A religion of desperation and fear

by Lisa Hunt

Several years ago I worked as a chaplain at the University of the South. At this bastion of southern Episcopal respectability a tradition was maintained after fraternity barbecues of placing the head of the pig in unexpected places, sort of like the horse head in the Godfather, but more genteelly.

It just so happened that the Episcopal church at that time had stepped out of line and ordained a woman to the office of bishop; not just any woman, but a woman of color who was articulate and liberal. Bishop Barbara Harris was invited to pay her first visit to Sewanee to address convocation.

The week before her visit, someone left a pig’s head at my office door. It was left for me to find on Sunday morning. On it was a note which read: "Get out of the Anglican Convention (sic) or else, you pig-faced traitor to the tradition."

This hateful act left me feeling personally unsettled and subsequently provided an opportunity for the students at the school to grapple with the issues of intimidation and intolerance. The incident tested the boundaries of religious change and compassion.

A few weeks ago several women clergy leaders in the Episcopal Church, including one in the Diocese of Tennessee, received an anonymous postcard in the mail, postmarked from Houston, Texas. On it was depicted a grave site, the tombstone reading: "RIP ECUSA." Out of the grave rose a flower, which was labeled ACN, the initials of the Anglican Communion Network. A small minority of Episcopalians has formed the Network as a coalition to protest changes they view as heretical, including both the ordination of women and the growing acceptance of gay people into our Church.

One does not expect acts of hateful intimidation from one's sisters and brothers in faith. Such hate acts are signs of painful desperation and fear by which people try to control by emotional and spiritual violence what they can't win by persuasion or imagination.The condemnation of sexuality is used to cloak the heinous nature of such behavior and to justify it. Often religious people are loath to name such acts for the violence they are.

In our public life we hear a lot these days about religious values. It is seductive for Christians to take the mote out of the culture’s eye all the while avoiding the beam in our own. Acting in violent or intimidating ways towards minorities in our midst demonstrates to the broader society our failure to embody the faith we proclaim. Surely, respect can be a religious value in the Church and in our democracy.

[COVENANT, Number 21, September 2005]

The Revd Lisa Hunt is rector of St Ann Church, Nashville, TN