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A Pastoral Letter to the People of the
Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon
following the
74th General Convention of the
Episcopal Church in the United States of America

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Peace to you and Grace from our God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)

Many of you, I am sure, have been following the events of the General Convention in Minneapolis during the past two weeks, Many good things were done and much important work for the life and mission of this Church were accomplished. Yet what the world has focused on is two pieces of our work: the Consent of the General Convention to the Ordination and Consecration of The Rev'd Canon V. Gene Robinson to be Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire and Resolution C051 calling the Church to prayer, study, and discernment in the mailer of our pastoral care of our gay brothers and lesbian sisters.

Clearly, these two matters have evoked much response in the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Communion, and in the world-wide Church. This is an anxious and highly charged time for us. It is important that we engage our immediate reactions, feelings, and thoughts. It is important not to act hastily, before we have time to let the questions, feelings, and thoughts simmer and emerge in a calm manner that allows us to respond faithfully rather than merely to react to the moment. As some would put it, we need to remember to keep breathing, and let the Spirit hold us and work in us. We need to be together and not take flight from one another and the Church.

I want to share with you a small bit of the experience of General Convention, to talk about the issues as I see them, and to tell you how I and the Deputation of this Diocese voted, Finally, I want to invite us to conversation, prayer, study, and discernment in the matters of human sexualities and sexual expressions, both gay and straight within the context of being Episcopalian Christians. I have sent a more detailed letter to all clergy and persons in charge of congregations. You may ask for copies of that letter from them.

What was it like at General Convention? In Anglicanism, Scripture, Tradition, and Reason are taken very seriously as living realities. We engage these realities with the tools of the Living Word of God, Scripture, and the application of our intellectual gifts for thinking, reasoning, interpreting, and applying the content of the faith and our experiences of God in daily life. We engage out Tradition with the heart as well. We have not been a tradition that has expected, much less insisted, that things remain forever the same within the created order. We have been a tradition that embraces diversity as a fundamental characteristic of our unity in Jesus Christ. We have also been a Church which has understood that while the tradition can and does change, we ought not to change it lightly or unadvisedly, but thoughtfully, prayerfully, and with careful individual and corporate discernment.

In this context, I can say clearly and without doubt that no one at General Convention was not mindful of the seriousness and immensity of the questions before us in the Consent and in consideration of the blessing of same-sex unions or partnerships. It was met with appropriate seriousness, prayer, and faithfulness. We acted in a dignified, civil, and loving manner with each other. Each was respected and their dignity guarded. We sought to see and serve Christ in one another. I believe we met the high standards of our tradition for engaging Tradition, Scripture, and Reason to discern our way as Episcopalians within the Christian Tradition. I believe that General Convention, the Deputation, and I acted faithfully.

Diversity and deep, real differences need not destroy or divide. Indeed, they can be great sources of renewed life and rich grace that transforms us. We must stay grounded in the unfailing reality our bond in God's transforming grace embodied in Jesus, and present m and through the Spirit. I believe that God is calling and empowering us to a new and wondrous path that will open possibilities, understandings, and ways of being that are yet unknown to us. I believe we are in a time where we can be confident in our openness, faithfulness, and willingness to take serious risk to be deeply inclusive of all God's children, honoring us all, our gifts, and our part in each other's lives and God's Project.

All of us at General Convention reached out to one another, across our particular positions and sought to be for and with each other in the deeper bond of God's love for us in Jesus Christ There was among us a clear and palpable realization that to hold together, we must allow God to do trough and in us that which we cannot do ourselves.

From the perspective of the laws of this Church...
there existed no reason not to give consent to Canon Robinson's Ordination and Consecration as a Bishop of this Church. The required documentation of the electoral process and the election indicate that the election was held in accordance wit the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church in a fair manner, and that there is no impediment or irregularity in that process. Moreover, the canonically required background check and medical and psychological examinations indicate no reason for not giving Consent The Diocese of New Hampshire, searched, prayed, discerned, and chose from a strong slate of nominees according to the canonical policies and procedures of this Church.

From the perspective of Scripture...
a more literal reading arguably leads to the conclusion that homosexuality as well as homosexual behavior are clearly and consistently condemned by Scripture. On this basis, the argument goes, the Church cannot change the traditional teaching that homosexual behavior is always, by definition, sinful, and that, implicitly, homosexuality is a defective and morally impaired sexuality. A critical reading of Scripture using knowledge acquired especially during the twentieth century, tells us that the more literal reading is at best problematic, and at worst a misreading of Scripture. This possibility compels us to ask new and different questions and explore new possibilities.

We are called, in faithfulness, to be open to new answers, interpretations, and understandings that unfold tinder the guidance of the Spirit and that call us to a new place. We are called to hear more broadly, probe more deeply, and to trust God's guidance and revelation. Indeed, we must listen carefully and prayerfully with the ears of our hearts, even to our culture, to hear what God may be saying to us. The Anglican engagement of and use of Scripture is always properly open-ended, expecting more, anticipating growth, change, and development out of this foundation.

The argument from tradition...
is that the Church has always taught that homosexual behavior was by definition sinful. Yet when we examine the history of the Church, we find that in fact homosexual persons have been a part of the life and work of the Church since the beginning. We simply have not acknowledged this fact. The Church has behaved as if this fact were not the case at all. It is a history of "Don't ask; don't tell" writ large. To appeal to this formal, official stance of the Church simply does not hold water because it in fact is not how we have lived. Ever.

What is different in our day is that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ will not allow us any longer not to see them or acknowledge them or engage them as fellow members of the Body of Christ. We can no longer deny that they too are, as they always have been, children of God, redeemed of Christ and indwelled by the Spirit. What we know explicitly in our day is tat gay and lesbian persons are part of us at every level of the life and work of the Church. Our history has been broken open and we cannot legitimately close it back again. In this reality, God is opening new possibilities for us, calling us into new relationships with one another and with God, and calling us to greater health in Christ as Christ's Body.

Theologically...
the Church has always maintained that God is good and that God creates only good. God is not the source or author of sin or evil or bad things. Genesis 1 affirms the goodness of creation and all therein through God's repeated judgment "And God saw that it was good." Anything that God creates has inherently the potential to do good. For us, this truth means that our sexualities, as an inherent and natural part of who we are as humans, are good. Therefore, the range of sexualities has the potential for morally good expressions and effects. We cannot claim that a segment of human sexualities can only produce sinful acts/behaviors without also then having to say that God, the Creator of that segment of sexuality, is the author or source of evil and sin. To do so truly is to depart fundamentally from the whole of Christian Tradition and teaching theologically. The question that our theology demands to be asked and answered is, "What are the standards of acceptable, appropriate, healthy behaviors and expressions across the whole range of human sexualities?"

Taken as a whole, the message of Scripture is well summarized in Jesus' words that we call the Summary of the Law. We are to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourself. All the law and the prophets, all of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension, unfold God's love though which we are redeemed and in which all things are possible. The questions and issues brought to us through our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and crystallized in the issues of Canon Robinson's Consent and the blessings of same-sex unions are, I believe, a deeper, broader, richer opportunity for us as the Church to engage in growth, development, and change that will make us more fully the Image and Likeness of God, more whole and healthy as people, and more alive and healthy not only in our sexualities, but also in our capacities to love one another as God in Christ loves us.

Therefore, I gave my Consent to the Ordination and Consecration of Canon Robinson to be Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire. The Deputation of this Diocese, in a vote by Orders (Lay and Clergy vote separately), also voted unanimously to give consent

With regard to same-sex blessings, General Convention did not authorize liturgies to be developed and implemented - not for the Prayer Book, the Book of Occasional Services, or for Enriching Our Worship (authorized supplemental liturgies for the BCP). the news reporting was grounded, accurately, in the resolution's original title: C051 (Rites: Blessing of Committed Same-Gender Relationships). The Rules of Convention require that once a resolution has been filed, the tide cannot be changed, regardless of revisions and amendments during the legislative process. The Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music revised the resolution and it was substantively amended by the House of Bishops.

The final form of Resolution C051, as actually passed,

1. Affirms that we are "as a community of faith grounded in the saving work of Jesus Christ and expressed in the principles of the Chicago-Lambeth
Quadrilateral: Holy Scripture, the historic creeds of the Church, the two dominical sacraments [Baptism and Eucharist], and the historic episcopate."

2. Re-affirmed the Resolutions of previous General Conventions on the pastoral care and full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons as members of the Body of Christ and in the life and work of the Church.

3. Re-asserted the expectations for same-sex unions to meet the same high standards of fidelity, honesty, monogamy, respect mutual affection, etc. that is expected of all relationships.

4. We acknowledged ("recognized") the realities of differences and practices among us in the Church.

5. Commits us, in" the spirit of resolution A104 of the 70th General Convention (1991), to continued prayer, study, and discernment for the pastoral care of gay and lesbian persons, to include the compilation and development under the

direction of the Presiding Bishop, of resources to facilitate as wide a conversation of discernment as possible throughout the Church."

6. "That our Baptism into Jesus Christ is inseparable from our communion with one another, and we commit ourselves to that communion despite our diversity of opinion and, among dioceses, a diversity of pastoral practice with gay and lesbian persons among us.

The intention in the House of Bishops was not to "authorize" development of liturgical texts for the whole Church. It was intended to "recognize" in the sense of acknowledge" that there exists already throughout the Church a number of dioceses in which liturgies exist and are used. The language is intentionally broad. On the one hand we did not want to impose upon any diocese a mandate to do something that was not appropriate for their circumstances and needs. On the other hand, we did desire to write broadly enough so that any particular diocese had the latitude to do what was appropriate for it. We did not move into the realm of Prayer Book revision or adding texts to the Book of Occasional Services or Enriching Our Worship.

I cast my vote in favor of this resolution because I believe it creates appropriate space for us to do what we need to do without coercing anyone to do more or other than what they need to do in prayerful exploration of and conversations on the issues. The House of Deputies voting by Orders again, concurred with the House of Bishops. The Deputation of this Diocese also voted "aye" in both Orders.

So, where does this brings us? I think that a helpful way of looking at where we are is this: When the Church makes a decision, especially a major decision, there always follows a process tat has been called "reception." We enter now into the reception phase of the matter of explicit ordination of gay and lesbian persons in non-celibate, committed, monogamous relationships and the possible blessing of same-sex unions. Reception is the traditional process in which the Church as a whole engages in prayer, study, conversations, and discernment about an issue or question. It is a notoriously untidy and sometimes long-term process. The decision is allowed to sit and percolate in the whole Body. There is no pre-determined outcome. What we do together is submit ourselves to the guidance and direction of the Spirit in a corporate exercise of testing a decision. Neither I nor anyone else can tell us what the process of reception will unfold for us. What is important is that we engage the process with faithfulness and openness. In due course, the sense of the faithful will emerge.

Over the next several weeks, I shall be talking with the clergy, asking us to gather in region groups and in parishes for an initial conversation, and being available for individuals either to call, e-mail, or make an appointment to visit in the office at the Diocesan Center or at Ascension School. I shall send a calendar out in a separate mailing. The important thing is for all of us to have conversation, to ask our questions, and to create space for each other to articulate whatever we are thinking, feeling, wondering about hoping for, fearful of - a space that is safe and non-judgmental. I am persuaded that the diversity of this Church is essential. I am also persuaded that the tensions within that diversity are grace-filled with the potential for growth with one another and in Christ that will make us a deeper, richer, and more vibrant Household of Faith.

I suspect that here, as elsewhere, some folks will conclude that they cannot continue to journey wit us and will leave. This is sadness to all. Yet we must respect their discernment and feelings, grieving their loss to us and yet sending them fort with our prayers, love, and blessings. We and they are in a difficult place. We shall be less without them.

There will be others who will come to us precisely because of the decisions we have made. We are being called to delight in their arrival and to welcome them. Some will be gay, some lesbian, some straight. Some will be singles, some couples, and some families. We know that new people will be coming to be with us in our journey in faith, to live among us their life in Christ. Let us meet these people with grace-filled hospitality and the love of Christ,

These early days will not produce resolution to the wide range of reactions and responses to General Convention. What I now call us all to do is simply to get out on the table as clearly and honestly as we can what we think and feel, what our questions are, what our concerns, fears, anxieties, and confusions are. Call me, come visit with me. I will come and visit with you, just let me know you would like to visit. Know that I carry you all in my prayers daily and ask you to do the same for me.

As difficult as these days ahead may be, I believe that if we allow ourselves to let God do in and through us what we cannot do on our own, we shall be fine. For what holds us together is not really doctrine, discipline, and worship, or Scripture, Tradition, and Reason - but God. The underlying love of God in Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit is the unfailing and steadfast foundation upon which we live and move and have our being. God will not fail us. We shall become stronger witnesses to and embodiments of God's steadfast love. I am convinced that we cannot hold the center and maintain the unity in diversity of this Church ourselves. It can only be a work of God's transforming grace. And God will transform us by grace, and, as Blessed Julian of Norwich wrote, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well."

Peace and Blessings.

(Signed)
The Right Reverend William 0. Gregg, Ph.D.
Bishop of Eastern Oregon

Given under my hand on the Eleventh day of August, 2003 in the City of the Dalles, Oregon and in the third year of my consecration.