The Episcopal Divide

[HagiaSophia]

From Philip Turner - former Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He currently serves as Vice President of the Anglican Communion Institute.

We must say this clearly: The Episcopal Church’s current working theology depends upon the obliteration of God’s difficult, redemptive love in the name of a new revelation. The message, even when it comes from the mouths of its more sophisticated exponents, amounts to inclusion without qualification.

Thinking back over my thirty-five years in the Episcopal Church, I was distressed to realize that this new revelation is little different from the basic message communicated to me during the course of my own theological education. Fortunately, in my case God provided an intervening event. I lived for about ten years among the Baganda, a people who dwell on the north shore of Lake Victoria. The Baganda have a proverb which, roughly translated, says, “A person who never travels always praises his own mother’s cooking.” Travel allowed me to taste something different. It was not until I had spent a long time abroad that I realized how far apart the American Episcopal Church stood from the basic content of “Nicene Christianity,” with its thick description of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, its richly developed Christology, and its compelling account of Christ’s call to holiness of life.

The future of Anglicanism as a communion of churches may depend upon the American Episcopal Church’s ability to find a way out of the terrible constraints forced upon it by its working theology. Much of the Anglican communion in Africa sees the problem. Can the Americans? It is not enough simply to refer to the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer and reply, “We are orthodox just like you: we affirm the two testaments as the word of God, we recite the classical creeds in our worship, we celebrate the dominical sacraments, and we hold to episcopal order.” The challenge now being put to the Episcopal Church in the United States (and, by implication, to all liberal Protestantism) is not about official documents. It is about the church’s working theology—one which most Anglicans in the rest of the world no longer re cognize as Christian.

firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0506/opinion/turner.html

 

[LSK]

My cousin left the Catholic Church last year to become an American Episcopalen because she suddenly decided the Catholic Church discriminated against women - we can’t be priests so, apparently, any role we do have is demeaning. Something she shared with me that struck me as peculiarly American in its arrogance was that their Pastor (who is a man - though there is a woman priest in her parish so it’s ok that she is not the Pastor) told her there is room for everyone in their “messy tent” (meaning their church).

Again, there is no real thought to theology just a desire to be all things to all people.

 

[Della]

I was brought up in the ECUSA but left for the AoG from about age 13 to 34. When I came back they were just reforming the Book of Common Prayer to modern language which sucked the life right out of it. Already people were eager to embrace the spirit of the age rather than remain faithful to orthodox teaching and all in the name of being more understanding and inclusive of others. What began as ecumenical outreaching turned into all inclusive PCism. It’s the kind of thing that happens when a denomination decides that kindness equals love and that one virtue, the wrong virtue, must be practiced to the near exclusion of all the others. In a word, kindness was elevated over authentic love (which is one of the 3 theological virtues) to the point that it became a vice–the very thing anyone with any true understanding of how the virtues function could have told the ECUSA, if any of them wanted to hear it.

 

[whitake]

Della:

I was brought up in the ECUSA but left for the AoG from about age 13 to 34. When I came back they were just reforming the Book of Common Prayer to modern language which sucked the life right out of it. Already people were eager to embrace the spirit of the age rather than remain faithful to orthodox teaching and all in the name of being more understanding and inclusive of others. What began as ecumenical outreaching turned into all inclusive PCism. It’s the kind of thing that happens when a denomination decides that kindness equals love and that one virtue, the wrong virtue, must be practiced to the near exclusion of all the others. In a word, kindness was elevated over authentic love (which is one of the 3 theological virtues) to the point that it became a vice–the very thing anyone with any true understanding of how the virtues function could have told the ECUSA, if any of them wanted to hear it.

I was first exposed to the Episcopal Church as a seven-year-old with very little prior experience with organized religion. I was a new student in a High Church Episcopal school and absolutely *fascinated *by the liturgy, the colors, the ceremonials, etc. Over the summer, my family moved, and my sisters and I had the privilege of attending another High Church Episcopal school, this time for a whole academic year. I was very disappointed that my parents weren’t interested in becoming Episcopalian and often made fun of Episcopalians.

Well, months after we moved again, my parents got involved with a schismatic sect using the Old Catholic prayerbook, which made my mother very nervous. (I was talking about the day I could become a deaconess!) This lasted off and on for a couple of years.

After my first experience actually in a Catholic church at 15, I vacillated between Episcopalianism and Catholicism until 1978, when the ECUSA dumped the prayerbook and started ordaining women. (I thought the ECUSA should have started by ordaining the closest ECUSA equivalent to Mother Teresa they could find, but…) The election of JPII, which occurred shortly after I’d first gone to a priest on campus and signed up for RCIA, gave me some determination. (Though it was HARD trying to BECOME Catholic in the mid and late 1970s on a college campus. Even the clergy didn’t encourage anybody!)

I was a member of Good Shepherd Anglican Use Parish in Columbia, SC, for about a year. I was its first member who had not been part of its group conversion. It was great being able to use the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal with THE Mass!

Having to learn to follow the Episcopal service in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer as a kid taught me skills that certainly came in VERY handy when I converted and gave me an appreciation of good English in liturgy.

Incidentally, one thing that helped me get INTO liturgy quickly as a kid was when I figured out that my birthday almost always falls within ten days of Easter. Never forget the ME angle with kids!

Elizabeth

 

[GKC]

“I was a member of Good Shepherd Anglican Use Parish in Columbia, SC, for about a year. I was its first member who had not been part of its group conversion. It was great being able to use the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal with THE Mass!”

It’s a small world. The group that converted and established the RC parish of the Good Shepherd was part of a larger group that had originally come primarily from the ECUSA parish of the Good Shepherd, and had left it in 1978, after ECUSA went seriously off the rails. This first group existed as a Traditional Anglican parish for several years, until Fr. Ladkau led part of it to Rome, in about 1984, as an AU parish under the Pastoral Provision. The remnant of the Traditional Anglican parish reorganised as the Anglican parish of the Epiphany, where I attend. We’ve always thought of the RC parish of the Good Shepherd as our cousins.

You may know that Good Shepherd has ceased to be an Anglican Use parish and is NO. Except on the first Sunday of each month, when an indult Tridentine Latin Mass is offered. This started last September and seems popular.

GKC

Anglicanus Catholicus

 

[Malachi4U]

LSK:

My cousin left the Catholic Church last year to become an American Episcopalen because she suddenly decided the Catholic Church discriminated against women - we can’t be priests so, apparently, any role we do have is demeaning…

So I guess she hates Jesus too since HE choose ALL men and decided we should only ordain men?

Amazing how people just pick and choose what to believe like they are at Burger King. Jesus gives them a Whooper and they take off the pickles and meat and add mustard.:whacky:

 

[JOHNYJ]

The Episcopal church USA has more or less been suspended from the Anglican Communion. Its last aberation,consecrating an active homosexual a bishop was just too much for the majority of the Communion.
Attempts at reconcilliation have failed ,so until 2008 .ECUSA is excluded from the highest councils of the Anglican Communion.In 2008 a world wide meeting of the Communion will take place and a final decision made.
Inide the USA the chaos is spreading as Episcopal parishes try to figure out what to do.Some are trying to set up a new province of the Episcopal church so they can become the Anglican Communions church in the USA.Others are thinking of staying in ECUSA and just ignoring what the leadership is doing. Others are considering returning to Rome. Some want to Join Orthodoxy.A church that was once described as " The Republican Party at Prayer " .Isnt even recognisable as being protestant !

 

[missread]

I am so glad to see all of these posts on this matter. I chose the Episcopal church after being raised Baptist and falling away from the church when it became fundamentalist. I have been Episcopal for about 10 years and the last 3 have been agony. I really wanted to be Catholic 10 years ago and my husband was so against it, I took the easy way out. Now I am in the position of no longer being able to worship at our church. My husband is upset and my daughter (thankfully) is at a Catholic school. My husband sees this development as a way to drag the whole family into the Catholic church. It wasn’t, it was just the best school in town. I begin RCIA next week and he has said he will go as long as he doesn’t HAVE to join. I am very worried, but I feel in my soul that the Episcopal church has lost their way and is doing damage in the world. I grieve for it and for all who are hurting by these decisions. Reading these posts really brings it home for me. Thanks!!!

 

[DJgang]

missread:

I am so glad to see all of these posts on this matter. I chose the Episcopal church after being raised Baptist and falling away from the church when it became fundamentalist. I have been Episcopal for about 10 years and the last 3 have been agony. I really wanted to be Catholic 10 years ago and my husband was so against it, I took the easy way out. Now I am in the position of no longer being able to worship at our church. My husband is upset and my daughter (thankfully) is at a Catholic school. My husband sees this development as a way to drag the whole family into the Catholic church. It wasn’t, it was just the best school in town. I begin RCIA next week and he has said he will go as long as he doesn’t HAVE to join. I am very worried, but I feel in my soul that the Episcopal church has lost their way and is doing damage in the world. I grieve for it and for all who are hurting by these decisions. Reading these posts really brings it home for me. Thanks!!!

Wow! Funny, I was thinking about sending my son next year to Catholic school…can I PM you? We may have something in common!

 

[Jabronie]

missread:

I am so glad to see all of these posts on this matter. I chose the Episcopal church after being raised Baptist and falling away from the church when it became fundamentalist. I have been Episcopal for about 10 years and the last 3 have been agony. I really wanted to be Catholic 10 years ago and my husband was so against it, I took the easy way out. Now I am in the position of no longer being able to worship at our church. My husband is upset and my daughter (thankfully) is at a Catholic school. My husband sees this development as a way to drag the whole family into the Catholic church. It wasn’t, it was just the best school in town. I begin RCIA next week and he has said he will go as long as he doesn’t HAVE to join. I am very worried, but I feel in my soul that the Episcopal church has lost their way and is doing damage in the world. I grieve for it and for all who are hurting by these decisions. Reading these posts really brings it home for me. Thanks!!!

It’s good to hear that you’re beginning RCIA next week. It’s even better to hear that your husband is going with you. Assure him that by attending RCIA, he is not required in any way shape or form to join the Church. Through your prayer, however, he may.