Take a Selfie and Take a Stand

Eight out of 10 LGBT youth report being bullied, and you have an opportunity to support them. Download the Spirit Day app right now and take a selfie to take a stand!

The Spirit Day App, powered by Toyota Financial Services, provides you with anti-bullying resources, calls to action, and allows you take part in Spirit Day on October 16th, the largest and most visible anti-bullying campaign in the world in support of LGBT youth. The app is available now for Apple, Android, and Amazon devices.

DOWNLOAD NOW

This innovative and easy-to-use resource gives you the power to use your voice and help us show the world that bullying is something we just won't tolerate. And when you do, you'll join countless others who feel the same way.

       

Millions of Americans wear purple on Spirit Day as a sign of support for LGBT youth and to speak out against bullying. This app makes it easier to take part in Spirit Day, and to learn how you can support bullied youth. 

Queer God/Queer(ing) God at EYE14: “Boys are blue; girls are pink; no purpling!”

The No Purpling workshop

By Logan Rimel

 “Boys are blue; girls are pink; no purpling!”

This commonly used adage is heard by untold numbers of youth before church events and gatherings. The implications are clear: No sexual activity, but, you know, we don’t actually want to talk about that. At the Episcopal Youth Event 2014, three DioCal members presented a workshop entitled “No Purpling,” in order to offer youth the tools to examine both the assumptions underlying this cutesy expression, and the world around them more broadly. Along with my co-presenters Grace Aheron and Grace Wilkins, I was fortunate enough to engage with and be engaged by roughly 120 youth over the course of two 75-minute presentations. My presence at these workshops was only possible due to the generosity of Oasis, which invested in our work by sponsoring my ticket to Philadelphia.

To access the idea of normative perspectives, we began with the idea of lenses. You wouldn’t wear sunglasses in a dark room, right? Or your reading glasses to drive? Sometimes the lenses through which we see the world are only helpful in certain contexts, and sometimes they’re cracked and dirty and need to be updated. But we get used to the view lenses give us when we wear them on our faces all day. If we make a shift to the theoretical, lenses represent a set of assumptions, and we need a tool to help us pay attention to these assumptions. We introduced “queering” as this tool, and then invited the youth to engage with us in queering many of the stories and concepts we find around us.

When paying attention to our lenses, it quickly becomes clear that the phrase “no purpling” is built upon the assumptions of heterosexuality in a binary gender system. But because “queering” means to dissolve boundaries as well as to question assumptions, we took it a step further and made an outrageous claim: God is queer(ing), and is revealing this to us in Scripture and in our lived experiences. Dress-wearing Joseph of Egypt, God’s naming of Godself in Exodus, the destabilizing nature of the Trinity, and Jesus’ transgressive redefinition of the Sabbath all point us toward a God who firmly undoes our ideas of limitation and calls us into the fullness of our being.

Dean of Grace Cathedral to become Stanford's new dean for religious life

The Very Rev. Dr. Jane Shaw, dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, has been named dean for religious life at Stanford University, Provost John Etchemendy announced today. Shaw will also be joining the faculty in Stanford's Department of Religious Studies.

Shaw, a historian and theologian who is at present also a visiting scholar at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, has served as dean of the Episcopal Grace Cathedral since 2010. She previously taught at the University of Oxford.

Shaw, 51, will succeed the Rev. William "Scotty" McLennan Jr., who is stepping down after 14 years. She will assume her position as Stanford's spiritual leader this fall.

At Stanford, Shaw will provide spiritual, religious and ethical leadership to the university community, serve as minister of Memorial Church and also teach undergraduates and graduate students as a professor of religious studies.

"We are lucky to have found in Jane Shaw both a charismatic leader and an accomplished academic to lead our Office for Religious Life," said Etchemendy. "Dean Shaw is equally committed to the educational mission of the university and the ecumenical mission of Memorial Church."

"I am delighted to be joining Stanford as dean for religious life," Shaw said. "The opportunity to serve at this extraordinary university is a great privilege. It will be my pleasure to work with so many wonderful colleagues and students to relate religious and ethical questions to the cutting-edge work being done at Stanford University, and to provide spiritual leadership for this exceptional academic community. I am also thrilled to be joining the excellent Religious Studies Department as a professor."

FinallY: Archbishops recall commitment to pastoral care and friendship for all, regardless of sexual orientation

Wednesday 29th January 2014

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have today written to all Primates of the Anglican Communion, and to the Presidents of Nigeria and Uganda, recalling the commitment made by the Primates of the Anglican Communion to the pastoral support and care of everyone worldwide, regardless of sexual orientation.

In their letter, the Archbishops recalled the words of the communiqué issued in 2005 after a meeting of Primates from across the Communion in Dromantine.

The text of the joint letter is as follows:

“Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

In recent days, questions have been asked about the Church of England’s attitude to new legislation in several countries that penalises people with same-sex attraction. In answer to these questions, we have recalled the common mind of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, as expressed in the Dromantine Communiqué of 2005.

The Communiqué said;

‘….we wish to make it quite clear that in our discussion and assessment of moral appropriateness of specific human behaviours, we continue unreservedly to be committed to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people.

The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by Him and deserving the best we can give - pastoral care and friendship.’

We hope that the pastoral care and friendship that the Communiqué described is accepted and acted upon in the name of the Lord Jesus.

We call upon the leaders of churches in such places to demonstrate the love of Christ and the affirmation of which the Dromantine communiqué speaks."

Yours in Christ,

+Justin Cantuar +Sentamu Eboracensis

- See more at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5237/archbishops-recall-commitment-to-pastoral-care-and-friendship-for-all-regardless-of-sexual-orientati#sthash.Xkof6CxV.dpuf

Do Justice! Show Mercy! Sounds good - so why does the Anlgican church fail to stand up for LGBT people's basic human rights?

Next Sunday I get to preach on one of my favorite bits of scripture: Micah's dramatic call for us to "Do justice, show mercy."


Every time I hear that commandment I remember  London in the summer of 2008. I stood in the summer heat watching hundreds of  Anglican Bishops marching through town carrying signs like the one shown at left.


Each bishop was dressed in purple clerical garb, walking with their colleagues in a column lead by then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Without pausing, they walked past the solitary protester who
had been camped out for years to protest UK  involvement in the Iraq war. 

This was a march about ending world poverty through meeting the Millennium Development Goals: no other form of injustice need apply.

These were the same bishops who excluded Bishop Gene Robinson from the Lambeth Conference simply because he is gay.

These were the same bishops who largely opposed allowing LGBT people play any role in
their church were carrying singes that said: "Do Justice! Show Mercy."

These were the same bishops who excelled at vilifying those who support LGBT people
were carrying singes that said: "Do Justice! Show Mercy." 

These were the same bishops who were petty and cruel to those who support LGBT people
were carrying singes that said: "Do Justice! Show Mercy."

How could they walk through London and not see the hypocrisy  of behaving one way in church and another while marching through city streets? The answer stems in part from a fundamental difference between our two churches centered on the way we view baptism and govern our church. That is an expanation - not an excuse - for the Anglican Church's failure to stand up for even the basic human rights of LGBT people in Africa, Russia and many other countries.

The Church of England's continuing inability to even preach justice to power is reflected in the refusal of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to speak out against the draconian new anti-gay legislation in Nigeria that has led to gay men being rounded up by the police. 


The new Nigerian laws include the following draconian provisions: 

• Up to 14 years in jail for people in same-sex relationships 
• Up to 10 years for anyone who ‘directly or indirectly’ shows same-sex affection in public. 
• Up to 10 years in jail for anyone who participates in an organisation which works to protect gay rights, including straight allies. 

Davis Mac-Iyalla

"This could criminalise human rights defenders and even two people just meeting for a coffee if they are known to be gay or bisexual," warns my colleague in the UK Davis Mac-Iyalla (at left).


"The situation is urgent. Sweeping arrests of gay people are already taking place in some parts of the country. A man in Bauchi has already endured 20 lashes, ordered by a court, for ‘homosexual offences’."


You can sign the online petition Davis has launched to call the Archbishops of Canterbury
and York to speak out against these unjust laws. 

A Very Real Matter: Same-Sex Attraction

"The purpose of this video and post is to invite families, and society in general, to reinvest in kindness. When we look around at the amount of judgment and hatred in the world, the honest response is that we all could do better. It is my belief that we, the human race, are to LOVE one another, SERVE one another and do our very best to HELP one another with the challenges and trials that come our way." More.

Service set for retired Diocese of Utah Bishop E. Otis Charles

The burial office for retired Diocese of Utah Bishop E. Otis Charles will held Jan. 11 at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.  Charles, 87, died Dec. 26 at Coming Home Hospice in San Francisco. He had moved to the hospice in early December.

Charles ashes will be interred at a later date in the Diocese of Utah’s Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Salt Lake City.

The eighth bishop of Utah, Charles was the diocese’s first bishop after it transitioned from being a Missionary District in 1971. He served until 1986.

“With few resources, he led the diocese through a period of growth in southern Utah, the calling of priests from congregations, and the church’s opposition to the Vietnam War,” the diocese said in announcing Charles’ death.

Charles also served the church during a time of change, the diocese noted, citing the ordination of women and the adoption of a new Book of Common Prayer. Charles championed of the new prayer book, having served on the Standing Liturgical Commission, which authored it, the diocese said.

Current Utah Bishop Schott Hayashi called Charles a “friend, companion, guide and mentor.”

“He carried the diocese forward during a time of great challenge and few resources, Hayahsi said. “Where others might see scarcity, Bishop Charles saw an abundance of spiritual resources from God and in the hearts and wills of the people of the Diocese of Utah. Bishop Charles demonstrated fidelity to the vows of Baptism.  He steadfastly modeled, proclaimed by word and example, and strove always ‘for justice and peace among all people,’ and he ‘respected the dignity of every human being.’”

Hayashi reported that Charles was “especially joyful” when a federal judge struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage just before Christmas.

“As a bishop, I have been privileged to be with Otis as a fellow bishop, colleague and friend,” Hayashi said. “My prayers are being offered for Otis and all his family and friends who, like me, will always be grateful for his life and witness, and who will miss him terribly.”

Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in 1926, Charles was ordained a priest in 1951 and served churches in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York prior to being called to Utah.

While serving in Utah, Charles helped organize opposition to the MX missile, cost-effective health care, the first Utah hospice, housing for elderly and handicapped citizens, and advocacy for minorities, women, the handicapped poor and unemployed.

Charles and his then-wife, Elvira, raised five children during his episcopate. He also served for two years as the bishop in charge of the Navajoland Area Mission during its inception.

After he left the Diocese of Utah, he was named dean of Episcopal Divinity School which he served until 1993.

“Otis’s 60 years of pastoral leadership — at EDS, in the Diocese of Utah, and at Oasis California— leave an indelible legacy. In every community he worked, in every life that he touched, Otis embodied this seminary’s ideal of working to advance God’s mission of justice, compassion, and reconciliation,” said the Very Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, EDS’s current president and dean.

Just after he retired from EDS, Charles sent a letter to his colleagues in the House of Bishopstelling them that he was gay. The bishops discussed his disclosure during their meeting in Panama in September 1993. He was the first Christian bishop of any denomination to come out as gay.

He married Felipe Sanchez-Paris in 2008 (who died in August 2013) and continued living in San Francisco, where he had moved in mid-1993. Charles remained in active parish ministry. He also continued regular attendance at the House of Bishops until this year.

Charles is survived by his former wife, Elvira Nelson of Salt Lake City, five children, 10 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.