Juan Oliver begins his article “As a Latino Episcopalian, I am against being ‘included.’” What are the special liturgical gifts of bicultural Episcopalians, and what are the opportunities for the vast majority of “monocultural” Episcopalians? The full text is online in Adobe PDF format here: Against Inclusion.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Open: Against Inclusivity
Juan Oliver begins his article “As a Latino Episcopalian, I am against being ‘included.’” What are the special liturgical gifts of bicultural Episcopalians, and what are the opportunities for the vast majority of “monocultural” Episcopalians? The full text is online in Adobe PDF format here: Against Inclusion.
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2 comments:
Juan,
Thank you for your essay, which gives me much to think about. I am reminded of the summer of 1998, when I served as an intern in the Anglican Church in Tanzania. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot of positive things. I also saw that they had moved along with the concept of women's ordination to the point that many saw that it could be consonant with scripture to ordain females, but they wondered, "Why ordain women? Don't they already have important roles as wives and mothers? Aren't those roles more appropriate to their gender and place in society?"
What they missed was that female priests would not be male priests with different anatomy. There would be some ways in which female priests would be very much like male priests, but some ways in which they would bring new gifts to ministry.
In that same way, I think you point rightly to the ways in which we live into the deeper meaning of inclusion, which involves the includer as the gatekeeper determing who gets in and how that person acts. We are guilty of "including" persons who are then expected to act like everyone else. So that young priests are asked to be just like older clergy, thereby missing the very gifts the Church needs to receive. It's like the old saw that the only problem with Episcopal evangelism is that everyone who should be an Episcopalian already is one (with the possible exception of high Methodists who read the New York Times and listen to NPR).
What follows, as you do in the article, is asking the questions of what benefit the church is missing to which the Holy Spirit might be leading us? How might we change structures to better enable that fresh wind of inspiration to flow? What would it look like to stop "including" and start opening the doors a little wider so that the wind can blow through? In the local church, that means being open to the gift of strangers who are not just like us. In the national church, I enjoyed reading your thoughts on what bicultural Latinos might bring to enrich our liturgy and mission.
peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Vicar
King of Peace, Kingsland, GA
Thanks, Frank for pointing out how these issues may play out in other areas of church life. What they all seem to have in common is power. One "insider" group determines what "outsiders" will do, even be.
An exampe comes to mind: At the start of my discerment process 22 years ago, my rector started a sentence with "Well, if we let you in..." and I instantly understood that he though the priesthood was some sort of insider group beyon the reach of lay people "out there. Not surprising, since we act this out in liturgical space every week.
I wonder if the architectural changes that have already been started will eventually change the image we have of what the clergy are, removing us from thinking that we are in a position of power to thinking of ourselves in new and evolving ways?
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