Whither the Episcopal Church?

It's a wonderful holiday, this Thanksgiving Day business, and we've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've even had the opportunity to gaze over a number of other blogs, many of which are reflecting the season's traditions, our excesses of eating and shopping, and our preparation for Christmas. Enough's been said, at least for me, on all three counts.

Rather I'd like to ramble a bit on a subject that bounced around in my mind during yesterday's drive across North Carolina en route to share the holiday with one of our sons and his family. The subject of my rambles was/is the Episcopal Church, about which I never really say much here in Homeboy Reports. Not that it isn't important to me. Quite the contrary, most of my adult life has found me swirling through the Episcopal Church on just about all levels of its existence, and I've enjoyed almost every minute of it.

But it's not the same, it's not the same. On one level, that's not unusual, for everything changes, and I can handle that. In fact I've always found change to be challenging and exciting, one of the real motivators behind everything. I've even been accused (imagine this:) of actually provoking change! So sure: bring it on. You can't step into the same river twice, and all that.

What bothers me, in fact what really disturbs me, is the slow but steady erosion of the character of the Episcopal Church, the gradual evaporation of the juices that made it a unique force in American Christianity. Two examples jump to mind.

Example one: There was a time not too long ago when we would hear the term "via media", the middle road. In between the evangelical theology and Biblical authority of the Protestant church on the one hand, and the sacramental theology and historical authority of the Roman Catholic church on the other, stood the Anglican church, the Episcopal Church, blending all these elements into a "bridge" wherein our liturgy, our worship, expressed the best of both worlds.

Sure, we had the "high church" spikes with their black suits and funny hats, and we had the "low church" prots with their sport coats and preaching tabs, but we all stuck together, we were all under the broad and inclusive umbrella of the Episcopal Church. Maybe it drove others nuts, but we reveled in it. We Episcopalians were folks who hung together, no matter what. During the Civil War, when other protestant groups were dividing into North and South, our unity was more important than what threatened it. We were a united community of faith.

No longer. Don't like the new (if "new" means 1979) Prayer Book? Don't get upset. Finesse the Episcopal Church and start another one with a name like Traditional Episcopal Church and enjoy Sunday mornings with Elizabethan language and medieval chants. Don't like ordaining women or gays? No problem. First call a lawyer for the inevitable litigation, then call a bishop in Africa who agrees with you, and presto: the Continuing Anglican Church (or somesuch). Don't like the way the bishop parts her or his hair? Start the Right Part Episcopal Church.

So much for that middle road. The other example is more painful, for there is in the Episcopal Church a meanness of spirit, an anger which bubbles over into outright hostility, a confrontive in-your-face attitude which dares you to knock the chip off a shoulder. Good men and women from around the Church have tried to pacify, tried to accomodate, tried to listen, only to get trampled by the vindictive righteousness of those who seem to have a monopoly on the truth. Walls have been created which may never, at least in this life, be breached, and it's excruciatingly painful. Read any copy of our weekly magazine, "The Living Church", then retreat to weep in silence.

No, the Episcopal Church is different. It's changed. And that's a loss. Oh, I don't lie awake nights worrying about it, and I have no intention of ever leaving the Episcopal Church, but it does make me sad. It helps me to remember that for all our troubles, all our pain, the Church and our lives truly are in God's hand, and in ways I only dimly understand and articulate with hesitation, I do believe that all will be well, all will be well.