BY RUPA SHENOY
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Saturday, April 14, 2007
The Rev. George Byron Koch, a former civil rights leader and corporate executive, leads a West Chicago church that proudly welcomes creative types, free-thinkers and people who don't worry about dressing up.
Now Koch's church has become the first to break away from the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago because, Koch and his followers believe, the Episcopal Church has abandoned conservative values by electing a gay bishop and blessing same-sex couples.
The 100-plus members of Koch's Church of the Resurrection recently took a unanimous vote to leave the diocese.
"We aren't leaving the church," Koch has said. "The church moved away from us."
While expressing regret over the decision, William D. Persell, outgoing bishop of the Chicago Episcopal Diocese, wrote Koch that he must renounce his orders as an Episcopal priest. The diocese is also requiring that the church leave its home of more than 50 years because it's held in trust by the diocese.
Koch estimated the church has made about $1.4 million in improvements to the building.
"If you feel that you must leave the Episcopal Church, you and the Episcopal Church would be diminished," Persell wrote. And, in another letter, he wrote: "We will miss you."
Resurrection's action is an indication of a rift within the Episcopalian church that tore open in 2003, when the openly gay Gene Robinson was elected New Hampshire bishop.
Episcopalian leaders have continued to support the inclusion of gays, despite a 2006 report sanctioned by church officials in England mandating a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and blessings of same-sex couples. Episcopalians are the American arm of the Anglican church.
Several congregations nationwide have had acrimonious divorces from the Episcopalian church as a result. Until now, Chicago diocese parishes had been fairly quiet on the issue.
But Koch said that for his congregation, the split has been a long time coming, that the inclusion of gays was only the latest in a pattern of troubling turns by church leaders.
The congregation disagrees with opinions voiced recently by Episcopalian officials that Jesus' resurrection could be a metaphor, and that other religions might also offer a path to God, Koch said.
"The Episcopal Church has been changing the way it had been reading scripture," he said.
David Skidmore, the diocese's canon for communication, countered that the faith had always been open-minded.
"The bishop feels the church has not moved away from its underlying principle," he said. "The Anglican church has always accepted a diverse understanding of scripture."
Despite several discussions among Koch, parishioners and the diocese over the past few months, the Resurrection congregation grew to believe it had no choice but to leave.
"It was a terribly painful decision," said Judy Davis of Bolingbrook, a Resurrection deacon and Episcopalian for 70 years. But, she said, "I do not feel that the way the national church is going is the way I was brought up."
Within the next few months, Resurrection members will move to a rented building elsewhere in West Chicago. The church has not decided if it will join a group of Anglican parishes based in Africa and Asia that are forming their own organization, Koch said.
A longtime member of the NAACP and a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Koch rejects the view that his church's stance is bigoted.
"If I had a family come to my church that were polygamist, we would love them, we would be kind, but we wouldn't approve. That wouldn't mean that we were bigoted. It would mean that we didn't agree with their lifestyle," Koch said.
"That's exactly the way we feel about same-sex relationships," he said. "It ought to be possible to disagree without being accused of being a bigot."
The Rev. Stephen Martz, of St. Nicholas with the Holy Innocents in Elk Grove Village, called that explanation "disingenuous."
"It's a clear message that, 'We as a church don't approve of you,'Œ" said Martz, who's known Koch for years. "The reality is that the message is harmful."
New members who are gay or who support the church's welcoming stance on homosexuality have swelled the ranks of the St. Nicholas congregation, Martz said.
Koch and Skidmore both said that unlike other such splits, they are grateful Resurrection's departure was peaceful.
"Because of the way it's been handled by both parties, I don't think it's going to deter the path we're on," Skidmore said. "We're going to continue to reach out and welcome the ministry of all members - and that includes our gay and lesbian members."
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