They always saw themselves as a neighborhood parish, committed to the idea that with their brand of spirituality they could make a difference to those around them.
But when Bishop Geralyn Wolf chose the Church of the Epiphany as the site of her first parish visit after being installed as Rhode Island’s Episcopal bishop 13 years ago, there was already a growing sense that the parish was in trouble.
With roots going back to its start as a mission church in 1868, members believed their West End parish could show the world that a church needn’t be affluent to immerse itself in the old Anglo-Catholic traditions. Its members might be working class, but their services could still resonate with the sounds of chanting and incense-filled “high church” liturgies with all the trappings.
Video
By the 1990s, it was becoming clear that something was not working….
Kendall and others occasionally post such stories. Is there anywhere to get reliable numbers on the number of parishes closed/merged each year? We are working on finding similar data for the ELCA, which I would share if folks here are interested.
Thanks!
Ryan Schwarz
Not to be snarky, but I seem to remember a lot of reasserters claiming that if TEC would just preach orthodox doctrine, it could arrest the long-term decline in membership. Yet Bishop Wolf is pretty orthodox ….
(Maybe it’s because this parish had a woman vicar as well as a woman bishop, and the WO people had it right all along? I’m being facetious, of course.)
By the way, here’s an absolutely fascinating 2003 interview with Bishop Wolf about her sabbatical month [url=http://www.wfn.org/2003/02/msg00263.html]living as a homeless woman[/url]. It’s probably been mentioned here before, but is worth revisiting. She sounds admirable.
There are plenty of revisionist parishes under the care of relatively conservative bishops. I suspect this was one. In any case, one might argue that “pretty orthodox” is like “slightly pregnant.”
The image at the article appears to show an all-female line-up in vestments. That leads one to suspect that this has not been an orthodox Catholic parish for some time. Some of the emptiest churches in the nation are those of the ritualist “Affirming” Catholic clergy; the ones with women at the helm are dying shells.
Bishop Wolf may be a nice person. I mean that! Good, kind, gentle, and so forth. But I know of no evidence that she is strongly orthodox, even apart from the issue of WO.
For example, although her committee recomended voting against the two notorious resolutions of GC 2009, it’s worth listening carefully to +Wolf’s stated reasoning. It was essentially that of an institutional liberal. In other words, we hadn’t done enough structured discernment, it would hurt people overseas, we were rushing the process, and so on. She did not, however, offer clear theological objections as such (e.g. based on Christology, soteriology, nature of human sin, nature of Scripture, nature of marriage, etc.). Put a bit differently, Wolf could have said everything she said while privately being in favor of gay ordinations and gay marriages — given enough time for people to accept them.
Likewise her disciplining of the Muslim priestess (AHR) isn’t in itself evidence of orthodoxy, since Wolf’s action did not occur until the situation became such a public relations nightmare that to do otherwise would have been a gigantic embarrassment for the diocese and the church at large. Maybe Wolf would have done so anyway — quite possibly. Who knows? Unfortunately we can’t know, and the fact that the simpler explanation of damage control exists means that Wolf’s reprimand cannot be adduced to show Wolf’s deep commitment to creedal belief.
Actually I can think of one piece of hard evidence that might be meaningful — and that is if anyone knows how she voted on the various resolutions of GC 2003.
Of course, at one time, many decades ago, simply being a bishop in the Protestant Epsicopal Church of the USA (PECUSA) would have been in itself a strong piece of evidence that the person wearing the mitre was a deep believer in the historic Christian faith. But surely no one today, including my reappraiser friends, thinks that is the case NOW. (Reappraisers of course think that a good thing.)
Here’s from their defunct website, 2007
[blockquote] We believe that religion is about being and acting more than memorizing lists of beliefs or trying to arrange our thoughts so that they agree with cookie-cutter religious ideals. Trying to be our own thought police – or the thought police of others – is a waste of time. We believe that God reveals himself to us in ways that we can not always anticipate or understand. Our task is to wait, to be faithful to the truth, even when the truth is dim and fuzzy and we have no idea what we are waiting for.[/blockquote]
Ha ha. There’s a clear message.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070818114910/www.epiphanyri.org/index.php?page=about
Orthodox? You be the judge.
[blockquote] Trying to be our own thought police – or the thought police of others – is a waste of time.[/blockquote]
Turns out that not trying to be thought police was a waste of time (and a waste of church, and probably a waste of souls).
Please pardon the gloating.
One of the women speaks of having joined Epiphany after Christ Church closed 15 years ago. Which, presumably, is this place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Episcopal_Church_(Providence,_Rhode_Island)
Jon, I thought that Bp Wolf was a strong orthodox, being a communion partner bishop and all that. But your comment made me look up the facts. Here is what Louie Crew has to say about +Geralyn Wolf:
+ Voted to NOT endorse the [url=http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/communion/ctexts/iss_communion_ctexts_kualalumpur.asp]Kuala Lumpur Statement [/url]
– Voted to insist on women’s ministries in every diocese.
– Signed [url=http://www.whosoever.org/v3i2/lambeth2.html ] A Pastoral Statement to Lesbian and Gay Anglicans from Some Member Bishops of the Lambeth Conference[/url]
– Voted for Blessing of Same-Gender Unions to be added to Book of Occasional Services (8th resolve to D039)
– Voted to recognizing and affirming fidelity in relationships outside (D039)
– Voted to consented to the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire
She also did not sign the Anaheim statement. Other than the Kuala Lumpur vote, she has a perfect revisionist record.
Ok, the link won’t copy right but you can find it on wikipedia yourself. Christ Church, Providence.
I should add that +G. Wolf did vote against C056 and D025. She voted for Gene Robinson and then voted against d025?
Bishop +G is not at all liked by leftist members of TEC. She is an oblate of a RC monastery (Mt. Saviour in Elmira) and is deeply Catholic. She is what I would call a conservative member of Affirming Catholicism and does not fit in to any neat category.
To add to #12’s comment.
From what I understand, Bishop Wolfe has also been very much willing to work with St. John the Evangelist in Newport, and Anglo-Catholic parish that does not accept women’s ordination. See http://www.saintjohns-newport.org/
I believe that she has been willing and able to work with them on issues of alternative episcopal oversight. Perhaps there is someone with more direct knowledge of the parish who might be able to add more.
That is not to say that the Diocese does not have problems, and there are other parishes that have come close to closing, and may yet do so. For example:
http://www.stjohnschurchway.org/savethechapel.shtml
Thanks to Robroy for uncovering +Wolf’s voting record.
RR goes on to say “I should add that +G. Wolf did vote against C056 and D025. She voted for Gene Robinson and then voted against d025?”
This makes perfect sense (as well as being consistent with her speech at GC 2009) and the rest of her voting record you identified, if you view her as theologically fairly liberal (though possibly she may believe the creeds), but she is an institutional Anglican who values the cohesion and harmony of the AC.
In a word, she [edit] voted for VGR — not realizing that her action would rend the institutional fabric and its deepest level. She believed, as so many did at the time, that it was just not going to be a big deal and that our brothers overseas would just vent a little bit and then get over it. That was really shortsighted [edit] and in the years following it she came to feel bad about the steamroller pace of the lobby and of KJS, and so she voted against C056 and D025 in an attempt to paddle our canoe away from the falls it was rushing toward.
That’s a reasonable reading of that record.
I am not surprised to hear that the Far Left of TEC dislike +Wolf. Of course they do. She disciplined the Muslim Priestess, for example. That isn’t evidence of her being orthodox (for reasons discussed earlier) but it isn’t going to endear her to the Apostate Left. Likewise she made a speech suggesting people not vote for D025 and CO56. If you listen to the speech, she adduces no theological grounds for opposing gay ordinations or SSUs. So the speech in itself does not imply that she’s not actually a theological liberal. But the speech itself isn’t going endear her to the Left.
[Edited by Elf]
[Edited by Elf]
#14 Jon, I don’t think anyone here or in general on the reasserter side of the aisle had any illusions that +Wolf was anything but reappraiser in her beliefs. Our praise of her stems from her gracious treatment of reasserter clergy and congregations in her diocese and her willingness to place unity and consensus of the communion above seeing the LGBT agenda overturn Scripture and forcing everyone to worship the zeitgeist. Your name-calling is totally out of line and would be so even about the most rabid reappraiser. +Wolf certainly has done nothing to provoke such abuse.
Wow…. very sorry to have upset you.
Unsure whether it’s right to talk more about this, since I’ve upset you as much as I have.
Do let me know if you are interested in talking more. Best, J.