Do Episcopal parishes teach the basics?
When I finished seminary in 1987 I came out with youthful idealism, energy, and too much arrogance, among many other things. I also believed I needed to be unapologetic about teaching and preaching on the most basic questions.
For example, I taught for two years through the Book of Acts. What was the gospel they were proclaiming I wanted to know. What was their understanding of mission? Who did they think Jesus was? What did they believe about the church?
After three years in the parish where I served my curacy, I left the parish (and the country) to pursue a doctorate. This allowed me the luxury of reflecting on many things, including my three year curacy.
My deepest conclusion: I had failed to be basic enough. I had made too many assumptions. I had used too much Christian vocabulary without defining terms. The bottom line was my instinct was right but my implementation left a lot to be desired.
When I asked myself why, my sense was it was partly out of fear. It takes a lot of courage to ask someone to describe the exact nature of the God he or she believes in, to wrestle with the doctrine of Original Sin, to probe the mystery of the Atonement and the Cross, to delve into the depths of what heaven really is and is not like.
So consider this question: if we look at the parish of which we are a part, and its preaching and teaching, how are we doing in terms of asking and answering the most basic of questions? Are we daring to look at the roots of the roots?
Jesus talked about God and the nature of his kingdom. It is hard to get more basic than that. Can we do any less?
–The Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon is Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina and convenor of this blog
One of the things which attracted me to T19 when I first found it, and which later encouraged me to start commenting, was that just such issues were debated here. In my church background they had not been explored in depth but just taken as a credal ‘given’ to which I had not given much thought. What a pleasure and education it has been to read fine scholars and commenters from all over the world and many Christian traditions debating and explaining their understanding of these things here; and tentatively at first, joining in myself.
I suspect that your article is very true Canon Harmon, and explains why as a church we have such problems; even from senior clergy one hears things which make one’s hair stand on end. The most likely explanation is it comes from poor education right back at the start and never examined since.
I have had some fantastic discussions on the Atonement, nature of the church and other issues, learning all the while. Thank you so much for that Canon Harmon.
I am still surprised after I have preached a carefully prepared homily, what someone will offer as a compliment. It is usually about something rather ordinary said “off script”. One thing I learned as an educator is that prior exposure does not equal prior learning. This is true in other areas too. Most graduate students in Psychology couldn’t compute a “z” score yet they learned this in basic statistics. I continually am reminded (by others who appeal to my “vast experience” [old age]) to offer personal examples for people to connect with. Maybe we should take our cue from the Country Western songwriters and just have a cute phrase followed by the chorus (“Whose gonna mow your lawn when I’m gone”).
Kendall is definitely on to something. A more intentional and comprehensive approach to catechesis seems warranted.
A historical study of catechesis reveals that Anglicanism has been “wobbly” on the practice, in part due to some confused or conflicted understandings of the relationship between catechesis, baptism, and confirmation.
This is a major concern in ACNA, but I anticipate that it will need to be throughout the present reallignment, CP-TEC included. A catechesis committee attached to the Theological Education Task Force (ACNA) is presently putting together a series of resources that will begin addressing the need for biblical literarcy, theological instruction, and spiritual formation for discipleship in a distinctively Anglican Way. J. I. Packer and a number of very gifted theologians and pastors, including Todd Hunter, are also on the case. So stay tuned.
If anyone is interested, I’ve been putting together a course on the history of catechesis, with particular emphasis on the Anglican Way here at Trinity School for Ministry. Also, Trinity is about to launch a Lively Faith Project, which focuses on the need to mediate primary sources in Anglican practical theology to pastors, church planters, and lay leaders.
I’m sure we are not alone in these endeavors, so would hope that Kendall’s observations inspire others to share what they are doing in response to the challenge.
I’m currently studying Romans, and in conjunction with that, rereading a book that had a deep impact on my life when I first read it about 12 years ago – Jerry Bridges’ “The Discipline of Grace.”
Basically Bridges’ focus in the book is that the basic Gospel message is not just for unbelievers, to get them “saved” and reconciled to God in Christ, but also that believers need the Gospel as well, that we should “preach the Gospel to ourselves every morning.” His contention, and I think it’s true for most of us evangelicals anyway, is that we know we are saved by grace, but then we try to be holy in our own efforts and strength, when in fact we are also SANCTIFIED by grace.
I highly recommend it. It is a wonderful “back to the roots” book that shows how a deeper understanding of what we consider the most basic elementary tenets of the Christian faith need continual meditation and study by even the most seasoned believer.
Thanks for this reminder, Kendall. It fits in well with what the Lord has been emphasizing in my own life and ministry lately.
I find that most Episcopalians are deficient in their knowledge of scripture, salvation history, and our response to it. My inquirer’s classes often serve as a refresher course in scripture, traditional Christian/Anglican belief, church history and customs – catechesis – for adult Episcopalians who were confirmed years ago, but either never learned it or forgot it. But aside from than that, TEC lacks a viable notion of working discipleship. We have what we often call formation, but I’m not certain it’s always a good substitute for intentional mentoring in discipleship. Yes, basics.
I remember having this discussion in our homiletics class at Nashotah. We all too often make assumptions that people just automatically know what we are talking about when referring to what might be a “popular” scripture verse outside the lectionary, or using a theologicalt term that we learned, and it sounded good in seminary.
Also, there is nothing wrong with teaching the basics, even with seasoned disciples. Just before seminary, I went through the catechumenate process again – originally for the ideas of getting some ideas for my ministry – but it reinforced so much that I needed to be reminded of. I thought I was learning to be a teacher, but ended up being the student instead.
In my own two decades or so as an Episcopalian/Anglican, I have noted the same problems as has Kendall. Incidents like the following stand out in my mind:
1) Teaching an Adult Ed course on the Lectionary readings, and hearing the wife of a priest in a self-identified conservative Anglo-Catholic (Nashotah House educated clergy) diocese state as if self-evident: “The God of the Old Testament is the devil in the New Testament.”
2) Hearing a Junior Warden talk about discovering (and then throwing out) a huge batch of educational materials found in an old closet in the church with the explanation, “It was just a bunch of old dogma.”
3) Trying to teach an Adult Ed course in Basic Christian doctrine in a parish, which had to be cancelled for lack of interest.
4) Attempting to lead a discussion of the Baltimore Declaration, and having it dismissed out of hand by the rector with the explanation, “I bet these are the same people who don’t believe in women’s ordination.”
5) A Jr. Warden (in another self-identified orthodox parish) come up to me rather concerned after I had preached a sermon on justification by faith because he was certain we had to do good works to get to heaven.
6) A young woman who was quite enthusiastic about Gnosticism after having read Elaine Pagels, and who simply refused to believe me when I told her that gnostics were dualists who did not particularly value women.
7) In an orthodox parish of around 150 ASA, the rector’s several weeks of teaching and discussion of Christian sexuality, and the issues raised by the consecration of a noncelibate gay bishop after GC 2003 was attended by somewhere between three and six parishioners.
I remember our parish going from “three months of weekly classes for young people who were to be confirmed” to “an overnight and an overview of the BCP and pizza, and your ready for the bishop”.
There is an old saying that Chirstian education inovlves teaching children and playing with adults. Elaine Pagels is on the History Channel all the time. Folks in the pew are getting a lot of teaching but little of it is orthodox.
In many, if not most, parts of TEC, people have been preached to about God, but they haven’t been taught about Christianity. In many, if not most, parts of TEC, people have been preached to about God, but they haven’t been taught about the Bible. The Christian Track [b]is[/b] the Bible, the Word of God, and Christ Jesus, the Word Incarnate. Not teaching these two things is how nearly the whole church first got off track.
Clemmitt
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tpq4MoRVV4]The basics…[/url]
Greetings.
This may be a chance to ask a question that will benefit both myself and others.
I am doing a course of reading to try to understand basic, orthodox Anglicanism. I have the following on my shelf and am working through them in approximately the order of their intended audience, from basic to more sophisticated. One or two are clearly catchetical, one or two others may be first-year seminary. They are here alphabetical by author:
Bicknell, E.J. [i]A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles[/i] 3rd ed..
Carleton, G.D. [i]The King’s Highway[/i].
Moss, C.B. [i]The Christian Faith[/i].
Staley, Vernon. [i]The Catholic Religion[/i] rev. ed.
Wilson, Frank E. [i]Faith and Practice[/i].
A copy of More and Cross’ [i]Anglicanism[/i] should be showing up this week.
There is a certain tendency there, I know, but that’s a reflection of where I saw these recommended.
What else should I be reading? Anything? I have an advanced degree in a very non-religious subject, but no prior religious training whatever. I’ve read some Lewis before, but that’s about it.
Thanks in advance. I hope this is valuable for others as well.
regards,
JPB
Dr. Witt, I can also add:
My spouse, sitting in a New England clergy meeting, where a female priest stood up and said that the church really needed to march forth with a revisionist agenda, because she “truly knew too many people who had been ‘hurt’ by doctrine”.
The inmates are running the asylum…
Thanks for posting this personal stuff Kendall – in response perhaps to an earlier suggestion that you not only host this great site. And I agree, the topic you picked is absolutely of “the rootsâ€.
Some of us have had the experience of trying to teach and preach both in the Two-Thirds World, where, as is often stated, the Church as a whole is growing hand-over-fist, and back in ex Christendom mission fields. It will not surprise many on this site to hear that in my own case at least the former context was by far the more satisfactory experience! An ex colleague of mine in Australia once put it rather well: “there’s just so much out there that socializes one out of faith.†From which remark I take it our efforts to redress the balance of the surrounding cultures’ influence seem to have very little impact often. And so what pray tell might actually cut the mustard here?!
# 3 above, Phil Harrold, alludes to a reminted Catechism; GSA via the likes of Michael Poon have begun that process some time ago as well. (Perhaps they are already in cahoots?!) There is material on their web-site. From my own experience, there is a very powerful movement in Australasia called Compass who are specifically targeting late teens and early adults, both those in universities and those already in the work-force. Their schema includes Scripture’s metanarrative, the formation of character, and addressing directly ‘the world’ where disciples of Jesus find themselves. It reminds me of a contemporary version of what was once Stott’s London Institute – but far more media savvy and creatively fluid. What is NOT at all fluid though is the desire to be thoroughly orthodox, to be both apostolic and catholic, and so insisting upon being holistically missionary. See http://www.compass.org.nz/ if interested …
What is also fascinating about part of the solution to my own mind (I cannot reckon we have [i]the[/i] solution as such yet …) is the increasing cross-fertilization emerging between the churches of the Two-Thirds World and those in the neopagan West. Whatever else it signals (and many have stupidly applied their typical ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ default), Orombi in England during the ACC signals an importantly focussed priority. Certainly, when I act/teach as a non Westerner, there really appears (still!) to be more fruit born than when I accommodate myself to my immediate surroundings: some of the results of my own “reflectionsâ€! Either way however, all our musings on this root issue are an absolute necessity, and far from a “luxuryâ€. Perhaps we might attempt some fuller sharing of richer resources …? Over to you all, and notably Kendall.
I applaud the indication above that the ACNA is looking into providing catechesis help to parishes. We moved around the USA extensively while our children were young, and seldom did an Episcopal parish offer them (or us!) training in the faith. What my daughters know about Christianity’s essential teachings they learned from me for the most part. This is a crying need, perhaps the most serious need, in the emerging realigned churches.
Just Passing By, that’s an extensive reading list. Wilson’s Faith and Practice was the book I was given for my confirmation class as an adult in 1976. I thought, working from that and from the Book of Common Prayer, that I knew what Episcopalians believed.
Intentional and organized teaching of the essential faith is even more necessary with the variety of new liturgies Anglicans of various stripes use. No longer does the Prayer Book nail down most of the questions. I have come to appreciate some of the simpler forms. Their use must be complemented by teaching and preaching the essentials.
[b]Katherine[/b] notes:
[quote]Just Passing By, that’s an extensive reading list.[/quote]
And yet it only covers a part of the subject. Sigh. But I’m used to that kind of thing.
One would think one could just walk into a church and ask for instruction, but even if that were true, [i]which church[/i] to walk into? Seems to be one of those things where it’s best to know the answer before asking the question. That’s only partly in jest.
[quote]Wilson’s Faith and Practice was the book I was given for my confirmation class as an adult in 1976. I thought, working from that and from the Book of Common Prayer, that I knew what Episcopalians believed.[/quote]
Looking back, do you think you should have been given something more, or something different? If so, what? Honest question. Just trying to stay on topic here, dead as this thread probably is.
regards,
JPB
PS: More and Cross showed up today. Already I like it. From the introductory essay (p. xxiv):
[quote]… the principle of measure does not produce a diminished or half truth, but acts as a law of restraint preventing either one of two aspects of a paradoxical truth from excluding the other. [i]Nor is the middle way here a mean of compromise, but a mean of comprehension.[/i][/quote]
Italics mine.
regards,
JPB
JPB, looking back, I think Wilson and the Prayer Book (remember, still 1928 at that time) were sufficient, along with the evening class series also required. It is an unusual person who, like you, is willing to do intensive reading. My own faith and my knowledge of church teaching have grown slowly and steadily from that modest beginning, and I think that is almost always true.
Some years ago I took a phone conference course in Anglican theology from one of the Continuing bodies, taught by a professor at UVA. I will try in the next day or two to make a list of the books for that course and send you a Private Message with the information.