Visiting the Churches in My Home Town . . . 

THE EPISCOPALIANS: RICH IN TRADITION 

       (This is the first of several installments of my report on visiting all the churches in my home city of Denton, Texas. I am not only visiting each denomination but each congregation of every denomination, My reason for doing this is mostly personal in that I sense a responsibility to be better informed firsthand on what other churches are doing and to worship with believers of diverse persuasions. So far I have visited 39 churches of 17 denominations and plan to complete my mission in a few more months. While these have all been Sunday visits (except the Seventh Day Adventist!), I always attend a Church of Christ also, either my own congregation or another one that meets at an earlier hour. Taking advantage of varying hours and by an occasional Sunday night visit, I have sometimes attended three churches in one day. In this extended series I hope to share with my readers the incredibly enriching experience I have had and continue to have.) 

There are two congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States in my home town, the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church and the St. David of Wales Episcopal Church. The names are reflective of the rich tradition of this denomination. Barnabas was of course the companion of the apostle Paul, while David of Wales was a martyr of the faith a few centuries later.

Historians usually date the origin of the Anglican church with the expulsion of Henry VIII from the Roman church in 1533 when he divorced Catherine of Arogan because she bore him no male heir and married Anne Boleyn, whom he later beheaded as he did other of his wives. Once hailed as "Defender of the Faith" by the pope because of his opposition to Luther, Henry now rejected the papacy and declared himself head of the Church of England. But the Episcopalians do not trace their beginnings to the ugly story of Henry VIII, for they find bishops all the way back to 314 A.D. when missionaries from Gaul brought the gospel to the British Isles. They note that resistance to the papacy in England began long before Henry. Moreover, they believe that their faith, including the holy orders of the clergy, has a continuous and unbroken existence back to Christ and the apostles.

There are some 67 million Episcopalians around the world, plus 88 non-Anglican dioceses with whom they are in communion, such as the Old Catholic churches of Europe (but not Roman), the Syrian Church in India, Philippine Independent Church, as well as churches in Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are also in partial communion with churches behind the Iron Curtain. Where they are the strongest they are known as the Church of England, Church of Wales, Church of Scotland, Church of Canada. These all have primates known as the Archbishop. Only the Church of the United States, which dates back to 1784, has no Archbishop, which is probably due to colonial America's suspicion of ecclesiastical authority. The head man in the United States is called the Presiding Bishop. He heads what is called the General Convention, which consists of two bodies, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies.

If Episcopal government is similar to the United States government, there is a reason. Some of the founding fathers who created the U.S. Constitution were Anglicans who also created the government of their church, and you notice the dates are about the same. The Episcopal Church is both constitutional and democratic, and thus one of the freest denominations in America. The House of Deputies is made up of clergy and laity elected by their dioceses. Each parish (local congregation) elects its own representatives, called the vestry, which is responsible for all the corporate affairs and for carrying out the laws of the church. Where there are as many as six parishes there can be a diocese, ruled over by a bishop. But it is the vestry, in consultation with the bishop, that calls the rector (pastor) to serve the congregation. Besides the bishop, each diocese is also run by a convention composed of the clergy of the diocese and lay people elected by the parishes.

The role of the laity is pronounced in the Episcopal Church, as its polity would suggest. After all, 99% of all Episcopalians are lay people who are expected to share extensively in the affairs of the church. This is evident in their worship. The sermons I heard in the two churches in Denton were very short, six to eight minutes, while the bulk of the service was the worship of the people. They insist that they are not an "audience" of spectators gathered to hear a lecture, but the Body of Christ at worship. And so there are readings, hymns, confessions, prayers, and responses involving the assembled Body.

Their sanctuaries, which they consider holy because of the altar on which Holy Eucharist is served every Sunday, have kneelers in the pews on which the people kneel during prayers. And they genuflect to the altar as they enter and leave the pew on which they are seated. An Episcopal edifice is as a rule rather elegant. This is because they consider it dedicated to God as a thing of beauty and holiness.

Being a liturgical church, which means that it follows a prescribed ritual of public worship, the Episcopal church may be seen as weak in doctrine, but when one studies its teaching he sees that it is strong in dogma. Take this statement on the meaning of the gospel, which is taken from a booklet entitled The Episcopal Church: Essential Facts.

The Good News is that God is the Lord of all life; that although sinful humanity cannot earn or deserve God's love, his love is freely given; that the company of forgiven people, living together as the Church, form a community in which they, and others who join with them, receive new life and power; that in Jesus Christ, God has raised humanity's distorted nature to what it was intended to be, so that insofar as any person lives in Christ he is freed from the slavery of sin and is assured of the Kingdom of God.

The same booklet describes baptism as "into the Body of Christ," and while they baptize people of all ages and by sprinkling they will baptize by immersion upon request. One Episcopal priest kindly told a Church of Christ parent that he understood her position and that he would gladly immerse her children when they became 'of age." A member at St. David's, once a member of the Christian Church, told me the rector there is agreeable to immersion. Equally noteworthy is that the Episcopalians accept the baptism of any other Christian church, and they do not believe in rebaptism. They believe in "one baptism for the remission of sins,  and once performed it need not be repeated.

The Rite of Confirmation recognizes that the child is now old enough to be received as a responsible member of the fellowship. The child "was joined to" the church (1,ecause of his parent's commitment) when baptized, but "joins" on his own accord when he undergoes Confirmation. He then partakes of his First Communion.

While the Roman church has seven sacraments, the Episcopal has but two, Baptism and Communion. Communion, also called the Holy Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist, or even the Mass in "High Church" congregations, is described in the Catechism as "the continual remembrance of his life, death, and resurrection, until his coming again." While most churches make preaching central and celebrate Communion only occasionally, the Episcopal church emphasizes the Supper to the point that a Sunday service may be described as "The Holy Eucharist," with the entire service built around it, and no preaching. Other Sunday services that include a sermon and readings from the Scriptures are called "The Ministry of the Word" and will not have Communion. But every Episcopal church will celebrate the Lord's Supper in at least one service each Sunday, as well as other occasions.

The difference between "High Church," which is more descriptive of St. Barnabas, and "Low Church," which better describes St. David's, and this distinction holds true throughout Anglicanism, is a matter of emphasis put on ritual. "Low Church" seeks to avoid the elaborate ritual of the Roman church. The Episcopal Church of Ireland, for instance, is traditionally "Low" because of its anti-Roman attitude, while "High" churches in England and the United States may appear indistinguishable from a Roman Catholic service. But all Episcopal churches reject the papacy and are not in fellowship with the Roman church.

The Episcopal service follows the Church Year, which is divided into Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost. So, if you had a 1987 calendar and knew that Epiphany (celebrating the manifestation of Christ to Gentiles in form of the Magi) came on January 6, and I told you I visited St. Barnabas on "The Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany" (which appeared on the Order of Worship), you could figure I was there on March 1, 1987. And my presence at St. David's on "The Fourth Sunday in Advent" would be the Sunday before Christmas.

I might mention in passing that at my own Church of Christ here in Denton we now celebrate the four Sundays of Advent by lighting candles. We have four candles in a decorated tray. On the First Sunday of Advent (four Sundays before Christmas) a child lights the first candle. The next Sunday a child lights two candles and so on until the fourth Sunday, the Lord's day before Christmas, when all four candles are lighted and burn during our service, representing the Light that came into the world when Christ was born. We may well be the only Church of Christ in the world that follows the Church Year in this way. It is a transformation for us, for we were once so informal that I described our congregation as a "non-church church." The coming of a new minister made the difference. We are now a "High Church" Church of Christ! The Episcopalians tell me that that is what determines "High" and "Low" - the kind of pastor you have!

There is no way to understand the Anglican faith apart from The Book of Common Prayer (first American edition, 1789), that goes back to the First Book of Common Prayer in England in 1549. Its 1,001 pages deal with "Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church," and includes the Daily Office (morning and evening prayers), the Great Litany (to be said or sung before the Eucharist), the Collects (prayers for Holy Days), Liturgies (for Special Days), and ceremonies for baptism, the Supper, Pastoral Offices (such as Confirmation, Marriage, Death, Burial), Episcopal Services (such as ordination of bishop or priest). It also includes all the Psalms, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed (the only creeds accepted by Anglicans). Along with a hymnal a copy is in every pew. It is a guide for private and public worship. At the St. Barnabas service it was turned to by the worshippers nine times, at St. David's eleven times. Beside the Bible itself, it must be the most spiritual, devotional book ever written, one reason being its extensive use of Scripture.

It also contains An Outline of the Faith, commonly called the Catechism, which is studied in preparation for Confirmation. It is such a rich source of doctrinal instruction that it could be studied with great profit by all churches. The sections on Human Nature and Sin and Redemption reflect not the slightest tinge of Calvinism. "Sin is seeking our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation," it reads. Baptism is described as the sacrament "by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body." The Holy Spirit is described as the Lord who enables us to grow in the likeness of Christ, and in answer to "How do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit?," the answer is "We recognize truths taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures."

On the nature of the church the Catechism reads, "The Church is one, because it is one Body, under one Head, our Lord Jesus Christ," and "The Church is the community of the New Covenant." At St. David's there was prayer for the universal church of Jesus Christ.

I am especially impressed with the Catechism's description of the church as "the community of the New Covenant." Other references indicate that the Episcopalians, unlike many of the rest of us, understand what the Old and New Covenants are. After identifying a covenant with God as a relationship initiated by God, to which a body of people responds in faith, it goes on to ask: 

Q.  What is the Old Covenant?

A.  The Old Covenant is the one given by God to the Hebrew people.

Q.  What is the New Covenant?

A.  The New Covenant is the new relationship with God, given by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to the apostles: and, through them, to all who believe in him. 

The Churches of Christ/Christian Churches would do well to consult The Book of Common Prayer on this score, for we have been misled by the idea that the New Covenant is the whole of the New Testament. This has led us to the damaging conclusion that unity and fellowship are predicated upon a correct understanding of and obedience to everything written in the New Testament. Once we see that we unite with other Christians on the basis of a new relationship with Jesus Christ (the New Covenant), we will no longer suppose that we have to see everything in the New Testament alike before we can enjoy fellowship with one another. We even make such issues as speaking in tongues, the millennium, and instrumental music a test of being true to the New Covenant.

That the Episcopalians understand that a covenant, Old or New, is something far different from the writings of the Bible may be one reason that they get along with each other better than we do. Having to see all the questions and issues alike in order to be "faithful" is a hard way to live. Notice how The Book of Common Prayer nails this point down: 

Q.  What is the New Testament?

A.  The New Testament consists of books written by the people of the New Covenant, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to set forth the life and teachings of Jesus and to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom for all people. 

I marvel to see this weighty truth so clearly defined in a prayer book. What is the New Covenant? It is the new relationship in Christ. What is the New Testament? It is a book or documents written by the people of the New Covenant. While we have blindly supposed that the New Covenant is made up of books, the Anglicans fathers understood centuries ago that the New Covenant is made up of people. The people of the New Covenant wrote the books of the New Testament! That says what, this journal has tried to say for decades: the New Testament did not produce the church (the people of the New Covenant), but the church produced the New Testament. That means that believers were united in Christ and enjoyed the fellowship of a covenant relationship with Christ long before there was what we call the New Testament. Then how can we make the New Testament (or our interpretation of the New Testament) the basis of fellowship?

This is enough to show that we have things to learn from the Episcopalians, and it may help to explain why so many of our people through the generations have found a comfortable home among them, including some from Alexander Campbell's own family. They can teach us how to draw upon the rich traditions of the church through the centuries. We can learn from their emphasis upon the great truth of the ancient creeds: that the church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. We can learn much from them on the meaning and practice of corporate, devotional worship and the use of devotional literature. They can teach us how to use the Psalms in worship, which are used in abundance in every service, and the use of responsive readings, creedal confessions, and mutual sharing. And they can teach us, a sitting church, how to kneel before the God of heaven in prayer. The Episcopalians take the Lord's Supper on their knees! And they can teach us and all sermon-oriented churches how to talk less and worship more and with deeper devotion.

And they can teach us how to be theologically tough (as you see in The Book of Common Prayer) without being sectarian. When they serve Holy Communion they invite "all those who have been baptized" to join them.

While they are ecumenical, they have a serious problem in working toward a world-wide fellowship of all believers, which is their doctrine of the apostolic succession of ministry. When I visited with the late William Barclay in Glasgow, Scotland some years ago he told me of the unity talks his own Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) was then having with the Anglicans. "We can talk out things like baptism, but we have reached an impasse on the ministry," he told me. Then he added, "They do not consider me a duly ordained minister of the gospel."

That illustrates how we all have our hangups. But the Episcopalians realize that too, or at least they can joke about it. When the rector learned that I was visiting and studying all the churches in Denton, he joked, "If you are looking for the true church, you are not likely to find it.''

But I had an answer for that: "What do you mean? I've been in the true church all my life!"

I can say that and joke and I can say it and not joke. All of us who have been baptized into Christ are in the true church, the one the Episcopalians talk about when they read the Nicene Creed: We believe in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

That is the one true church. But I am not saying that is the "Church of Christ" denomination that I belong to or the "Episcopal Church" that the rector belongs to. But we both might belong to the Body of Christ beyond our denominational affiliation.

The Lord knows those that are his! -the Editor