Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
The American Episcopalian Church held its General Convention in Indianapolis this week, and it was apparently quite a show. Back in 1970, when the population of this country was considerably smaller, there were three million Episcopalians in our midst. Today, there are only one million. But one thousand of them gathered this year for the debates that took place in its House of Deputies and its House of Bishops.
In the evenings, Jay Akasie reports, they behaved in accord with the stereotype:
General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order bottles of the finest wines.
During the day, he adds, the legislators in the two chambers gathered to discuss
such weighty topics as whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats, and whether to ratify resolutions condemning genetically modified foods. Both were approved by a vote, along with a resolution to "dismantle the effects of the doctrine of discovery," in effect an apology to Native Americans for exposing them to Christianity.
I wish that I were making this up, but I am not doing so -- and it looks as if things are going to get worse, for the Episcopalians are on the verge of formalizing what Akasie calls "the reality that many Episcopalians already know: a church in the grip of executive committees under the direct supervision of the church's secretive and authoritarian presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Shori, [which] now set the agenda and decide well in advance what kind of legislation comes before the two houses." I am not myself a republican in ecclesiastical affairs, but it looks as if what Lenin once called "democratic centralism" is going to become the order of the day.
A number of dioceses have withdrawn and are being sued so that Bishop Shori can take control of their assets. The entire delegation from the diocese of South Carolina walked out of the General Convention on Wednesday, which suggests that the South Carolinians will also soon withdraw.
What comes next? Is the Episcopalian church still a Christian church? If so, will it be one in ten years? Can it be saved from itself? Or is it too far gone to be saved?
I have long thought that the Catholic church should establish an Anglican rite. With a tweak or two, the Book of Common Prayer would work rather well. And the music, oh my God, the music? In my days at Oxford -- as a student and, much later, as a visiting fellow at All Souls -- I frequently attended evensong, and nearly always I found it moving.
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Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
I don't know if he's exactly an atheist, but he has clearly stated that he no longer believes in a monotheistic God that is a personage, or even a coherent intelligence. He's closer to George Lucas than Jesus Christ in his theology now, reckoning that if there is a God, then it's simply a lable we apply to an omnipresent force in the universe that caused existence, but not like a personal designer with a will and intelligence would. Very "trust the force, Luke" kind of stuff. Very paganish and bordering on a mix of mysticism and agnosticism.
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Paul A. Rahe
Rowan is an old and dear friend (we were students together at Wadham College forty years ago). He can be silly and often is when it comes to politics. But he is a very serious Christian, and in matters theological he is as erudite as one can get.
Now THAT is interesting. I'm going to buy his book on Arius and give it a read.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
From the Pastoral Letter on the Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous Peoples:
I don't think it's quite fair to accuse them of "apologizing for seeking conversions," they are apologizing for slaughter, rape, and enslavement.
However, they seem to pin the blame for all this squarely on papal bulls. Even putting aside the historical accuracy of the statement, which I'd be inclined to dispute, is it really sincere or appropriate to apologize for something while pinning most of the blame on someone else?
I'm reminded of Adam telling God "the woman you put in the garden, she made me eat the fruit!"
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Paul A. Rahe
Pseudodionysius:I have long thought that the Catholic church should establish an Anglican rite.
Ahem. · 2 minutes ago
So, while I was laid up in Bethesda, my prayers were answered. · 16 hours ago
Not so fast, Dr. Rahe. Anglicanorum Coetibus does not establish an Anglican Rite based on the Book of Common Prayer or Sarum Mass. It only establishes a personal prelature, which the Vatican admits it will gradually Romanize until the Anglican converts are absorbed into the Roman Rite. I'm a Roman Catholic convert from an Episcopalian background, and I would absolutely love to see a true Anglican Rite, but this ain't it. I know from a reputable Anglican negotiator that the break-away Anglicans and the Vatican were working out the fine print of an Anglican Rite, when Cardinal Levada announced the Personal Ordinariate instead, bringing the negotiations to a premature close.
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Pseudo, there are as many different flavors of "Anglo-Catholic" as there are species of trees. Everything from, "we like the smells and bells, but we're essentially Greenpeace in chasubles" to "we're Southern Baptists who like smells and bells" to Reformed Anglican (Presbyterian-Catholic?) to conservative Catholic who can't make the cultural jump to the Roman Rite. Throw in a smattering of self-loathing closet cases and angry old biddies, and you've got yourself your new Anglican-Catholic parish! Just add wine!
Sep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Pseudo, there are as many different flavors of "Anglo-Catholic" as there are species of trees.
I appear to have lunched with the long lost Druid branch of the group.
Sep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
The explorers who set out from Christian Europe in the 15th century... went with religious warrants, papal bulls which permitted and even encouraged the subjugation and permanent enslavement of any non-Christian peoples they encountered, as well as the expropriation of any territories not governed by Christians.
As several Protestant historians of the period have noted (yes, the Protestants are now defending Catholic historical episodes) people these days seem to forget that the explorers of the new world represented countries on the rise internationally (Spain, Portugal) and largely ignored the tiny Italian city states and certainly weren't much interested in following papal bulls that restricted their history.
Much of the documentary history has been lost, but there is ample evidence that not only were Jesuits and Dominicans trying to reign in the excesses of explorers in the New World, but there are papal bulls in existence condemning the excesses of those same explorers.
Of course, sanctimonious apologia for things we had nothing to do with is a standard trope of the preening moralist left.
Nov '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Hasn't the, much larger I believe, African Episcopalian Church separated from the U.S. church? I wonder what kind of music they play.
Sep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Yes, they have. Apparently, the primitives are revolting.
Apr '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Pusey House, Oxford, is probably the central institution for Anglo-Catholicism today, and is pretty serious about its faith. It should be remembered that the Ordinariate was widely seen as a way of moving the Catholic church towards orthodoxy as well as expanding the church. Of course there are regrettable elements, as there are in just about every faction of every church, but when you are, in most orthodox Catholic minds, more Christian than the average Catholic, I'd like to think that you were protected from having your Christianity questioned by most informed Catholics.
Pseudodionysius:Pseudo, there are as many different flavors of "Anglo-Catholic" as there are species of trees.
I appear to have lunched with the long lost Druid branch of the group. · 45 minutes ago
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Fat Dave
Paul A. Rahe
Pseudodionysius:I have long thought that the Catholic church should establish an Anglican rite.
Ahem. · 2 minutes ago
So, while I was laid up in Bethesda, my prayers were answered. · 16 hours ago
Not so fast, Dr. Rahe. Anglicanorum Coetibus does not establish an Anglican Rite based on the Book of Common Prayer or Sarum Mass. It only establishes a personal prelature, which the Vatican admits it will gradually Romanize until the Anglican converts are absorbed into the Roman Rite. I'm a Roman Catholic convert from an Episcopalian background, and I would absolutely love to see a true Anglican Rite, but this ain't it. I know from a reputable Anglican negotiator that the break-away Anglicans and the Vatican were working out the fine print of an Anglican Rite, when Cardinal Levada announced the Personal Ordinariate instead, bringing the negotiations to a premature close. · 2 hours ago
A shame. Like the King James Bible, the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer is a thing of great beauty.
Sep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
It was an ecumenical group so when I used the shorthand Anglo-Catholic to connote that it was a meeting of Anglicans and Catholics. The God our mother and Christa prayers were led by the "Catholics". I assume that they all believe (since they were nuns who didn't wear habits) that they hold the conventional dogmas that they are being oppressed by not being ordained.
It was all rather drearily familiar.
Edited on July 14, 2012 at 3:12pmRe: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Pseudodionysius:But he is a very serious Christian, and in matters theological he is as erudite as one can get.
I don't believe his personal erudition implies a charism for governance or political prudence. When Diogenes compares your 2008 conference allowing the ordination of women to the Soviet Agricultural Conference of 1951 and the 1995 decision of the Society of Jesus to use gender inclusive language -- not to mention a World Wresting Federation takeover of Olympic freestyle wrestling, I'd say history will not look kindly on his oarsmanship of the via media. · 10 hours ago
When Rowan was elected archbishop of Canterbury, I sent him a letter of condolence. When I was in the hospital in June, he sent me a note promising to pray for my recovery and expressing pleasure that he would get his life back when, at the end of this year, he leaves that office. He faced an impossible situation and failed.
Edited on July 14, 2012 at 3:35pmSep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Yes, after reading his work on Dostoevsky I sensed a man who was put in a position that ill suited his temperament or his talents. I also don't think anyone -- no matter how talented - can make the Anglican communion work. I suspect he'll be happier in retirement, though I'd pay good money to be a fly on the wall during his first post retirement conversation with Pope Benedict XVI.
Jan '12
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Paul A. Rahe
Edited 2 minutes ago He faced an impossible situation and failed. · 23 minutes ago
I believe you are correct. He strode the via media, but ended up being run over from both directions.
Nov '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Indeed:
Our local Episcopal Church is still a wonderful place. I have fond memories of attending midnight services at Christmas there.
It is most unfortunate when the eternal is abandoned in favor of the political, but such temptations are as old as humanity.
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
I'm a cradle Episcopalian. My father was my parish priest. I knew at a young age, from the early '70s that I wanted to distinguish myself as an orthodox Anglo Catholic exception to the rule. My parish was fortunate to have been left alone to be catholic and fortunate again to be able to secede from the E.C. even though our current diocese is one of those being sued by ECUSA. Over the last 40 years I see painful parallels between the politics of the powerful in the ECUSA and this country's political history. We catholics just wanted to go about the business of worshiping God in the catholic tradition, but the egos with mitres wanted to impose their heresies on the rest of us. At every general convention, conservatives became a smaller percentage with a smaller voice. It was a sad and ugly decline. I once wondered why the liberals wanted to go to the trouble of transforming my Church when surely they could find another denomination more to their liking, but it's the same kind of people who have fundamentally transformed the E.C. that want to do the same to this country.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
I hear the pain. Just think of what's become of the brave and faithful Church of "Mrs. Miniver." ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VmIIpLCw6g )
Mar '12
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Rocket City Dave,
I finished page 2 and noted that no one had responded to your idea: My understanding was that Anglicanism was an attempt at a middle way between Lutheranism and Calvinism that ended up going off in a different direction than either Reformation tradition.
Actually Anglicanism was considered the "via media" or middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism. It was considered a "bridge" between the two. (In case you run into this, it also considered itself a "branch" coequal with Catholicism and Orthodoxy as in Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.)
That was before John Henry Newman's devastating critique of his religion, followed by his conversion to Catholicism.
Per the article that started this, western Anglicanism and its American version The Episcopal Church, are pretty much bridges to nowhere at this point in time.