Rev. Mary D. Glasspool doesn’t see herself as a “one-issue person.” But history may not agree with her self-assessment. At least not yet.
On Saturday, as the world knows by now, Glasspool, 55, became only the second openly gay bishop in the Anglican world after New Hampshire’s V. Gene Robinson. Chosen as their suffragan (similar to assistant) bishop by the diocese of Los Angeles, Glasspool’s election must be consented to by the wider Episcopal Church leadership before she is consecrated on May 15, 2010.
While her long résumé as a beloved parish priest and skilled church administrator who has worked both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line is impressive, it’s Glasspool’s lesbianism that made her an international news item. Conservative Episcopalians and Anglicans, who oppose the ordination of women and homosexuals, wasted no time in denouncing Glasspool’s election. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said her election “raises serious questions” for the Anglican Communion and urged the Episcopalian bishops not to seat her for the sake of unity.
Yet for all the uproar, there’s a growing sense of inevitability about the “all-inclusive” wing of the Episcopal Church that elected Glasspool. As the Guardian wrote recently, the fact that the Anglican Communion is headed for a schism is “bleeding obvious.”
“I think there is already a split,” Rev. Carol Anderson, rector of All Saints Church in Beverly Hills, and one of the first women to be ordained into the Episcopal priesthood, told me. “The level of faithfulness in the gospel is the same but there are different worldviews.”
Nowhere are the fault lines so stark as regarding Uganda, which is on the verge of passing a draconian anti-gay law that would make homosexuality punishable by imprisonment and even death. In a move that alienated many, Rowan Williams rushed to scold Episcopalians over Glasspool but only issued an anemic, and tardy, response on Uganda, where the Anglican Church is very influential.
Carol Anderson had “high hopes” for Williams, but believes “he’s bent over backwards to listen to only one segment of the Anglican Communion.”
“Electing a woman bishop who happens to be a lesbian is not the same kind of affront to the gospel as killing somebody. I’m sorry, but they just don’t measure up,” Anderson said. “I think he’s lost his way.”
Regarding Uganda, Glasspool believes people will comprehend the difference between her election in the diocese of Los Angeles and “laws that threaten and oppress an entire group of people, homosexuals, as punishment for just being who you are.” The Episcopal Church is “trying to move beyond all that,” she said. “We welcome everyone regardless of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, class. This is about being a child of God.”
Anderson has seen a great deal of change in the church since she was ordained in 1977. When she took over as rector of All Saints in 1988, for example, her congregation “was not even willing to hear a conversation about AIDS.” Now the congregation is about one third gay and lesbian, and the profile for her replacement (Anderson is retiring at the first of the year) is anyone, “male or female, black or white, gay or lesbian or straight, it doesn’t matter.”
So far, Glasspool reports that 99 percent of the emails she’s received from around the world have been “positive and joyful.” She’s gotten well wishes from everyone from a lesbian Roman Catholic couple in England to a straight couple from the generally conservative diocese of Dallas. And unlike Gene Robinson and Carol Anderson, who both received death threats for their pioneering roles, Glasspool has not been so targeted—yet. When I asked her about any fears, she was hopeful but circumspect that since Gene Robinson was consecrated in 2003 “we have a healthier church and society” so that she “wouldn’t have to deal with wearing a bulletproof vest” as Robinson has.
“Yeah, I worry for her,” Anderson told me. “Any time you step out and do something like this it arouses anger and hatred. But I think she’s prepared.”
No doubt both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican world as a whole are in for many, many more years of anguish over gay clergy and other issues currently dividing the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury, especially, has positioned himself to be an object of criticism from all sides, satisfying neither the all-inclusive wing nor the so-called “traditionalists” with his mealy-mouthed call, in response to Glasspool’s election, for a “period of gracious restraint” in order not to violate the “bonds of mutual affection.”
For their part, the traditionalists and conservatives gathered at events such as last year’s revolt against Lambeth, the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON), continue to bolt from Canterbury as fast as they can; the diocese of Los Angeles, meanwhile, is thrilled to welcome not just openly gay Glasspool, but another female assistant bishop, Diane Jardine Bruce, into its fold.
For all of the brouhaha surrounding Glasspool, Carol Anderson states simply that “It wasn’t an issue vote, it was a competency vote.” People voted for “her character, her faithfulness, and her experience.” And that’s just the point. After more than three decades of “writing theology and doing biblical studies on issues of human sexuality,” as Glasspool described the process inside the Episcopal Church, her election is, in fact, business as usual.
To many observers who don’t care about the Anglican Church, or any church for that matter, all the prattle about the impending, or de facto, “split” in the Anglican Communion may be of little interest. But Anderson insists that “it’s a microcosm of the larger issues in society” and that “it’s a dialectic—as the church changes, the society will change.” She sees inclusiveness attracting new worshippers, which in turn generates more interest in faith in general.
But of course inclusiveness, especially of women and gay clergy, is precisely what may drive some “traditional” Anglicans to take up Pope Benedict’s recent offer to move their congregations into the Roman Catholic Church.
“He’s trying to do a pastoral thing for Anglicans who want to become purists, or whatever he wants to call it,” Anderson said. ”Well, I want to take him at his word.” Why not “open the door” and welcome “Roman Catholics into the Episcopal Church because they don’t want to be part of a narrow interpretation of what it means to be Christian.”
“If it’s time to shift sides of the aisles,” she said with a chuckle, “let it be a two-way street.”
As for Glasspool, Anderson thinks that based on her own experience of being one of the first ordained women priests, “people need to see that Mary is not an issue person, she’s a person person.”
They just have to meet her.
“They’ll say, my goodness, she just wants to minister to us and to the world and that’s fine with us. And the fine points of biblical interpretation and church order and whatever begin to pass away.”
Tags: anglican church, episcopal church, gene robinson, lgbt, mary glasspool, rowan williams
Mary is, first and foremost a child of God, but if other distinctions must be made, she is not the second gay bishop-elect, she is the first lesbian bishop-elect. And, she will be confirmed, precisely because she has always presented herself, first and foremost, as a child of God.
On one level, I can understand Archbishop Williams' reluctance to speak out aganist the proposed inhuman law against gays and lesbians in Uganda. The Church of Uganda is three or four times the size of the Episcopal Church (and growing) whereas the Episcopal Church is small and shrinking. Why alienate conservative African Anglicans more?
One the other hand, why can't he try to get the Catholic and Anglican churches in Uganda together to condemn the law. Together those two churches form the majority in Uganda. There are people in the Ugandan Catholic church against the inhuman law.
My fantasy: that Archbishop Williams and Pope Benedict both speak out against the law because it violates basic Christian charity.
First, to the writer of the article. Being lesbian isn't an "ism".
Archibishop Rowan Williams started out well, but is clearly off the rails now, and being swayed by one segment of the church only.
I agree with another poster, why not open the Anglican Church to disaffected Catholics? There are plenty out there, and they are looking in all the other churches. As a pastor, I see disaffected Roman Catholics coming into the church almost every week - looking for a place where they can settle, take communion, and practice the *Christian* faith. The first words out of their mouths, almost every time, are "We're Catholic, but we won't raise our children in that church."
Virtually all of the churches have been, or are, dealing with the issue of gays and lesbians being ordained. The United Church of Canada, in which I am ordained, managed it in 1988. There was a group of people who threatened to leave, who fought back, who were going to move the church back to "orthodoxy" - it didn't happen.
And to the previous poster - Jesus did a good job of alienating all those who did not practice an inclusive gospel of love. He was put to death by those he had alienated. That *is* what the Gospel call is.
"why not open the Anglican Church to disaffected Catholics? There are plenty out there, and they are looking in all the other churches"
The Anglican Church has always been open to disaffected Catholics and to everyone else, and some to come in but not enough to reverse the precipitous decline in membership. Unfortunately, we're past the tipping point. Most Catholics either ignore the doctrinal boloney the hierarchy promulgates or, if they just can't stand it any more, join the fastest growing "religious group" in the US--the unchurched.
We've gone beyond the tipping point. Most people who are dissatisfied with conservative churches social and political agendas don't join more liberal churches--they drop out altogether. So mainline churches shrink and become, for most of the population, invisible. According to the latest ARIS survey, "generic evangelicalism" has become the standard brand of American Christianity as Americans increasingly clump toward the ends--liberal and secular or conservative and religious. And that trend is self-perpetuating.
"....a beloved parish priest and skilled church administrator who has worked both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line is impressive, it’s Glasspool’s lesbianism that made her an international news item."
What a sad commentary on the Church. In other words, you can be a total failure as a pastor and administratively corrupt or inept, but it doesn't matter as long as you are heterosexual. We certainly have our priorities mixed up.
The sacred is not present in the places of exclusion, closed orthodoxy, and discrimination based on a long list of traits, including sexual orientation. God is in the open places, the widening spaces where the human expands their consciousness in a continuing journey of discovery of the presence of the divine within all of creation.
Rev. Glasspool's election is another sign of this widening of the human experience, and it is full of God.
Margaret
www.ecologicalhope.org
"...the fastest growing religious group in the US -- the unchurched."
Of the 15% of US population (303 million) of the unchurched, as many as 5% are former Catholics. But the Evangelicals (Baptists, especially), Catholics and Mormons still hold their own (35%, 24% and 2% of the US populations, respectively) and have for decades (Catholics owing to immigration and conversions, according to Pew Survey, 2008).
The Epsicopal Church, however, is less than 1%. It really is shrinking and is really beyond the tipping point, as previous logger pointed out.
Hopefully, some day all the churches and unchurched will recognize the dignity of all people, whatever their orientation or background.
It isn't the approval or anger of those on earth she must fear. . . it is the wrath of
God.
Then she has absolutely nothing to fear.
Surely the idea of church is not 'to open itself up to disaffected catholics' - its not a supermarket trying to find USP's and lower prices to win customers... it is about belief and what should and shouldnt be done.
No way should it be swayed by winning some more followers simply for the sake of it. The church should be above such pursuits.
Nick Tea
I've read articles about how Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams refuses to denounce the genocidal legislation being proposed in Uganda. But he denounces Rev. Glasspool's election as an Episcopal Bishop.
If Williams and his colleagues cast the Episcopal Church out of the Anglican Communion, as an Episcopalian, I don't think I would mind at all. I don't want to be a part of a Communion that accepts genocide yet denounces lifelong faithful love.
"I don't want to be a part of a Communion that accepts genocide...."
Wavetossed, that's a stretch -- to suggest that because the Communion is trying to (hestitantly? rapidly?) grapple, struggle, or deal with St. Paul's letter to the Roman church 2,000 yrs ago (1 Romans, 27), it follows that the Communion "accepts genocide"? Wow! What a leap! So not permitting gays to be ordained bishops is a form of genocide? I know I am missing some part of your logic. So, St. Paul was for genocide because of his letter to Roman churchpeople?
I think you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say that the Communion was accepting genocide because there are some members who won't accept gay, lesbian, or women bishops.
What I was discussing was Rowan Williams complete silence on the genocidal legislation in Uganda. On one had, he was quick to condemn Rev. Glasspool's election. On the other hand, he remained silent over the prospects of genocide. Okay, he's recently said a few rather tepid things. Still it seems that too many people within the Communion are more comfortable with the prospect of genocide than with the prospect of accepting LGBT or women priests or bishops. And if the Communion officially takes this stand (rail against LGBT/women bishops and remain silent about genocidal leglislation), then it's a Communion I want no part of.
As Edmund Burke once said: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men [people] to do nothing."
You make an assumption, common to writers whose normal “beat” is secular politics and whose general orientation is liberal; that religion is (or should be anyway) merely an extension of politics which of course, should be every bit as liberal. But even for many people who are liberal, in most respects (e.g., I was full-time in the civil rights Movement, jailed for refusing Vietnam, marched countless times against the Iraq invasion and worked full-time for Obama); religion is something entirely different, nothing less than the Revealed Word of God, which we may disobey only at our peril, ultimately perhaps, forfeiture of eternal life.
And homosexual practice is not only condemned by Scripture (e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:9,10) but by Natural Law itself, because the sexual faculty is ordered to its procreative function and homosexual intercourse can never be procreative. This does not mean that Christians should hate homosexual persons, nor does it mean that we should support laws, which unjustly persecute them. But it does mean that such behavior is unacceptable in the Christian community and any body which purports to be “Christian”, but fails in this teaching, will be doomed to destruction, sooner or later.
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