The regular reader of these diaries will realize that I am a Christian. It's attributable to a religious experience I had in high school, and I'm not really here to talk about that. It's a boundary condition you'll need to follow what I do want to talk about. For those who care, having read William James' Variety of Religious Experience, I can say that I would totally understand if you had a similar experience and came to very different conclusions. For those who haven't had such an experience... Well, it's kind of like falling in love. It makes no sense, and until it happens to you, you can't believe it's something real. When it does, it seems like the most significant thing that's ever happened to you.
Enough of that.
I found my way into the Episcopal Church, which is the American cousin of the Church of England, one of a couple dozen "provinces" of the Anglican Communion, a kind of loose association of churches, governed by bishops in the apostolic succession, which separated from Rome during the reign of Henry VIII.
Anyway. There is, at least in the perception of this Christian, considerable pressure to conform to a life plan that they can understand. They cater more or less explicitly to families, consisting of one man and one woman and an expectation value of 2.3 children. There are always single people around; widows, divorcees, for example. Remarriage is allowed, under some circumstances. There are folks who would be Roman Catholics except that they've divorced and remarried. It's a reasonable middle way between protestants and catholics, or at least it can be.
When we were married, even tough our marriage didn't really conform in detail, I felt for a time that all was right with the world. That an institution was designed, more or less, to fit my needs. As it happens, this easy fit was an attractive nuisance; very convenient, indeed suspiciously so.
This church is having their triennial General Convention this week in Indianapolis. The church is governed for legislative purposes by a bicameral convention. The House of Bishops consists of all active and retired bishops of the church. The House of Deputies has representatives from each diocese, half laypeople and half clergy. On some issues the Deputies vote by orders (i.e. the measure has to take a majority of both lay and clerical deputies, plus the bishops).
It's a bit of a crapshoot, with some general conventions having a mindset that they can, by majority vote, change the nature of the faith. Most times, they're more restrained.
This time around there are a number of resolutions up for adoption. The ones of note here are three. Two deal with updating the non-discrimination canons to include gender identity and expression (which had to be defined several times for bishops with southern accents). These have both passed both houses, so they're part of the polity of the church in the US. The third establishes for provisional use a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions. Marriages, where such things are legal; also domestic partnerships, and less formal but (by intention of the resolution, at least) life-long partnerships.
Now the 3rd one doesn't impact my life in any way, but it makes me smile. Here in Massachussetts, they've been doing that for some time; in fact Bishop Tom Shaw presided at the wedding of one of his canons (staff priests who work for the bishop), a woman, to the dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge (another woman priest). But now there's an official (if provisional) liturgy for the purpose. Well, it passed the House of Bishops today 111-41 with 4 abstentions. It's expected to pass the Deputies in the next couple days.
But inclusion of trans people, in particular that there's to be no discrimination in lay ministries, or in the process of discernment for the priesthood, that's my issue. If there's something, one thing, that I Just Don't Talk About at church, it's my issues around gender identity. Some of my friends do know. I don't bring it up with clergy, on the theory that they don't have a need to know. Naturally, depending on them for counseling, especially in difficult times like the last couple years, is unfair when I won't give them all the relevant facts.
Anyway. Now at least I feel included; they're not going to try to bounce me out because of who I am. Well, they might, but at least now they shouldn't. It is a day for carefully exhaling.
Enough of that.
I found my way into the Episcopal Church, which is the American cousin of the Church of England, one of a couple dozen "provinces" of the Anglican Communion, a kind of loose association of churches, governed by bishops in the apostolic succession, which separated from Rome during the reign of Henry VIII.
Anyway. There is, at least in the perception of this Christian, considerable pressure to conform to a life plan that they can understand. They cater more or less explicitly to families, consisting of one man and one woman and an expectation value of 2.3 children. There are always single people around; widows, divorcees, for example. Remarriage is allowed, under some circumstances. There are folks who would be Roman Catholics except that they've divorced and remarried. It's a reasonable middle way between protestants and catholics, or at least it can be.
When we were married, even tough our marriage didn't really conform in detail, I felt for a time that all was right with the world. That an institution was designed, more or less, to fit my needs. As it happens, this easy fit was an attractive nuisance; very convenient, indeed suspiciously so.
This church is having their triennial General Convention this week in Indianapolis. The church is governed for legislative purposes by a bicameral convention. The House of Bishops consists of all active and retired bishops of the church. The House of Deputies has representatives from each diocese, half laypeople and half clergy. On some issues the Deputies vote by orders (i.e. the measure has to take a majority of both lay and clerical deputies, plus the bishops).
It's a bit of a crapshoot, with some general conventions having a mindset that they can, by majority vote, change the nature of the faith. Most times, they're more restrained.
This time around there are a number of resolutions up for adoption. The ones of note here are three. Two deal with updating the non-discrimination canons to include gender identity and expression (which had to be defined several times for bishops with southern accents). These have both passed both houses, so they're part of the polity of the church in the US. The third establishes for provisional use a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions. Marriages, where such things are legal; also domestic partnerships, and less formal but (by intention of the resolution, at least) life-long partnerships.
Now the 3rd one doesn't impact my life in any way, but it makes me smile. Here in Massachussetts, they've been doing that for some time; in fact Bishop Tom Shaw presided at the wedding of one of his canons (staff priests who work for the bishop), a woman, to the dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge (another woman priest). But now there's an official (if provisional) liturgy for the purpose. Well, it passed the House of Bishops today 111-41 with 4 abstentions. It's expected to pass the Deputies in the next couple days.
But inclusion of trans people, in particular that there's to be no discrimination in lay ministries, or in the process of discernment for the priesthood, that's my issue. If there's something, one thing, that I Just Don't Talk About at church, it's my issues around gender identity. Some of my friends do know. I don't bring it up with clergy, on the theory that they don't have a need to know. Naturally, depending on them for counseling, especially in difficult times like the last couple years, is unfair when I won't give them all the relevant facts.
Anyway. Now at least I feel included; they're not going to try to bounce me out because of who I am. Well, they might, but at least now they shouldn't. It is a day for carefully exhaling.
| < Moved house. | Halfway done > |
