The Episcopal Church again made headlines with its recent ecclesiastical ordinations.  Writes Mitchell Landsberg of the Los Angeles Times:

There was a moment on Saturday when even the usually unflappable J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, held his breath.

It was the point when the 3,000 people at the Long Beach Arena were asked if anyone had any objections to the ordination of the region’s first two female bishops, one of whom is the first lesbian bishop ordained by the Episcopal Church.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in this place who was more nervous than I was,” Bruno said a short time later in his sermon.  But the moment passed in silence, and the two women — Diane Jardine Bruce and Mary Douglas Glasspool — were ordained to applause and cheers. Bruno said the church was “fuller and richer and more vital” as a result.
What Bishop Bruno probably didn’t know is that the folks inside the great and spacious building don’t mock and scorn themselves, but only those on the outside. In response to these “groundbreaking” ordinations, not, all Episcopalians felt fuller, richer, and more vital.  David W. Virtue of VirtueOnline opined:
We are within days of one of the most serious breaches in the ecclesiastical life of the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury is strangely silent.

On May 15 at a stadium in Los Angeles, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and a number of liberal and revisionists TEC bishops will lay hands on a non-celibate lesbian in the person of Mary Glasspool and pronounce her a bishop of “the one holy, catholic and apostolic church.” They will proclaim her fit to be a bishop even though her lifestyle does not comport with Holy Scripture or the received teaching of 2,000 years of church history.

This act will pour hot coals of fire on the Episcopal Church and further enrage Global South Anglican leaders who have pleaded with both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Episcopal Church not to proceed with this consecration – an act that might well be followed by a male homosexual being elected bishop in the Diocese of Utah.

Within hours of the consecration of the Rev. Mary Glasspool as a bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles, CA, the Bishop of the The Anglican Church of Peru, the Rt. Rev. Dr. H. William Godfrey condemned the action as “against all the teaching of Scripture and the Church.”

“The decision of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America to consecrate as a bishop a woman in a sexually active lesbian relationship is gravely concerning and wrong,” he wrote to VOL.

“The Bishops of the Anglican Communion have consistently made clear the moral teaching of the Church in this respect, that practising homosexual and lesbian relationships, and practising heterosexual relations outside marriage, are incompatible with Christian teaching. (See Bishops’ Resolution 1.10 at Lambeth Conference 1998.) With this clear discernment they have implored the Episcopal Church NOT to go ahead with the consecration of a person in such a relationship.”

Godfrey said God’s purpose is for the gift of sexuality to be enjoyed in a life-long married relationship between one man and one woman, husband and wife.

“The Holy Scriptures, which are the Church’s authoritative document and teaching, are VERY clear on this matter. In no place in the Scriptures are practising homosexual or lesbian relationships allowed, nor heterosexual relations outside marriage.

“It is impossible, therefore, to know by what authority the Episcopal Church is taking this action. It is disobedient to the Word of God, to the teaching of the Church, and deeply hurtful and damaging to their Christian brothers and sisters. It appears that their decision is being taken in accord with their instincts and feelings, and the ways of the liberal society in which they live, and that they have forgotten the moral values and teachings of the Holy Scriptures and their Church.

It’s not entirely impossible to know by what authority the Episcopal Church has taken this action:  It has a great deal to do with the social and politically popular culture that is pervasive throughout the United States today.  The idea that somehow we are completely and totally defined as individuals by our gender or by our sexual preferences has taken strong root, and is not easily resisted either at the ballot box, the legal bar, or the religious community.  And, those who disagree with these ideas, those who hold fast to traditional and revealed Christianity, and who speak out are in fact mocked, scorned and ridiculed by those it that great and spacious building.

Can the same thing happen within the Mormon Church?  I don’t speak for the Church, but my instinct tells me probably not.  That is not to say that the same social and politically popular themes are absent in Mormon circles.  Undoubtably there are many who would welcome the ordination of women to the Mormon priesthood, as well as gays.  But, because of the theological structure of the Mormon Church, with a governing body of a First Presidency and a Quorum of Twelve Apostles (yes, all male and heterosexual) premised on the foundational guidelines of ongoing modern revelation–I don’t see it.  The recent emphasis by the Church on The Family: A Proclamation to the World, sets forth the direction that the modern day revelation continues to move for Mormons.  Other recent pronouncements on sexuality are in accord, and do not appear to be leading the Mormon Church down the same path as that taken by the Episcopal Church.
What will be even more interesting in the days and months to come is the suggestion by Mr. Virtue above that this might be laying the ground work for the eventual ordination of a male homosexual in Utah–which I presume would be in Salt Lake City.  At that point, the Mormon connection comes to the forefront.





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