(Blog readers please note that Father Henderson is a 2009 Graduate of General Theological Seminary currently serving a parish in Connecticut–KSH).
I joined a church that valued tradition and yet was engaged with modernity. I joined a church that embraced the timelessness of dignity and beauty. I joined a church that was engaged theologically and reasonably rather than emotionally in issues of doctrine and order. I joined a church that was a true blend of Catholic and Reformed. I joined a church that valued the uniformities of the Prayer Book even as it explored how to plumb its depths in manifold ways. I joined a church that was sacramentally grounded. I joined a church that believed that how we pray says something about what we believe.
Just as when I went to General [Seminary], finding the Episcopal Church was a joy and it felt exactly like where I was called to be. I felt at home and it was a place that made sense because there was a there there.
I am not sure where the there is now.
As I talk to priests too happy to ignore rubrics and ordination vows to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church because they have decided their sense of “welcome” is more important than the church’s call to common identity,
as I attended a Diocesan Convention at which we sang treacly hymns with narcissistic lyrics,
as I talk to priests in pitch battles in their dioceses about baptizing in the name of the Trinity,
as I attend Eucharists where priests make up the Eucharistic Prayer on the spot (“meal of power” not Body and Blood and “the systems of the world are broken” at the Fraction),
and as I watch the Church one more time hurtle into a divisive squabble, I am feeling profoundly out of place.
The Church that is slashing funding for Christian formation and youth ministry while hurtling toward… “[the Communion of the Unbaptized]” is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that has a diocesan convention at which we sing “Shine, Jesus Shine” and ignore the Prayer Book is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that is defining sainthood as anyone who has done something good and worthy rather than someone who has done good and worthy things because of their faith in Christ is not the Church I thought I was joining.
Read it carefully and read it all and many of the comments are well worth the time.
Acts 9:18
1. The author graduated 3 years ago? Was he in cryogenic stasis?
2. Comparing the singing of hymns that one finds “treacly” with altering the church’s 2000 year old view on admission to holy communion, strikes me as a bit of spiritual dilettantism.
Still, better late than never.
It is surprising to read so nostalgic a piece by someone who is so recent a graduate. As one who lived in the Close during the ‘Sturm und Drang’ of the 1976 Convention, my memories of GTS are of the first moments of the New Order of things. Overnight, the traditionalist minority became like resented members of the ‘ancien regime’ and the rules of celebration in chapel were blatantly changed to make an “organic” acceptance of the new order of ministry impossible. There were those of us who thought that these birth pangs might lead to a kinder, gentler synthesis in which the old ways would again be appreciated and the Faith once delivered would continue in a recognizable form as we struggled to find equilibrium. But things did not get better, did they. Some of us held on to the dream as long as we could. But eventually only sobriety can offer life in its fullest, and the addictive denial of plain facts must yield to a mature acceptance of what really is. Then courageous choices have to be made. I heard my first rector say once that he would never, ever leave the Episcopal Church. I no longer find such fanatical devotion either inspirational or healthy. There is more to Christ’s Church than TEC alone, and no denomination should hold our ultimate allegiance.
A. I want the office in the photo on the blog (or at least see it).
B. It would be hard to disagree with him. But if he graduated only three years ago and is horrified at the pace of change (if that is what is called… de-evolution, it seems to me), imagine what it’s like for someone who graduated 30 years ago. Or 50.
Apart from Satan, the source of all this is poor seminary education and abysmal vetting of postulants.
Just sad to read, but one sees it all the time, and right from the top with the Presiding Bishop’s risible Easter without Jesus message; which prompted one of our bishops to comment: “Further proof that ECUSA has lost the plot”
[blockquote] “In the future, I am sure others will bemoan that General is no longer General because some other this or that is no longer there. Yet, God willing, they will have that chapel to talk about.” [/blockquote]
Oh dear, don’t curse it by mentioning it… With Katherine Schori and her cronies in charge of TEC, it is very possible that even the chapel will eventually be gone.
The demonstrated incompetence of the leadership of TEC is such that they are capable of losing anything and everything. These “bishops” and “administrators” people could not run a bake-sale, let alone a national church.
Canon Harmon writes:
[blockquote] “Read it carefully and read it all and many of the comments are well worth the time.” [/blockquote]
True. The naivety of many of the comments is telling. They vaguely and belatedly realise that something is wrong, or that something needs to be done!
If this is what many of the rank-and-file of TEC are like, then it is no wonder they still have people like KJS and Bonnie Anderson in charge.
He’s near the heart of the beast in Connecticut. What should he do?
#7–Yes there are so many people who are still, even after all this, blind. They are still blinded by the neo-Gothic buildings, even if chunks are falling off here and there. They are blinded by the elaborate vestments, which seem to become more gaudy with every passing year. They are blinded by all the “traditions,” even though they do not result in a holier manner of living.
That’s all they can see and so they just assume nothing has changed. But my question is, where is the Holy Spirit? Can they not feel He is gone, that all that remains now is Ceremony, without any Power? They do not know they are “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” (II Timothy 3:5)