From an unnamed letter writer to Andrew Sullivan:
Why are you still a Roman Catholic? Why have you not started attending an Episcopal church? Familiar liturgy, similar theology, radically different morality. The US Episcopal church has committed itself to being a community where all people are members, where all people can be married and blessed and become priests and bishops. We in the US are paying a high price for our commitment to equality–a schism in the worldwide Anglican communion–but we are standing firm. We’ve got Anglican African bishops and Pope Benedict himself trying to poach Episcopal parishes. We’re tiny, we’re beleaguered, and we are standing up to the entire world and the entire Christian community to do the right thing.
I know that an Englishman named Sullivan is genetically indisposed to ever imagine attending a branch of the Church of England, but, man, we could use your help. This is where you belong.
“We’re tiny, we’re beleaguered, and we are standing up to the entire world and the entire Christian community to do the right thing.”
He says as the English speaking media, academic, and cultural establishments drown his tiny voice with their applause.
I’m surprised he could even hear himself over the sound of TEC collectively patting itself on the back.
There has been a realignment going on since at least the mid 70’s, maybe since the late 60’s among all Christian churches and denominations. There have been some very big chapters in this realignment including Seminex in ’74 among the Lutherans, the Southern Baptist Convention takeover in ’79, and the formation of the ACNA in ’08. It is a common phenomenon that those who populate either the evangelical or liberal wings of their denominations have more in common with those of the same wing in other denominations than with many within their own denomination. This was a powerful insight when I first came across it in grad school nearly 20 years ago. Now it is plain for all to see.
I have no doubt that liberal Catholics get lots of invitations from their TEC or ELCA friends. All the more reason to not be dismayed at the pope’s offer. Switch a few words and the same comment could be written by a Catholic to a conservative in TEC or the UMC, etc.
Perhaps at this juncture we could all benefit from standing back and seeing the broad landscape and trying discern what the Holy Spirit is straining to achieve in our interesting times and trying to work with that Spirit and not against Him. I believe the Spirit is kneading a leaven into this old fragmented dough and striving to work separated pieces into a fresh whole. We have to be willing to be bent, twisted, mashed together, our lumps worked out and smoothed before we will be allowed again to rise.
One passage that comes to mind inscrutably now and again is from [blockquote]Romans 8:
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.[/blockquote]
Perhaps one thing we have been straining from for too long and which the Spirit in us uncannily hopes for is the unity and common witness for which Christ prayed in his final hours.
“…similar theology, radically different morality.”
How does _that_ work?
Fr. J.
Romans 8 indeed speaks fully to our present groaning. Thank you for placing it before us.
What is more fascinating Kendall, is the internal hypocrisy of the Catholic Church Sullivan exposes.
Mental health might be, however, a liberal construction. Why be healthy? What does that mean?
The letter to Sullivan doesn’t really sound like it was written by a discerning Episcopalian. Perhaps the real give away is seeking new blood for the Church. We don’t do that, you know. It’s the old story about how, for Episcopalians, evangelism is like the fisherman who puts out a bucket by the river and waits for the fish to jump into it.