Episcopal Press and News
Browning Recalls Church to Sexuality Process
Episcopal News Service. February 4, 1988 [88019]
NEW YORK (DPS, Feb. 4) -- Reports about a diocese of Newark convention action toward couples living outside the bonds of marriage prompted Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning to remind the Church that a three-year-long official Church study of the whole range of human sexuality issues would be debated at the General Convention this summer.
In a follow-up to a study paper issued last year, Newark Episcopalians at their annual convention Jan. 30 gave overwhelming support to "those pastors and congregations who minister to and seek to include persons living out alternative patterns of sexuality and family life." The resolution added that the diocese supported them "as they receive, encourage and affirm such persons in responsible and faithful commitment to Christ, to each other, their families and to the Gospel." The latter clause was interpreted by diocesan Bishop John Spong and others as aimed at" clergy who are marrying couples who have been living together or who have been asked to bless heterosexual or gay couples who are in committed but not marital relationships," according to newspaper reports.
Spong was reported to be sending a letter to all bishops of the Church detailing the actions of the diocese.
In his own Feb. 3 letter to the bishops, Browning reported that the Human Affairs and Health Commission examination of issues of human sexual experience would soon be available to bishops and convention deputies. He said that he and Dean David Collins, president of the House of Deputies, had agreed that a major block of Convention time would be set aside to explore the Commission report and recommendations.
The Presiding Bishop reiterated his commitment to the long process and thanked the bishops for "seeing it through" with the hope that "the quality of our future actions will bear witness to our patience."
He noted the flurry of press attention to the Newark action - which focused attention on the narrow resolution of affirmation over against the broader educational approach of the total diocesan study. "A terse reading of the headlines and articles would lead one to believe that the Episcopal Church had made an historic decision...we must not allow this environment to cause us to either abandon the course we have set ahead or permit it to coalesce the forces of distrust and disunity."
Asking the bishops to help keep the record and the process clear, he concluded, "I urge you to help the faithful hear the facts. Help your deputies to study and candidly discuss the Blue Book Report. Join with your diocesan delegation in seeking out creative and imaginative ways and events to bring the report to your diocese. Affirm and assist your delegations in informing your parishioners about the process ahead. And, most importantly, lead your diocese in prayers for all our deliberations in discerning God's will for us."
Browning promised that he would address the issue more deeply in his March newsletter.
The Newark task force which had launched the controversy said that at least half of the diocesan congregations had studied its work. Prior to the resolution on affirmation of non-traditional unions, the task force had sought and won authorization for a continuing broad-based committee on human sexuality with the explanation that "while the task force believes that the Church must open itself to persons in non-traditional patterns of sexuality and family life, it must at the same time, nurture, guide and educate its people in the fundamental issues... of the full range of human sexuality."
When Bishop George Hunt of Rhode Island, who chairs the national panel, reported to the House of Bishops last fall, he suggested that the Commission would recommend to General Convention that further educational materials be developed for all age groups and Church settings and laid out the need for the Church to develop a "carefully reasoned and nuanced statement... in the context of a much broader commentary that sets forth what the Church believes, not only regarding sexual behaviors, but the whole range of human sexuality."