by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy

Laurie Goodstein's headline on the front page of the Thursday Dec. 4th New York Times read: "Episcopal split as conservatives form new group." If you actually read the whole article, you discovered that this new "split" is a manifestation of some old fault lines.

Back in the mid 1970's, the church was in an uproar over the ordination of women as priests and bishops. We had had deaconesses for quite some time - women could comfortably be seen in a servant role - but to ordain women as leaders was a threat to male pejoratives and power and maybe, pride.

I was serving a small, integrated, inner city congregation in Milwaukee, St. George's, heavily dependent on subsidies from the Bishops' Office, in the late 1970's. One day, a deacon named Virginia Noel stopped by to visit and asked if we could use a deacon. We had no money to pay her but she allowed as how she was not looking for a salary but for an altar because no one else would have her. Virginia and her husband and their children arrived as refugees on our door step and a fate-filled journey began. In 1976, the General Convention approved the ordination of women.

This was the "end" of a long conversation. The forgotten part of the story is that the conversation − while heated − had been theoretical. The faculty at Nashotah House seminary had issued a statement that there was no theological impediment to women being ordained as priests. Slogans emerged in the form of campaign buttons at church conventions declaring: "Ordain women or stop baptizing them."Respectful resolutions were carefully and painstakingly drafted and debated and rejected or simply tabled without discussion while some were passed on as "memorials" to General Convention (requests for action). Strategy committees met long into the night.

But in Philadelphia in 1974, 3 renegade bishops ordained 11 women as priests, which moved the discussion from the theoretical to the actual. What do you do now when you have actual bishops laying their hands on actual deacons who happen to be women? When the question asked at all ordinations, about suitability, was asked at this one, several men stood and loudly objected. The Bishops withdrew from the sanctuary and the service stopped as these objections were heard in private. After some time, the Bishops returned and indicated the lack of validity to the objections and their intention to proceed; whereupon several clerics marched to the front of the church and locked their arms and sought to create a human barricade to prevent such a sacrilege from proceeding. I know. I was there. And yes, I was the one − schooled in the civil rights movement − who simply crawled under the human barrier and in so doing gave a face of ridicule to the protest as a tense congregation began to laugh at the silliness of it all and other priests streamed forward for the laying on of hands upon our sisters in the faith, some of whom I had attended seminary with. What do you do now? A declaration had to be made; a decision rendered. That which we had debated and theorized about was now here. Ultimately, acknowledging the validity of a Bishop's authority to ordain meant declaring these ordinations to be "valid but irregular." (Read: real but not the way we typically do things.)

Had those ordinations not taken place, General Convention would not have acted in 1976. And although the ordination of women was likely inevitable in our denomination, the debate most assuredly would have lasted much longer. Perhaps years longer.

And so now that the church meeting in General Convention had decided this thing, the issue is resolved and we can all move on, right? Not quite.

Our refugee deacon, Virginia, with the support of our Vestry, petitioned the Diocese of Milwaukee that she might be ordained as a priest. The standing committee (a sort of board of directors for a Diocese) responded that she could not be priested because she was not "academically prepared." In our response, we pointed out that she had graduated magna cum laude from Nashotah House seminary (in Wisconsin).

Finally, the Bishop responded by saying unequivocally: "I don't care, I'm not doing it."

Respecting his individual conscience, we asked that she be allowed to be ordained in Chicago where the Diocesan Bishop, Montgomery, would similarly not ordain women, but his Suffragan Bishop, Primo, would. The answer? "No."

Virginia, entitled to ordination by decision of the National Church, was blocked by local intransience. For this poor but proud inner city parish, this became an issue of justice and fairness. As the Bishop made visitations around the Diocese, members of St. George's would show up and during the open forums, stand and ask: "Bishop, what about Virginia Noel? Why won't you let her be ordained?"

The situation was intolerable. In time, Virginia left Milwaukee to seek ordination in Minnesota. St. George's Parish rented a bus and rode what we thought of as a "freedom ride" across the state of Wisconsin. In Minneapolis, we were there to witness and loudly respond to the bishops' questions about her suitability: "She is worthy." Virginia, now priested, sought to come home to Milwaukee but the Bishop of Milwaukee refused to license her and so she languished in exile in the Twin Cities, while her husband, Don, a tenured professor of sociology at UWM, and her children, continued to worship at St. George's and prayed for the Bishop's heart to soften. That never happened. In fact, it only hardened. By the late 1970's, both Nashotah House seminary and the Sisters of St. Mary's Convent − both within the geographical boundaries of the Diocese of Milwaukee but not under the authority of its Bishop − had invited ordained women priests to come and celebrate mass in their chapels. In response, the Bishop declared those altars to have been "desecrated" and that he, as Bishop, would no longer preside at worship in those places. The Board of Trustees at Nashotah, led by the Bishop, would eventually initiate a purge of the faculty at the Seminary and send brilliant and gifted professors scurrying from Waukesha County to find more hospitable and open academic settings in which to teach and to write and to think. For my part, I picked up the Saturday masses at the Convent which the Bishop routinely led and eventually, became an Associate of the Order. Virginia and Don's marriage ended in divorce, a causality of separation and stress, I believe. The children suffered. Hearts were broken. One stalwart member of St. George's − Roberta Plummer − continued to pursue the Bishop from place to place, asking simply: "How can you proclaim 'family values' and yet cause this family to suffer?" (Roberta, now gone on to an everlasting reward, was a true saint among us.)

I left Milwaukee in 1980 for Los Angeles as one by one, the more liberal clergy sought to leave Milwaukee because the atmosphere was toxic. St. George's Mission had each potential Rector they sought to Call rejected by the Bishop because the candidates did not agree with him on the "women's thing." After two years of bitter argument, the Bishop closed that church and sold the buildings to a Pentecostal church. On that day, when this decision was announced, 125 people felt that they had been "thrown out of the Episcopal Church." (These words were said to me by Virginia's oldest daughter).

That wound still exists nearly 26 years later.

For Bishop Gaskell's part, he felt that he was guarding the Church against grave error. The perceived wisdom in those days was that if we proceed down this path of the full inclusion of women, the members will desert us and "all go to Rome." In response, those of us who supported this change responded: "if it is of God, it will flourish; if it is not, it will perish." That is to say: wait a generation (or perhaps two) and see what happens.

And now, a generation later, the consensus in most places is that ordaining women has brought great gifts to the Church. Has the Episcopal Church declined in numbers? No doubt. But so have all the old mainline denominations due to factors much more impacting than just the gender of their clergy and who is to deny that the conflict over the change did not have a greater impact than the change itself? Most folk do not want to be a part of institutions which are constantly bickering.

But now understand this: throughout all of this, no one was saying that congregations had to hire women as their pastor. I twice served as the interim deployment officer in the Diocese of Los Angeles, helping congregations as they searched for their new Rector. When I first served in that capacity, the standing joke was this: "What do you call a woman Rector in the Diocese of Los Angeles?" (implied: "Father", "Mother", Pastor", Reverend" etc.) Right answer: "Carol." (There were but two women in that position: Carol Anderson in Beverly Hills and Carol Herzog in Whittier.) Women were being called as associates and being appointed as vicars, chaplains and the like, but to lead independent congregations? Not so much. My job as deployment officer was to say to congregations: all the bishop asks of you is that out of courtesy, you interview all the candidates on the list he sends you − if only by phone − and there will be women and possibly a "minority" on that list. You don't have to hire them but at least take a look.

A generation later: When I first came to St. A's in 1997, following Marni Schneider, who had been the interim pastor here for 2 years, I'm told that a little girl in the congregation asked her mom who I was. When she was told that I was the new priest, the little girl giggled and said: "Mom, men can't be priests." We've come quite a way on a long and winding road.

I tell this long story because it's first and foremost a true one deserving memorializing but beyond that, you could substitute "prayer book revision" and have the same plot line. Most folk simply resist inclusionary change; some actively seeking to punish the institutions which submit to it.

An example of the former is this: when I ministered in South Los Angeles, St. Philip's Parish was located in a changed neighborhood which then was over 95% Hispanic. When I first suggested adding a Spanish speaking service back in the early 1980's, a woman in her 80's said these words: "I know we need to change, but why do we need to do this in my lifetime?" To be fair, once it was clear that she was not being asked herself to worship in Spanish − that an additional service was being added and nothing was being taken away − she was fine with it. But we all resist change.

For some, the resistance is so strong that they move beyond a plaintive resistance to acting out (punishing).

We have forgotten that churches left the denomination over the ordination of women and over prayer book revision. Now some churches have sought to affiliate with Bishops and Provinces in South America or Africa rather than accept the open inclusion of gay persons in the Church. The new province reported in the Times, which has chosen to call itself the Anglican Church in North America, sees itself as incorporating all these disaffected congregations and individuals, including the Reformed Episcopal Church which split from the family in − 1873 (seriously).

Does yet another breakaway faction have much cultural appeal in their claim to be the true remnant Episcopal Church? In the same New York Times article, Jim Naughton from Washington, D.C. is quoted: "I think this organization does not have much of a future because there are already a lot of churches in the United States for people who don't want to worship with gays and lesbians. That's not a market niche that is underserved." So, why not simply let these people go? Well, the resistance is not in "letting them go." People leave churches for all sorts of reasons − both legitimate (a job move) and frivolous (I don't like the color they painted the parish hall). People are always free to leave but they don't get to steal the silverware on their way out the door.

The so called breakaway churches (dioceses and parishes) want to claim ownership of land and buildings they neither purchased nor paid for. Because you currently occupy a place does not make it yours. Those who preceded you on this journey sacrificed to buy the land and build the buildings; people who self identified themselves as Episcopalians. They established those places for their use and for their descendants as a legacy.

Here's an analogy. A couple is married and has established a home for themselves and their children and some day, grandchildren. The husband becomes unfaithful and takes up with a new girlfriend and decides to divorce his wife and so he puts her and his children out of the house, claiming it was his all along. Cute. More typically, the husband moves out and takes off with the new woman. The wife and children are broken hearted but are left whole while the husband and his trophy wife start over.

Those who cannot accept the full inclusion of women are free to choose a church which does not honor women with leadership (the Roman Church comes to mind). Those who do not wish to use a prayer book which uses modern English that their children can feel included and welcomed are free to affiliate with churches which use archaic and even obscure language (e.g. the Ethiopian Church uses "gar", a liturgical language only used in worship). For those who prefer that gay people remain closeted, you've got choices. But you don't get, as the unfaithful partner, the deed to the property.

For the Anglican Church in North America to be true to its claims to being the "authentic" Episcopal Church in America, test that claim in the marketplace by starting anew. Withdraw from the churches you no longer love, meet in each others' homes or in rented halls until you are able to build churches of your own.

Instead, we are in the courts spending millions of dollars over who gets to define for the other who deserves the family home. (O.K., take the name (Anglican), but leave the keys.)

Alternatively, these breakaway congregations should be given the opportunity to compensate the Episcopal Church for the property they neither purchased land for nor raised money to build on. A fair and impartial appraisal and check from the Bishop of Uganda would suffice (Don't hold your breath.)

I'm thinking now of the Parish of Reconciliation. Located at 78th and Figueroa, it was a historic Black congregation which found itself in a largely Hispanic neighborhood. For a time, I consulted with them as they grew increasingly aware that they were, in fact, a declining − if not, dying − congregation. I developed a "business plan" with them over the course of several weeks but little changed. Finally they called and asked me to come out for a visit. They allowed that although the plan was a solid one −although there was no guarantee that it would work −they did not have the energy to even try. Most of them, you see, drove past 2-3 other Episcopal churches on their drive back to the old neighborhood and rather than seek to be something they were not; they felt that it was a faithful decision to choose to die. And so we planned a final celebration in which long time members returned, old stories were retold and faithfulness over many years was lifted up. The doors were closed, church furnishings donated to other places and the land sold with the proceeds donated to the Bishop for an endowment to aid the remaining Black congregations in the Diocese. Thus "Reconciliation" lives on and has an impact for good in ministry.

There are four breakaway churches in the Diocese of Los Angeles. At this writing, the State Supreme Court is due to hand down a verdict on who legitimately owns these properties (after the Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of the Diocese, there was an appeal.)

Should the Episcopal Church ever prevail in this, what should happen to these properties? No doubt, there will be an effort to remove the current priests (who have already been deposed in any case but who have refused to leave.) Most likely, the parishioners who have stayed on in these places will be furious and their giving will diminish. New clergy (can you spell "sacrificial lamb"?) will be sent to rebuild on this foundation of bitterness and resentment, most assuredly paid for by the Bishop's office. New people will not be attracted to attend and three years down the road, the life support will have to be withdrawn and these churches will finally die (except that now it will be the Bishop's fault.)

A more attractive alternative would be for the Church to bless that which God is already blessing.

The Mt. Calvary Retreat Center in Santa Barbara recently burned to the ground. Typically booked three years in advance, the brothers of the Order of the Holy Cross are seeking donations to rebuild − a project that will take quite a long time if they are even able to pull it off. Would it not be a wiser strategy to sell these disputed properties to these breakaway congregations − even at discount − and use the money to support ministry in healthy places, like Mt. Calvary? And would it not be a good thing to have a diocesan camp closer to the large population centers of the Diocese than either Wrightwood or Julian − yes, why not establish a third camp closer in − while at the same time giving money to both those vital ministries as well who need to build (Julian after their own fire) and extend their ministries to children and youth. Or what about an endowment fund for campus ministry, an area of ministry always underfunded?

The truth is this: old things pass away and new things are being born.

The monastic desert communities of hermits in Egypt no longer exist. The co-habitational communities of men, women and children in Celtic Ireland no longer exist. Anchorites no longer await penitents in their lonely cells. The utopian communities of the American frontier survive no longer (e.g. the Shakers). Things pass away. Whether any particular denomination will be here on the American scene a century from now or what form it will take − is impossible to say.

What is clear is that there is a spiritual hunger in the land which God will, through the Spirit, seek to feed. When we seek to enable the work of that same spirit by supporting those things which are effective rather than giving energy to things which are unhealthy − and even toxic − we are being faithful. I believe that is a more faithful choice in dealing with those who move beyond "resisting inclusion" to seeking to wound those who embrace it.

A parable: The Zen master said to his student: "I have two dogs warring within me; they are tearing each other apart and are nearly destroying me in the process. One is the power for evil and the other is the power for good." His student fearfully asked: "Master, which dog is winning?" With a twinkle in his eye, the Master replied: "Why the one I feed!"

We have a choice…

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