The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada recently issued a statement on same-sex blessings, which said that it is appropriate for homosexuals in “committed relationships” to receive confirmation and communion.  The ministry of the Zacchaeus Fellowship, a group of Canadian Anglicans who have struggled with same-sex attraction, has once again been ignored by our church’s leaders.  Today Zacchaeus Fellowship members issued an open response to the House of Bishops.  Here's an excerpt.

On October 27, 2005, several members of the Zacchaeus Fellowship made a presentation to the House of Bishops (available at www.zacchaeus.ca/hob.html), in which we spoke about our pasts, our struggles, our hopes and our hurts. Every member of the House of Bishops has also received a copy of our booklet Transformed by an Encounter with Christ.

Your statement has betrayed our witness to the House of Bishops. You bent over backwards to express sympathy for our brothers and sisters who openly espouse the gay lifestyle, yet your statement held not one word of pastoral sensitivity towards us. In the name of pastoral care, you have left us feeling spiritually bulldozed and utterly deserted by our church. We are not at all able to agree with the statement’s claim to consistency with paragraph 143 of the Windsor Report, which affirms “the duty of pastoral care that is laid upon all Christians to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations.” We point to your lack of so much as an acknowledgment that the Anglican Church of Canada contains a constituency of individuals who are ex-gay, ex-lesbian, or living chastely with same-sex desires.

We remind you that this is not the first time such rejection of this constituency has taken place. At General Synod 2004, Resolution A134 was passed, intentionally involving gay and lesbian persons in the dialogue and study. Yet, a second amendment which was proposed to include “those who identify themselves as ex-gay or ex-lesbian” was defeated.

Why does the Anglican Church of Canada continue to disregard and belittle those in our midst who struggle to obey Christian teaching on homosexuality?  Such marginalisation is quite disgraceful and unbecoming a church of Christ.

Read the whole thing.

The Rev Dawn MacDonald, Rector of St Mary Magdalene, Fort Nelson, and chair of the Zacchaeus Fellowship, wrote of the power of Christ to transform illicit sexual desires here.  See also the testimonies posted at the Fellowship’s website.

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