I think I witnessed the beginning of the end
Bookworm on Aug 02 2006 at 2:23 pm | Filed under: Religion
The Daily Standard has a post about the fact that the Episcopal Church elected its first female presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She’s a rather typical modern Leftist, although her casual dismissal of Jesus as the path to Heaven, as well as her referring to the “Mother Jesus” are both a little surprising coming from a Christian prelate.
I really have nothing to add to the article itself, but it did remind me of a young woman I met many, many years ago when I was a young professional in a fairly major metropolitan area. She had just been ordained as an Episcopal priest. She was nice enough, although she had a somewhat “holier than thou” attitude. I had that attitude turned on me one day when I opined that I thought rubbing cocaine on your gums was a bad idea. She impaled me with a gimlet glare, opined that it was a very pleasant feeling indeed, and then returned to the guy she was chatting up at the bar. I didn’t realize it then, but I think I was witnessing the beginning of the end of the Episcopal Church.
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I left the UCofC church I used to attend for precisely this reason.
I don’t know much about the Episcopal Church, but I was under the impression it was fairly close to Catholicism.
I was obviously wrong and I stand corrected.
The weird thing about the Episcopal church is what a club it is for the people who run it.
Years ago the membership at large did not want priestesses, (for whatever reasons, good, bad, or indifferent - that’s not the point) but the church, thinking (I guess) that it would make them modern, cutting-edge, politically correct, relevant - whatever; did it anyway. And membership dropped.
Then a couple of years ago the membership overwhelmingly did not want a gay bishop, but the church, thinking it would make them modern, cutting-edge, politically correct, relevant - whatever; again ignored their membership and did it anyway. And membership dropped.
And now we have a female presiding bishop - an innovation to which the membership was generally opposed. Does one need to wonder what the outcome will be?
Pretty soon every Episcopalian in the country will be a member of the clergy, because everyone else will have quit. They aren’t that far off that now, there are fewer than three million left in this nation of three hundred million.
Churches are odd things. You expect them to stand for something, and, rightly or wrongly, tradition is a big part of that. The Catholic church doesn’t take votes either, nor does it much care what its membership often thinks on individual issues - but it does stand for something, and it is consistent. The Pope doesn’t need to tell you what he thinks; you already know, for the most part. (He’ll tell you anyway, but you knew what he was going to say…)
People value that. Particularly in an institution that has one foot in another world. You screw around with the traditions that have made you at your peril, and one day - probably in the not-too-far-distant future - the last Episcopalian will realize that.
Trish, I was raised Catholic and once went to an Episcopal service. It was like Catholic Mass only without the people.
OK, I admit it. I am one of the dwindling few Episcopalians (American Anglicans)fighting a rear-guard action against the Liberal humanists that have captured the Church. What keeps us going, I believe, is that it was first conceived as a bridge between Protestantism and Catholicism, and it proudly numbered as its luminaries people such as C.S. Lewis. Also, we try to remember that, at the time of Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic church, too, was hopelessly corrupt and, over time, under pressure of the Reformation, it reformed itself into the institution it is today (OK, flaws and all). Right now, the true Anglican/Episcopalians are more likely to reside in India, Nigeria or Latin America. There is hope that eventually, it is they who will reform a very, very sick Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. (ECUSA) before it becomes totally irrelevant.
Danny,
How does the current episcopalian leadership rationalize its newest bishop dismissing the centrality of Christ’s assertion that he is the path to salvation? If church dogma denies the centrality of Christ, can they honestly call themselves a ‘Christain’ denomination?
I agree with your point, D_Brit. It’s always struck me as the same problem the Jews for Jesus have. The divide between Christianity and Judiasm, as Christianity’s name implies, is recognizing Christ as the messiah. Those Jews who have embraced the notion that Jesus is the Messiah seem to me to have crossed the line, leaving behind Judiasm and entering Christianity. The reverse of that is that, if a Christian denies Christ’s centrality, what’s left?
“if a Christian denies Christ’s centrality, what’s left?”
A really nice man?
Hardly the basis for a religion…
Bookworm,
Right after I posted my comment, the ‘rest of the story’ occurred to me.
Maybe Jesus being only a really nice person is the point.
As I said, being a particularly fine person is not the basis for a religion…but it is the basis for turning a religion into a philosophy…
Which consciously or not is I suspect, exactly what the underlying agenda is for the current Episcopalian leadership and supporters of that view.
I suspect they are not ‘comfortable’ with religion and faith, what with the demands such places upon us. It’s so much more comfortable to have a ‘philosophy’ of life, one that is undemanding and non-judgemental.
That’s a really great insight, D_Brit. Since most people find philosophy a boring time waster, I suspect this progressive Anglicanism will rapidly find itself a backwater, occupied only by the same earnest intellectuals who endlessly obsess about Kant.
Bookworm, D_Brit, you are both right. The people who populate the head of the American (and English) Anglican churches are wishy-washy Christians at best, philosopher wannabees, definitely, and destructive enablers at worst. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Anglican church is that it pays its priests so well and gives them so little oversight (and they can marry or have sex, anyway), so it became a very cushy sinecure for social workers who wanted the good life. However, most people don’t understand that, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the “head” bishop of the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) is only a functionary, elected by political appointees. She has no moral or religious authority. Each diocese within the church is an independent voting unit that that “hires” its own priests and, by popular demand, establishes its own set of principals. In fact, while the Anglican church disavowed the political authority of the Roman Catholic Church, it never quite disavowed the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Pope. What used to bind the Anglican Church together is the agreed-to liturgy and theology in the Book of Common Prayer. These druids at the head of the church today have pretty much chucked that as well. That doesn’t mean that every parish buys into their nonsense - many leading American parishes have already split from the authority of ECUSA and asked for or obtained oversight from the Third World bishops (how’s that for a historic reversal?). So, pay no attention to those imposters behind the ECUSA curtain. They don’t really speak for the Church.
Foretelling about the future of the Protestant(and Episcopalian) church from the Evangelical perspective:
–excerpt (link below)
“.. imagine yourself in the year 2047.
The last PresbytChurchUSA church in America has just sold its property to the thriving evangelical Korean congregation that’s been meeting in its basement for decades. The bishop of Canterbury now lives in Nigeria, but in America the Anglicans are now a loose network of Community Church congregations “united” by their use of the Book of Common Prayer (2035 revision). A Garrison Keillor simulacrum-droid is still pumping out Prairie Home Companion, and people still laugh at his Lutheran jokes but they’re not sure why because nobody has ever met a Lutheran. The United Methodists (”Open Minds. Open Hearts. Open Doors.”) have merged with the United Church of Christ (”God Is Still Speaking”) and the Unitarian Universalists (”Whatever”), and between them they have nineteen gorgeous buildings to host Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and not much else.”
http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/middlebrow/archives/bruce-mccormack-on-the-future-of-protestant-theology/#more-252