Is the Washington National Cathedral the spiritual center of the
nation? In the mind of the liberal Episcopal cathedral’s new dean,
it should be.
Such an assertion would surprise many of America’s churchgoers,
the vast majority of whom are not even Oldline Protestants, let
alone Episcopalians. But since assuming leadership of the Cathedral
in October, Dean Gary R. Hall has frequently spoken of the church’s
role as being “at the center” of American public life. Hall wants
to raise the cathedral’s profile as not just a center of
worship, but as an organized political advocacy center on a host of
liberal issues.
Unlike some of his predecessors, Hall is not content to host
conversational forums with authors and poets or preside over
high-profile funerals like those of Gerald Ford and Neil Armstrong.
From calling in December for new firearms restrictions, to
announcing last week that the massive gothic church is available
for gay weddings, Hall embraces liberal causes as easily as he
dismisses traditional Christianity.
Prior to arriving at the Cathedral, Hall served briefly as a
parish rector in Michigan. Before that, he served as dean of the
Episcopal Church’s Seabury-Western Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.
Like other struggling Episcopal seminaries, Seabury sought to
alleviate its precarious finances by offloading properties. Under
Hall’s tenure, Seabury sold its entire campus for $13 million to
neighboring Northwestern University, all while sending out cheery
press releases about the swiftly declining school “embodying our
vision by becoming what’s next in a seminary.” The school no longer
offers a Master of Divinity and has partnered with another
Episcopal seminary in Ohio, no doubt with a look towards being
merged out of existence.
Despite having freshly arrived from a failed seminary and a
parish that by Evangelical or Roman Catholic standards would
be viewed as somewhat small, Hall clearly has feelings of grandeur
about his new office, seeing the National Cathedral as the center
of American religious life.
Previous generations of liberal Episcopal clergy often spoke in
layers of obfuscation; discovering the heretical teaching buried in
their writing and preaching required hours of decoding. Hall
represents a younger generation of liberal Episcopalians who
resemble nothing so much as Unitarian Universalists decked out in
stoles and surplices; they are quick to denounce those who advocate
historic Christian teaching—especially moral teaching—as intolerant
perpetrators of injustice who must be silenced.
In an October interview with the Detroit Free Press
Hall announced that he is, “not about trying to convert someone to
Christianity. I don’t feel I’m supposed to convert Jews or Muslims
or Hindus or Buddhists or Native Americans to Christianity so that
they can be saved. That’s not an issue for me.”
Hall was also forthcoming about the fact that he finds common
cause with those who do not profess a faith in Jesus
Christ.
“I have much more in common with progressive Jews, Muslims,
Hindus and Buddhists than I do with certain people in my own
tradition, with fundamentalist Christians,” Hall declared. “The
part of Christianity I stand with is the part in which we can live
with ambiguity and with pluralism.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly considering his background, Hall has
brought politics to the forefront at the National Cathedral,
already a liberal congregation that has hosted anti-Israel film
screenings and new age worship seminars. In December, the cathedral
almost immediately issued a press release following the Newtown,
Connecticut shootings, in which an upcoming Sunday sermon calling
for firearms regulation was promoted. In his sermon that weekend,
Hall dismissed calling the shooter “evil” as “reflexive” and
dehumanizing. Instead, Hall touted a political rather than a
spiritual solution.
“Our political leaders need to know that there is a group of
people in America who will serve as a counterweight to the gun
lobby, who will stand together with our leaders and support them as
they act to take assault weapons off the streets,” Hall sermonized.
The dean advised that the best way to mourn Newtown’s victims is to
“mobilize the faith community for gun control.”
The following month, Hall explained how a decision to conduct
same-sex marriage is about more than just cathedral policy; it is
also a move to influence the country.
“As a kind of tall-steeple, public church in the nation’s
capital, by saying we’re going to bless same-sex marriages, conduct
same-sex marriages, we are really trying to take the next step for
marriage equality in the nation and in the culture,” Hall told the
Associated Press.
Like other Episcopal congregations that have authorized same-sex
marriage rites, the cathedral has issued a series of guidelines to
alleviate concerns that the church is not serious about marriage,
even as it unilaterally redefines it contrary to the way it has
been historically understood throughout Christendom:
At least one person in the couple, therefore, must have been
baptized. Only couples directly affiliated with the life of the
Cathedral—as active, contributing members of the congregation; as
alumni or alumnae of the Cathedral schools; as individuals who have
made significant volunteer or donor contributions over a period of
time; or those judged to have played an exceptional role in the
life of the nation—are eligible to be married at the Cathedral.
Those who fret about the National Cathedral becoming the gay
marriage equivalent of a Las Vegas wedding chapel can rest easy:
couples seeking marriage must actually be involved in the Cathedral
– unless they are “significant” donors.
Hall’s assumption of the deanship comes at a time when the
National Cathedral and the Episcopal Church as a whole face both
increasingly straitened finances and declining attendance.
Doubtless his attempts to make the cathedral a focal point for the
Episcopal Church’s liberal national agenda have their roots in his
own well-documented theological radicalism. But there is another,
concurrent explanation for Hall’s efforts, one, I might add, very
much in keeping with his church’s historically patrician status: by
sermonizing about gun control and being first in line to bless
same-sex unions, Hall is keeping the doors of the Cathedral open to
well-moneyed potential donors whose commitment to liberal nostrums
like homosexual marriage might otherwise trump their Christian
convictions when tax time comes.
Some things never change. The Bible and the 1928 Prayer Book
might be gathering dust, but the Episcopal Church still
believes itself to be America’s political and economic elite
at prayer.
