Re: An Open Letter to Bishop Henry Parsley

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

Thank you for sharing your perspective.
 
The Episcopal Church prides itself on addressing issues fearlessly
and transparently. 
 
I agree that academics need calm and privacy to do our work well, but
not secrecy.  The panel's sessions should not be open to the public,
but the panelists' names should be.   
 
Most academics want others, and certainly our colleagues, to know
what we are working on long before any final documents. Any
mature scholar knows how to ignore those who might interfere with
rather than assist.  
 
For nearly two decades GC has affirmed equal access for lgbts to all
orders of ministry, including from 2003 the order of bishop.  For
many years resolutions of GC have acknowledged that  persons can be
faithful Christians while living in committed, monogamous, same-sex
relationships.  In  2005 TEC sent a team to Nottingham to explain
to the ACC in good theological terms how TEC got to these levels of
support.
 
Why retreat almost two decades to ask questions we have already
answered by canons, by resolutions, and by wide-spread practice? 
 
We do not now ask panels to study whether females can be priests nor
ask panels to study whether black Episcopalians ought to go to the
same churches as white Episcopalians.  You and I would have no
trouble finding enough Episcopalians and scholars to debate both
sides of those questions, but TEC wisely treats those questions as
out of order. 
 
My baptism rules out of order the question of whether baptized lgbt
Christians should have equal access to all  the sacraments.
 
Secret committees about lgbts are not new in the House of Bishops.
See Kim Byham's 1994 article "The Case of the Purloined Pastoral" in
the Voice of Integrity, online now  at
http://www.integrityusa.org/voice/1994/Summer1994.htm. The Bishops'
panel caused delays in 1994, as the new panel may do.  Are these
panels meant to do anything else?   'Don't act; study.   Don't act;
study.':   that's an abuse of the real purposes of scholarship.
 
Thank you for your steadfast kindness through the years and for your
patience.
 
I look forward to serving together in Anaheim.
 
Louie