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Read more of Kim Lawton's interview with Bishop Peter Lee of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia:
Q: How would you characterize the situation for your diocese leading up to this General Convention?
A: I think Virginia Episcopalians are fairly optimistic and hopeful about the future of their church. I, in informal conversations, use a kind of 80-10-10 breakdown of the diocese, in the sense that about 10 percent of our people are still very unhappy with the consecration of the bishop of New Hampshire, the openly gay bishop consecrated in 2003. About 10 percent are encouraged and think that was a very progressive step. And 80 percent are either in the middle or at least don't want that issue or issues like that to distract them from the mission of the church, and that bears out in my relationship with the churches. We have 194 churches. We're the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church, and I would guess anywhere between 12 and 20 of those churches are unhappy with the fact that I supported Bishop Robinson in 2003. But the great majority of our churches are very supportive of mission endeavors that we have -- things like helping the dioceses of Louisiana and Mississippi and Katrina relief, spending time and money on overseas missions to places like the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and so forth. So I'm optimistic about where we are right now in the Diocese of Virginia.
Q: How strong is the sense of being sick of this issue, of so much focus on this issue?
A: It's hard to tell, but one of the indications of that is that when people from the most unhappy churches run for office at a diocesan convention, they never get elected. I think part of that is because the majority of people are really frustrated by the negativity that they experience from some of the critics.
Q: Has the emotion that surrounded all of this lessened some over the last three years? Immediately after the last General Convention there was a series of meetings that you held where you listened to people. There were a lot of strong emotions expressed at those meetings. Has that tone lessened?
A: That tone is still there, but I think the shake-out has demonstrated that those who are most upset are a pretty small minority of people in the diocese. We respect their point of view, and there's a place for them in the life of the church, but again, the great majority of our people and of our churches and of our clergy want to move beyond these controversial issues and get on with the mission of the church.
Q: How much is riding on this General Convention?
A: I think the most important aspect of the General Convention in terms of these controversial issues will be our reaction to what's called the Windsor Report, which was the report of an international commission put together by the Archbishop of Canterbury and chaired by the Archbishop of Ireland, Robin Eames. I think this Cconvention will take steps that will indicate, number one, that we in the Episcopal Church want to be part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and secondly, that we're willing to take steps to respect the concerns and the point of view of Anglicans elsewhere in the world.
Q: Has what's gone on over the last three years damaged those relationships worldwide?
A: It has in some degree, especially with some of the more conservative parts of the church in Africa. But as time goes on, one of the things we're discovering is that the voices in Africa that are most strident are the voices of some bishops. And we're beginning to hear voices of some lay people and other clergy who are less strident about these issues and more concerned about the unity of the church and about getting on with mission -- things like support of the Anglican Communion for the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations, that sort of thing. And so we're hearing other voices in addition to a handful of unhappy bishops.
Q: How precarious is the unity of the church? Is it a real possibility that, coming out of this General Convention, a significant number of Episcopal churches may leave the denomination?
A: It's certainly possible. But our structure is such that it depends on how they choose to leave. We've had two churches out of 196 leave the Diocese of Virginia. Both of them, however, were small churches that met in public schools, so they had no property and so there were no legal issues. Property is held in the Episcopal Church in trust for the whole diocese, so we've not had any challenge to that situation. Morally it seems to me that no current leadership of an individual congregation has the right to take away the assets -- property assets -- of a church that was built by Episcopalians for the present generation and for future generations. Some may try to leave in the future, and we don't know what leaving means. The ones who are critical still say they want to be part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but the Anglican Communion historically is made up of dioceses that are geographically contiguous in a particular part of the world. It would be very, very odd to have people who are Anglicans have a parallel structure in the United States in addition to the Episcopal Church.
Q: Just to be clear on the property issue: Virginia is a very old diocese. Let's stay say a congregation that meets in a church that's pretty old -- a hundred years or more -- is unhappy and wants to leave. What are the complications surrounding the property?
A: The diocesan view is that property is held in trust for the diocese. This is a free country, and so the members and the clergy can leave and start a new congregation, but the property would remain the property of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, and we would start a new congregation in those buildings. Or the alternative would be the unhappy congregation would negotiate some kind of a purchase of the church buildings that they would like to hold on to.
Q: Is that something people are talking about? They would need to buy their church from the diocese in some way?
A: Nobody has made that formal proposal, but there certainly are conversations in that area with a handful of congregations.
Q: How difficult has it been for you as the spiritual leader of this community of churches to try to maintain unity and deal with very strong, divergent views?
A: I've been bishop now for 22 years, and it's been very painful to know that I am no longer welcome in some of the churches that are most unhappy, because I've been there often. I know those people. I love those people, and so it's been quite painful personally.
Q: But you have taken steps to try to find ways that they can remain part of the fold.
A: Yes, we have done a number of things in the diocese. We have what we call a special committee made up of the chancellor, who's the lawyer for the diocese, and two people who are part of the mainstream of the diocese that meets regularly with a group of three people who are part of unhappy churches. And their charge is to find ways that they can work together in as close a unity as possible with the rest of the diocese. I've also made arrangements for the retired Archbishop of Canterbury to come into Virginia three times now to provide confirmation services for churches that were unhappy with me.
Q: And why did you do that?
A: Well, because I wanted them to have the opportunity to have members of their church confirmed. I also wanted to respect the fact they didn't want me to be the bishop coming in, and I thought if I took the initiative to do that, that would be much better than for them to reach out to some overseas bishop whom I didn't know and [who] would represent, I think, an intrusion into the life of the diocese. Archbishop Carey, the retired Archbishop [of Canterbury], is a friend of mine and a friend of the diocese and has been here often.
Q: How big an issue has that been -- overseas bishops, especially bishops from Africa and other parts of the Global South, coming in and being part of the congregations that are unhappy?
A: The two congregations who have left our Diocese of Virginia have unilaterally put themselves under a bishop from Uganda. But [those are] the only formal steps that have been taken. All around the country, though, there have been a number of bishops from South America and from Africa who have unilaterally declared that they are now providing episcopal -- meaning a bishop's -- oversight for a local church, which is really alien to our tradition in the Anglican Communion.
Q: Are you optimistic there can be a solution that will hold all of these people together as one church, or have views become so different that it really is no longer one church?
A: I don't think so. I mean, historically the Anglican Communion has held together not just different emphases but even contradictory truths. I mean, that goes back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when the extreme Protestants and the more Catholic elements of the church really had very little use for one another. And basically, through our prayer book and our common worship tradition, we've held together people with very, very different and even contradictory points of view. Learning from one another with different views is basically at the heart of what it is to live in a Christian community.
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Q: So you believe there are solutions out there.
A: I think so. I do believe that.
Q: The whole issue of gay clergy, and bishops in particular, has been a difficult one. Where do you personally stand on all of that now? You voted in 2003 for the consecration of Gene Robinson.
A: I did.
Q: Would you do that again for another gay bishop?
A: I don't think so. Not right now, because of the response of the worldwide Communion. And out of respect for them, I would not vote to consent to the consecration of a gay bishop in a partnership right now. But it seems to me that one of the strengths of the Episcopal church and [one] of the reasons for the controversy is that we have been deliberate in trying to be inclusive of all kinds of people in the life of the church. I don't think there's any going back in our respect for gay and lesbian families trying to build a common life together, and that's going to be worked out. We have a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Virginia in the fall of 2006 that would define marriage as between a man and a woman and then go on to prohibit contractual relationships between people of the same gender that would in any way seem to mirror the benefits of marriage. I think that's a very negative step for Virginia to take here. Our Bill of Rights was adopted prior to the national Bill of Rights, and for us to be limiting people's freedom -- it seems to me it's no threat to marriage to have gay partners make lifelong commitments to one another. I don't buy that argument at all. So the argument is going to be with us for a long time to come. In our diocese, we have a fairly conservative view. I do not knowingly ordain people who are involved in sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage. But I also don't spend a lot of time grilling people about their private lives.
Q: What are the key issues that have to be resolved at General Convention?
A: I think one is, what will we say to the wider Communion about any moratorium on the election or consecration of bishops who have partners of the same gender? Another will be a commitment that we will not authorize public rights of blessing for same- sex unions. Another will be an explicit statement that we wish to be part of the worldwide Communion. All of those, I think, will be elements in these particular controversies.
Q: And you personally are balancing your views with the reaction that those views generated in the worldwide Communion?
A: Yes. I have a deep regard for our relationships with the worldwide church. And I use the term "mutual submission" -- that in the Christian faith we are called to submit ourselves to the concerns of others. Even though I may not agree with a bishop in Nigeria about their particular views about the place of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church, I think it's appropriate for the American Episcopal Church to back away to serve the wider unity of the church.
Q: What have you learned about your own faith through all of this?
A: That human beings are capable of great faith and compassion. I've seen that in congregations where, in the last three years, many, many people have come up to me and said, "I learned in the last three years that my adult son, daughter, niece, nephew is gay or lesbian, and I want our church to reach out and include them." I've also learned that people have very different views of sacred sScripture and that there is a lot of room for divergent interpretation within the Christian tradition and with interpretation of sScripture.
Q: Has it changed how you think about sScripture or how you think about some of these issues?
A: One of the lessons assigned last Sunday was a story of the apostle Philip running alongside the chariot that carried an Ethiopian eunuch from Jerusalem to Gaza. I've always found that figure really interesting. What does that say, that one of the first baptized in the Acts of the Apostles was both a racial and a sexual minority person? And it seems to me that the sScripture is constantly opening up new possibilities of interpretation.
Q: So what do you hope comes out of General Convention?
A: What I hope is that we can come out of there with a commitment on all sides that we would listen more closely to one another, that we would exercise some restraint -- restraint by the extreme conservatives, that they will not try to bring in an African bishop in place of their own bishop; restraint by the more progressive elements that they will not push the ordination of a gay bishop at this time in our common life. Restraint and unity, I think, is what I'm looking for.
Q: Are you concerned that the rest of the world, and certainly the rest of the United. States., will be watching and about how they will be interpreting what happens?
A: I'm concerned, but I'm also aware that, based on our experience in 2003, all the mainstream denominations are wrestling with similar issues. Because we have bishops, ours becomes more dramatic, because you can put a face in front of a camera and personalize these debates. But the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans are all wrestling with similar issues. And so we are in a way a surrogate for a number of mainstream denominations. I think the things to look for in the future would be -- the immediate response of the Archbishop of Canterbury to our convention will be important. The primates committee meets next February, I think. That will be important. And then in 2008 a Lambeth conference is scheduled, and a real key indicator will be whether the Archbishop of Canterbury invites the American bishops to the Lambeth conference. And if he does, will the African bishops come or will they boycott? Those are some of the indicators whether there's going to be a split or not, I think.
Q: I know the issues surrounding homosexuality are really going to dominate a lot of the discussion, but I also know that's not all you are doing at this Convention. How crucial will it be who is elected the next presiding bishop?
A: I think that's a very important vote, because I think we will want to elect a presiding bishop who has a gift for bringing people together with different points of view and who can be respected internationally. And we have seven nominees for presiding bishop, four of whom come from the joint nominating committee, of which I was the co-chair. And three were nominated, in effect, from the floor. And no one nominee has been labeled yet as symbolic of a particular position of the current debate. So I think that will be really interesting, to see how that unfolds.
Q: Are there other issues or priorities that you hope don't get lost amid the focus on homosexuality?
A: Yes. I'm a vice-chair of the Church Pension Fund, and we are introducing a resolution to have a church-wide study of health care insurance in the church with a view towards, in the next Convention if it seems feasible, to probably put together a church-wide health insurance program for retired clergy, which would help enormously as a kind of supplement to Medicare supplemental insurance, and have the church taking care of her own. That's very important to me. There are also proposals to change the disciplinary canons of the church that govern the church's response to misbehavior by ordained and lay leaders. That will be very interesting to see how that unfolds in that debate. There will be controversial issues about will the Episcopal Church take a position on disinvestments in companies that arm Israeli troops that are damaging Palestinian homes? That will be a controversial issue. The Episcopal Church has a capacity to find controversy in things that seem on the face of it to be minor. So we'll find some way. And then we'll do a lot of things that will not ever get on CNN having to do with the development of some liturgical changes. The way we move to canonize saints is by putting them in our calendar. There's a proposal to put the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in our calendar, which will have the aeffect of canonizing him as a saint. There will be talk of a possible Episcopal Church apology for slavery and our participation in slavery in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries. So there are many more things that will happen at Convention other than the response to the worldwide Communion. And the General Convention's also something of a family reunion. You see people you haven't seen for three years. The exhibition hall is a wonderful demonstration of the diversity and the array of Episcopal groups. You might find a gay caucus that has an exhibition booth right next to the ex-gay ministries and discover that in their civility they will also go out and have coffee together. And they might be right next door to a commercial company selling altar bread that will give you a free sample wafer if you want one. So there are all kinds of things like that that occur.
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