Sunday, March 26, 2023

A Statement from the Episcopal Church’s Task Force on LGBTQ+ Inclusion

I am honored to serve as the chair of this amazing team of faithful people. Called to the work of serving as the Episcopal Church's Task Force on LGBTQ+ Inclusion, we met for the first time this week in Cleveland and issued the following statement about our scope of work and the context in which we labor. We covet your prayers and give thanks for the gift and privilege of this work we have been called to do. (TF members pictured below with President of the House of Deputies Julia Ayala Harris)

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The Episcopal Church’s Task Force on LGBTQ+ Inclusion held its inaugural meeting in Cleveland from March 23-26 where we began the process of implementing the charge given to us by the 80th General Convention: to continue the work of becoming The Beloved Community – a charism of which is a church that functions with equity and care for the whole body, including its LGBTQ+ members.

Our focus was on the two primary tasks called out in our enabling resolution: to initiate a churchwide audit of how the Episcopal Church has lived into its 1976 commitment to provide full and equal claim to the love, acceptance and pastoral concern of the Church to its LGBTQ+ members and to begin the process of creating an archive of the history of the work for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Episcopal Church.

We began our work grounded in prayer and deeply aware that we stand on the shoulders of so many who have gone before us in this holy task of turning that full and equal claim promised in 1976 from a resolution to a reality. And we were palpably aware of the awesome privilege of being called to do that work from the institutional center of the Church rather than from the margins where so many have labored for so long and so hard. It is a moment that makes the heart glad.

Yet even as we celebrate this historic turning point in our beloved Episcopal Church, we also recognize how much work there is still to do. We hold in tension the progress that has brought us this far on the road to full inclusion with the fact that there are still dioceses where same-sex couples do not have unfettered access to the same liturgical rites for marriage their opposite sex siblings do.

We are faced with the grim reality that there remain dioceses where systemic homophobia continues to disenfranchise LGBTQ+ Episcopalians from exercising their ordained ministries and with the fact that we are not yet a Church where God’s beloved transgender and nonbinary children can trust that the “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign outside our churches really means them.

Nevertheless, we persist. We give thanks for the trust placed in us by our General Convention and presiding officers – Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and President of the House of Deputies Julia Ayala Harris. And we look forward to the work ahead as we strive to become a church that moves beyond inclusion to celebration of every member of God’s beloved human family as part of The Beloved Community.

Filed by:
Thomas Brown, Samantha Christopher, Jay Elmquist, Shug Goodlow, Dennis Kirchoff, Tory Moir, RJ Powell [vice-chair], Paul Ricketts, Susan Russell [chair], and Iain Stanford

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Members present at Cleveland Meeting:
Thomas Brown, Samantha Christopher, Jay Elmquist, Shug Goodlow, Dennis Kirchoff, Tory Moir, RJ Powell [vice-chair], Paul Ricketts, Susan Russell [chair], Kathryn (Kai) Ryan, Iain Stanford, Bryan Velez Garcia
Unable to attend:
Emily Rowcliffe, Gregory Stark

  

Wednesday, March 08, 2023

Celebrating the Philadelphia 11 on International Women's Day


 
March is Women's History Month, and I've been picking a "woman of the day" to celebrate each day. Today is an exception as I'm picking eleven of them: The Philadelphia Eleven, to be specific -- the eleven courageous women who heard the "yes" of the Holy Spirit above the "no" of the institutional church and paved the way in July 1974 for the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church.

I'm also using this day as an opportunity to invite you to join me in helping to tell their story! The Philadelphia Eleven -- a feature length documentary -- is in post-production and your tax-deductible donation can help tell this important story of these amazing women to the world. 

For the past eight years, award-winning independent filmmakers of Time Travel Productions have been at work weaving a trove of archival footage with a narrative told by the ordinands and their allies: including our own George Regas. The film is slated for release in the fall of 2023 in anticipation of the 50th Anniversary in July 2024.

No donation is too small -- or too large! -- as we work to make our goal of raising $100,000 during Women's History Month. Give in thanksgiving for the courage of the Philadelphia Eleven, give in gratitude for the impact of women as priests on the church in general or give in celebration of the ministry of a woman priest in specific. And know that whatever you give will not only preserve and share history, but empower viewers for the work of dismantling the injustices we face today.

Be part of knowing our past in order to change our future. Donate here