One of those church leaders is the Rev. David Lui, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Lui serves a congregation in transition. Located on a quiet section of 29th Avenue, Sunday worship services typically have plenty of empty pews, as many of its aging parishioners slowly fade from the scene.
Lui, who leads a small and welcoming congregation, knows that his church must reinvent itself to serve the changing population of his parish. A native of Hong Kong, Lui can preach the Gospel easily in Cantonese or English. In addition to bilingual worship services, Incarnation church operates a variety of neighborhood programs that include ESL classes, church day care services and collecting socks for the homeless.
The serene and sedate services at Incarnation church contrast sharply with the crowds of faithful served by other places of worship that often offer simultaneous religious rites administered on multiple floors in multiple languages. In an age and in a city where organized religion lacks its former prominence, and folk-rock music supplements contemporary liturgy at the evangelical churches of other denominations, Lui and other Asian Episcopal pastors must search for new ways to grow their flocks.
“I do not think [the San Joaquin split] will have a negative impact on the commitment of Asian American Episcopalians to the Episcopal Church,” Vergara said. “Many educated Episcopalians, especially the young people, are able to integrate their understanding of Scripture with the changing culture. In the American contemporary context, our knowledge of human beings continues.
[blockquote] Many [b] educated [/b] Episcopalians, especially the [b] young people [/b], are able to integrate their understanding of Scripture with the changing [b] culture [/b]. In the American contemporary [b] context [/b], our [b]knowledge of human beings [/b] continues. [/blockquote]
Sigh. Reminds me of Chris Johnson’s recommended drinking game where you down a shot for every bit of jargon encountered.
This is really just sad. The junk about “education” and “knowledge” being the hallmarks of TEC superiority – when anybody who spends two minutes at a diocesan convention knows how much junk science, emotional excess and procedural manipulation passes for “engaging the issues.” The whole “TEC is the thinking person’s church” thing is a lie.
Young people? Yes, young people tend to be more “liberal” in the sense of idealistic (often moving “right” with time and life experience). But the paragraph before the quote shows a typical TEC parish with few (or no) young people. TEC doesn’t reach ’em, no matter what their ideology.
And of course the stuff about context and superior knowledge of human beings – So how come the culture is not engaged by and flocking to TEC? How come most research shows that TEC is one of the denominations about which most people know next to nothing?
If TEC has superior knowledge of human beings, then how come it can’t mediate its bitter disputes, both internal and external, in any healthy way?
OK, I am going to get my fingers off the keyboard. Kendall and other good people have asked us to refrain from sarcasm and vitriol, and the more I read the quote the greater the temptation to give in to that evil spirit. Lord have mercy.
It’s an acceptable snobbery in the Noughties.
Many Americans are secular now (but not as much as Europe) but among the churchgoing minority the kids and even young boomers are skewing conservative, which explains not only evangelicalism’s perennial success in America but the 20-years-on Orthodox convert boomlet (yesterday’s Anglicans – a lot of these people passed through TEC briefly too), Pope Benedict’s restoration (both reviving the Tridentine Mass and bringing in a high-church version of the new Mass) and the fact that most Continuers now never were Episcopalians but were Protestant seekers who read the Fathers and about traditional liturgy. These Catholic movements are drops in the bucket of Protestant America but too big to ignore. If, as the TEC snobs seem to say, it were only about nostalgic, stubborn old people the Pope wouldn’t have bothered freeing up the old Mass.
Neither the secular nor the conservative religious kids, who add up to most young people, take liberal boomer religion seriously. Watch old ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ episodes with Van Driessen the hippy teacher to get the idea.
P.S.
By that I mean many/most of these people would have converted to and remained in the Anglican Communion about 50 years ago. Orthodoxy was considered even more exclusively ethnic and inaccessible then, usually bound up in foreign languages (there wasn’t that much literature on it in English).
[blockquote] Van Driessen the hippy teacher [/blockquote]
And of course his rendition of “Lesbian Seagull” in the movie!
[blockquote]“TEC is the thinking person’s church†thing is a lie.[/blockquote]
Heard it put quite well in my pastor’s sermon this morning.
He talked some about the pride that divided Greeks and Jews in the early church. Jews were proud to be “God’s Chosen People”, and the Greeks thought that “barbarians” could be fairly intelligent, but that only a Greek could ever be truly wise.
These days, the Bible churches are convinced that only they really follow the Bible, the Pentecostals are convinced that only they really have the Holy Spirit, and the Roman Catholics think that only they have a real church.
And us Anglicans/Episcopalians? Our sin of pride is, we often think we’re the only ones with brains. And taste.