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Same-sex blessing resources now online
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The Episcopal Café seeks to be an independent voice, reporting and reflecting on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican tradition. The Café is not a platform of advocacy, but it does aim to tell the story of the church from the perspective of Progressive Christianity. Our collective sympathy, as the Café, lies with the project of widening the circle of inclusion within the church and empowering all the baptized for the role to which they have been called as followers of Christ.
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My mistake on the original headline. I was writing something about same-sex marriage for another publication, and typed marriage when I meant blessings.
To be clear about General Convention’s charge to the commission, the materials are resources for blessing same-gender relationships.
We are continuing to add materials to the archive, including more recent examples of liturgies. We hope that this helps people see the breadth of the work that has been going on in the church for a long time, and that this archive gives people easy access to the many diocesan policies that have been developed.
Ruth Meyers
Chair, Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music
Thank you, Susan, that’s very helpful to know.
Even if, as I (and many others) hope, we come down on having one single COMMON liturgy for same-sex and opposite-sex marriage, we can only be richer for having all these resources—this history—collected.
JC Fisher
Exactly. The charge was “collect and develop resources” … and as a member of the task force one of the most exciting and moving parts of the work has been how eager folks are to make sure that “their” resources are included in our archives. Some of the liturgies received were mimeographed (who remembers THOSE days??) showing how long we’ve been working at getting the church out of the way of the blessing God is giving to same-sex couples.
This is but the beginning … and our (or at least “my”) hope is that someday these searchable archives will be used to tell the stories of those who worked so long and hard to move the work of equality forward in the Episcopal Church.
Susan Russell
Collecting these old resources is part of their charge.