Let's look at abortion from a position of all faiths

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

I read with interest the column from my colleague, Pastor John Koedyker, on “Looking at abortion from a position of faith” (July 13). I was disappointed, however, to see that it was only his own perspective on faith on this issue that was presented.

I was disappointed, but not surprised. Because increasingly in our country, and in our own local elections, one segment of Christianity is privileging their own personal view over the views of other Christians – not to mention those from other faith traditions or those who do not choose to belong to a faith tradition. And the idea that one particular view in one particular religion should govern the law of the entire country runs counter, not only to Christian charity but also to the First Amendment to our Constitution, which insists that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

My own religion, Christianity, as it is understood in the Episcopal tradition, would disagree strenuously with the claims that Pastor Koedyker has made. In our most recent General Convention, just concluded in Baltimore, our church passed a resolution which states that our church, “Recognizes that pregnancy and childbirth are dangerous undertakings that risk permanent disability and death for those who bear children” and also that “access to abortion is a key element in preserving the health, independence and autonomy of those who can bear children.” This resolution is based upon the stance our church has maintained since 1967, our “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions (about the termination of pregnancy) and to act upon them.” (You can read a summary of all our church’s statements on abortion and women’s reproductive health online at http://sjegh.com/abortion).

But it is not only the Episcopal Church that maintains this stance. Our own view is similar to the stance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ. Our view, however, is not respected by the law, given the Supreme Court decision, even though we hold these views as people of faith. Indeed, two-thirds of non-evangelical protestants disagree with the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Even 55 percent of Catholics in America believe it should not have been overturned, despite the official stance of their church.

And, of course, it is not just Christians who disagree with this view. Most Islamic scholars believe that it is only after four months in the womb that a fetus becomes a living soul, before that they would not characterize abortion as murder (as Pastor Koedyker so unfortunately phrases it). Traditional Judaism sanctions abortion when it safeguards the life or well-being of the mother, and Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Judaism are all clear that abortion should be safe and accessible to women.

Indeed, the majority of Jewish texts assert that a fetus is not the same thing as a person until it draws its first breath at birth (drawing upon Genesis 1). Pastor Koedyker conveniently ignores the biblical view of Exodus 21, where if men fighting injure a pregnant woman to the point of causing a miscarriage, there is a fine – but it is not treated as murder. The Mishnah, one of the earliest and most authoritative rabbinic texts, actually requires an abortion if a woman’s life is at risk.

The tyranny of a particular Christian religious view being imposed upon all women in our country is one of the greatest constitutional and religious crises of our time. And it is actually an action that is profoundly contrary to the sanctity of life. It will result in more unsafe abortions for women who do not have the resources to travel to a place where they can safely access the procedure. It will increase maternal mortality rates as women are forced to have children despite their health concerns. The advocacy against abortion will also continue to traumatize women who have experienced miscarriage or struggled with infertility, telling them that an eight-week fetus was the same thing as a baby and telling parents who do IVF that their babies are dying when an embryo does not implant.

An article in Forbes magazine was clear that the broad and imprecise language in many of the laws going into effect after the Supreme Court decision will very likely impair access to many forms of assisted reproductive technology.

Pastor Koedyker quoted one Catholic thinker, and I’d like to quote another. Sister Joan Chittester, the famed and well-respected Benedictine nun, said in an interview with Bill Moyers in 2004: “I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, a child educated, a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth.”

The hypocrisy, the lack of respect for different religious and Christian views, the lack of concern for the health of women and children (along with trans or non-binary people with wombs), it is all shocking and deeply upsetting to me, as a person of faith.

Sadly, however, one particular view in Christianity will continue to insist that their view is the only correct view and that other views must be shut down with the full force of government law. More people will die. More children will struggle in poverty. And more and more people will give up on Christianity entirely, disgusted and outraged.

And none of it has anything to do with the teachings of Jesus, no matter what any pastor might claim.

About the writer: The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.

Proudly Free – A Sermon for Pride

Below is the transcription of my sermon from our parish's 2022 Community PRIDE Worship on the Waterfront in Grand Haven, MI, on Sunday, June 26, 2022. The sermon may also be viewed on YouTube here. Our parish offers this community service each year, on the final Sunday in June. Any Christian or church in the community who wants to join is warmly welcomed. 

A reading from the Letter to the Galatians (5:1, 13-25), as appointed for Proper 8, Year C:

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

In the epistle reading chosen for today, the third Sunday of Pentecost and also the day we gather for this community pride worship service, we hear St. Paul remind us that it is "for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Freedom is not only a central theological concept to Paul but central, of course, as well to the great American experiment. We live in a country founded on the importance of freedom from tyranny, with many of those who founded it being those who were fleeing religious oppression. We live in the land of the free, or at least we want to believe we do.

You may have noticed lately an increase in banners and yard signs, all across Ottawa County, proclaiming a set of political candidates all united by one organization. On their signs, it says freedom and family. Well, who can disagree with that? If you go to the website of the group running these signs and candidates, you'll see what sort of freedom they believe in, the freedom to tell other people how to live their lives. They believe in their freedom to insist that their particular religious views should control what kind of books children have access to in the library. They believe in the freedom to dismantle the Ottawa County Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion because it runs counter to their personal beliefs. They want the freedom to do these things.

Groups like this, people who believe in this particular brand of Christian freedom, also believe, of course, in the freedom to tell women what to do with their bodies. A freedom that found its fulfillment just this past week when the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. Now a woman cannot make her own conscious decision because our government has taken it from her. I want to be clear. This is, of course, the opposite of freedom. This is the tyranny of a particular religious view, and it has no place in our country. It has no place in the church.

The candidate running from this group for county commissioner in Grand Haven township, where I live, has on his flyers commitments to his beliefs about freedom. On his flyers, he insists that he believes "A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl." He proclaims his freedom to declare the gender identity of children for them, to erase the biological reality of intersex people whose gender could not clearly be identified at birth, and also his freedom to erase the reality of children who do not yet know, who have not yet claimed their own gender identity. This once more is the opposite of freedom. This is the tyranny of a particular far right religious view, and it has no place in our country. It has no place in the church.

Now, I'm not here to tell you how to vote in the upcoming August 2nd primary election in Ottawa County, though I do hope you will vote regardless of whether you agree with me. I am, after all, a lowly parish priest. But I am here to talk to you about what Christian freedom actually means because the word freedom has been twisted out of its original meaning in scripture, twisted into a reality where supposedly Christian freedom looks an awful lot more like a theocratic version of America, a reality that more closely resembles Margaret Atwood's nightmare The Handmaid's Tale than the reality Jesus Christ sought to bring about by his death and resurrection. We desperately need to understand anew what freedom means for the Christian.

The Apostle Paul, the author of the Letter from the Galatians, which we read from just a few minutes ago, gets kind of a bad rap in this regard. Partly, this is because people tend to go to Paul to find reasons to tell everyone else why they're wrong. Which is, of course, ironic because as we heard in the epistle reading for today, Christian freedom, as Paul says, is not biting and devouring one another. It's not using scripture to bind up and dehumanize others. 

Paul is clear, right here in this reading, that the whole of the law can be summed up in a single commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is the heart of Christian freedom: love of neighbor. A love of neighbor that is so profound, Paul says for the Christian, you are actually enslaved to one another. It is not about my freedom to have what I want. It is about my commitment to serve what is best for you.

Freedom is willing to be constrained by the good of the other, to seek the best of your neighbor ahead of your own personal privilege. That's why Paul then sketches out kind of two different ways a person can live, a life lived to gratify the desires of the flesh versus a life living to make manifest the fruits of the spirit. 

Now, once more, hold lightly to what you think Paul is talking about and consider his actual words because, for Paul, living according to the flesh means living a life enslaved to yourself. As one scholar notes, Paul's problem with the flesh is not that it desires, but that its desires become disordered. It wants good things, but in the wrong way. And so, Paul gives a list of ways that epitomize living according to the flesh, living enslaved to yourself instead of living with a concern for the good of your neighbor. In each of these items, you can see how a desire that is good becomes twisted, turned inward and misused.

Paul begins with three words related to sexual sin, fornication and purity and licentiousness. Ooh. Now, rather than get into the original Greek of each of these terms and run the risk of you falling asleep on this lovely Sunday morning, remember the context Paul is talking about. Paul is using each of these as examples of living with a sole concern for yourself instead of a true concern for the good of your neighbor. Yes, that is absolutely a risk in sexual intimacy. It can become turned inward, willfully blind to the good of the other. All of these examples of desires of the flesh are instances when you refuse to see the other as a person, instead when they become only an end to your own desire.

As much as so-called American Christianity wants to talk about the first three sins, Paul names, Ooh boy, they tend to ignore the rest of the list. Because Paul also describes enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions factions, envy, and Lord knows that straight white American Christianity is filled with those sins as well, just as much as it is filled with views of sexuality that dehumanize people... views of sexuality that refuse to see the other.

As one scholar puts it, for Paul, disordered desire enslaves us to our passions and it destroys community. And the appropriate response to disordered desire is neither rejection of desire (desire is not bad), nor blind surrender to it (you've got to think about what you desire). Instead, the answer is to desire properly, something we do through the gift of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit. What does desire well and faithfully ordered look like? Well, it would be a desire that always seeks the best of your neighbor or, in Paul's word, it is desire that produces the alternative to living according to the flesh, a desire that produces the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and self control.

Back in the '80s, my denomination, the Episcopal Church, started trying to be very intentional about listening to the experience of our LGBTQIA+ siblings. The more the straight cisgender parts of the church listened to the other parts of the church, they discovered that their love, their relationships, were not relationships that resembled the first path Paul laid out, the path of being concerned only for fulfilling your own desires and pleasure. No, queer relationships had all the evidence of the fruits of the spirit because they were filled with love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. In many ways, we discovered queer relationships were even more committed to the good of the other than many straight relationships. Perhaps that's because of the discrimination they'd faced... so they'd had to work even harder to crucify a concern for self alone so that they could live entirely for the person they loved for their good, their wholeness. We learned and the church got a little more whole because of that.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, but far too many people today live under a yoke of slavery. Make no mistake, any form of Christianity that enslaves another human is false. That was true not that long ago, when most Christians thought it was okay to own human beings and they used the Bible to justify it. But any form of Christianity that enslaves another person is false, whether it is enslaving the undocumented immigrant to a system that doesn't recognize their humanity and worth, that is false. When it is enslaving a woman so that a small group of religious men can control her body, that is false Christianity. When it is enslaving the queer person by telling them that they need to be celibate or they need to hide who they are or be anything else, anything other than who God created them to be, this is false Christianity. These systems of slavery have nothing to do with the gospel of freedom found in Jesus Christ. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

You can teach us, oh beloved and fabulous children of God, particularly those of you who have different gender identities and sexual orientations. You can teach the rest of us so much about what it means to love when it's difficult and hard, when you're not seen or honored. You could teach us what it means to love when it's vulnerable and even dangerous. Queer Christians can teach all the straight cisgender Christians here what it means to value the good of your neighbor more than your own comfort, because it's a very comfortable place to sit quietly on the side while other people's lives and freedoms are eroded away.

In light of the very anti-freedom agenda right now in this country of so many people who claim the name of Jesus, it is far past time for all Christians, gay and straight, cis and trans, to stand up and demand the just protections of freedom for all people to be who God created them to be and to live lives of autonomy and goodness that they choose for themselves. 

Because it is only by working to increase love in this world, all the fruits of the spirit to increase kindness and generosity and gentleness, only by asking what you could do to protect your neighbor who is at risk of being marginalized, trapped or killed by the powers of this world, only by doing this will we find what truly Christian freedom looks like. A freedom that should be available to each and every person.

Be free beloved of God. Be proudly free. Amen.

How a Book is a Book (and Why it Still Matters)

[Edited after the HoB Vote on July 9 at 7:50pm].

I've been spending the past couple of days in Baltimore as an Alternate Clergy Deputy from the Diocese of Western Michigan at the 80th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. If I just said more than three words that make no sense to you, you can probably skip this post. 

The Convention has been shortened from the normal amount of legislative days down to just four and both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops are working tremendously hard to do the essential work of the church. You see, in the Episcopal Church, this bicameral legislature is our highest authority—no true and lasting change occurs (in theory) without the support of a majority of bishops... and clergy... and laity. 

For the past two days, the House of Bishops has spent significant discussion on the question of what exactly should constitute the Book of Common Prayer. It started with Resolution A059, the primary goal of which was to provide a holding container, constitutionally, for the various liturgies authorized by General Convention. In the approach of A059, those liturgies were categorized as original BCP, then there were trial use liturgies and then alternative or supplemental liturgies. However, Resolution A059 also  redefined the Book of Common Prayer to be all those liturgies authorized by General Convention. In the words of the explanation for the resolution on page 649 in the Blue Book, "A second sentence is added to express the understanding that all liturgies that General Convention authorizes following the protocol of Section 2 are part of the Book of Common Prayer."

In response, Bishop Provenzano of Long Island produced the excellent substitute B011, which made a distinction between The Book of Common Prayer and other liturgies that might be established by the Authority of our church. In addition to the BCP, Bishop Provenzano provided for liturgies in Trial Use, Experimental Use, or Supplemental Use. His resolution was moved as a substitute and passed the House of Bishops on a slim margin, 60 to 57 (with one abstention). 

Rather than vote on the amended resolution, however, there were some technical fixes and so the matter was delayed until after dinner last night. After dinner, Bishop Hollingsworth of Ohio moved that the entire question be delayed for consideration the next day, so that a compromise resolution could perhaps be crafted. 

Tonight we heard that compromise resolution in Floor Amendment 031, which may indeed be a compromise but is one that still maintains the key change made by A059 by stating, "The Book of Common Prayer is understood to be those liturgical forms and other texts authorized by the General Convention." To wit, it is a compromise that still fundamentally alters our understanding of what constitutes The Book of Common Prayer. 

During the discussion, one bishop was noted to have said something to the effect of, "My sense is that we do not know what book means." We are evolving beyond books (I am told by bishops many years my senior) and now our BCP should be understood to be everything General Convention has authorized. All hail the cloud liturgy and the final accession of cut and paste worship.

Except, I do know what a book means. It means a definable text, with clear limits, often accessible in paper form. And you know who else knows? People who visit my parish and pull a book out of the pews, or people who visit me in my office and are curious about our church. I always tell them what I was told in seminary, "If you want to know what we believe, read this," then I hand them a free leather-bound edition of the prayer book. "Our prayers will tell you what we believe."

I understand that some of the resistance to Bishop Provenzano's substitute was because it would mean liturgies that make the Sacrament of Marriage available to all couples are not part of the Book of Common Prayer. To be clear, I absolutely share that concern. The solution, however, is not to wave our hands and say that now "The Book of Common Prayer is understood to be those liturgical forms and other texts authorized by the General Convention." 

The solution is to modify the prayer book itself. 

Because when a gay couple comes into my parish, they will not go to the (very helpful!) website https://www.episcopalcommonprayer.org to find out what we believe. I love that website. It's great work and will be helpful to seek a clear listing of authorized liturgies and to know what sort of restrictions, if any, exist in their use. 

But the gay couple who comes to my church will pull out a 1979 BCP. Then, they'll listen to me explain (as I have countless times) that our prayer book has not caught up to our church's teaching on marriage. But they will be confused, because they are holding a book in their hands that tells them something different than what exists on the internet, in the META PRAYER BOOK. They won't know why we didn't change the book we put in our churches. They will be baffled when I tell them the book is just part of the book, and an inaccurate book, and the whole book is actually on this website. (I'm sorry, please come back. I promise you my church knows how to make sense.)

Bishops, I appreciate your hard work to find common ground, but you have taken a step backwards. My own hope is that when this Resolution comes to the House of Deputies, it will be defeated. Then, I hope the House will concur with A145, the constitutional change already began in 2018 to resolve the important question of how we authorize various texts. Let's not redefine the prayer book at this Convention.

But I think we can do more as well. We can fix the can that was kicked back in 2018, when Resolution B012 said that the trial use of the same-sex marriage rites "shall extend until the completion of the next comprehensive revision of the Book of Common Prayer." Instead, pass a new resolution which will be crafted to be the first reading of the a change in the BCP rite of marriage to the gender-neutral form approved in 2018. Include with it a revision to the catechism, while you're at it.

And then, two years from now, pass both of them again and we will have the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, as amended in 2024 to reflect our church's teaching on marriage equality. We'll also have a Constitution that makes sense and clearly articulates the reality of a variety of liturgical forms that carry varying weight because they reflect varying stages of discernment as we seek the Spirit's call to us as Christians today.

Don't amend the definition of the Book of Common Prayer in our Constitution (particularly not in a shortened Convention without the needed time for debate). Instead, amend the prayer book itself and make the fact that marriage is between two persons—without regard to gender or sexual orientation—the clear teaching of our church as found in the BCP any visitor might pick up in a local parish. 

And, by sticking with Bishop Provenzano's original substitute, you will also create the constitutional container our church needs for the variety of liturgical forms that are indeed essential for the church of the 21st century. Because I agree, our church needs growing and evolving liturgical forms. We need supplemental liturgies and trial rites. 

But we also need the Book of Common Prayer.