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A number of dioceses have withdrawn and are being sued so that Bishop Shori can take control of their assets.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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Comments:
Nov '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Some of these resolutions from the convention seem to be aiming at self-parody. For example, here is one language from one titled "Advocate for a Just Global Economy for International Trade":
I assume my inability to take any of this pap seriously is indicative of my primitive Republican brain, and my suppressed desire to enslave aboriginal children, or some such.
Mar '12
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Umbra wrote: An apostate to the Baptist church; not to the Christian faith writ large. No one, presumably not even the Baptists, doubts her devotion to Christ.
If the Baptists thought this lady's devotion to Christ was beyond doubt, why did they drive her out? I'll help you out here. This lady's devotion to Christ did not fit in the Baptist recognition of devotion to Christ. To them, she was apostate. Her sincerity did not undo her change in belief, and to Baptists, Pentecostalism is a change in belief.
Just as you are insisting on your definition of "apostacy," those Baptists were insisting on their definition of what is orthodox and what is not orthodox. From their point of view, that lady was sent packing because she no longer believed what Baptists believe (Baptist orthodoxy), making her apostate (unorthodox).
If you are insistent, you might visit the Baptist Church headquarters in this country. Work out an arrangement whereby Baptists who find themselves experiencing charismata, including speaking in tongues, can stay in their congregations without regard to the beliefs of those congregations. The congregations can move to belief light in order to avoid dogmatic confrontations. Suit you?
Nov '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Also of note is a resolution endorsing R2P, another calling to end the embargo against Cuba, and another titled "Resolution on Wealth" (which pretty much says what you expect it to say, e.g., OWS platitudes). But remember, it's those darned Catholic bishops always inserting themselves in politics!
Aug '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
I think you have to be careful before saying someone or a denomination isn't a Christian. I agree with Umbra Fractus that short of denying a very major tenant of the faith-- like divinity of Christ or the bodily resurrection, we shouldn't who is Christian and who isn't. But that doesn't mean that we can't critical of some aspects of any denominations..
Jul '12
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Pseudodionysius:Now I'd not commune with them or expect clear gospel from them but they've not equivocated on the trinity or the Gospel have they?
I don't know if you've had the pleasure of attending an Anglo-Catholic women's conference where the plenary speaker leads a prayer to "God, our mother" and praises "Christa" -- the "female" Christ.
At that point, I was looking for a Wiccan to enter the room and add some sobriety to the proceedings before the discussion turned to using environmentally friendly light bulbs during Lent as a fasting exercise, presumably because when God said "Let there be light" in the book of Genesis, He noticed that the first two letters of the word Genesis were the initials for General Electric. · 15 hours ago
Now that seems similar to an experience I had when I accidentally entered an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America service. When the liturgy finds space for a statement in favor of diversity and against intolerance (racial, gender, sexual, handicapible, or ethnic) and can't find room for either Creed or a mention of Christ, I'm ready to call the Church's Christianity into question.
Edited on July 14, 2012 at 9:56pmJun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Fat Dave
It only establishes a personal prelature, which the Vatican admits it will gradually Romanize until the Anglican converts are absorbed into the Roman Rite.
Where have you read this, who in the Vatican has said the intention is to gradually Romanize the converts? Everything I've read has said the personal prelature will establish permanent parishes with their own distinctive Anglican liturgy and traditions.
Anglicanorum Coetibus says:
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
"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."
I agree with every anguished word, even down to having attended evensong as often as I could at Christ Church. In re which, two comments:
1. One of my friends at Christ Church, Oxford, then studying to become a priest in the American Episcopal church--ordained in England, he had to have a special exemption from taking an oath of loyalty to the Queeen--was Jeff Steenson. Jeff Steenson's current role in our religious controversies? See for yourself.
2. You being you, Paul, you may already have discovered this, but each week the BBC still broadcasts choral evensong.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Peter Robinson:
1. One of my friends at Christ Church, Oxford, then studying to become a priest in the American Episcopal church--ordained in England, he had to have a special exemption from taking an oath of loyalty to the Queeen--was Jeff Steenson. Jeff Steenson's current role in our religious controversies? See for yourself.
According to the CDF:
Rites are led by a patriarch or a major archbishop. If Pope Benedict had created an Anglican Rite, Fr. Steenson would have had to be ordained a bishop to lead it, and being married would render him ineligible. A Personal Ordinariate sidesteps this issue.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
From the Ordinariate's FAQ:
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Peter Robinson:
2. You being you, Paul, you may already have discovered this, but each week the BBC still broadcasts choral evensong. · 36 minutes ago
News to me most welcome.
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Joseph Stanko: From the Ordinariate's FAQ:
3 hours ago
One question I don't see answered in the Ordinariate's FAQ: Who's permitted to attend an "Anglican use" mass? Would it be wrong, if only indecorous, for a Catholic who has simply had it up to here with the sheer unrelenting vapidity of the contemporary American liturgy and music--who is sick of guitars and lectors who seem to believe they're leading hootenannies and of hymns composed during the Seventies that have failed to improve with time--would it be an error for such Catholics to seek refuge in an "Anglican use" parish?
Because if it isn't, Paul Rahe and I may try to find our way to such parishes as early as tomorrow morning.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Peter Robinson
One question I don't see answered in the Ordinariate's FAQ: Who's permitted to attend an "Anglican use" mass?
Because if it isn't, Paul Rahe and I may try to find our way to such parishes as early as tomorrow morning.
I read that to mean you'd be welcome to attend Mass there from time to time, but you'd be expected to remain a member of your local Roman Rite parish.
In any case if you wish to attend an Anglican Use Mass tomorrow, you'd better book a flight proto, as they don't seem to have any communities here in California as yet.
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Joseph Stanko
Peter Robinson
One question I don't see answered in the Ordinariate's FAQ: Who's permitted to attend an "Anglican use" mass?
Because if it isn't, Paul Rahe and I may try to find our way to such parishes as early as tomorrow morning.
I read that to mean you'd be welcome to attend Mass there from time to time, but you'd be expected to remain a member of your local Roman Rite parish.
In any case if you wish to attend an Anglican Use Mass tomorrow, you'd better book a flight proto, as they don't seem to have any communities here in California as yet. · 45 minutes ago
Thanks, Joseph. But drat.
Sep '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Peter is just fighting his attraction to a California FSSP parish and is too shy to say so.
Jun '10
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Closer, but Sacramento and Fresno are still a long drive from Palo Alto.
But Peter needn't leave the Bay Area, there's a sung Latin (ordinary form) Mass every Sunday at St. Patrick's in downtown San Francisco, and St. Margaret Mary's in Oakland has two in Latin, one ordinary and one extraordinary form. It's affiliated with the Institute of Christ the King.
I attended one of their Corpus Christi processions this year, complete with an Oakland Police escort around the block. It was lovely.
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Just to rub it in, our choir's repertoire includes de Victoria's Mass, Ave Verum Corpus, O Magnum Mysterium; Alegri's Miserere every Ash Wednesday; Lotti's Miserere, his Crucifixus on Good Friday; Desprez Ave Maria; lots of stuff by Palestrina, including a mass, and several Mozart masses; Thomas Tallis' O Nata Lux, If Ye Love Me. Brahms is fun because he sends the altos high in their range. The congregation sings the Missa Marialis every Sunday, with different masses in Lent and Advent. Most of the hymns we sing are pretty fine with gorgeous harmony arrangements, although both the 1940 and more so the 1972 hymnal included lots of yawners.
I feel so blessed by this music.
What is the reason Roman churches either aren't allowed or able to assemble choirs to sing such treasures? I've long wondered, but never asked.
Mar '11
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Joseph Stanko
Fat Dave
It only establishes a personal prelature, which the Vatican admits it will gradually Romanize until the Anglican converts are absorbed into the Roman Rite.
Where have you read this, who in the Vatican has said the intention is to gradually Romanize the converts? Everything I've read has said the personal prelature will establish permanent parishes with their own distinctive Anglican liturgy and traditions.
Jul 14 at 2:12pm
The problem is that it doesn't allow for the education of future Anglican priests. To maintain the parishes past the first generation, under the current rubrics, will require the conversion of more priests from the Anglican Communion. P.S. I heard this from a friend, an Episcopalian who studied theology under the Dominicans and was ordained an Anglican-Catholic priest and was part of the team who was negotiating with the CDF. You'll get some hardcores converting, but I still haven't seen Anglicans flocking to the Catholic Church. There are a lot of cultural issues, I know, but the Vatican really blew an opportunity with this.
Aug '12
Re: Is the US Episcopalian Church Still a Christian Church?
Although usually at first difficult for most liturgically oriented Protestants to consider , eastern orthodoxy, is closest to theological position than roman catholicMusic wise, however, there is no organ used, just a choir