…Murchison traces the church’s wrong turn to the 1960s, when Episcopal elites increasingly chose for cultural conformity rather than cultural transformation. Like other Mainline Protestant elites, Episcopalians began to shed “exclusivist” claims about Christianity in favor of pluralism, where every ideology has a voice except for orthodoxy.
Not surprisingly, the rejection of orthodoxy in favor of cultural and political fads, whatever the spiritual consequences, has been disastrous for Episcopalians and all Mainline Protestant denominations, all of which have been losing members since the 1960s, between 25 and 40 percent. Former Presbyterians and Methodists and Lutherans either gave up on organized religion, or they joined evangelical or Catholic churches, or they, more permanently, died (!), leaving few if any descendants, as Mainline Protestants, especially Episcopalians, have notoriously low birth rates. The current Episcopal Presiding Bishop even celebrated this demographic collapse, claiming that Episcopalians were protecting the planet by abstaining from children.
Sixty years ago, Murchison recounts, the first president of the National Council of Churches was an Episcopal bishop whose robust goal was: “a Christian America in a Christian world.” Somewhat presciently though, Jewish theologian Will Herberg noted of 1950s spirituality, despite the crowded churches, that it all seemed a “secularized Puritanism, a Puritanism without transcendence, without sense of sin or judgment.” Middle class religious complacency gave rise to impatient 1960s radicalism, when socially aroused church elites, following through on the political dreams of early 20th century Social Gospel theorists, began to rebel against church traditions in favor of political revolution.
[i]”..having reached America’s shores at Jamestown in 1607, is America’s oldest.”[/i]
Hmmm..who was that in San Augustine in 1565? Just sayin’ 😉
#1–I think he is refering the the Anglican Church, not the “Church” universal. The Spanish in St. Augistine were decidedly Roman Catholic.
David,
You might want to read that again. I’m pretty sure he is saying the Anglican (or Episcopal) Church was the first Christian church here in what would become the United States of America, which isn’t quite accurate.
A few prayerbook services in an ultimately abandoned Florida swamp do not equate to establishing the Anglican faith in a way that the Virginia Church has prevailed for 400 years.
Let’s not forget New Mexico, where the first Catholic missionaries arrived in 1539.
I don’t consider the colonies established by the Most Catholic monarchs of Spain (or for that matter, the Most Christian kings) properly ‘in’ America. Only those established by their Britannic Majesties factor in the equation, I think the article implies.
Anglican worship was held on Sir Francis Drake’s ship in San Francisco Bay in 1579. Still doesn’t beat New Mexico.
The 1960s? That’s when the wrong turn took place? If so, I would think the design of that turn took place 60-80 years earlier, when Anglican divines such as F.D. Maurice, Charles Gore, W.P. DuBose, among others started talking about God as if He were an object to be studied rather than a person to be known, in the name of “scientific” theology.
There’s a shift in thinking at that point that differs from earlier Tractarians, Broad Church-types, Evangelicals, all the way back to the early church, where God is spoken of in concrete, even if affective, terms of relationship with the writer. That shift I think has set us adrift to the point that we, as Anglicans, now struggle to communicate with people who aren’t abstract thinkers.
“I don’t consider the colonies established by the Most Catholic monarchs of Spain (or for that matter, the Most Christian kings) properly ‘in’ America.”
Yes, a lot of people feel that way about California.
#4 ChoirStall
Careful there, old buddy, St. Augustine is not now and has never been an “abandoned Florida swamp.” It is, and has always been, a pleasant place of sea breezes, an elegant waterway and bay,
the orginal location of the Fountain of Youth, endless bright and sunny days, not to mention old San Marcos, Old Town, George Street, King Street, O’Steen’s Seafood Restaurant (cash only and well worth it), Scarlett O’Hara’s corner restaurant, the old bookstore, the new/old Bridge of the Lions, Trinity Church, St. Augsustine’s Cathedral, Flagler College, State of the Art Walmart, and a State of the Art Hospital, the moon rising over the Atlantic on a summer night to the sound of the crashing surf. The sun rising at
5:17 on a January morning. Two Barnacle Bill’s. Pristine beaches.
No state income tax. Some of my best friends are St. Augustinians. Best honey moon memories and for summers weeks since. Probably the original location of the Garden of Eden. A personal place of peace and contentment. Not to mention the
200 steps to the St. Augustine Light for a magnificent view of the bay, the ocean, Anastasian Island. Peace.