 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
Steven Barrett
Member
| Joined: | Tue Nov 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | Hadley, Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 1398 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Episcopal communicant, Baptist, Catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 12:33 pm |
|
I know the Grace Church's Rector, Rob Hirschfeld. He's a pleasant man and I really wish I didn't have to post this, but I think this is such an important issue, it deserves sharing. And, to think I almost rejoined this parish.
Man, I needed a spiritual lobotomy! It must be the water up here.
Lordy! Tolle legge, but with caution. This posting contains subject matter that might be suitable for socially conservative and traditionalist Christians with high blood pressure and a history of heart murmurs!
--------------------------------------------------------
Appeared on the Greenfield (MA) Recorder website. Article written by a Daily Hampshire Gazette/Amherst Bulletin writer must have appeared there first.
3/12/2007 10:20:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Grace Church stands up for homosexuals
NICK GRABBE
Gazette Staff Writer
AMHERST -Declaring a "holy fast," Grace Episcopal Church has decided to stop performing all wedding ceremonies because its bishops bar the blessing of same-sex unions.
"We are called to join the fast that our homosexual brothers and sisters in Christ have had to observe all their lives," said the church's rector, the Rev. Robert Hirschfeld, in his sermon Sunday.
The worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part, has been splitting apart over this issue and the election of a gay bishop.
Hirschfeld said he knows of no other Episcopal church that has taken the step of abstaining from performing all weddings.
"Gays and lesbians are the church, as much, if not more, as I am as a straight white man," he said in his sermon. "But this sacrament, and the grace it is meant to convey, is not available to them." The reaction of members of the congregation was largely positive at discussions with Hirschfeld after Sunday's two services. Some members expressed concern that the move might be polarizing, while others said they regretted that people who grew up in the church can't get married there.
For some, the news was clearly emotional. Erica Winter of Northampton, holding her baby and introducing her wife, said working for social justice often involves giving up something.
"Thank you for seeing me," she said through her tears. "This makes me feel visible and means so much to me."
Nina Scott of Amherst was also moved to tears. "I'm so proud to be a part of this," she said. "It's a step that needs to be taken." The two priest associates at Grace Church, the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and the Rev. Burton Whiteside, have also pledged to perform no marriages.
"I am convinced that when gays and lesbians are baptized, they become full members of the body of Christ," said Bullitt-Jonas. "They are not partial members or conditional members or second-class members."
"I was blown away and so proud of your courageous statement of solidarity with our gay friends," said Kate Atkinson of Amherst.
Some church members reflected on the defiance that Grace Church's move represents.
"The Episcopal Church has to decide whether it'll continue being a colonial church," said Zina Tillona of Amherst. "Isn't it time this church got its independence from the English church?" Royster Hedgepeth of Amherst said he wondered whether the church needs to separate from the Anglicans. "I'm proud to walk into this wilderness with you," he said to Hirschfeld.
"This is a complicated and painful moment, but it's also a holy moment," said Bullitt-Jonas.
"It's not life as usual anymore," said Hirschfeld.
Leading communion at Sunday's service was the Rev. Ruthanna Hooke, a lesbian visiting her mother, a member of Grace Church. The congregation sang a hymn written almost 500 years ago by the defiant Martin Luther, containing these words: "And though this world with devils filled/Should threaten to undo us/We will not fear for God hath willed/His truth to triumph through us."
Hirschfeld said he was asked at the deathbed of Victoria White, a Northampton lesbian who died recently, if it would be all right to have her funeral at Grace Church. "The question had poignancy for me," he said. "We are here for all people." Gay and lesbian couples "always feel their relationship is less than holy" when they are denied the right to marry.
"I can no longer hold together my own integrity as a priest who has made vows to minister faithfully the sacraments of the reconciling love of Christ, if indeed to perform such sacrament means deeper, more wrenching, more agonizing tearing of the body of Christ to which I am called to support and nourish," Hirschfeld said in his sermon.
He said the church is called to experience "the pain, the longing, and the joy of fellowship" with gays and lesbians.
"I invite us to join in solidarity - no, a better word is in communion - with those persons who have been fasting and walking in the desert their whole lives, not by choice, but because the church has forced them to," Hirschfeld said.
-------------------------
Ah, the joys of moral relativism. In an interview with NPR I heard this morning, I heard Rev. Hirschfeld use the old warhorse line libs love to throw out on homosexuality, the one where St. Paul said there's no male, female, no east and west ... and so forth.
Well, there's still right and wrong. Or have the Episcopalians found a way to chuck that old fogey idea out the door? This parish not only snubbed common sense, 2,000 years of Christian moral tradition, and the Anglican Communion, but in a sense, it also stabbed its five-alarm fire flaming liberal Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, in the back after she returned from Africa with her tail tucked between her legs after signing a document that the ECUSA would "fast" on ordaining homosexuals and forming a "gay wedding" or "blessing" liturgy before the (American) House of Bishops met in August.
Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church! 
____________________
James Michael Curley to a young Thomas “Tip” O’Neill -- “Son, it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
|
|
|
Steven Barrett
Member
| Joined: | Tue Nov 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | Hadley, Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 1398 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Episcopal communicant, Baptist, Catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 12:37 pm |
|
| Sorry if the title is a little off. But I couldn't help using it to get the readers' attention.
____________________
James Michael Curley to a young Thomas “Tip” O’Neill -- “Son, it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
|
|
|
CajunRick
Guest
| Joined: | |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | |
| First Name: | | | Gender: | | | Faith History: | |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 03:56 pm |
|
Steven Barrett wrote: AMHERST -Declaring a "holy fast," Grace Episcopal Church has decided to stop performing all wedding ceremonies because its bishops bar the blessing of same-sex unions.
Could we call this a prime example of throwing the baby out with the bath water?
|
|
|
Steven Barrett
Member
| Joined: | Tue Nov 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | Hadley, Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 1398 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Episcopal communicant, Baptist, Catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 14th, 2007 01:48 pm |
|
We could call this act by Grace Church a lot of things, some printable and unprintable. I'll relieve you of any headaces as moderator by sticking with the printable variety, beginning with grandstanding, petulance, provoking eclessiatical anarchy, etc.
Another local liberal Protestant church pulled this stunt, but it was a mongrel mix of Unitarianism and extremely liberal Baptist beliefs.
Looks great in ink, but awfully petty and stupid over the long haul. (I only wish the majority of the Catholic clergy up here would be as strong as Hirschfeld & co. when it comes to denying communion to practicing heretics, professional dissenters and pro-abortion pols with no backbones to be honest enough not to dare to receive communion.)
I just love to watch these people make fools out of themselves thinking they can dare to use any of Luther's hymns to bolster this foolish "fast." Even as Catholics, we have to admit Luther deserves better.
It's hilarious to see some of the parishioners thinking of themselves as revolutionaries fighting against Mother England all over again. They'd better see hope not many people who take history, much less American church history, seriously. Grace was founded long (1840s I think) after we booted the Brits out of New England. Back then, the Congregationalists (God knows they've strayed pretty far from the truth as well) were the biggest denomination, and the Episcopalians were starting to make a comeback of sorts to their exalted pre-revolutionary perches. Before they became known as the "GOP at prayer" - you could safely call them "ex-Tories at prayer."
And up until recently, Episcopalians, as far as I know, had no problems genuflecting to Her Majesty's church. They thought of themselves as Catholics, too, but not of the rougher-hewn Roman Catholic variety brought over to the WASP heaven in the hearts of the French Canadians, Poles, and God Help Us All, those Irish savages. (I guess that makes me 100 pct. savage non-lace curtain, but not shanty, Irish Catholic.)
But of course, being Cajun, your ancestors probably had some very sweet things to say about the English just like the Irish. And, I've got a bridge to Canterbury for sale, too!
Perhaps the funniest thing to consider about this wedding fast underway, is that it's occuring in a college-town, where you'd like to think people would demonstrate better judgment. But not Amherst, which conducts its own foreign policy, declared itself a "nuke free zone" (guess this means I'll be cooked over in Hadley) several "sister cities" around the world, mostly in leftist or formerly leftist nations, and cringes at the idea of displaying Old Glory on telephone poles and lamposts. Why, there's even a specially designated pole (right out in front of "Grace Episcopal Church on the Common" no less) set aside for flying the UN flag. That's one rag only the bravest townies or locals dare to even question a necessity to display.
So, why not in the tradition of foolishness up here for the Episcopalians, (now the Democratic National Committee at prayer) to wax petulance months before the ECUSA's House of Bishops decides whether or not it'll stay in the Communion and toe the line by holding it against any further displays of "solidarity" with gays with more Robinsons and gay liturgies.
My guess (besides petulance and grandstanding) is that this parish wants to set in motion a large chain of like-minded liberal parishes to take similar action to force the denomination's "leadership" to snub the Anglican Communion and elevate more practicing gays to their episcopate and draw up some "gay-friendly" liturgies for blessing unions.
Unbelievable. Just when I think things couldn't be any goofier, somebody around here proves me and gives me more hope that at least I'll always have something to mock and laugh at around here.
____________________
James Michael Curley to a young Thomas “Tip” O’Neill -- “Son, it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
|
|
|
Current time is 07:55 am | |
|
|
|
|
|
