Midway through a July 9 open hearing on sexuality resolutions, the balance was so lopsided in favor of scrapping Resolution B033 that the moderator asked supporters of B033 to identify themselves and speak.
 
General Convention’s Committee on World Mission presented the hearing as concerning future consecrations of bishops and The Episcopal Church’s relation to the broader Anglican Communion. The hearing invited comments on 13 resolutions. Most of the resolutions would openly repudiate the season of restraint described by B033, or otherwise render it irrelevant.
 
The committee had reserved a vast ballroom in the Hilton Hotel, but the ballroom was barely half full even at the peak of attendance. After little more than an hour, the Rev. Gay Jennings said the committee had heard from 24 people opposing B033 and 5 supporting it. She then began alternating speakers based on which side they took. Until then, the speaking pattern was determined by a speaker’s role at convention—bishop, deputy, alternate, guest or visitor.
 
The Rev. Michael Burke of St. Mary’s Church, Anchorage, Alaska, described his parish’s work with seven sister churches in Malawi, and said his parish is well known in Anchorage as being welcoming to gays and lesbians.
 
“Don’t be afraid,” Fr. Burke said. “This is the future the Lord calls us to. Be hopeful.”
 
Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire invoked the Archbishop of Canterbury’s words from Thursday morning’s Eucharist about humans being “broken open for intimacy.”
 
“That’s just as true for gay and lesbian people as for anyone else,” Bishop Robinson said.
The Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, retired bishop of Maine, said that in Ignatian spirituality, which has deeply informed her whole ministry as a priest and bishop, “a prerequisite for discernment is freedom.”
 
Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, turned the accusation of fearfulness around on the opponents of B033. “This fearfulness that wants to push ahead and do away with B033 is a fearfulness that, if it doesn’t get its way now, it never will,” the bishop said.
 
“B033 effectively created levels of membership in our church. We need to be honest about that,” said Bruce Garner, an alternate deputy from Atlanta. He added that B033 did not placate the Anglican leaders it was intended to placate.
 
Bishop William Love of Albany said that B033 has kept international visitors at General Convention and that it helped bishops defend The Episcopal Church during the Lambeth Conference.
 
The Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, invoked the Presiding Bishop’s image of a heart pumping the lifeblood of mission through the church. “When we have a blockage in one of our arteries, we remove it,” she said.
 
The Rev. Frankie Rodriguez, a deputy of the Diocese of Texas, pointed out that everyone is welcome to the two primary sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. “None of the other sacraments—I stress, none of the others—is essential to our identity as Christians,” he said.
 
Fr. Rodriguez also chided assembled observers for a selective inclusion: “People expressed vocal disgust when Bishop Lawrence’s name was called.”
 
The Rev. Sharon Lewis, a deputy of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, said the committee should take a lesson from the afternoon session, when deputies spoke with each other one-on-one. “We stopped for a moment from legislating each other’s hearts and we spoke to each other.”
 
She asked the committee not to discard B033, saying The Episcopal Church needs time to heal, and that birds need both a left wing and a right wing to fly. “Broken wings take time to mend,” she said.
 
Douglas LeBlanc reporting from General Convention.
 
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