TEC's Pride Shield: the view of an Old High friend

I am a friend of The Episcopal Church. Admittedly, I am a rather odd friend. I much prefer the title PECUSA (retained, we should remember, in the opening line of TEC's Constitution). When someone mentions TEC my thoughts can drift to William White and John Henry Hobart; to Anglican order taking root in the early decades of the Great Republic; to the significant Episcopalian civic and cultural presence enduring into the second half of the 20th century. More immediately, I think with gratitude of those Episcopal congregations in which I have worshipped, in Cape Cod, in Maine, in New York City, in Washington DC. And I think also of those Episcopalians with whom I have become acquainted online, some of whom share my Old High predilections for Sunday Morning Prayer, the surplice, and churches like Old Trinity, Dorchester, Maryland.

When TEC is mentioned, what I do not think about are Bishops Pike or Spong. As you might expect, I am definitively with Rowan Williams on this: say the Creed without crossing your fingers and preach creedal faith. If not, go and join the Universalist Unitarians. My respect and affection for TEC - and I would hope this is self-evident - most certainly does not in any way extend to those unrepresentative Episcopalian voices preferring Gnostic texts to the canonical Scriptures, praising a ridiculously ahistorical view of Pelagius, or advocating polyamory (yes, indeed). Such notions should be exposed and refuted as empty nonsense, having no place in a church which "believes the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation".

What, then, of the Anglican Communion's debates on human sexuality, and TEC's place in those debates? The fact that I happily worship in TEC congregations when in the United States tells its own story. Likewise, I am privileged to worship and minister alongside gay Christians in my own ecclesiastical context. At the same time, the church in which I serve does not permit the solemnisation of same-sex marriages: this is a canonical provision, and as such, is to be obeyed. That TEC does permit such solemnisation is a canonical matter for that national church. Contrary to both GAFCON and progressive declarations, I do not regard the matter as belonging to the ordo salutis. 

All of the above is a preamble to the point of this post: my reaction when I saw the Pride Shield recently unveiled by TEC. My reaction was one of disappointment. The Pride Shield fails as a symbol of TEC's identity, life, and mission. What is more, it also fails as a statement of the place of gay Christians in the life and mission of TEC.

The point of inclusion in the Church's life is that through common prayer, sacraments, ordinances, and ministry, gay Christians take their place in the Church's proclamation and mission. In The Episcopal Church, this proclamation and mission is shaped and defined by the gift of the Anglican tradition. The TEC shield symbolises this with the Cross of Saint George, representing that which was received from the Church of England: in the words of the Preface to BCP 1789, "The Church of England, to which the Protestant Episcopal Church in these States is indebted, under God, for her first foundation and a long continuance of nursing care and protection". The smaller Cross of Saint Andrew represents Seabury's consecration by Scottish Episcopalian bishops, before changes in English law permitted the Church of England to also consecrate bishops for the newly-created Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. 

It is this rich inheritance which gay Christians share through inclusion in the life of TEC. And it is this which is almost entirely obscured by the Pride Shield. All that is left is - rather ironically - the symbol of the historically much less significant Scottish consecration of Seabury. Entirely absent is the Cross of Saint George, erasing the historic significance of the heritage of the Church of England in the formation of TEC.

Does TEC really want to suggest that the historic liturgical, rich choral, modest doctrinal, and gentle pastoral traditions inherited from the Church of England have no significance for gay Christians? Or that gay Christians in TEC do not value and contribute to these traditions? 

The Pride Shield also could very well have been designed by those most hostile to TEC. For TEC's loudest critics - within and outside the Anglican Communion - this is precisely how TEC is to be understood; this is what TEC is all about, defined by this issue alone. For such critics, TEC is not about the prayerful, faithful, loving witness of ordinary congregations in the cities, small towns, and rural areas of the United States. It is, rather, all about and solely defined by the very issue that TEC's critics loudly and consistently highlight. 

As such, the Pride Shield does a disservice to TEC and undermines those of us who are friends of TEC in other parts of the Communion. It suggests that, as the critics declare, TEC is indeed defined by what critics regard as a fashionable progressive agenda, rather than the prayerful, faithful, loving presence of Episcopalian congregations across the United States, congregations which joyfully include gay Christians, fully included in the church's life, ministry, and witness.

Then there is a political and cultural reality that the Pride Shield can be perceived as having a progressive, metropolitan character. This is not, quite obviously, to deny for a moment the presence of LGBT people outside of such communities. It is, however, to recognise that the symbol can, in general, have a much greater visibility in liberal metropolitan areas than it does in culturally conservative small towns and rural communities. The Pride Shield, therefore, can carry an implication that TEC is a church of liberal, metropolitan areas, with little interest in the hinterland. One of the most insightful reflections I have read on this wider matter was in an excellent Covenant post from last year, entitled 'The Episcopal Church must be made stronger in the Hinterland', by a priest ministering in rural Virginia and rural Texas:

I am likewise deeply anxious about how the current political divisions in the United States - is it not in part a city versus country dynamic? - may affect TEC’s attitude about and support of hinterland parishes and missions. Just when TEC needs this non-urban witness the most, and just when the hinterland churches need the support of TEC the most, the larger, better-off body appears aloof and often indifferent ... Most country people I know admire our presiding bishop and welcome all sorts of strangers. Small towns and rural areas are no less human than metropolitan areas. While many of the people with whom I worship on most Sundays are concerned that TEC has become the Democratic Party at prayer, they are not going anywhere and really are committed to the idea that in Christ Jesus there is a unity of truth.

It is difficult not to view the Pride Shield as unfortunately confirming much of which it is stated here: city verses country; aloof and indifferent regarding hinterland churches; the Democratic Party at prayer. If TEC has, as many of us elsewhere would hope, a vision of itself as a national - rather than sectional - church ministering to and present in all regions of the United States, the Pride Shield can hinder that vision, implying a particular identification with liberal, metropolitan regions. If "The mission of The Episcopal Church, as stated in the Book of Common Prayer's catechism, is 'to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ'", this must embrace the hinterland and its culturally conservative communities.  

To be very clear, 'culturally conservative' is certainly not to be read as code for 'anti-gay'. To be an Episcopalian in the United States - whether in the hinterland or in the city - is to belong to a church in which the inclusion of LGBT people is a settled matter. As for views in the hinterland, opinion polls in the United States now indicate that nearly 50% of Republican voters support equal marriage. Likewise, 47% of white evangelical Millennials and Gen Xers support equal marriage. Not unrelated to this, the idea that being gay is somehow incompatible with the culturally conservative sensibilities of the hinterland - small town life, quiet domesticity, being church warden or rector in a rural church, respect for the Flag and the military - is at once amusingly naive and grossly patronising.

The Pride Shield fails to communicate what it means for LGBT Christians to be fully included in the life of TEC: in fact, it provides a one-dimensional account of this inclusion. It encourages critics of TEC, confirming their views that such inclusion is ideologically driven rather than rooted in reading of Scripture and the Anglican tradition of moral theology. The Pride Shield also reflects those tendencies in and perceptions of TEC which can undermine Episcopalian presence and mission in the hinterland. 

There will be progressive voices in my own church and other parts of the Communion who would robustly reject the argument set forward here. Such progressives, however, are not the only stream of thought amongst those who support remaining in communion with TEC. There are those who value TEC's presence in the Anglican Communion, who respect TEC's ordering of its ecclesiastical life, are broadly supportive of similar measures in their own churches, but who will be deeply hesitant about the Pride Shield. Indeed, many such would probably think, upon a first viewing, that the Pride Shield is a sarcastic statement by opponents of TEC. For at least some of us who are friends of TEC, the Pride Shield is a disappointment because it fails to communicate the rich gifts, heritage, and vocation - including the inclusive vocation - of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

(My thanks to those friends in TEC and the CofI who commented on a draft of this post.)