hurt, and left, by both sides.

But, I feel as if we had managed to keep everybody under one roof (in a more or less stable pressure-cooker situation) we'd still be closing. So I can't really blame any entity except the idiots 40 years ago who set up a bunch of small mission churches in the suburbs, ignored them,  and doomed them to eventual financial distress and failure.

It's sad that Prof. Firmage feels such pain when he reflects on his spirituality and the church that formed him. I hope that he finds a way to move forward that's healthy for him.

The rest of us in the smaller and larger Episcopal Church will go on, having been energized by the realization that we are called to heal ourselves, our friends and neighbors, our fellow humans in distant lands, and our broken world.

[tags]Episcopal, Utah, Gay Rights, Intolerance, Tolerance[/tags]