| The East Tennessee Episcopalian May 2000 |
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| A Message
From the Bishop
Dear Friends,
Belonging within the Church comes about because of baptism. Baptism is the sacrament of belonging. In terms of the Church, if we have been baptized, then we belong. It’s as simple as that. By virtue of baptism alone, we belong. Various individuals or groups in the Church have not sensed that they belong at different times in our history. For instance, African Americans have not felt part of our community of faith from time to time, and in the past, women, too, may not have felt that sense of gracious belonging. To the extent that a message of not belonging may have been conveyed, that represented a grievously flawed message. By and through baptism alone, we belong. In the Church today, homosexual persons sometimes express concern that they do not belong. However --and I want to be quite clear --such is most definitely not the case. All baptized persons have the right to expect and to experience “gracious belonging” within the Body of Christ, the Church. While the House of Bishops was gathered, we worked hard on developing our life in community. That is a difficult thing to accomplish, for this group of a hundred and fifty or so gathers only twice each year. Nevertheless, I believe that great strides are being made, as we worship and pray and work and play together. Differences exist among us --as with any such group. However, we are committed to our unity in Christ, which transcends all divisions. In addition to time spent in building and strengthening community, the House of Bishops also involved ourselves in preparations for General Convention, to be held in Denver this summer. We looked in particular at several topics: “Called to Common Mission,” the document already passed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that we will consider now; human sexuality; the sin of racism; and our provincial structure as a Church. Since the topic of human sexuality is the one most often mentioned in the press and since it represents subject matter of considerable controversy for some people, let me mention several points made by the House of Bishops’ working group on this topic. First, central to the responsibility of the Church is our mission as given by Christ. Nothing else can or should compete with that priority. Secondly, we need to affirm and to acknowledge the presence of various ideas about human sexuality within the Church. Thirdly, we commit our efforts to hold together these various perspectives and to encourage communication among us. Fourthly, we plan to seek a new way to address issues of this nature . . .that is, a solution by legislation does not serve us well. Fifthly, we assert and state that circumstances relating to justice and non-violence are not at issue in our debates. For instance, recent examples of violence and indications of unequal protection under the law toward gay people are inappropriate as matters of justice. Our time spent in California was a blessing for us as bishops. We were joined by Dr. Pam Chinnis, President of the House of Deputies (priests and lay people), and by two African bishops as well. While bishops need to work on our community for the good of the Church, we also need to be open to other perspectives and people who may teach us and learn from us. Please continue to pray for our Church -- and for all the lay people, deacons, priests and bishops who claim a “gracious belonging” in the Body of Christ. Faithfully
yours, |
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On my way to the recent House of Bishops’ meeting, I tried to catch
up on some of the reading I had not done in advance. At one point, I was
looking through the pamphlet, “Bishops in Communion.” There
I found a phrase that spoke quite clearly to me -- “a connectedness
of gracious belonging.” In the context of the pamphlet, that phrase
described the collegiality of bishops. However, it occurred to me that
we might use that phrase to characterize the Christian community at all
levels -- “a connectedness of gracious belonging.”