I behold a new and wondrous mystery! My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn.

The Angels sing!

The Archangels blend their voices in harmony!

The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise!

The Seraphim exalt His glory!

All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side the Sun of Justice.

And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, he had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God.

This day He Who Is, is Born; and He Who Is becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became he God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassibility, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care, nor because of His Incarnation has he departed from the Godhead.

And behold,

Kings have come, that they might adore the heavenly King of glory;
Soldiers, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven;
Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so that He might change the pains of child-birth into joy;
Virgins, to the Son of the Virgin, beholding with joy, that He Who is the Giver of milk, Who has decreed that the fountains of the breast pour forth in ready streams, receives from a Virgin Mother the food of infancy;
Infants, that they may adore Him Who became a little child, so that out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, He might perfect praise;
Children, to the Child Who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod;
Men, to Him Who became man, that He might heal the miseries of His servants;
Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd Who has laid down His life for His sheep;
Priests, to Him Who has become a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech;
Servants, to Him Who took upon Himself the form of a servant that He might bless our servitude with the reward of freedom;
Fishermen, to Him Who from amongst fishermen chose catchers of men;
Publicans, to Him Who from amongst them named a chosen Evangelist;
Sinful women, to Him Who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant;

And that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that they may look upon the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.

Since therefore all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice. I too wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival. But I take my part, not plucking the harp, not shaking the Thyrsian staff, not with the music of pipes, nor holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ.

For this is all my hope, this my life, this my salvation, this my pipe, my harp. And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of speech, I too, with the angels, sing:

Glory to God in the Highest; and with the shepherds:
and on earth peace to men of good will

–From Antioch in 386 A.D.

The message of Christmas for you from Christ this morning is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The coming of the eternal Son of God into the world as the God-Man, Jesus Christ, is a fact of history. But thousands of Americans fill out Gallup Poll religious surveys that they believe this fact but then live just like everybody else. They have the same anxieties that good things will be lost and the same frustrations that crummy things can’t be changed. Evidently there is not much power in giving right answers on religious surveys about historical facts.
That’s because the coming of the Son of God into the world is so much more than a historical fact. It was a message of hope sent by God to teenagers and single parents and crabby husbands and sullen wives and overweight women and impotent men and retarded neighbors, and homosexuals and preachers and lovers and you. And since the Son of God lived, died, rose, reigns and is coming again, God’s message through him is more than a historical fact. It is a Christmas gift to you this morning, December 25, 1983, from the voice of the living God. Thus says the Lord: the meaning of Christmas is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The fears that the few good things that make you happy are slipping through your fingers, and the frustrations that the bad things you hate about yourself or your situation can’t be changed — these fears and these frustrations are what Christmas came to destroy. It is God’s message of hope this morning that what is good need never be lost and what is bad can be changed.

There are many in our church family who because of age or sickness will inevitably ask themselves the question today: “Is this my last Christmas?” Life is good and precious and we don’t want to lose it. We can talk all we want about the good things of life, but if we don’t have life we don’t have anything. “What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your life?” O, how precious is our life. If you don’t feel it now, wait ’till you get very sick. Then you will know why Hezekiah wept bitterly with his terminal illness and pled for added years (2 Kings. 20:1-7). The message of Christmas to you who see your death on the horizon is that you need never lose your life. It is good to live. Your life is precious and can be saved.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Go here and download or listen to it from the December 22nd morning show. I found it very helpful–KSH.

Listen it all if you so wish.

Since I’ve been chairing a national Presbyterian Church (USA) committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st century, I’ve been gaining a different perspective on many of the larger trends of our denomination. One thing that has been difficult to realize (and equally difficult to communicate to the larger church) is the young clergy crisis.

Why would I call it a crisis? We’ve known for a long time about the startling decline of young clergy. The drop-out rates don’t help (I can’t find hard and fast stats on this… but some claim that about 70% of young clergy drop out within the first five years of ministry, usually because of lack of support or financial reasons). The average age of a pastor in the PCUSA is 53. And I’ve realized that the age of our leadership might be much higher.

Read it all.

KATE OLSON: Mt. Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, widely known as the home to the spectacular Acadia National Park. Here, at St. Andrew by the Lake Episcopal Church, a community of spiritual seekers gathered recently to hear about the Christian practice of contemplation from Martin Laird.

MARTIN LAIRD: (Speaking at St. Andrew) To navigate this ancient way of prayer is to “put out into the deep,” as Luke says, let down our nets for our catch. Paradoxically, we discover that it is we ourselves who are caught and held in this net”¦

OLSON: This is the central insight and discovery in the practice of contemplation, Laird says that the God we are seeking has already sought and found us. We simply are not aware of this union.

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Perhaps his infant baptism at Trinity Episcopal Church in Natchez cultivated the roots that had the Rev. Sam Tomlinson branch out in ministry but also pulled him home again.

Next week Tomlinson will celebrate 50 years in the priesthood. His friend and Bishop of Arkansas, Larry Maze, will lead what Tomlinson calls a “beefed up” festival service of Eucharist to commemorate his long career in the Episcopal Chuch.

Tomlinson was born in Natchez and grew up in Jackson. He attended Milsaps College where he majored in history.

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Harry’s success in parish ministry must undoubtedly be attributed to his genius as a preacher. While committed to the consecutive exposition of Scripture as the best way to build people up in the Christian faith, his highly original approach to the task reflected an innate creativity and an ability to use insightful narrative to disarm his unsuspecting listeners. He loved presenting Christianity to its wealthy, cultured despisers. Widely read and deeply culturally aware, his preaching combined piercing irony with deep spiritual insight and genuine humility.

Read all that Don Lewis wrote and read it carefully–he was a remarkable man.

Listen it all.

The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, announced on Thursday 8 December 2011 that the Reverend Canon Dr Samuel Wells has been appointed as the next Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Sam, who will take up the post in the summer of 2012, is currently Dean of the Chapel and a Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, where he leads a staff of 25 in upholding the Chapel’s reputation for preaching, music and liturgy, oversees the 35 campus ministers and is the regular preacher at the year-round Sunday services, which regularly attract a congregation of around 900….

Read it all.

(Alert blog readers are asked to note where the author of this article teaches–KSH).

A recent study on youth and discipleship by Slavic theologian Jana Struková suggests that the key to this sort of formation is in renewing a sense of Christianity as a vocation. A vocation is a calling, a “voicing” of the gospel into language that speaks directly to the reader or listener. As Martin Luther argued, the gospel is nothing until I hear it addressed to me; once my ears are trained to hear it, I can begin responding, “working with words” to live out an answer to its call.

Reframing Hollinger’s concept of acculturation as vocation shows us that gospel words are irreplaceable in the formation of Christian youth. If they are brought up constantly hearing God’s loving address, they will grow to love the gospel like they love their friends and family. And this is not just due to the nostalgic familiarity of the “big black book on the shelf.” No, it is the message, the content””the very voice of God in the words of Scripture””that inspires devotion. The challenge of Christian education, according to the early 20th-century theorist George Albert Coe, is to “lead each one to adopt” the words and teachings of the faith “as his very own desire, purpose, and practice.”

How well are we meeting this challenge? A quick survey of adult classes and Sunday sermons does not paint a pretty picture….

Read it all.

In late summer of 1941, my mother and I set off on a journey from upstate New York to Honolulu, Hawaii. I was four months old and my parents’ first-born. She was twenty-seven years old, recently released from a tuberculosis sanitarium,and set on getting us close as she could to my father in his first assignment as a new Navy chaplain, aboard the USS Curtiss at Pearl Harbor. She had gone to the town library to look for Hawaii in an atlas; she had no idea where it was….

Read it all from the latest Anglican Digest (pages 19-20).

In short, the position under the new arrangements is that no Church of England religious premises may become “approved premises” for the registration of civil partnerships without there having been a formal decision by the General Synod to that effect.

Read it all (3 page pdf).

At the height of his power, Bishop Eddie L. Long would pack tens of thousands of people into his megachurch in the suburbs of Atlanta.

With his well-cut suits, passion for Bentleys, and dynamic, accessible style of preaching, he quickly climbed the list of the nation’s most powerful religious leaders.

He built his ministry, which stretches to Kenya and other countries, on a strong message of conservative Christianity that included promises of prosperity and attacks on homosexuality.

But life inside Bishop Long’s home had been crumbling. And on Sunday, members of his dwindling congregation…[heard the news that He]… was temporarily stepping away from the pulpit to try to save his marriage

Read it all.

The Bishop’s Committee of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, a mission congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, has informed Bishop Jack Iker that they wish to join the U.S. Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church when the Ordinariate begins functioning on Jan. 1, 2012. The Rev. Christopher Stainbrook, vicar of the church, intends to resign from the ordained ministry in order to seek admission to holy orders within the Ordinariate.
The Bishop’s Committee ”“ a body of elected lay leaders in the congregation ”“ discussed its decision with the Bishop and other key diocesan officers ”“ including the President of the Standing Committee, the President of the diocesan Corporation, and the Chancellor ”“ in a meeting Tuesday, Nov. 29. Approximately 90 persons worship at St. Timothy’s each Sunday. It is not known how many members of the congregation intend to join the Ordinariate.
St. Timothy’s, which was founded in 1956, became a parish in 1960, but had to revert to mission status in 1993, requiring significant financial support from the Diocese to continue operations.
Bishop Iker has asked that an open forum be held on Dec. 11 with the entire congregation, and, one week later, that a vote be taken to determine the will of the members. This will provide a benchmark number so that the Bishop can make provision for worship and pastoral ministry to that portion of the congregation that will be staying in the Diocese.
Bishop Iker said, “While we regret that many members of St. Timothy’s feel called at this time to leave our fellowship for the Roman Catholic Church, we respect their conscience and spiritual discernment in this matter. We live in a very conflicted time in the life of the Church, and it is important to maintain charity and patience with one another. We wish them well, in the name of the Lord.”
Notice of the intention of the Bishop’s Committee and plans for the open forum and vote are being communicated in a letter to the congregation. The text of the letter is below.

Dear Friends in Christ,
On Sunday, Dec. 11, and Sunday, Dec. 18, we will have two very important meetings for all members of St. Timothy’s Church. Please join us in the Parish Hall following the 9:30 a.m. Solemn Mass on these dates. All active members are strongly encouraged to attend these meetings pertaining to the future of our congregation. They are being held with Bishop Iker’s full knowledge and support.
The December 11th meeting will be informational and will focus on the petition of the Bishop’s Committee for St. Timothy’s to be admitted, as priest and congregation, to the Anglican Ordinariate in the Roman Catholic Church when it is established on Jan. 1, 2012. After this petition was sent to Bishop Iker last week, the Bishop’s Committee and Father Stainbrook met with the Bishop and key officers of the Diocese of Fort Worth on Tuesday, Nov. 29, to discuss the best way to address this concern. If approved by our members, the most likely possibility would be for the St. Timothy’s Ordinariate group to pay a use fee for the buildings until the property litigation is finally resolved by the courts.
The following representatives of Bishop Iker and the Diocese will be present on Dec. 11 to address our concerns and answer any question you may have: Dean Ryan Reed, President of the Standing Committee; Bishop Keith Ackerman, President of Forward in Faith; and Shelby Sharpe, lead attorney for the Diocese in the litigation.
To encourage attendance and foster fellowship, a lunch will be served prior to the open forum.
This meeting will be followed by a week for prayer, reflection, and the opportunity for clarification, before the December 18th meeting where all eligible members will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not St. Timothy’s should join the Ordinariate at this time, as proposed. The results will be presented to Bishop Iker for his consideration prior to being announced to the congregation.
We urge all voting members of St. Timothy’s to attend these two very important meetings. Eligibility for voting will be the same as at the Annual Meeting:
1. Attend church on every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation unless for good and sufficient cause prevented. [These causes are (a) serious illness or infirmity, (b) necessity to perform charitable service, (c) unavoidable obligations connected with one’s vocation, and (d) unavoidable difficulties with travel.]
2. Contribute to the financial upkeep of the Congregation.
3. Have been confirmed or received by a Bishop of this Church or of a Church in communion with this Church.
4. Have received Holy Communion at least three times in the preceding twelve (12) months.
5. Not be under ecclesiastical discipline or censure.
6. Be enrolled (via letter from another congregation or Confirmation register) as a communicant of this Congregation and be at least 16 years of age.
Do pray for God’s wisdom and guidance as we seek His will in this decision.
Faithfully in Christ,
Bishop Iker and Father Stainbrook

[Ross] Hebb has been priest and rector of the Anglican Parish of St. Peter (Springhill), Woodstock Road since 1996. He spent May and June on sabbatical in England and, while there, he noticed something.

“The 400th anniversary was a really big deal over there,” Hebb said. “It is being marked throughout the land in many various ways – talks, displays, readings, lectures and usage.

“Here, in Canada and in New Brunswick – hardly a word. I thought someone should do something and, as St. Peter’s is known as a traditional parish, what better place than here?

Read it all.

Pondering a gender change began with his doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School in the ’90s. “I was out as gay at that point,” he recalls. The run-up to his change was not the turmoil-filled time you might expect. “I’m not a huge fan of the trapped-in-the-wrong-body narrative” of some other transgendered people, Partridge says. “I know it’s true and real for some folks, but I never felt like God made a mistake. I’ve not had a problem with God about this, I really haven’t. I just had a sense of this growing””discomfort, disjunction.” With the change, “I felt like I was able to kind of reclaim the body that God had given me.”

Seeking a unisex name, he was stumped until he went for take-out sushi one day when he was still a woman and the clerk misheard the name, asking, “Cameron?” Partridge looked the name up and learned it meant “crooked,” just the name, he thought, for someone who believes gender is not linear.

As for his agenda as chaplain, he’s exploring ways to involve students in environmental justice, an interest that has come up in conversations with them.

Read it all.

“I’m having a blast…” [the Rev. Mel Malton] says. “I enjoyed the training but it’s like lessons in sky-diving; you can’t really know until you’re actually doing it.”

“I remember realizing, wow, this is for real. The parishioners talk to me about the heavy things they are dealing with. It’s a huge responsibility, it’s a blast, it’s a challenge. You get to be in on people’s really important life moments: funerals, weddings. I haven’t been able to do any baptisms yet but we have some coming up after Christmas and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Digby’s deacon grew up in Muskoka, Ont., but was born in England. That accent slips out now and then, usually when she’s telling a joke, but most of the time she uses a gentle Upper Canadian accent.

Read it all.

Bishop [John] Guernsey, a native of Missouri, served a number of large Episcopal churches in Northern Virginia before leaving that denomination to work with the Anglican Church of Uganda in North America. He was consecrated Bishop for Congregations in America under that church in 2007, and was named Bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Spirit under the Anglican Church in North America in 2009.

The Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic is a regional diocese of the Anglican Church in North America and consists of 35 member churches in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and northeastern North Carolina.

Read it all.

Rwandan leaders told CEN that they understood that Bishop Murphy had been asked at the September meeting to halt the implementation of the planned change. However, a series of meetings was subsequently held in Pawley’s Island discussing the status of the transformation. On 31 October 2011, Archbishop Rwaje wrote to Bishop Murphy “requesting that all procedures toward the formation of the new missionary society be halted until we go through the Jerusalem moment (are of common mind).”

The Archbishop’s letter also contained a strong word of rebuke, asking Bishop Murphy to reflect on “the spirit of rebellion and lawlessness.”

Last week Bishop Murphy met with Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje of Rwanda in Washington to discuss the AMiA’s reorganisation proposal. Details of the meeting have not been released, while a January meeting has been set for the bishops to discuss the future of the AMiA.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Jesus’ prayer touches all the phases of His ministry and all of His days. Hardships do not impede it. Indeed, the Gospels clearly show that it was a custom of Jesus’ to pass part of the night in prayer. The Evangelist Mark recounts one of these nights, after the hard day of the multiplication of the loaves, and he writes: “Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. And after He had taken leave of them, He went into the hills to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and He was alone on the land” (Mark 6:45-47).

When decisions become urgent and complex, His prayer becomes more prolonged and intense. Faced with the imminent choice of the Twelve Apostles, for example, Luke emphasizes that Jesus’ prayer in preparation for this moment lasted the entire night: “In these days He went out into the hills to pray; and all night He continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles” (Luke 6:12-13).

Read it all.

Listen to it all if you so desire.

The real problem is that the modern Catholic Church is shot through with the heresy of universalism and semi-universalism.

What is universalism? The belief that “everyone will eventually be saved no matter what.” Semi-universalism is “we hope and believe that everyone will be saved no matter what.” In other words, semi- universalism is universalism for those who don’t have the guts to be universalists.

Universalism is a heresy because it is a half truth. Christ did die for all, but the universalist only holds on to that part of the truth. He denies the other half of the full truth, that not everyone will accept that grace and therefore some will go to hell.

It is a sentimentalist heresy because it is based not on clear thinking or logic or the authority of Church teaching or the catechism or the Sacred Scriptures, for there is no support anywhere for universalism in the Catholic faith.

Read it all.

Rejected by the Roman Catholic Church, in 2004 he became an …Episcopal] priest, even after informing the then bishop of Nevada, Katharine Jefferts Schori, that he had sexually transgressed just a few years earlier. She was also told by his former monastery about his sordid past and given highly damaging psychological records. Surprise, surprise. In July this year he resigned from his post and is currently facing criminal charges.

But here is where it all becomes somewhat Kafkaesque. Rather than campaigning against Jefferts Schori and demanding to know why she accepted into ordination a man with such a grotesque record ”” reports that suggested he was likely to reoffend ”” the usual anti-Catholic brigade have set up shop locally to attack the Catholic bishop and the Catholic Church.

Ms. Jefferts Schori, of course, is now the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, or in other words the head of the American version of the Anglican communion. She is also a roaring liberal, a darling of the left, the gay community and those who believe Catholicism to be reactionary, ultra-orthodox and on the wrong side of history.

Read it all.

Clergy could find themselves granted full employment rights for the first time under two test cases currently going through employment tribunals.

Clergy are often referred to, incorrectly, as employees of God but since records began they have been regarded in law as self-employed office-holders.

In the Church of England the Rev Mark Sharpe is demanding the right to sue for constructive dismissal after claiming he was driven from his parish by a campaign of “intimidation from toxic parishioners”.

Read it all (subscription required).

It is critical for church leadership to challenge believers to be in the Word of God, consistently growing in their knowledge of the Scriptures. One way to do that is to teach and encourage study of the Scriptures in the context of the grand narrative of redemption. I try to read the Bible in the way it unfolds. The Bible is not a series of isolated morality tales. Instead, by looking at it as a whole through a Christ-centered lens, I read the Scriptures with the whole story of redemption in mind….

Churches today face some big challenges. One of the greatest is the evangelical angst occurring in North America. Evangelicals in our country are just not sure of who they are or where they’re going.

Perhaps what evangelicals need most right now is a strategy for biblical literacy. We need to reengage the biblical narrative and immerse ourselves in consistent study. It will help us be more gracious and winsome in the way we communicate. It will help us have a clearer view on controversial issues. It will help us to understand and communicate a clear Gospel as laid out in the Scriptures — a Gospel of the cross and of the Kingdom. The Word of God is essential to where we are right now.

Read it all.

This morning, I invite you once again to rejoice with me. One hundred and fifty years ago the cross of Christ was raised in your country, and the Gospel was proclaimed for the first time. Today, we give thanks to God for the work accomplished by the missionaries, by the “apostolic workers” who first came from among you or from distant lands, bishops, priests, men and women religious, catechists, all those who, both yesterday and today, enabled the growth of the faith in Jesus Christ on the African continent. I honour here the memory of the venerable Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, an example of faith and of wisdom for Benin and for the entire African continent.

Dear brothers and sisters, everyone who has received this marvellous gift of faith, this gift of an encounter with the risen Lord, feels in turn the need to proclaim it to others. The Church exists to proclaim this Good News! And this duty is always urgent! After 150 years, many are those who have not heard the message of salvation in Christ! Many, too, are those who are hesitant to open their hearts to the word of God! Many are those whose faith is weak, whose way of thinking, habits and lifestyle do not know the reality of the Gospel, and who think that seeking selfish satisfaction, easy gain or power is the ultimate goal of human life. With enthusiasm, be ardent witnesses of the faith which you have received! Make the loving face of the Saviour shine in every place, in particular before the young, who search for reasons to live and hope in a difficult world!

The Church in Benin has received much from her missionaries: she must in turn carry this message of hope to people who do not know or who no longer know the Lord Jesus.

Read it all (my emphasis).

A new Barna Group study illustrates that no single Christian leader captures the attention of the nation’s population. When asked to identify the single most influential Christian leader in the U.S. today, two out of every five Americans (41%) are unable to think of anyone who would meet that description.

Billy Graham is the name mentioned most often in response to the unaided survey question (a measure often described as “top-of-mind” awareness). One out of five Americans names the octogenarian evangelist, with 19% of adult residents identifying Mr. Graham as the nation’s most influential Christian leader.

Half as many adults (9%) believe “the Pope” or Pope Benedict to be the most significant Christian leader in the nation. Nearly the same proportion (8%) considers President Barack Obama to hold this prominent role.

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From that first Sunday at St. Bartholomew’s [Episcopal Church] in February 2003, Dr. Marion never goes a week without attending worship. He tithes. He becomes a warden and a member of the vestry.

In the spring of 2003, he stumbles onto a poem titled “The Only Animal,” by Franz Wright. It is a poem, like many of Mr. Wright’s, about the interplay of faith and doubt. “You gave me in secret one thing to perceive, the tall blue starry strangeness of being here at all,” one passage goes. “You gave us each in secret something to perceive.”

Dr. Marion immerses himself in Mr. Wright’s work. In 2006, when he discovers a new poem, “The Hawk,” he feels it has the qualities of a biblical psalm, and he becomes fixated on the idea of setting it to music, something liturgical. Dr. Marion wonders if it is too late for him to learn composition, though his musical training ended with a med school production of “Guys and Dolls….”

Read it all.

At the time of the Revolution, the Anglican church in the American colonies was the established church in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and the southern counties of New York. It was funded generously by monies coming from England. It had legal standing, wealth, and power. It was comfortable. But, it was entirely absent of bishops. Nominally, the bishop of London was solely responsible for every single Anglican in the colonies. All of the priests serving in the colonies had to face the perilous journey to England for their ordination, and also submit to the requisite oaths of allegiance to the Crown.

After the eruption of the Revolution, the Anglican parishes in the colonies were ripped apart by division and argument over the rifts between the colonies and Great Britain. Gone was the security they had known under English rule. Many of the clergy, in particular, felt bound by honor to respect the vows they had taken to the Crown, and publicly opposed the Revolution. By the end of the war and the emigration of Loyalists to Canada or back to England, the Anglican parishes in the new United States were disestablished, no longer received funding from England, and half of the parishes were closed or destroyed. It’s estimated that almost 65% of clergy left for Canada; North Carolina had no priest; Virginia’s pre-Revolutionary parish count of 107 dropped to 42. And, there was an ocean and some sour feelings dividing the Anglican churches in the US and the closest bishop. Eventually, though, priests traveled to Great Britain, and were consecrated bishops for the American church, first in Scotland, then in England. But the sense of loss and change wasn’t entirely gone even after America obtained its own bishops: the first bishop of New York, Samuel Provoost, despaired that the church would survive, so in 1801, he retired as bishop and became a botanist, convinced that the Episcopal Church would fade away when the last members of the pre-Revolution generation died. At his time, there were only 10,000 Episcopalians in the entire nation of 4 million.

But that wasn’t the end of the story….

Read it all.