The news came through last night that the Anglican Communion is to have its second bishop who happens to have a gay partner. Canon Mary Glasspool was elected as a new suffragan bishop in Los Angeles a few months ago. What’s happened since is that the wider American church has had a chance to say yes or no to her appointment. The system in the US is that after an election, bishops with jurisdiction and diocesan standing committees are asked to confirm the election of a new bishop. There has to be a majority of both bishops and standing committees.
Our system is different in Scotland. It used to be that after an election, the College of Bishops was asked to confirm it. Now, the confirmation process takes place before the election in that the bishops agree to each of the names that go onto the shortlist, confirming that they will consecrate anyone from that list who is elected. (It is this confirmation process which our bishops have abandonned for partnered gay candidates in Scotland, preferring to declare a blanket ban on such people being considered rather than to accept due process and vote amongst themselves in regards to each candidate).
Anyway, Mary Glasspool has the requisite number of consents. She will be consecrated. There will be a fuss. The world will keep turning. She is not the first partnered lesbian bishop we are in full communion with anyway. That honour went to Eva Brunne some time ago.
I think people are weary of the fuss and generally just want to get on with being the church.
So, good wishes to the Diocese of Los Angeles and to Bishop-Elect Mary who will serve them. Peace and blessings be upon the fuss-makers.
This is indeed good news to cheer a gloomy Glasgow morning!
Might this be the end of the Anglican Communion ?
I think the Anglican Communion as I understood it, ended at Dromantine in February 2005 when the Primates found themselves unable to share in Holy Communion one with another.
By and large, the world has kept turning even though the Communion is broken.
This is indeed true Kelvin, the world is still turning. I am glad that you acknowledge that the Anglican family is now divided. It is sometimes best for the health of family members to acknowledge when relationships are completey broken down. Perhaps now some of the notice boards at churches in Scotland will properly reflect this. The SEC is not in communion with all Anglicans worldwide. It is in communion with some Anglicans.
It is always difficult in families – what do you do when the stroppy son storms out? When Uncle loses the plot and goes off on one? When Granny ignores everybody else’s plans and insists on one of her own?
If you have any sense, what you do it to try to keep talking, and hope in time tempers cool. What you do not do is to give in to strops, or the strops of those who are, as it were, reactively stropping. You do not attempt to formalise the slammed door, the refusal to come to the dinner. You ignore the fact the cousins are sulking in the car park because of something which happened earlier. That is actually what you do. However tempted you are to cry: ‘Right! Fine! I’m letting everybody know that if you feel like that I want nothing more to do with you!’
I am reminded of the old verse:
If only the good were clever,
If only the clever were good,
The world would be better than ever
We thought that it possibly could.
But alas, it is seldom or never
that either behave as they should
For the good are so rude to the clever,
The clever so cruel to the good.
Substitute conservative and liberal and ….
Let us agree that the SEC will welcome all Anglicans whatever their views. More constructive.
That said – we can push the ‘family analogy too far. Unlike a family, the church is about more than keeping it all together. The church is prophetic. Which of course both sides of the discussion claim to be.
I continue to be mindful of the ear, the eye, the foot, and the right and left hands……… and perhaps we could usefully muse further on the brain and nervous system, and the lungs/ breathing/ Breath Of God, even…………..
The SEC is not in communion with all Anglicans worldwide. It is in communion with some Anglicans.
I think that the SEC by choice is in communion with all other Anglicans. Some other Anglicans perhaps by choice have decided to not be in communion with the SEC. Not one of us has any control over the decisions someone may make about their own relationships with others. So fretting about their decision does neither party any good.
Re the Election of Canon Mary Glasspool to the Episcopate: it is quite sad when individuals whether gay, lesbian, liberal or conservative put their own personal aspirations before the unity of the Anglican Communion. This current obsession with sexuality and the triumphal trumpeting that always seems to accompany such apointments certainly reduces our effectiveness in proclaiming the Gospel.
What unity, Ross?
Isn’t that “unity” the current obsession?
it is quite sad when individuals whether gay, lesbian, liberal or conservative put their own personal aspirations before the unity of the Anglican Communion.
I assume that you feel that you have been called to the ministry of the ordained. I am inclined to believe that from your statement that your personal theology could be a threat to the unity of the Anglican Communion, and yet you have placed your personal aspirations ahead of this unity and here you are ordained.
Your flippant approach to the call of the Revd Canon Mary Glasspool is insulting. This was not a popularity contest that she has won. She has gone through probably the most extensive vetting process of any province in the entire Anglican Communion.
1. She was nominated as a possible suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Los Angeles and vetted by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles’ Suffragan Bishop Search Committee where, after prayerful consideration, she was eventually short listed as a candidate.
2. After prayerful consideration, she was elected by the Diocese of Los Angeles’ Diocesan Convention; bishops, priests, deacons and laity, all the orders of ministry, represented in synod.
3. The bishop-elect’s name was then sent to all of the bishops with jurisdiction and all of the diocesan Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church in the USA.
4. After prayerful consideration each individual bishop made the decision as to whether s/he could accede to the consecration of the bishop-elect. She received the necessary majority of bishops acceding to her consecration.
5. After prayerful consideration each Standing Committee; representing the orders of clergy and laity of the diocese, made the decision by majority vote as to whether it could accede to the consecration of the bishop-elect. She received the necessary majority of Standing Committees acceding to her consecration.
When you cavalierly dismiss the reality of the actual process with your curt accusation of the bishop-elect placing her personal aspirations ahead of the unity of the AC, you trivialize the prayerful work of an entire province, in all of its orders of ministry, to call a suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Los Angeles.
I don’t think it works like that Ross – I don’t think gay clergy, DO put their aspirations before the general good of the church. Is it for the general good of the church that all gay people should see when they look at the church is condemnation, or closet gays? Not in my estimation and not a church I would want to belong to!
The Gospel is for all, and its prophetic nature inevitably brings about challenges. If the church was in all ways like a family then it might be true that sitting down and shutting up and not rocking the boat would be the way to grow. (Though heaven forfend MY family should ever be like that!!) But the real gospel is edgy, demanding and takes us to places which stretch us, way beyond our comfort zones. This issue of sexuality is ONE way (and only one) this happens. We proclaim more and not less effectively for this. The Gospel is not simply spiritual, or rather, not spiritual in a simple way. It is spiritual in ways that encompass the whole physical world and transforms it. All Christians are put out of their comfort zones by it, though not all by sexuality of course. One other way it makes his demand is by asking that we learn to ‘be one’ with those whose opinions we loathe. It is another tough lesson. We need to get on with learning it, though, because it teaches us much about that Jesus who so dramatically offended notions of spurious purity while demanding an ever-more radical life of commitment.