Banns in Boston

The Rev. Anne Fowler, author of the first section of this article, “Yes, we should marry them,” is rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and has served the diocese as co-chair of the Sexuality Study Committee on the Pastoral Response Team and as chair of the Women-in-Crisis Committee.

The Rev. Martha Giltinan, author of the second section of this article, “No, we should not marry them,” is an Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Director of Field Base Education at Trinity.  Most recently, at the time she penned this essay, Martha was Associate Rector at Christ Church, Hamilton, Massachusetts.  She has served on Diocesan Council, the Peace & Justice Commission, and the board of Episcopal City Mission in the Diocese of Massachusetts.

“Yes, we should marry them”

Several months ago, I visited a suburban parish to give a talk on same-sex marriage at a Lenten Adult Forum. I was accompanied by a friend who is a political strategist for the Freedom to Marry Coalition in Massachusetts. One rather elderly parishioner asked us, "What will change if gay couples are allowed to marry?"

The political expert said, "Nothing." And that’s the politically savvy answer. Gay folks will marry, and the sky will not fall; God will not send another Flood; no one’s heterosexual marriage will be threatened or undermined. The world will go on, as usual.

But I had another answer, a vision.

"I can think of two kinds of change," I said. "First, there will be far fewer children without loving homes. Once their parental rights are protected under the law, more and more gay couples will adopt. And second, when gay couples feel safe, respected and know that they are fully equal members of our society, all kinds of energy will be released. The efforts they must now devote to securing themselves and their families legally and emotionally will be turned outward. They will become more fully engaged as citizens, and all of society will be enhanced."

My answer was a brief and pallid version of what I know in my heart: a knowledge arising from the community over which I preside. St. John’s in Jamaica Plain is roughly half gay, half straight. In the last several years, as we have been joined by a number of same-sex couples with children, our church school has grown from five to 45 and has become a little United Nations. The children have brought us the diversity we long prayed for.

And their parents have brought us the gift of gratitude. I have seen so many newcomers enter our doors apprehensively, refugees from faith traditions that have treated them with condescension at best, hostility and exclusion at worst. I watch as they are transformed into thankful worshippers, thoughtful parish leaders and activists for justice whose zeal is supported by their faith. Surprised by joy at finding a church community that honors their love and their family constellations, the people of St. John’s worship and work and play together in a spirit of celebration and hope.

As of May 17, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, same-sex couples legally can be married. That is our incarnational reality. I understand the contradiction between what our civil laws will allow and what our canons and the Book of Common Prayer state, which is that marriage in the Episcopal Church is between a man and a woman.

I have my own counterarguments: that marriage is a constantly evolving institution, that prayer book language about marriage is descriptive, not proscriptive, that the role of an inclusive and prophetic church is to lead society toward justice and equality, not to follow behind.

But my argument does not convert my heart and my conscience. Rather, I am moved by the faith and hope of my parishioners who ask that the church bless their love and commitment fully and unequivocally. These are the church’s new immigrants, our converts and our future. How, in faithfulness, can I tell them: “Wait?”

“No, we should not marry them”

Why would a pacifist, feminist, Democrat, one with many cherished gay and lesbian friends and parishioners, not be in favor of church blessings for same-sex unions? Indeed, as a citizen, I support the rights of same-sex citizens to enter into binding civil contracts that secure equal access to legal, economic and social goods.

However, church and state speak from vastly divergent starting points, and with often conflicting values. As a Christian, and a priest, I cannot bless these contracts as the will of God. The world has never been a congenial place for Christian witness, and discipleship continues to be costly. In fact, the church exists to make disciples who seek not their own truth but God’s truth, not their own reality but God’s reality. It is our vocation, as disciples, to challenge culture, not to accommodate ourselves to it, to be salt and light within a dark and decaying world.

We have an imperative to proclaim "by word and example the good news of God in Christ." The church, while she lives in the world, is commissioned to model radical and lovely obedience to God. She teaches that sexual relations are not just a means of self-fulfillment, but also have been given to model and proclaim the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the whole creation groans for its ultimate fulfillment at the last day, because we were made for a glory that shall not be realized until then. This tension is part of what it means to be made in the image of God.

Scripture and the church universal’s teaching proclaim that there are two and only two paths for obedient sexual expression: the lifelong marriage of one man and one woman, or chastity. This is a stringent, radically countercultural demand on all of us regardless of our sexual preoccupations. Nonetheless, these two remain the blessed paths of freedom and holiness even when we fail to walk them.

The sacraments of the church are not rights but gifts, disciplines for the "cure" of souls. They manifest the coming of the reign of God, presenting God-ordered reality, seeking to bring that reality into the present.

The Christian sacrament of marriage is essentially a service of reconciliation and commissioning, a sign and symbol of God’s radical, reconciling love made visible among us in the union of complementary but divided humanity. Its vocation is to model for the world a very particular kind of reconciliation between men and women. It is not to be grounded in mere human love and preference but the cross, which calls us to die to self in order to live. Same-sex partners, loving and committed as they may be, cannot participate in this symbol, for they do not complement each other as God intends.

Christian discipleship is about conforming our disordered lives and unruly affections according to the way of God.  We need great humility, patience, and compassion with ourselves and with each other as we struggle to learn obedience, because it does not come naturally to any of us.  Same-sex attraction is only one of many expressions of human brokenness.  The church, as a community of sinners on the way, serves to support us in this struggle to become holy, God-ordered, and free.

Originally published in the July/August 2004 issue of Episcopal Life magazine.

The Rev. Martha Giltinan is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Director of Field Base Education at Trinity.