Last night I saw something amazing.
Birthday parties are nothing unusual even when they are for the dreaded #30 after which no one under 30 can trust you anymore according to the wisdom of the 60s. But this party was unusual. First, the young man celebrating his passage into his 30s threw the party for himself. At church. He enlisted the help of the parish and they generously provided a beautiful spread of food, drink and decorations. He created a theme - shady ladies - and asked people to wear shades. They did, ranging from the oversized sunglasses from the Rocky Horror Picture Show to Minnie and Mickey Disney shades to lamp shades. It was a hoot.
But that was just the beginning. The party was designed as a fund raiser for an international AIDS ministry. An Episcopal priest who serves that ministry came to speak to the party, this just days out of open heart surgery. What he said took me by surprise.
He began by congratulating St. Richard's parish for its willingness to open its doors, its ministries and its hearts to all people, regardless of whom they love. Around the room a number of gay and lesbian parishioners nodded their heads in agreement, including the young man celebrating his birthday. In a room filled with well over 100 people, most of them St. Richard's parishioners, the truth of Fr. Freu's observations was apparent. He reminded the parish of the obvious - they offer an important ministry in a diocese which is often hostile to and judgmental of the very people St. Richard's welcomes. That witness is a light in what is often a very dark and cold diocese. And it occurs by swimming upstream against the dominant vision of the diocese and its leadership. It is a courageous witness, indeed.
He went on to offer some of the sanest theology I've heard in this diocese in a long time: "On the seventh day, G-d looked at all he had created and he said, 'It is good.' And that's all you have to know. And anyone who would tell you the world is evil is simply wrong." I looked around the parish hall and the faces of those present - white, black, Latino, Asian, old, young, straight, gay - presented a snapshot of what Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called G-d's Rainbow People. That sight brought tears to my eyes. Because, as G-d has assessed it, it is very good. Indeed, it was quite beautiful.
There are days when I catch a brief glimpse of the Episcopal Church I joined so many years ago. It was a church that valued head and heart, that entertained questions rather than insisting upon simplistic answers. It was a church that truly did believe that there would be no outcasts. It was a church whose people prayed together as a starting place for serving G_d's world. Last night, for a brief moment, I saw that old Episcopal Church. It was truly wonderful to see it in this diocese where I became an Episcopalian some 30 years ago last January, a diocese which long ago lost its way. As I said to my gentle spirited partner who attended the party with me, "Now, *this* is the church I joined" and he smiled and nodded his head in agreement.
I am grateful to Marc Guttierez for his untiring service to his parish and this diocese, to St. Richard's for its courageous witness and for folks like Fr. Rand Freu who continue to toil away at making the kingdom of G-d just one small step closer to reality every day. Most of all, I am grateful for this glimpse of the Episcopal Church I once knew and loved, if ever so fleeting. I thank all of you who were part of this wonderful evening. And I pray for the day when this vision of church will once more become the norm and not the exception in this place where I have chosen to live the rest of my life.
Happy Birthday, Marc. And thank you for the present you gave to all of us last night.
Preach the Gospel at all times; use words when necessary. Francis of Assisi
Harry S. Coverston, Ph.D., J.D.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Fixing G-d's Mistakes
In today's email I came across two statements from religious conservatives that simply stopped me dead in my tracks. The first was from the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who on March 2 asserted in his blog that he favored prenatal procedures to essentially undo sexual orientation in fetuses who would otherwise be born gay or lesbian.
His comment is stunning in a couple of ways. First, it essentially admits what everyone already knows - that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice, and thus not a matter of sin. While Mohler still hedged his bets by saying that there is "no incontrovertible or widely accepted proof," (it's always hard to admit that one has been dead wrong for several decades in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary although that's a lot shorter turnaround time than the Vatican required for dealing with Galileo) his admission that "the direction of the research points in this direction" along with his willingness to urge prenatal sexual orientation selection suggests that he knows the truth and probably has for awhile - sexual orientation is not a choice, regardless of what Baptist theology teaches.
Second, it no doubt unconsciously asserts that somehow Baptists know better than the G-d they allege they serve when it comes to human sexuality. There is no small amount of hubris in an assertion that we have to fix sexual orientation "mistakes" before babies are born, such mistakes ostensibly the work of the G-d whom even Baptists recognize is the author of all creation.
What could give rise to such a statement? Does the Dr. Mohler not recognize the enormous amount of hubris that such an assertion implicitly evidences? Perhaps the second statement gives us some hints.
Stand Firm is an organization of conservative Episcopalians who have self-servingly dubbed themselves "orthodox Anglicans" (as if such designations really mean anything of substance). Their website (as of today's date) features a column by an Episcopal priest, Matthew Kennedy, interestingly entitled "Embracing Pelagius." Kennedy raises some provocative points about the modern/traditional conflict through connecting them to Augustine of Hippo and his favorite whipping boy, Pelagius of Britain, the latter ultimately the loser in the battle for the minds - and ultimately the control - of Western Christendom.
But it's Kennedy's comments on the culture war over sexual orientation that stopped me cold:
"For the most part we’ve been willing grant the “scientific” evidence and admit the very real possibility (though the jury is still out) that homosexual orientation may well arise from inborn genetic or biological conditions. And because we have been able to admit this, many revisionists are slowly coming to the realization that what looked like ace is maybe a two. In fact, were a conclusive study demonstrating the inherent nature of homosexual desire to be published tomorrow, it would have absolutely no effect on the orthodox argument. Rather, in some sense, the orthodox argument would be strengthened because biblical faith and classic Christian doctrine assumes that human nature is itself fallen. We are, therefore, necessarily born with disordered desires"
I suppose such a convoluted argument makes sense to its maker. Again, I have to marvel at the hubris that this evidences - even in the face of science which demonstrates that sexual orientation is not a choice and therefore not capable of being a sinful choice, the "orthodox argument" is unfazed - human nature itself is sinful.
Of course, if the problem is "human nature" with its "disordered desires," such an affliction would apply to all human beings regardless of sexual orientation. And it's precisely the identification of only homosexual orientation as somehow the evidence of fallen human nature and disordered desires that reveals the real agenda here: the legitimation of homophobia.
In the past couple of months, I've been working on an application of Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of "bad faith" regarding arguments made in public discourse. Sartre's definition of bad faith is lying to oneself first and thereafter lying to others. This is not the same as being a generally deceitful actor. Rather, one lies to deny an unpleasant fact or to assert and thereafter affirm a pleasant falsehood in light of the facts to the contrary.
As Sartre says in The Problem of Nothingness,
"The essence of the lie implies in fact that the liar actually is in complete possession of the truth which he is hiding. A man does not lie about what is ignorant of; he does no lie when he spreads an error of which he himself is the dupe; he does not lie when he is mistaken. The ideal description of the liar would be a cynical consciousness, affirming truth within himself, denying it in his words and denying that negation as such."
The notion of cynical consciousness is helpful in understanding the two statements above. My mother was prone to add to her always gentle but firm criticism of wrongdoers that "they know better." And that is what makes the comments of the two speakers above not only reprehensible, it also makes it impossible to take their arguments made in bad faith seriously. They know better.
In the 1995 film Priest, a film about homophobia within Roman Catholicism and its destructive effects on a young gay priest in England, a wizened old parish priest remarks in his homily that when we fail to respect the good Creation that G-d has created, we spit in the eye of G-d. The assertion that we know better than G-d what sexual orientation a child should bear and that we should fix G-d's mistake in utero is an astonishing statement, and a rather large wad of phlegm hurled toward the eye of our Maker. The assertion that human nature is fallen and our desires disordered but only when they are homosexual in orientation is not only not only deeply homophobic, it ultimately asserts that what G-d has created can only be honored when it is just like us - the ultimate statement of self-idolatry.
There are many days I wish I could simply tune out statements like these made, no doubt, in sincerity and with the greatest of passion but ultimately lacking in respectability. I do not begrudge folks their beliefs even when they are simply untenable for people with even a modicum of intellectual honesty. But so long as the Baptists and self-proclaimed orthodox Anglicans of the world have any ability to influence public policy generally not to mention within those institutions of which I, as an Episcopal priest, am part, we do not have the luxury of ignoring these kinds of statements and hoping their makers will simply go away.
Clearly, time is not on their side. Ultimately, homophobia will not carry the day. But until that day, those of us who would fight the forces of ignorance, prejudice and the destructiveness those forces engender have no choice but to continue confronting the Mohlers and Kennedys of the world with a gentle but firm response: You know better. We all do.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tanzania and the Anglican Communion:
On Learning to Deal with an Abusive Parent
As I have watched the spectacle unfolding in Tanzania this past week of the meeting of the primates of the Anglican Communion, the world's Anglicans holding their breath to see if the good ole boys would deign to show common courtesy to the new woman Presiding Bishop of the American church, much less join her in communion, I tried to sit with my reactions to that spectacle to try to find something about it that made sense. I monitored my deep disappointment in my classmate from seminary, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, who represented me and many other Episcopalians at the summit, maintaining silence indicating acquiescence to the communiqués of the primates setting deadlines for compliance with homophobic mandates. I noted my sense of complete estrangement from the third world bishops, men of incredibly limited vision and narrow theologies more befitting Southern Baptists than Anglicans, who seek to create an Anglican version of the very Roman hierarchy from which Anglicanism once revolted. And I felt the slightest ache of a heart which was once profoundly devoted to the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican tradition but today senses there is little more than a history in common with those entities remaining.
What dawned on me as I checked my heart, my gut, my thoughts and my soul was that my inability or at least unwillingness to divorce myself from the Episcopal Church and the orders of priesthood I continue to hold there even in the face of yet one more round of denigration, discrimination and dehumanization by the church really bears the mark of an abusive parent/child relationship. The Episcopal Church consistently displays the double bind of dysfunctional parenting. It passes noble resolutions of inclusiveness and proclaiming "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" out front its churches. Simultaneously the church seeks to appease the philistines of the third world and their intent to impose a fundamentalist, homophobic agenda on the worldwide communion as the bottom line of its doctrine and praxis, agreeing to not ordain gay bishops or authorize rites for LBGT unions. Sadly, there are many Episcopalians and Anglicans worldwide who know better than this but are willing to sacrifice their LBGT fellow parishioners and clergy - along with their own integrity - to the idol of unity.
Many children in abusive parent/child relationships feel unable to completely sever the bonds to the parents they are, according to common human wisdom, supposed to love. As children, they have little recourse but to endure the abuse and the double binds that are inflicted upon them. As adults, many experience profound conflict between the feelings of love and sometimes compassion they feel for parents who were, after all, very human, and the needs to respect their own dignity and protect it from the potential for abuse they always face when dealing with their parent.
Of course, not all parents remain trapped in their patterns of abuse. Parents can grow up, recognize the pain they have caused their children, repent from their abusive patterns and seek to reconcile with their children. Sadly, this is probably the exception to the rule. But it does happen. I know.
My entire life changed at six years of age when my father felt compelled to leave his job at an insurance agency in Tampa Bay to return to teaching. The only slots open midyear in 1959 in Florida were in Steinhatchee, a tiny fishing community in the Big Bend region of north Florida's west coast, or in Bushnell, a small farming community in Central Florida, ironically where my father had been born and raised. Even at 6, I knew my life had changed and not for the better as we rolled into Bushnell with its nearby state historical site of a major massacre of white soldiers that began the Second Seminole War.
It was not until I became an adult and worked through years of therapy that I began to realize why my father's attitude of me changed with that move. The town was full of his classmates and teachers, people who had known the grandmother I never met and the grandfather I barely remembered. It must have been hard for a father who had left town at the death of his mother at 14, served the country in the Navy during the second world war, and earned a master's degree to come home where everyone remembered him as little Sammy, the kid they remembered from his childhood. And it must have been even more difficult to deal with the dawning realization that his oldest child was gay and would never live into the values that little town which had produced him saw as non-negotiable.
My Dad was highly demanding as a parent. When I made all As, he responded with "Good. Next time maybe you can make all A+s." And in retrospect, he probably suffered no small amount of humiliation as his sissy but brainy kid excelled in journalism, science fairs and marching band while floundering as an athlete and a future farmer despite his best efforts.
When I most needed my Dad in that rocky 11 and a half years in public schools in Bushnell, he was rarely there. Perhaps he felt he couldn’t be. And so I suffered in silence. I built a half acre rock garden to work out the sorrow of realizing that I was not valued in that small town. I rode my bicycle all over town and read every science fiction book in the local public library seeking to escape the bucolic prison in which I languished. I applied for national science foundation grants to spend summers in accelerated high school programs at large universities. And I plotted my escape, something I managed to accomplish the very day after my graduation from high school, moving to the closest small city for community college.
But some parents change. When I graduated from undergraduate with my degree in history and secondary ed, I set out to change the world through teaching (no small amount of hubris there!). My father knew some people in the county adjacent to where I grew up and I landed a job teaching middle school English and social studies. What I did not know was that people in rapidly changing areas tend to be contentious and defensive. When I blew into town espousing equal rights for women and people of color, I quickly found myself on the outside of the little town I had come to save. And when I came to the defense of a colleague the school system sought to dismiss because she was lesbian, I became a marked man. Late night threatening phone calls ensued and children began to accost me in the supermarket.
I'm not sure what my father had heard. But whatever it was, it alarmed him enough to come rescue his first born child. He arrived with his pick-up truck one morning with the simple statement, "I've come to get your first load of furniture." There was no arguing with him. And in hindsight, he probably saved my life. If the people of the town had not killed me (and already they were stopping their trucks in front of my house late at night with guns pointed out the windows), I no doubt would have drunk myself to death.
The magnitude of his change became apparent to me years later when I had graduated from seminary and been ordained a priest. When I told him I did not plan to return to Central Florida because I could not function as a priest there (a good example of the Yiddish proverb about making G-d laugh by telling him your plans), he asked why not. "Because I’m gay, Daddy." To which he simply responded, "But why not?"
The healing and reconciliation with my father over time has been one of the greatest joys of my life. My Dad still does not understand my life or why I have to live it as I do. But I think he always loved me. And ultimately, that love and his desire to have his family intact and together proved the more important value to him and to all of us.
The Episcopal Church could learn something from my father. It need not understand the experience of its LBGT members. Indeed, it need not even trouble itself about whether it should accept them because ultimately it is not their place to do so. All it must do is simply treat them with the same respect it demands for everyone else. In other words, it simply needs to practice the Golden Rule.
There are moments when it seems the church is poised to finally grow up, to deal with its LBGT members as adults, to recognize the image of G_d all children of G-d carry and to respect the human dignity such recognition demands. And then there are moments like the past week in Tanzania, where integrity is sacrificed to the false god of unity, where the perceived need for affirmation of one's peers marking conventional reasoning supplants the drive for just relations marking post-conventional reasoning, the reason exhibited by Jesus.
So, how to deal with this abusive parent, with the interminable double binds, with the periods of maturity punctuated by regressions into those primitive, fear and power driven moments of abuse? At least for this Episcopalian, the answer is simply to adopt a detached, arms length tentativeness.
At some level, the church will always be my mother. She has shaped me, forged many of my values and given name to some of the deepest achings of my heart and soul. I see the world in large part through the lenses of mother church. I could no more divorce myself from that history and its internalization in my life experience than I could surgically remove one of my own vital organs. Like my biological parents, the church's DNA is encoded into my very being.
At the same time, the church has been an abusive parent. It devalues my experience as a gay man, it prevents me from living out my vocation as priest in this diocese in which darkness has fallen. At the same time it speaks of justice for LBGT persons in the wider society, it discriminates against its own queer people and has sold its very soul of justice and integrity for the affirmation of an Anglican Communion now driven by its philistine wing.
So how to deal? I think it looks like this. Family gatherings at holidays are expected and often simply endured because it is the right thing to do. Funerals and weddings are often unavoidable. Adult abused children often attend such events knowing the potential to be abused but also knowing that it is only for a short while after which they can again escape into the arms length safety of detachment. As for the abusive parent church, attendance at Christmas and Easter are probably expectable. And there might be visits on special occasions or times when the ache of absence is too great to ignore. But a regular engagement of this abusive parent is probably not possible. And, sadly, this situation is probably a fact of life for the duration of my lifetime.
I do not like this arrangement, this keeping one foot inside the door with the rest of my body - and soul - elsewhere. As I age I find myself craving community, connectedness, a spiritual grounding. But I have also resigned myself to finding it where it can be found, to meeting those needs in a variety of places, persons and groups. As I often told my juvenile clients on the way into the courtroom, "We don't get to choose our facts, but we do have to deal with them."
And so I value the many things mother church has given me and thank her for the deep impact she has made on my life. And I visit on holidays and occasionally just because I've missed her too much to stay away. I never give up hope that the church I once vowed to serve as priest will finally mature into the kind of healthy institution it has always had the potential to become. But I'm not holding my breath. And I cannot waste any more of my remaining time and energies engaging an institution in denial, the abusive parent unwilling to grow up. I admire those who feel called to that task. And I wish them luck.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Learning to Deal with an Abusive Parent
As I have watched the spectacle unfolding in Tanzania this past week of the meeting of the primates of the Anglican Communion, the world's Anglicans holding their breath to see if the good ole boys would deign to show common courtesy to the new woman Presiding Bishop of the American church, much less join her in communion, I tried to sit with my reactions to that spectacle to try to find something about it that made sense. I monitored my deep disappointment in my classmate from seminary, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, who represented me and many other Episcopalians at the summit, maintaining silence indicating acquiescence to the communiqués of the primates setting deadlines for compliance with homophobic mandates. I noted my sense of complete estrangement from the third world bishops, men of incredibly limited vision and narrow theologies more befitting Southern Baptists than Anglicans, who seek to create an Anglican version of the very Roman hierarchy from which Anglicanism once revolted. And I felt the slightest ache of a heart which was once profoundly devoted to the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican tradition but today senses there is little more than a history in common with those entities remaining.
What dawned on me as I checked my heart, my gut, my thoughts and my soul was that my inability or at least unwillingness to divorce myself from the Episcopal Church and the orders of priesthood I continue to hold there even in the face of yet one more round of denigration, discrimination and dehumanization by the church really bears the mark of an abusive parent/child relationship. The Episcopal Church consistently displays the double bind of dysfunctional parenting. It passes noble resolutions of inclusiveness and proclaiming "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" out front its churches. Simultaneously the church seeks to appease the philistines of the third world and their intent to impose a fundamentalist, homophobic agenda on the worldwide communion as the bottom line of its doctrine and praxis, agreeing to not ordain gay bishops or authorize rites for LBGT unions. Sadly, there are many Episcopalians and Anglicans worldwide who know better than this but are willing to sacrifice their LBGT fellow parishioners and clergy - along with their own integrity - to the idol of unity.
Many children in abusive parent/child relationships feel unable to completely sever the bonds to the parents they are, according to common human wisdom, supposed to love. As children, they have little recourse but to endure the abuse and the double binds that are inflicted upon them. As adults, many experience profound conflict between the feelings of love and sometimes compassion they feel for parents who were, after all, very human, and the needs to respect their own dignity and protect it from the potential for abuse they always face when dealing with their parent.
Of course, not all parents remain trapped in their patterns of abuse. Parents can grow up, recognize the pain they have caused their children, repent from their abusive patterns and seek to reconcile with their children. Sadly, this is probably the exception to the rule. But it does happen. I know.
My entire life changed at six years of age when my father felt compelled to leave his job at an insurance agency in Tampa Bay to return to teaching. The only slots open midyear in 1959 in Florida were in Steinhatchee, a tiny fishing community in the Big Bend region of north Florida's west coast, or in Bushnell, a small farming community in Central Florida, ironically where my father had been born and raised. Even at 6, I knew my life had changed and not for the better as we rolled into Bushnell with its nearby state historical site of a major massacre of white soldiers that began the Second Seminole War.
It was not until I became an adult and worked through years of therapy that I began to realize why my father's attitude of me changed with that move. The town was full of his classmates and teachers, people who had known the grandmother I never met and the grandfather I barely remembered. It must have been hard for a father who had left town at the death of his mother at 14, served the country in the Navy during the second world war, and earned a master's degree to come home where everyone remembered him as little Sammy, the kid they remembered from his childhood. And it must have been even more difficult to deal with the dawning realization that his oldest child was gay and would never live into the values that little town which had produced him saw as non-negotiable.
My Dad was highly demanding as a parent. When I made all As, he responded with "Good. Next time maybe you can make all A+s." And in retrospect, he probably suffered no small amount of humiliation as his sissy but brainy kid excelled in journalism, science fairs and marching band while floundering as an athlete and a future farmer despite his best efforts.
When I most needed my Dad in that rocky 11 and a half years in public schools in Bushnell, he was rarely there. Perhaps he felt he couldn’t be. And so I suffered in silence. I built a half acre rock garden to work out the sorrow of realizing that I was not valued in that small town. I rode my bicycle all over town and read every science fiction book in the local public library seeking to escape the bucolic prison in which I languished. I applied for national science foundation grants to spend summers in accelerated high school programs at large universities. And I plotted my escape, something I managed to accomplish the very day after my graduation from high school, moving to the closest small city for community college.
But some parents change. When I graduated from undergraduate with my degree in history and secondary ed, I set out to change the world through teaching (no small amount of hubris there!). My father knew some people in the county adjacent to where I grew up and I landed a job teaching middle school English and social studies. What I did not know was that people in rapidly changing areas tend to be contentious and defensive. When I blew into town espousing equal rights for women and people of color, I quickly found myself on the outside of the little town I had come to save. And when I came to the defense of a colleague the school system sought to dismiss because she was lesbian, I became a marked man. Late night threatening phone calls ensued and children began to accost me in the supermarket.
I'm not sure what my father had heard. But whatever it was, it alarmed him enough to come rescue his first born child. He arrived with his pick-up truck one morning with the simple statement, "I've come to get your first load of furniture." There was no arguing with him. And in hindsight, he probably saved my life. If the people of the town had not killed me (and already they were stopping their trucks in front of my house late at night with guns pointed out the windows), I no doubt would have drunk myself to death.
The magnitude of his change became apparent to me years later when I had graduated from seminary and been ordained a priest. When I told him I did not plan to return to Central Florida because I could not function as a priest there (a good example of the Yiddish proverb about making G-d laugh by telling him your plans), he asked why not. "Because I’m gay, Daddy." To which he simply responded, "But why not?"
The healing and reconciliation with my father over time has been one of the greatest joys of my life. My Dad still does not understand my life or why I have to live it as I do. But I think he always loved me. And ultimately, that love and his desire to have his family intact and together proved the more important value to him and to all of us.
The Episcopal Church could learn something from my father. It need not understand the experience of its LBGT members. Indeed, it need not even trouble itself about whether it should accept them because ultimately it is not their place to do so. All it must do is simply treat them with the same respect it demands for everyone else. In other words, it simply needs to practice the Golden Rule.
There are moments when it seems the church is poised to finally grow up, to deal with its LBGT members as adults, to recognize the image of G_d all children of G-d carry and to respect the human dignity such recognition demands. And then there are moments like the past week in Tanzania, where integrity is sacrificed to the false god of unity, where the perceived need for affirmation of one's peers marking conventional reasoning supplants the drive for just relations marking post-conventional reasoning, the reason exhibited by Jesus.
So, how to deal with this abusive parent, with the interminable double binds, with the periods of maturity punctuated by regressions into those primitive, fear and power driven moments of abuse? At least for this Episcopalian, the answer is simply to adopt a detached, arms length tentativeness.
At some level, the church will always be my mother. She has shaped me, forged many of my values and given name to some of the deepest achings of my heart and soul. I see the world in large part through the lenses of mother church. I could no more divorce myself from that history and its internalization in my life experience than I could surgically remove one of my own vital organs. Like my biological parents, the church's DNA is encoded into my very being.
At the same time, the church has been an abusive parent. It devalues my experience as a gay man, it prevents me from living out my vocation as priest in this diocese in which darkness has fallen. At the same time it speaks of justice for LBGT persons in the wider society, it discriminates against its own queer people and has sold its very soul of justice and integrity for the affirmation of an Anglican Communion now driven by its philistine wing.
So how to deal? I think it looks like this. Family gatherings at holidays are expected and often simply endured because it is the right thing to do. Funerals and weddings are often unavoidable. Adult abused children often attend such events knowing the potential to be abused but also knowing that it is only for a short while after which they can again escape into the arms length safety of detachment. As for the abusive parent church, attendance at Christmas and Easter are probably expectable. And there might be visits on special occasions or times when the ache of absence is too great to ignore. But a regular engagement of this abusive parent is probably not possible. And, sadly, this situation is probably a fact of life for the duration of my lifetime.
I do not like this arrangement, this keeping one foot inside the door with the rest of my body - and soul - elsewhere. As I age I find myself craving community, connectedness, a spiritual grounding. But I have also resigned myself to finding it where it can be found, to meeting those needs in a variety of places, persons and groups. As I often told my juvenile clients on the way into the courtroom, "We don't get to choose our facts, but we do have to deal with them."
And so I value the many things mother church has given me and thank her for the deep impact she has made on my life. And I visit on holidays and occasionally just because I've missed her too much to stay away. I never give up hope that the church I once vowed to serve as priest will finally mature into the kind of healthy institution it has always had the potential to become. But I'm not holding my breath. And I cannot waste any more of my remaining time and energies engaging an institution in denial, the abusive parent unwilling to grow up. I admire those who feel called to that task. And I wish them luck.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Toward a Systematic Theology of a System-Resistant Progressive Catholic
Over the past few months I have been unable to convene the Francis/Clare Community (F/CC), the weekly group of progressive Catholics who meet for a discussion of our world, the lectionary of the church, a potluck dinner and the eucharist. Some are members of small independent Catholic bodies, some still Anglican, some disaffected from organized religion altogether. I've missed my community. But with an evening + day class schedule plus a Buddhist group therapy I was attending, being out three nights a week was just impossible. This hiatus has given me a chance to rethink what I understand to be my religion. It would be easy to take the Unitarian seminarian approach of the via negativa - I don't believe in the creeds, I don't believe in the hierarchy, et al. The via positiva is much more difficult: I believe…..and here's why....
In the past few weeks, I've been engaged by John, a former Disciples of Christ pastor turned Episcopalian, in an internet discussion with a wide range of folks assembled by my friend, all of them unknown to me personally, in topics surrounding the issues of what is meant by the concepts "orthodox" and "Christian." It has been a good experience for me. I have thought that before resuming leadership of the F/CC, I probably ought to have a clear sense of what I saw as the mission of that group, including the theology I would bring to bear on that project. In short, I found myself contemplating the unthinkable - rewriting my own systematic theology. I still feel the way I did my first day in systematics class in seminary when I posed this question: Why is it necessary to have a system into which one's theology could be placed? What kind of G-d could be placed in such a box?
But I think today that my concern is not so much with the box as much as the notion that somehow G-d must fit it, thereby creating a compulsion for all others to do the same. What I've become comfortable with is the notion that we all speak for our own faiths and that anything else is dishonest (we don't all believe the same things) and arrogant (none of us have the right to speak for others, only ourselves).
And so, when the question was raised in our internet brawl this week "Exactly what does 'Christian' mean?" I took it upon myself to offer a stream of consciousness systematic theology of my own. The result follows:
Being Christian for me means being:
* A follower in a way of being fully human and living a life radically open to G_d taught and modeled by Jesus of Nazareth
* A seeker and worker for the Kingdom of G-d he preached, incarnated and ultimately gave his life for
* A tiny piece of polished glass in a huge, rich mosaic of widely diverse tradition, praxis, beliefs and self-understanding that stretches back 2000 years and draws from much more ancient sources in Hebrew, Greco-Roman, Celtic, middle eastern sources
* A human being who finds guidance and inspiration in the wisdom found among the Christian Scriptures sometimes called the New Testament and among the Hebrew Scriptures upon which they are based as well as among widely ranging aspects of the ensuing Christian theological tradition
* A child of G-d bearing the image of G-d who by virtue of the Christian tradition has come to value Creation, its inhabitants and the Creator who lies behind as well as within it
* A mystic who recognizes the divine in Creation and in the inner depths of self, a pattern of spirituality with a long pedigree in the Christian movement
* A prophetic voice for social justice, a vocation with a long pedigree in the Christian movement and in the Hebrew tradition which preceded it
* A professed member of the Franciscan third order seeking to live out vocation to follow the Way of Jesus in the manner of Francis of Assisi
In my understanding of Christian, I value
* Creation, Creator
* Spirit and the power of transformation including the redemption of social institutions
* Image of G-d found on every human face even when I have to work hard at seeing it (particularly when I have to work hard at seeing it)
* The life, teachings and example of Jesus who reveals G_d, embodies Spirit, exalts Creation and provides a Way of living into the same
* Sacraments in which the outward and visible signs point to an inward, spiritual grace (which is NOT to say G-d is not always present just that we are particularly aware of it in that moment and manner)
* Principled, post-conventional thinking found in the teachings of Jesus (Love your neighbor as yourself, blessed are the poor) and in the tradition (war is only just when the last resort necessary for self-defense)
* The witness and example of the many saints
* The apostolic succession and the ordering of ordained ministers not so much in terms of authority (and despite its tendency to tyranny) but simply because the succession provides a historical connection to the very roots of the tradition, a wide stream in which we today stand
* The richness of the 2000 years of Christian tradition, practice, beliefs
*Being open to the constant surprise of encountering the divine in totally unexpected ways
In my understanding of Christian I believe
* in G-d, mystery beyond human understanding and construction, who creates, sustains and redeems all of creation (Aquinas - We come from G-d and we return to G-d)
* I can trust G-d with my life here and now as well as whatever - if anything - may follow this life. It is not necessary for me to falsely reassure myself by contracting with G_d through the agency of organized religion (accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior, buying into creed or confession) for this to occur.
* in the communion of saints - all of them. Though I do not know there is a life after death, I sense that there is, choose to believe that there is and I experience the souls of those who have gone before me, particularly as they surround us in the eucharist.
* that the Way of Jesus is salvific - it brings health and wholeness to human beings
* that the Way of Jesus is transformative, redemptive personally and collectively
* that the Kingdom of G-d is the heart of Jesus' life and mission and that it is still as potentially life-giving to day as in his day
* that the Kingdom of G-d is the means by which love of neighbor and concern for the least of these, the fundamental tenets of Jesus' teaching, are expressed as right relation, justice
* that the deepest experience I can have of the presence of G-d occurs in the heart of the Creation
* that the second deepest experience of G_d's presence occurs in the heart of the sacraments.
I am a Christian despite
* The needs of so many fellow Christians to create boxes into which they would fit G-d (a laughable notion)
*The needs of so many fellow Christians to create a single box into which they would fit the diverse tradition of which we are a part
* The needs of so many fellow Christians to proclaim the requisite beliefs all must hold so they can feel secure about their own
* The history within our tradition of legitimizing and practicing almost every social pathology known to humanity: slavery, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, anti-semitism, colonialism
* The tendency toward self-deprecation required of the faithful as a means of aggrandizement of patriarchal constructs of G-d (sovereign, judge, king, et al)
* The tendency toward infantilization of the faithful by its hierarchical leadership including telling people what they must believe in the name of some elusive notion of orthodoxy rather than asking them what they do believe and why
* The long pattern of legitimization of war if not the outright calling for crusade
* The tendencies of exclusivism found in most Christian theology that tend to play out in intrafaith wars for control and extrafaith pathologies such as anti-semitism, crusades, White Man's Burden and the legitimization of often genocidal conquest
* The virtual loss of any authentic appreciation for and following of Jesus (orthopraxis) in favor of conformity to rule-driven moralism and constructed belief systems (orthodoxy)
* The presumption of far too many Christians to speak of their faith in prescriptive terms (you must believe...) rather than descriptive terms (I believe...and here's why...)
Finally, there are a handful of singular aspects of the tradition that strongly inform my understanding of being Christian :
From the Gospels:
* The Beatitudes
* The Lord's Prayer
* The Prodigal Son
* The Good Samaritan
* The Great Commandments
* Jesus' articulation of his vocation from Isaiah at the beginning of Luke (free the captives, heal the wounded, et al)
* When you've done it to the least of these....
From the Christian Scripture:
* "Faith without works is dead: - James
* In Christ there is no slave or free... - Paul
* Paul's four fold form of the eucharist: took, blessed, broke, gave
From the Hebrew Scripture:
* Genesis creation accounts (both of them)
* the Prophets
* the Psalms and Proverbs
* Micah - What does G-d require of you? Love
mercy, do justice, walk humbly with G-d
* Proverbs - Without a vision, the people perish
From the Tradition:
* Historical: Meister Eckhart, Hildegaard of
Bingen, Peter Abelard, Teilhard de Chardin,
Iranaeus
* Modern: Latin American liberationists, Matthew
Fox, John Hicks, Elaine Pagels, John
Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Bob Funk,
* All will be well and all manner of thing
will be well - Julian of Norwich
* Canticle of the Sun - Francis
* St. Richard: Day by day, three things I pray,
to see thee more clearly, love thee more
dearly, follow thee more nearly.
OK, that's a beginning, the first word, not the final. As with most things in my life, it is indeed a work in progress.
p.s. I also believe there is a particulary hot spot reserved in hell for those who create these *$#!schizy HTML editors
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Perambulations from Exile at the Turn of a Year
Morning, New Year's Eve, 2006
Perhaps it's ironic that a man who spent four years of his life in seminary, years before and after reading and taking classes in topics surrounding the Christian tradition, who jumped through the million hoops required for ordination (including scoring highest in his seminary class on the grueling five day General Ordination Exam) and who was ordained in two of the most colorful multicultural liturgies (diaconal and priestly) ever conducted rarely goes to church, much less ever functions as a priest. Such is the life of those who return from progressive dioceses of the American branch of Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church, to the regressive, backwater dioceses of their birth, my own being the Diocese of Central Florida (DIOCFL).
In this diocese dominated by homophobia and approaches to faith that differ only by degrees of fundamentalism, the idea that I would ever function as priest here has never been a serious consideration. I knew that when I realized in 1995 that it was time to come home from the west coast, that my callings to be son, brother and uncle had become more pressing than my calling to serve the Episcopal Church in a progressive diocese. And so I find myself free on Sunday mornings, like this one, the end of a very long and tough year, standing at the gate of a New Year, thinking about the year just past and the year to come. This morning I will spend time in my yard, communing with G-d in the plants of the good earth, sharing hymns with the birds, marveling at the stained glass passing by on wings of butterflies, giving thanks for the warm Florida winter sun of G-d.
When I attend an Episcopal church - and I was there for midnight mass last week - I drive the 10 miles north to Winter Park to St. Richard's Church. It's probably the only true safe parish in the diocese, at least that I know of and that's accessible without a long drive. By safe I mean that it's not overtly homophobic and that I won't be pounded over the head with mean-spirited, legalistic sermons which will prompt me to wrestle with my urge to bolt from the church for the rest of the service. The pastor at St. Ricky's is a once-retired priest I've known for years, well educated, former Roman Catholic priest. (Roman retreads, as they are sometimes called). He's the consumate priest, thoughtful, concerned about his flock. He should have been bishop and lost to the current occupant of the position by one vote on the 13th ballot 16 long years ago.
The parish is oh-so-very-tolerant of gays as white middle class liberals tend to be. It's filled with elderly people, the mark of life here in the elephant graveyard, but there are some young families as well, even a few West Indies Anglicans punctuating an otherwise very white parish. In short, it's a nice group of people as white middle class Episcopal parishes tend to be in most places outside these dioceses of darkness in the grips of homophobia and fundamentalism. It's tolerant of people like me and for people like me, tolerable though only in moderate doses.
But it's not dynamic. It's not the parish life to which I grew accustomed in California. It's not a place where racial and ethnic diversity are a way of life, not an aspiration. It's not a place where social justice issues are the stuff of ordinary consideration, not the topics we can't talk about except in heavily nuanced, and thus meaningless, terms. It's not a place engaged with the world around us, it's a place seen as a refuge for those who agree to leave the world at the door, the eternal Episcopal salvation by good manners.
When I attend St. Richards, I find myself struggling with competing feelings: the comfort of an old shoe and the searing, unhealed loss of that to which I devoted my heart and soul for nearly two decades. It comes via the feeling of connection to a past I remember fondly - the salad days of the Cathedral of St. Luke downtown, struggling to develop and appreciate a diverse urban parish, reaching out to other faith traditions in interfaith dialogue, operating truly educational programs through adult education and a diocesan Institute for Christian Studies, where questions were raised rather than party line answers provided.
I also find myself missing the heady days of my four years in California, being a minority in a minority/majority population, learning new cultures and languages, watching my symbol system explode with new understandings and appreciations, talking about real issues - in the church, no less! And, oh yes, not feeling that I had to constantly be on guard because I was gay. (We're past that issue, Harry, a long time ago, the priest on the commission for ministry told me). I miss those incarnations of Episcopal Church. And while I appreciate the good people of St. Richards and their faithful pastor, for those of us who've seen Paree, how can this farm of mediocrity (on a good day) ever appeal for very long?
Of course, part of the problem is, the young man who went to California to take his hero's journey full of dreams and hopes came back a middle aged man with a golden fleece of new understandings that no one who wants to receive. And at some level, I don't know how I could have expected more. The truth is that I changed radically in seminary, California, Latin America and two years of doctoral work in Tallahassee. And Central Florida changed while I was gone, becoming almost as diverse demographically today as California was. But the Diocese of Central Florida did not change much. It stagnated. Such is predictable when ultraconservatives, resolutely committed to a mythologized golden age, are at the helm. And, frankly, from my observations of the Via Media list of Central Florida, the faithful remnant opposing what appears to be a looming schism of many within DIOCFL, the Episcopalians who remain within the church here to reconstitute the diocese will still likely be pretty conservative and conflict adverse. The author(s) of the Proverbs remind us that without a vision the people perish. And the writer of the Apocalypse of John quotes G-d as judging the banality and mediocrity of spirit of the Laodiceans this way: "You are neither hot nor cold; I will spit you out of my mouth."
Of course there is the Unitarian Church which I frequent about as often as the Episcopal Church these days. I love the Unitarians. So conscious, so willing to engage the world, so right on social justice and interfaith awareness, but so lacking in the things that feed my soul: mystery, symbols, liturgy. I almost always come away from church there having had my conscience pricked, my knowledge base expanded, my thought process engaged. I sometimes feel connected to some of the people there, particularly my old boss from my days at the Public Defender's office and their very fine pastor. She is Harvard educated, pastorally sensitive and willing to walk the walk of social justice work in this community. But what I don't feel as I cross Hampton Avenue, the street on which I lived for eight years prior to moving to California, is that I've actually been to church. Lessons and sermons is essentially a Protestant way of being religious. And I have learned anything over the years, it is that my spirit is Catholic with no prefix. While my progressive politics are much at home with the UUs, as they call themselves, my spirit cries out for connection to something deeper.
And so I will spend this Sunday morning in the cathedral of nature, missing the religious life that once preoccupied me, fondly remembering a life that has come and gone. Perhaps the birds will lift my spirits this beautiful sun washed day. Perhaps I'll experience the presence of my beloved late mother in the butterflies she loved so much. As we used to say at the beginning of each service in the Methodist Church of my youth: This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Well, we'll try.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Morning, New Year's Eve, 2006
Perhaps it's ironic that a man who spent four years of his life in seminary, years before and after reading and taking classes in topics surrounding the Christian tradition, who jumped through the million hoops required for ordination (including scoring highest in his seminary class on the grueling five day General Ordination Exam) and who was ordained in two of the most colorful multicultural liturgies (diaconal and priestly) ever conducted rarely goes to church, much less ever functions as a priest. Such is the life of those who return from progressive dioceses of the American branch of Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church, to the regressive, backwater dioceses of their birth, my own being the Diocese of Central Florida (DIOCFL).
In this diocese dominated by homophobia and approaches to faith that differ only by degrees of fundamentalism, the idea that I would ever function as priest here has never been a serious consideration. I knew that when I realized in 1995 that it was time to come home from the west coast, that my callings to be son, brother and uncle had become more pressing than my calling to serve the Episcopal Church in a progressive diocese. And so I find myself free on Sunday mornings, like this one, the end of a very long and tough year, standing at the gate of a New Year, thinking about the year just past and the year to come. This morning I will spend time in my yard, communing with G-d in the plants of the good earth, sharing hymns with the birds, marveling at the stained glass passing by on wings of butterflies, giving thanks for the warm Florida winter sun of G-d.
When I attend an Episcopal church - and I was there for midnight mass last week - I drive the 10 miles north to Winter Park to St. Richard's Church. It's probably the only true safe parish in the diocese, at least that I know of and that's accessible without a long drive. By safe I mean that it's not overtly homophobic and that I won't be pounded over the head with mean-spirited, legalistic sermons which will prompt me to wrestle with my urge to bolt from the church for the rest of the service. The pastor at St. Ricky's is a once-retired priest I've known for years, well educated, former Roman Catholic priest. (Roman retreads, as they are sometimes called). He's the consumate priest, thoughtful, concerned about his flock. He should have been bishop and lost to the current occupant of the position by one vote on the 13th ballot 16 long years ago.
The parish is oh-so-very-tolerant of gays as white middle class liberals tend to be. It's filled with elderly people, the mark of life here in the elephant graveyard, but there are some young families as well, even a few West Indies Anglicans punctuating an otherwise very white parish. In short, it's a nice group of people as white middle class Episcopal parishes tend to be in most places outside these dioceses of darkness in the grips of homophobia and fundamentalism. It's tolerant of people like me and for people like me, tolerable though only in moderate doses.
But it's not dynamic. It's not the parish life to which I grew accustomed in California. It's not a place where racial and ethnic diversity are a way of life, not an aspiration. It's not a place where social justice issues are the stuff of ordinary consideration, not the topics we can't talk about except in heavily nuanced, and thus meaningless, terms. It's not a place engaged with the world around us, it's a place seen as a refuge for those who agree to leave the world at the door, the eternal Episcopal salvation by good manners.
When I attend St. Richards, I find myself struggling with competing feelings: the comfort of an old shoe and the searing, unhealed loss of that to which I devoted my heart and soul for nearly two decades. It comes via the feeling of connection to a past I remember fondly - the salad days of the Cathedral of St. Luke downtown, struggling to develop and appreciate a diverse urban parish, reaching out to other faith traditions in interfaith dialogue, operating truly educational programs through adult education and a diocesan Institute for Christian Studies, where questions were raised rather than party line answers provided.
I also find myself missing the heady days of my four years in California, being a minority in a minority/majority population, learning new cultures and languages, watching my symbol system explode with new understandings and appreciations, talking about real issues - in the church, no less! And, oh yes, not feeling that I had to constantly be on guard because I was gay. (We're past that issue, Harry, a long time ago, the priest on the commission for ministry told me). I miss those incarnations of Episcopal Church. And while I appreciate the good people of St. Richards and their faithful pastor, for those of us who've seen Paree, how can this farm of mediocrity (on a good day) ever appeal for very long?
Of course, part of the problem is, the young man who went to California to take his hero's journey full of dreams and hopes came back a middle aged man with a golden fleece of new understandings that no one who wants to receive. And at some level, I don't know how I could have expected more. The truth is that I changed radically in seminary, California, Latin America and two years of doctoral work in Tallahassee. And Central Florida changed while I was gone, becoming almost as diverse demographically today as California was. But the Diocese of Central Florida did not change much. It stagnated. Such is predictable when ultraconservatives, resolutely committed to a mythologized golden age, are at the helm. And, frankly, from my observations of the Via Media list of Central Florida, the faithful remnant opposing what appears to be a looming schism of many within DIOCFL, the Episcopalians who remain within the church here to reconstitute the diocese will still likely be pretty conservative and conflict adverse. The author(s) of the Proverbs remind us that without a vision the people perish. And the writer of the Apocalypse of John quotes G-d as judging the banality and mediocrity of spirit of the Laodiceans this way: "You are neither hot nor cold; I will spit you out of my mouth."
Of course there is the Unitarian Church which I frequent about as often as the Episcopal Church these days. I love the Unitarians. So conscious, so willing to engage the world, so right on social justice and interfaith awareness, but so lacking in the things that feed my soul: mystery, symbols, liturgy. I almost always come away from church there having had my conscience pricked, my knowledge base expanded, my thought process engaged. I sometimes feel connected to some of the people there, particularly my old boss from my days at the Public Defender's office and their very fine pastor. She is Harvard educated, pastorally sensitive and willing to walk the walk of social justice work in this community. But what I don't feel as I cross Hampton Avenue, the street on which I lived for eight years prior to moving to California, is that I've actually been to church. Lessons and sermons is essentially a Protestant way of being religious. And I have learned anything over the years, it is that my spirit is Catholic with no prefix. While my progressive politics are much at home with the UUs, as they call themselves, my spirit cries out for connection to something deeper.
And so I will spend this Sunday morning in the cathedral of nature, missing the religious life that once preoccupied me, fondly remembering a life that has come and gone. Perhaps the birds will lift my spirits this beautiful sun washed day. Perhaps I'll experience the presence of my beloved late mother in the butterflies she loved so much. As we used to say at the beginning of each service in the Methodist Church of my youth: This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Well, we'll try.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sunday, December 10, 2006
A Question for the Episcopal Church:
Can we face up to the truth of our misanthropy?
[N.B. - On the Episcopal Voices of Central Florida list (a list devoted to those resisting the seemingly pending fundamentalist led schism of the diocese from the national church), the unavoidable issues surrounding the place of gay and lesbians in the church have arisen. I've attempted to dialogue with the list on these issues with little success. Frankly, I sense that the chances of the Diocese of Central Florida joining the late 20th CE - much less the 21st CE - anytime soon are remote, even in a faithful remnant diocese that might result from schism of the more rabid conservatives here. This posting is the third in a series of modified versions of an exchange on the list with a very nice and I believe well intentioned Episcopalian here in Central Florida.]
RE: The perennial objection by those holding homophobic attitudes toward having them identified as such
We Need Everyone
First, let me make clear that it is not my desire that anyone leave the Episcopal Church. I believe we need each other, that diversity of experience and resulting understandings are healthy and that without them, we end up essentially engaging in the intellectual incest of the like-minded and like-situated. When perspectives outside those of the likeminded are unable to break through, the distorted results of the groupthink within the circle are not terribly different from those of the limited gene pools of familial and tribal incest.
My goal is not to exclude anyone. Indeed, it is exactly the opposite - to include everyone, fully include them as first class citizens. The only thing I see as worse than sectarian tendencies to circle the theological wagons to define insiders and demonize outsiders is the tendency within a self-proclaimed inclusive institution to create hierarchies of status built on highly arbitrary socially constructed bases. I want everyone to belong. I want everyone to count. And I want everyone to have equal access to the rights and privileges of our church, regardless of any innate or socially constructed status. And I see anything less than that as inconsistent with Jesus' vision of the kingdom of G-d.
Like a cancer deeply buried within
I also recognize that overcoming long held, generally unexamined prejudices is difficult. Straight people hardly need to tell LBGT persons about how difficult it is to come to grips with homophobia. Most of us have wrestled with its most virulent strain, internalized homophobia, most of our lives with the predictable results any socially imposed self-deprecation would generate. The lives of Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey and Ted Haggard, the self-loathing evangelical pastor, are current examples of the self-destructiveness of internalized homophobia. Roy Cohn, the gay-baiting Red Scare conductor of witch hunts who later died in pain and self-loathing in the first wave of the HIV pandemic, is a good example of how destructive pathological internalized homophobia can prove to a society generally.
That is precisely why it is important to engage in the painful truth telling process of self-confrontation in getting at this social disease of homophobia. No one wants to see themselves in misanthropic terms. I cannot name one of my relatives or friends in 1960s segregated Central Florida who were willing to recognize that their understandings and values were racist. But they were. And it was only when we were forced to confront that reality, almost entirely after integration was a fait accompli, that it began to change. I dare say that we who grew up in an overtly racist culture will spend the rest of our lives confronting the subtle but indelible lines it has drawn upon our lives.
The Problem of Reductionism
That being said, I think you raise a good point when you object to the implicit reductionism in the common use of the term homophobia. At some level, we all have a tendency to reduce the complex reality of the other to the lowest common denominator when we call them on their misanthropic thinking. Thus it is not surprising that a person who holds largely unconscious racist understandings, for example, resists confronting those understandings because at a basic level they fear being reduced to that single malevolent aspect of themselves: "just a racist." Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame, makes a powerful point when, speaking of capital felons, she says "[P]eople are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives."
That the products of a historically homophobic culture hold homophobic attitudes is not surprising. But that does not mean they can be reduced to a single trait caricature: "just a homophobe." And those who would do so are not terribly interested in either helping the other confront that misanthropic attitude or in social change; they are interested in self-righteousness at the expense of the dignity of the other. It is one thing to recognize an attitude and pattern of behaviors as the products of a socially constructed misanthropy and thus capable of change. It is quite another to dismiss the other as "just a homophobe," less than fully human and thus unworthy of one's time and energies.
Clearly, it requires the ability to think critically to distinguish the criticism of an attitude from the demonization for purposes of dismissal of the human being who holds that attitude. It is hard work. But it is the work to which the Way of Jesus calls those who would seek ever closer approximations to the Kingdom of G-d here and now, as Jesus taught us. And it is the work of those who recognize that an unjust institution is the explicit rejection of our highest ideals as both followers of Jesus as well as Americans.
That work begins with truth telling, painful as it almost always is. The fact it is painful does not excuse us from engaging it. But if we believe what we say in our Baptismal Covenant, we are not alone in this task, we simply have to be willing to do our part: "I will with God's help."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Can we face up to the truth of our misanthropy?
[N.B. - On the Episcopal Voices of Central Florida list (a list devoted to those resisting the seemingly pending fundamentalist led schism of the diocese from the national church), the unavoidable issues surrounding the place of gay and lesbians in the church have arisen. I've attempted to dialogue with the list on these issues with little success. Frankly, I sense that the chances of the Diocese of Central Florida joining the late 20th CE - much less the 21st CE - anytime soon are remote, even in a faithful remnant diocese that might result from schism of the more rabid conservatives here. This posting is the third in a series of modified versions of an exchange on the list with a very nice and I believe well intentioned Episcopalian here in Central Florida.]
RE: The perennial objection by those holding homophobic attitudes toward having them identified as such
We Need Everyone
First, let me make clear that it is not my desire that anyone leave the Episcopal Church. I believe we need each other, that diversity of experience and resulting understandings are healthy and that without them, we end up essentially engaging in the intellectual incest of the like-minded and like-situated. When perspectives outside those of the likeminded are unable to break through, the distorted results of the groupthink within the circle are not terribly different from those of the limited gene pools of familial and tribal incest.
My goal is not to exclude anyone. Indeed, it is exactly the opposite - to include everyone, fully include them as first class citizens. The only thing I see as worse than sectarian tendencies to circle the theological wagons to define insiders and demonize outsiders is the tendency within a self-proclaimed inclusive institution to create hierarchies of status built on highly arbitrary socially constructed bases. I want everyone to belong. I want everyone to count. And I want everyone to have equal access to the rights and privileges of our church, regardless of any innate or socially constructed status. And I see anything less than that as inconsistent with Jesus' vision of the kingdom of G-d.
Like a cancer deeply buried within
I also recognize that overcoming long held, generally unexamined prejudices is difficult. Straight people hardly need to tell LBGT persons about how difficult it is to come to grips with homophobia. Most of us have wrestled with its most virulent strain, internalized homophobia, most of our lives with the predictable results any socially imposed self-deprecation would generate. The lives of Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey and Ted Haggard, the self-loathing evangelical pastor, are current examples of the self-destructiveness of internalized homophobia. Roy Cohn, the gay-baiting Red Scare conductor of witch hunts who later died in pain and self-loathing in the first wave of the HIV pandemic, is a good example of how destructive pathological internalized homophobia can prove to a society generally.
That is precisely why it is important to engage in the painful truth telling process of self-confrontation in getting at this social disease of homophobia. No one wants to see themselves in misanthropic terms. I cannot name one of my relatives or friends in 1960s segregated Central Florida who were willing to recognize that their understandings and values were racist. But they were. And it was only when we were forced to confront that reality, almost entirely after integration was a fait accompli, that it began to change. I dare say that we who grew up in an overtly racist culture will spend the rest of our lives confronting the subtle but indelible lines it has drawn upon our lives.
The Problem of Reductionism
That being said, I think you raise a good point when you object to the implicit reductionism in the common use of the term homophobia. At some level, we all have a tendency to reduce the complex reality of the other to the lowest common denominator when we call them on their misanthropic thinking. Thus it is not surprising that a person who holds largely unconscious racist understandings, for example, resists confronting those understandings because at a basic level they fear being reduced to that single malevolent aspect of themselves: "just a racist." Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame, makes a powerful point when, speaking of capital felons, she says "[P]eople are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives."
That the products of a historically homophobic culture hold homophobic attitudes is not surprising. But that does not mean they can be reduced to a single trait caricature: "just a homophobe." And those who would do so are not terribly interested in either helping the other confront that misanthropic attitude or in social change; they are interested in self-righteousness at the expense of the dignity of the other. It is one thing to recognize an attitude and pattern of behaviors as the products of a socially constructed misanthropy and thus capable of change. It is quite another to dismiss the other as "just a homophobe," less than fully human and thus unworthy of one's time and energies.
Clearly, it requires the ability to think critically to distinguish the criticism of an attitude from the demonization for purposes of dismissal of the human being who holds that attitude. It is hard work. But it is the work to which the Way of Jesus calls those who would seek ever closer approximations to the Kingdom of G-d here and now, as Jesus taught us. And it is the work of those who recognize that an unjust institution is the explicit rejection of our highest ideals as both followers of Jesus as well as Americans.
That work begins with truth telling, painful as it almost always is. The fact it is painful does not excuse us from engaging it. But if we believe what we say in our Baptismal Covenant, we are not alone in this task, we simply have to be willing to do our part: "I will with God's help."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Question for the Episcopal Church:
What do you have to lose if change occurs?
[N.B. - On the Episcopal Voices of Central Florida list (a list devoted to those resisting the seemingly pending fundamentalist led schism of the diocese from the national church), the unavoidable issues surrounding the place of gay and lesbians in the church have arisen. I've attempted to dialogue with the list on these issues with little success. Frankly, I sense that the chances of the Diocese of Central Florida joining the late 20th CE - much less the 21st CE - anytime soon are remote, even in a faithful remnant diocese that might result from schism of the more rabid conservatives here. This is the second in a series of modified versions of an exchange on the list with a very nice and I believe well intentioned Episcopalian here in Central Florida.]
My dialogue partner has made several well taken points:
1. Reluctance to grown and change is part of the human experience.
2. Change is occurring as is evident in the backlash against it
3. The Episcopal Church is doing better than other churches in changing
My responses:
It's human nature to resist change
I agree with much of what you say here. While change is a constant in human
history, human beings tend to resist change. And most people readily focus on
penultimate concerns (carpeting, praise music, social respectability) rather
than doing the hard work of seeking things of ultimate concern (per Jesus:
the Kingdom of G_d), just as you note. Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed the
same thing a half century ago.
This is particularly true when dealing with issues of disparate social power and
privilege. Human beings who enjoy privilege in their socially constructed world
are reluctant to give it up. That is particularly true when such privilege is held
at the expense of others. This makes change difficult because what is
essentially required is an admission to oneself that the understandings one has
held for a long time were not only wrong but have proven destructive to others.
In church terms we call that repentance (literally rethinking, reconsidering)
which leads to regretting, remorse and ultimately to change of mind, behavior
patterns and thus of life. Little wonder that this proves so difficult.
Confronting misanthropy at the core of one's soul has the potential to create a
good bit of cognitive dissonance. It can leave one wondering who they really
are. If the inherited understandings of the other against which one has defined
themselves no longer can be trusted, how do I know who I am? And if this
pattern of thinking, which I have taken for granted, seen as common sense
and thus beyond questioning, has proven not only wrong but destructive,
what other aspects of my thinking might be similarly untrustworthy? Most of
us who grew up in the segregated South and endured the pains of
desegregation know this kind of cognitive dissonance and its related pain only
too well.
But why does change ever occur?
The only aspect I think you miss here is the reason change occurs. It does
not occur because people simply are given enough time to reflect on their
attitudes and come to the realization that their privilege is unfounded and
their understandings are destructive to others. Rather, it comes because
those who labor under the injustice of their privilege and those who are in
solidarity with them come to consciousness and steadily apply pressure to
change on the people and institutions which perpetuate that injustice. And
there are few more effective ways of doing that than simply calling upon
people to live into their own stated ideals: Love of neighbor as oneself
simply cannot be reconciled with unjust social relations. Equality under
the law (the inscription over the doors to the US Supreme Court building)
simply cannot be reconciled with discrimination in practice.
The example of John Newton, the composer of Amazing Grace might
be helpful here. Here is a man who benefited from the misery of other
humans whom he impressed into chattel slavery for years until he came
to the realization that slavery was sinful. For Newton that meant he
eventually left the slave trade and freed his own slaves. Ultimately it
would mean undertaking to rectify the injustices his life's privilege had
created, becoming an outspoken voice in the abolitionist movement. But
that whole transformation began as a result of his realization that his
attitudes, his conduct and the rationalizations he had used for so long to
maintain an untroubled soul were sinful. While I do not share his
evangelical theology, I think it is instructive to note how he saw himself,
his former attitudes and his conduct: Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, that save a wretch like me. It's a hurtful word - not unlike
homophobic - but it was precisely the fearless and truthful willingness
to confront that wretchedness that prompted a life of justice seeking.
We're less phobic than the Bab-dissed
While the Episcopal Church may be light years ahead of regressive
churches like the Southern Baptists, it is simultaneously light years
behind the rest of society. The University of Central Florida where
I work is hardly the bastion of progressive thought and behavior
but even there, the university has found its way to prohibiting
discrimination in employment and promotion. Our LBGT
employees are first class citizens, at least on the books. But that
did not happen because the management of the university was
given enough love, space and time to come to their senses. It
occurred because the union there made it one of their priorities
and refused to back off its insistence that change occur.
The same is true within the Episcopal Church. Change has not
occurred because clergy protective of their power and laity
protective of their social respectability have simply come to
the conclusion that their attitudes and practices were wrong
and sought to rectify them. The reality is that change has
occurred because of nearly 50 years of concentrated effort by
those who languish under the injustice of a discriminatory (and
thus hypocritical) institution. Change has occurred because a
few brave souls were willing to brave the fierce opposition that
coming out of the closet involves and were willing to speak the
truth in love about the church the way its policies have devalued
their lives. And how much more powerfully can love be
demonstrated than being willing to endure the firestorm that
confronting a beloved church on its own sinfulness uleashes?
So, while I agree that change is happening and that the backlash
we are seeing from "the Old Guard" indicates that, I cannot agree
that patience is the appropriate response. People who are the
victims of injustice do not have the luxury of patience. Hence, King's
recognition that "Justice delayed is justice denied." Hence, also,
Burke's observation that " The only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good people to do nothing."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What do you have to lose if change occurs?
[N.B. - On the Episcopal Voices of Central Florida list (a list devoted to those resisting the seemingly pending fundamentalist led schism of the diocese from the national church), the unavoidable issues surrounding the place of gay and lesbians in the church have arisen. I've attempted to dialogue with the list on these issues with little success. Frankly, I sense that the chances of the Diocese of Central Florida joining the late 20th CE - much less the 21st CE - anytime soon are remote, even in a faithful remnant diocese that might result from schism of the more rabid conservatives here. This is the second in a series of modified versions of an exchange on the list with a very nice and I believe well intentioned Episcopalian here in Central Florida.]
My dialogue partner has made several well taken points:
1. Reluctance to grown and change is part of the human experience.
2. Change is occurring as is evident in the backlash against it
3. The Episcopal Church is doing better than other churches in changing
My responses:
It's human nature to resist change
I agree with much of what you say here. While change is a constant in human
history, human beings tend to resist change. And most people readily focus on
penultimate concerns (carpeting, praise music, social respectability) rather
than doing the hard work of seeking things of ultimate concern (per Jesus:
the Kingdom of G_d), just as you note. Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed the
same thing a half century ago.
This is particularly true when dealing with issues of disparate social power and
privilege. Human beings who enjoy privilege in their socially constructed world
are reluctant to give it up. That is particularly true when such privilege is held
at the expense of others. This makes change difficult because what is
essentially required is an admission to oneself that the understandings one has
held for a long time were not only wrong but have proven destructive to others.
In church terms we call that repentance (literally rethinking, reconsidering)
which leads to regretting, remorse and ultimately to change of mind, behavior
patterns and thus of life. Little wonder that this proves so difficult.
Confronting misanthropy at the core of one's soul has the potential to create a
good bit of cognitive dissonance. It can leave one wondering who they really
are. If the inherited understandings of the other against which one has defined
themselves no longer can be trusted, how do I know who I am? And if this
pattern of thinking, which I have taken for granted, seen as common sense
and thus beyond questioning, has proven not only wrong but destructive,
what other aspects of my thinking might be similarly untrustworthy? Most of
us who grew up in the segregated South and endured the pains of
desegregation know this kind of cognitive dissonance and its related pain only
too well.
But why does change ever occur?
The only aspect I think you miss here is the reason change occurs. It does
not occur because people simply are given enough time to reflect on their
attitudes and come to the realization that their privilege is unfounded and
their understandings are destructive to others. Rather, it comes because
those who labor under the injustice of their privilege and those who are in
solidarity with them come to consciousness and steadily apply pressure to
change on the people and institutions which perpetuate that injustice. And
there are few more effective ways of doing that than simply calling upon
people to live into their own stated ideals: Love of neighbor as oneself
simply cannot be reconciled with unjust social relations. Equality under
the law (the inscription over the doors to the US Supreme Court building)
simply cannot be reconciled with discrimination in practice.
The example of John Newton, the composer of Amazing Grace might
be helpful here. Here is a man who benefited from the misery of other
humans whom he impressed into chattel slavery for years until he came
to the realization that slavery was sinful. For Newton that meant he
eventually left the slave trade and freed his own slaves. Ultimately it
would mean undertaking to rectify the injustices his life's privilege had
created, becoming an outspoken voice in the abolitionist movement. But
that whole transformation began as a result of his realization that his
attitudes, his conduct and the rationalizations he had used for so long to
maintain an untroubled soul were sinful. While I do not share his
evangelical theology, I think it is instructive to note how he saw himself,
his former attitudes and his conduct: Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, that save a wretch like me. It's a hurtful word - not unlike
homophobic - but it was precisely the fearless and truthful willingness
to confront that wretchedness that prompted a life of justice seeking.
We're less phobic than the Bab-dissed
While the Episcopal Church may be light years ahead of regressive
churches like the Southern Baptists, it is simultaneously light years
behind the rest of society. The University of Central Florida where
I work is hardly the bastion of progressive thought and behavior
but even there, the university has found its way to prohibiting
discrimination in employment and promotion. Our LBGT
employees are first class citizens, at least on the books. But that
did not happen because the management of the university was
given enough love, space and time to come to their senses. It
occurred because the union there made it one of their priorities
and refused to back off its insistence that change occur.
The same is true within the Episcopal Church. Change has not
occurred because clergy protective of their power and laity
protective of their social respectability have simply come to
the conclusion that their attitudes and practices were wrong
and sought to rectify them. The reality is that change has
occurred because of nearly 50 years of concentrated effort by
those who languish under the injustice of a discriminatory (and
thus hypocritical) institution. Change has occurred because a
few brave souls were willing to brave the fierce opposition that
coming out of the closet involves and were willing to speak the
truth in love about the church the way its policies have devalued
their lives. And how much more powerfully can love be
demonstrated than being willing to endure the firestorm that
confronting a beloved church on its own sinfulness uleashes?
So, while I agree that change is happening and that the backlash
we are seeing from "the Old Guard" indicates that, I cannot agree
that patience is the appropriate response. People who are the
victims of injustice do not have the luxury of patience. Hence, King's
recognition that "Justice delayed is justice denied." Hence, also,
Burke's observation that " The only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good people to do nothing."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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