NEWS ANALYSIS: Episcopal Church weighs question of doctrine in heresy trial over gays

c. 1996 Religion News Service WILMINGTON, Del. (RNS)-For a generation, Episcopalians have struggled with the issue of how gays and lesbians fit into their denomination, especially the ranks of the clergy. Over the years, the debate has produced a flurry of studies, resolutions, statements and counter-statements along with a handful of controversial ordinations of non-celibate […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WILMINGTON, Del. (RNS)-For a generation, Episcopalians have struggled with the issue of how gays and lesbians fit into their denomination, especially the ranks of the clergy.

Over the years, the debate has produced a flurry of studies, resolutions, statements and counter-statements along with a handful of controversial ordinations of non-celibate gays and lesbians.


And now it has produced a heresy trial.”Heresy is the church’s equivalent to treason,”Michael Rehill, chancellor of the diocese of Newark, N.J., said Tuesday (Feb. 27) as a church court of nine bishop-judges listened to a day of arguments over whether the denomination has a doctrine forbidding the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals.

The argument was the first phase in the trial of retired Bishop Walter Righter, who is charged with holding and teaching”doctrine contrary to that held by this (Episcopal) church”and with violating his ordination vows. Rehill heads his defense team.

Righter’s accusers-10 bishops who brought the charges-argue that Righter committed heresy through three acts:

-Voting with the minority on a 1990 statement reprimanding Bishop John Shelby Spong of the diocese of Newark for ordaining a non-celibate gay man as a priest. The resolution passed 80-76.

-Signing a document called the Statement of Koinonia (fellowship) in 1994 in which 71 bishops said homosexuality is”morally neutral.”The statement also supported ordination of non-celibate gays.

-Ordaining Barry Stopfel, a non-celibate gay man, as a deacon in the diocese of Newark. Stopfel is now a priest in the diocese.

For Righter to be convicted as a heretic, however, it first must be shown that there is a doctrine of the church that he violated.

The judges, led by Bishop Edward Jones of Indianapolis, reached no decision on the doctrinal question. Nor is the Righter case likely to bring a definitive conclusion to the debate.


Nearly all of the bishops who make up the trial panel have taken public stands on the issue. Four of the nine have signed the Statement on Koinonia and three of those four, including court president Jones, have participated in or authorized the ordination of non-celibate gays.

Even after Righter’s indictment, bishops, including one of the judges, have continued to authorize or participate in such ordinations. In January, Bishop Frederick H. Borsch of Los Angeles authorized but did not participate in the ordination of a non-celibate gay man as a deacon.

That the issue wound up in a church court with two secular lawyers arguing over what is Episcopal doctrine is itself testimony to the denomination’s inability to speak with finality on the issue.

So, too, the doctrine argument.

The day-long arguments and rebuttals, punctuated, like a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, with questions and hypothetical”what ifs”from the judges, suggested a broad range of views but broke no fresh ground on the emotional issue.

A. Hugo Blankingship of Fairfax, Va., the church advocate, as the lawyer for the accusers is called, argued that the church possesses a broad doctrine of human sexuality that supports traditional heterosexual marriage and condemns any sexual activity outside of marriage.

That doctrine, he said, is supported by Holy Scripture; the historic creeds formulated by the early Christian church; the Book of Common Prayer, the denomination’s worship book that includes liturgies for the rite of ordination; and resolutions and statements of the denomination’s General Convention-the church’s highest decision-making body-and its House of Bishops.


Blankingship said the denomination has consistently upheld”the traditional teaching of the Church on marriage, marital fidelity, and sexual chastity as the standard of sexual morality.”Candidates for ordination are expected to conform to this standard,”he said.”Therefore, we believe it is not appropriate for this church to ordain a practicing homosexual, or any person who is engaged in a heterosexual relationship outside of marriage.” Blankingship said the accusing bishops believed the church’s position on sexual expression”is understood and clear: They (bishops) are able to disagree and there can be honest disagreement, but until that is changed-by the church, not by individual dioceses or by individual bishops-it remains.” Yet Blankingship’s argument conceding the right of bishops to disagree with church doctrine appeared to undercut two of the three offenses with which Righter is charged-voting in the minority on the 1990 statement reprimanding Spong, and signing the 1994 Statement on Koinonia,

Rehill seized on Blankingship’s argument, reminding the court that Righter is accused of three things and that Blankingship”is trying to make the first two insignificant”because dozens of other bishops-including Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning-would have to be charged with heresy for signing the Statement of Koinonia and voting against the Spong reprimand.

Rehill argued for a narrow definition of doctrine as applied to heresy, saying it should be applied only to basic beliefs about”our relationship with God.” Not even the Ten Commandments are doctrine, he said.”They are significant; they are the first set of disciplinary rules we teach our children … but they are not doctrine,”because such admonitions against stealing, committing adultery and murder deal primarily with relations among people rather than with God, he said.

And nowhere, he said, is there an Episcopal”doctrine”that forbids the ordination of non-celibate gays. He said opponents of such a view have had ample opportunity at General Conventions to make their opposition a part of church law but have repeatedly failed.”If there is a doctrine”as broad as Blankingship argued, Rehill said,”the Statement of Koinonia is a statement of heresy.” On Wednesday (Feb. 28), the nine judges began two days of private deliberation during which they will weigh Blankingship’s and Rehill’s arguments to determine whether there is a sufficient doctrinal base to go forward with the second phase of the trial.

In that phase, witnesses will be called and evidence presented, much as in a secular court case. If he is found guilty, Righter could be censured, suspended from the ministry for a time, or be stripped of his clerical status.

Both sides have the right to appeal, and a final judgment must be upheld by a two-thirds vote of the House of Bishops.


MJP END ANDERSON

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