Yearning for Episcopalian

My GCN profile says something like "Yearning for Episcopalian" under denomination. I need to do something about that.

I was talking with a friend's parents a while back and one of them said, "I can't imagine why you've stayed with Grace all these years." A few years ago, one of the elders of the church said (in almost identical words), "I can't imagine why you've stayed with this church so long, considering how we've treated you."

Well, the reasons are many. Most of it is that I felt God called me and my family to Mansfield (and to this church) way back in 1977, and that the call has never exactly been retracted. After my wife divorced me, I did just a bit of church visiting to Trinity Lutheran in Ashland, where I attended for about two months before anyone said a word to me. I scanned the websites of several Mansfield churches, including the Episcopal Church (which featured a very long diatribe by a well-known anti-gay writer). For several years, a few of us tried to start up a GLBT church in Columbus, but we never got more than half a dozen of us, and finally we just got tired. With my friend David I visited an open and affirming (and very vapid) Presbyterian church in Ashland. Then I visited an Episcopal Church that appeared to be on its last legs.

Over the years, I've just sort of concluded that I have a very limited range of Ohio choices:

• Open, affirming, and low on content, but at least with some allegiance to church tradition.


• Decent content, homophobic, and a tradition that goes back to about 1970.


• Really good on all counts but about to die.

So I stayed with the somewhat-fundamentalist nondenominational church where I know I'll never be part of things. I'll never be part of any leadership structure and I'll always sort of grit my teeth when they sing the "old favorites"—songs from the 1970s with shaky theology and sort of a "hooray for God" mentality. I've found a few friends here. It's OK.

This always seems to work well until I visit my mother and make a pilgrimage to Washington National Cathedral. Last week I shepherded my niece and nephew through. I found myself talking (again) about what "we" do in "our" church—meaning the Episcopal Church.

As I think back, almost all the really important spiritual moments in my life have been linked with the Episcopal Church. The first funeral of someone I actually knew—a friend in my Boy Scout troop. Lots of college InterVarsity stuff, including all the writing of John R.W. Stott. The writing of Robert Farrar Capon. A visit to a small Illinois church where God sort of hit be between the eyes with the comment, "I really do love you."

What will happen when I return from Washington? Will I slip comfortably back into the default? Or will I go back to the struggling Ashland church and see whether I can find a place there? Do I have enough nerve to leave the comfortable anonymity behind?