On Nov. 2, the Episcopal Church consecrated their first gay bishop. This is the highest church rank an openly gay person has achieved in any major Christian church.
Gene V. Robinson, the new bishop of New Hampshire, is extraordinarily brave. People have called on him to step down. A maelstrom of publicity has swirled about him. His consecration ceremony was attended by 4,000 who greeted him with a standing ovation‹but a spokesman for 38 opposing bishops also spoke during the ceremony, saying that Robinson's " 'chosen lifestyle' is incompatible with Scripture and the teachings of this church," according to the Associated Press.
Most commentators on the church expect the result to be a split between the congregations who support Robinson and the more conservative "confessing congregations" who don't.
That's a lot of pressure on one man - the knowledge that he is the catalyst for the church he clearly loves breaking apart.
Yet it has never been clearer that one man is doing the right thing.
No one can predict the future of course, but I say this with certainty: the world will not end as a result of Robinson's consecration. The sky will not fall. The church, yes, will probably split - but churches have split before and survived.
And really, it is not Robinson who is splitting the church. It is the conservatives who are pulling away, who have announced they are unable to commit to working through these issues. They are breaking up this marriage of churches because they are unwilling to see their own faults, unwilling to recognize that on this they may be wrong.
Robinson said, "They must know that if they must leave, they will always be welcomed back."
But they won't come back. They were waiting for the more liberal churches to do something like this; they were eager to take their stand against the gays and lesbians who had previously huddled at the fringes of church life. The conservatives are willing to carve a church to pieces in order to protect the blinders of their own bigotry.
It's ridiculous, really - are gays and lesbians really such a great evil that they cannot be countenanced by the rest of the church? I mean, the Episcopalians once didn't ordain women, either (the Bible commands that women keep silent in the churches, after all) and there was great controversy around that - but gays and lesbians are somehow more sinister.
So there will be a backlash against Robinson. A gigantic, church-shaking earthquake of a backlash.
But the end result will be tranquility.
Why? Because people are adaptable. They are afraid of what they don't know - they are afraid of what might happen. But when the Episcopalians realize that their church is still the same church, that their lives are still the same prayerful lives, then the pressure on Robinson will ease and things will go on.
Soon, even most anti-gay (or uncertain about gays) Episcopalians will realize that Robinson's choice of life partner doesn't affect their own lives of faith at all. Life will continue the way it always has.
That's why it's important that Robinson didn't step down. By not bowing to the pressure - by staying firm in the face of increasing world adversity and in the knowledge that history books would note that he was the cause of perhaps the worst Episcopal split in the history of the church - Robinson has advanced the civil rights of all of us.
But Robinson alone is not enough. One person can always be considered an exception, as in: "I like you, of course, but you?re an exception - you're not like those other gays and lesbians out there."
What Robinson needs is for other gay and lesbian bishops to join him - not just in his church, but in other churches. He needs other gay and lesbian clergy to be open in their sexual orientation, to teach their congregations that leaders are leaders no matter whom they fall in love with. He needs gays and lesbian clergy around the world to stand beside him - and beside their gay and lesbian members - despite the negative publicity, and despite the chance that they could lose their livelihoods and be thrown out of their own churches. He needs all of us to pressure our own denominations to accept and elevate gay clergy to higher offices.
There are, of course, many brave gay and lesbian clergy who are already doing all these things. They marry same-sex couples against the wishes of their denominations. They introduce their partners into the regular give and take of church life. They rail against bigotry. They may be unsung on the national stage (or they might be demonized, depending how prominent they are) but they are all gay and lesbian heroes. They are changing the churches one strong example at a time.
And changing the churches is important, because it hits people at the core of their belief system. Because of this, Robinson is not just incidentally important. He's not just a footnote to a controversy. He is the key that will help change thousands of hearts.
All we need is for other clergy - and other congregations - to join him in pushing through the door.