Thou Shalt Not! When I Became the Headline

The Dallas Observer July 27 long form article got it right. Mostly.

Introduction

It is nearly time to move on from the drama and trauma with the Episcopal Church. However, as I reviewed my notes, I came across a reference to an article I sat for with a very capable reporter. I hope you will take the time to read the excellent piece by Jesse Hyde from July 2009. It is worth the read, although I try to recap it in today's post.

Without further ado, I present

Thou Shalt Not! When I Became the Headline

In July 2009, the Dallas Observer published an article for which I agreed to be interviewed—an unusual decision for a priest from the suburbs to make, especially with a paper known more for downtown culture than church controversy. But I took a risk. I had a story to tell, and to my surprise, the reporter listened.

The article chronicled a tumultuous time in the Episcopal Church—what many have called a spiritual crisis that split one of America’s most historic denominations. Readers of the Christ Church Stories series will remember that at the center of the crisis was the 2003 election of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. I was serving as a deputy at the General Convention that year and quietly stepped down in protest. I didn’t expect my silent act to draw national attention.

The article traces my decision to walk away from the House of Deputies and the theological journey that led to it. It paints a picture of division within the Church, a global communion strained by Western individualism, and one local priest trying to be faithful.

I was warned not to sit for this interview, especially with The Dallas Observer, a very progressive and liberally minded Dallas urban newspaper. I listened to my staff's concerns, but I decided to try to make the record clear.

What follows are several extended sections from the article, quoted at length, along with a few reflections of my own. This is how it happened. If you prefer to read the story without my commentary, go here.

---

The Exit

As I mentioned in another episode, I never planned to make a fuss or to be noticed when I resigned my credentials as a Deputy. The Dallas Observer got it right.

At one of the (Convention) tables sits the Reverend David Roseberry of Plano. He wears the plain black shirt and stiff white collar of a simple priest. He is indistinguishable from the others around him, his voice lost in the din. But this will soon change. His black, rubber-soled shoes are planted squarely on the concrete floor, as if he might bolt at any minute. And he just might…

(He is referring to the General Convention vote in 2003)

After Robinson is introduced, a group of 30 or so priests marches to the stage, where one reads a statement of protest. The Reverend Roseberry is among them. His face is grim, his eyes weary. He doesn’t say a word. His presence is a symbol of solidarity…

He had started planning his exit the day before, when Robinson was elected. He has a resignation letter in his vest pocket and his briefcase is waiting outside in the hall. He left it there because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.

As the prayer begins, he quietly hands his letter of resignation to the head of their table. “Paul, this is it for me,” he says softly. “I’m going to leave. And I don’t want to draw any attention to me or the diocese so I’m just going to sneak out.”

He is nearing the door, his wife beside him, when the prayer ends. Suddenly, without warning, he hears a familiar voice coming from the table he just left. “Point of personal privilege!” It’s the rector of Saint Michael and All Angels in Dallas. “It’s come to my attention that David Roseberry’s just resigned his deputation.”

A murmur goes through the crowd. Suddenly, four or five television cameras are in Roseberry’s face. Reporters from CNN, FOX and ABC ask him what he’s doing. “Well, I need to go and officially resign.”

I still remember how surreal that moment felt—how quickly everything shifted. I had wanted to resign quietly. Instead, I became a headline.

---

A Church Coming Apart

I mentioned the unlikely election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in a previous post. Here’s how the article put the situation in context:

Like a tear in fraying fabric, the rift between liberals and conservatives within the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion widened at that moment, possibly beyond repair…

So far, six American dioceses, including Fort Worth, have rejected Schori as their leader and have asked to be placed under the oversight of an Anglican archbishop outside the United States…

For Roseberry, Schori’s election was also the last straw. On June 24, (2009) he announced that his parish, which has the largest Sunday attendance of any Episcopal Church in the nation, would remain part of the Anglican Communion but would sever ties with the Episcopal Church.

Roseberry is now at the leading edge of a schism that threatens to tear apart one of America’s oldest denominations. He believes that the Episcopal Church has lost its way, that the Bible is the authoritative word of God and that homosexuality cannot be reconciled with it.

That last paragraph is stark. But it’s also a fair summary of where I stood. I didn’t leave over one issue. I left because I could no longer ask my congregation to submit to a spiritual authority that had, in my view, broken with Scripture. Homosexuality was a presenting issue, but the church had left the classic Christian heritage.

---

A F-Bomb from the Other Side

The reporter didn’t only tell my story—he told others’. One voice in particular—a priest and Rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church—made clear just how deep the fracture had become. He said of me,

“He’s got a wonderful thing going, why does he have to fuck it up?”

That line still echoes. It was never about me trying to wreck something. It was about me refusing to bless what I couldn’t believe God blessed. I wasn’t trying to tear down the Church—I was trying to keep faith with the gospel that built it.

(The bishop jumped on the priest who dropped the F-Bomb. It was unbecoming a member of the clergy. He apologized. To the bishop.)

---

Tucson, Where It All Began

Years before Minneapolis, before the cameras, before the vote, there was a quiet failure in a hospital room in Tucson, Arizona, that changed everything for me. The reporter told that part of the story, too. He got it right. The man was my father-in-law, Fran’s father who later came to faith in Christ before he died.

“How do I know if I’m going to heaven? How do I get right with God?”

Roseberry didn’t know what to say… Finally, [the dying man] just waved his hand and said, “Oh, never mind. Just sit there.”

“And I sat there and held his hands, and I knew that I had nothing that I could give him. It was about the lowest spot I had ever been.”

That moment was the crack in my foundation. It made me confront my lack of conviction. It was the beginning of my conversion—not to Christ, but to the Scriptures. From that point on, I needed answers. Real ones. Not just pastoral nods or poetic metaphors.

---

About The Church We Built

After years of steady growth, Christ Church had become something rare in the Episcopal world: a vibrant, multi-generational, growing parish. The reporter arrived in the middle of a Texas heat wave and painted the scene:

It’s a brutally hot July morning in north Plano, where it hasn’t rained in weeks. All around Christ Church Episcopal, the grass is dying, turning a crunchy, brittle brown…

There is plenty of room… more than 140,000 square feet of air-conditioned space on the 15 acres, enough to house a small school. There is, in fact, a school here on the Christ Church campus, as well as a playground, a small chapel of dark red wood and a sanctuary large enough to seat 2,200.

He didn’t get that right. There are 1200 linear feet, about 1000 seats if packed.

The sanctuary, more than any other place at Christ Church, is Roseberry’s pride and joy. At its entrance… sits a rock, a boulder really, taken from the Sea of Galilee… Children gather around it and play until their parents call for them to sit down on the cushioned pews…

It’s true. That rock from Galilee anchored us. It was always meant to remind us of where we came from—not just Plano, but the water’s edge where Jesus once called fishermen to leave their nets and follow him. We weren’t trying to build a monument. We were trying to build a place where people could meet the living Christ.

---

Set Free from a Canyon

The article moves into the aftermath of our decision. What I felt then, and still feel now, was not pride—but clarity:

It has been three weeks since he announced his parish would leave the Episcopal Church, and he feels at peace about it, as if he’s been “set free from a boxed canyon.”

That phrase came to me one day and never left. I had been trying for years to find a way forward within the walls of a system that no longer shared our foundations. There was a time I hoped the Church would wake up to its drift. But eventually, I realized: I was the one in denial.

---

A Church That Declared the Truth

Here, the article reports something I said that still rings true:

“When the decision was made three years ago about the consecration of a gay bishop, it kind of forced everybody to declare what they really believed,” Roseberry says. “And I and my vestry declared a very humble statement, not directed toward gays, but directed toward the elevation of biblical sexuality, and we had people that left… Our position hadn’t changed, doors weren’t closed and nobody checked ID, but there was an implied separation.”

We didn’t want to be harsh. We didn’t make speeches or signs. But we also didn’t bend. Not because we wanted to be right—but because we believed the Scriptures are true, and that they speak about sexuality, marriage, and holiness with clarity and compassion.

---

Grace and the Mirror of Scripture

The article did not shy away from the criticisms I’ve faced—especially regarding my own story of divorce when I was very young. But it also allowed me to respond with honesty:

“I understand why people bring it up, I really do. But I’m fully repentant,” he says. “That’s the great thing about God—there is no sin that forecloses his ability to use anybody.”

That’s the truth I return to daily. I am not without sin. I am not standing on some kind of moral hill looking down. I’m standing—because I was lifted up.

Grace is the only ground I know how to stand on.

---

This article is free, but it’s not cheap!

That’s why I’m asking you to consider becoming a Paid Subscriber to The Anglican. It's $8 a month, or you can buy the year and get two months free!

Is what you’ve read worth a few bucks? And remember, whenever anyone becomes a Paid Subscriber, I ring a bell and an angel gets their wings!

---

What the Church Should Bless

The journalist captured what I believe is the heart of the matter—not who we’re excluding, but what we’re blessing:

“What I say to people here at Christ Church is this is not about gays, homosexuals or lesbians or anything like that. It’s about what the church can and should do primarily, which is to bless what is God’s best for people, and the church should never bless what is not God’s best for people.”

That’s the theological core. The Church is not meant to be a mirror of culture but a witness to the Kingdom. And the Kingdom calls all of us—gay or straight, single or married, broken or whole—to repent, believe, and follow Jesus.

---

A Tear in the Fabric

Like a tear in fraying fabric, the rift between liberals and conservatives within the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion widened at that moment, possibly beyond repair. To many, it seemed a slap in the face, a direct affront to the wishes of the global church.

In response, Anglican leaders in Africa, where the church still has the militant zeal of a missionary organization, declared an end to their association with the Episcopal Church, even if it meant forgoing millions of dollars a year in emergency food and other aid.

I had met with Anglican leaders from Africa several times by then—both in the U.S. and in London. What I encountered was not some caricature of a primitive faith, but a vibrant, sacrificial, Spirit-filled leadership. These were men who prayed with urgency, preached with conviction, and held fast to the Scriptures with joy. Their passion and clarity didn’t embarrass me. It humbled me.

It made me wonder if the center of gravity in Anglicanism had already shifted—and we were just catching up.

---

An Unusual Arrangement

So far, six American dioceses, including Fort Worth, have rejected Schori as their leader and have asked to be placed under the oversight of an Anglican archbishop outside the United States. It could result in a most unusual outcome: a U.S. diocese reporting to a bishop in Peru.

For many, this sounded absurd. A Texan parish under a Peruvian bishop? But to us, it made perfect sense. Apostolic oversight is not about geography. It’s about faithfulness. And if the faith had moved south while the West was drifting, then we were willing to follow it wherever it was still aflame.

---

Christ Church Responds

For Roseberry, Schori’s election was also the last straw. On June 24, he announced that his parish… would remain part of the Anglican Communion but would sever ties with the Episcopal Church… Roseberry is now at the leading edge of a schism that threatens to tear apart one of America’s oldest denominations.

It didn’t feel like a “leading edge” to me. It felt like stepping off a ledge with nothing beneath my feet but the promises of God. I wasn’t trying to cause a rupture. I was trying to find solid ground. And amazingly, others followed—not because we told them to, but because they recognized the same truth we had seen.

---

The Future of the Communion

The article concluded with a reflection that still holds weight today:

It is entirely possible that the Anglican Communion could split right down the middle on the issue of openly gay men and women in the priesthood, with England, Canada and the United States going one way, while the “global south,” as Roseberry puts it, goes another way.

“There could come a time when the only place we find gospel solidarity is with our brothers in the global south,” he says, referring primarily to Africa and Central and South America.

That’s what I said then. And in many ways, it’s what happened.

The Anglican Church in North America was formed out of that fracture—not to preserve tradition, but to preserve the gospel as we had received it. Christ Church didn’t just leave something behind. We stepped into a wider, deeper family of believers across the world. And we found new strength in old truths.

---

This concludes my reflections on the Dallas Observer article. If you’d like to read the full piece, you can find it here.

Looking back, I realize that 2009 was not just about walking out of a meeting. It was about walking into a global movement—a reformation of sorts—that continues to this day.

Next time on The Christ Church Stories, “After the Break Up”

If you are a Paid Subscriber, thank you! Thank you for supporting The Anglican and the ministry of LeaderWorks. If you are not a subscriber, please consider becoming one today.

---

Are you looking for something to deepen your faith? Summer reading? Small Group Studies? Be sure you check out some of my books on Amazon. Click on the graphic below and see what might work for you. Or click here.