episcopal church and george rives and schism and bonnie prince charlie

The purpose of this essay is to do two things. First, I want to argue that the schism in the Episcopal Church will probably be much worse than that of other denominations (the Presbyterians, for example) and second, I want to propose a way that more liberal or inclusive Episcopalians can try to frame the debate so as to minimize the fallout.

Bodies on the Floor...

A few weeks ago I was talking to some friends about the growth and decline of law firms in the Portland area. We contrasted the life and work of George Rives, whose oral history I conducted, in his humane building of the regional powerhouse Stoel Rives with the work of nameless (to this essay) other individuals who built their firms by, figuratively speaking, leaving bodies all over the place. I am afraid that after this battle in the Episcopal Church is over there will be more bodies on the ground than after Bonnie Prince Charlie's abortive rebellion in 1746. The principal reason for this assessment is the the pride of current Anglicanism: its worldwide nature. Indeed, all Churches strive for a successful worldwide witness, in order to instantiate the belief that they are the body of Christ, but the Anglicans have done so rather more successfully than most. But this pride is also their vulnerability because it is precisely in these former British colonies, where the Church was planted in the 18th and 19th centuries, that the conservative revolt is most pronounced. Indeed, to use a phrase from the popular culture of the 1980s, the Empire now is striking back.

Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold (I know his name without looking it up, because we pray for him by name weekly in our worship service. It sounds as if he needs a lot of it these days..) has characterized the religious zeal of these Churches as reflective of the zeal which sometimes grabs new converts, a kind of "black and white" view of the world that confines all deviants from their approach as deserving of residency in the outer darkness. That may be true, but it is a rather irrelevant comment. One of the things that effusive youth or new converts have no hesitation in doing is to jettison their parents along with their parents' perceived tepid faith.

In any case, the growing edge of the Church is in the "South"--Africa primarily, which has not yet been labeled the "axis of evil" by the Bush Administration, even though an ever-larger portion of the world seems to fit that description for the Adminstration. While numbers can be ignored for quite some time, they will not be able to be ignored too much longer. Indeed, because the conservative Anglicans from Africa have made an alliance with some dissident American Episcopalians, that alliance will become all the stronger. What the conservative American Episcopalians don't fully appreciate yet, however, is that they, too, will be cast into the outer darkness, or at least a distant penumbra, by the Africans when the Africans wake up to the fact of how acculturated even the most conservative American churches are to the goods and life of America.

A Reason for Some Hope

Actually, there are two reasons I have for some hope in the midst of this most serious crisis for the Episcopalians in their history. The first arises from history and the second from theology. Historically speaking, the English Civil War of the 1650s, despite claiming the head of a king in the process (January 1649) was arguably not as severe, long-lasting or devastating as the religious wars that rocked Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The major reason for this was the decision of Elizabeth I and her advisors to try to establish an English Church not so much on the basis of creed as on liturgy (the Book of Common Prayer). Thus, it is hard-wired into the souls of many Episcopalians/Anglicans that the essence of the Gospel is found more in a style of worship and service than in a creedal affirmation. This is a hopeful thing.

This historical realization, then, can provide the basis for a theological challenge to the exclusivity and "black v. white" framing of the debate by the African bishops and their American sympathizers. The point is that more liberal Anglicans, and even conservative Anglicans with an inclusive ecclesiology, can try to reframe the debate on the nature of the church. When I was in seminary, and subsequently when I was a pastor, I became aware that a theme throughout the history of the church was how one conceived of the church as a corporate body. Was it chiefly a body held together by a creedal affirmation or was it primarily united by its communitarian nature? Certainly those who say that the church should focus on certain doctrines would embrace the church as community of the faithful, and vice-versa, but the debate should be over which of the two models (church as creedal institution or church as community) should be the better one for our day. Perhaps one could argue that in the African context, where Christianity is often in what seems to be a life and death struggle with Islam, Christianity ought to take on more of a "fighting faith," a faith which must be uncompromising with the world, flesh and devil perceived to exist in its midst. But, on the other hand, the American Church is fighting struggles that can't so easily be framed in black and white terms (and least by most people). The question is whether this kind of approach, a universal Gospel which has different strategies of proclamation or exemplification, can be engagingly presented when the two (or more) sides meet.

For the future of the Anglican/Episcopal church, I hope that each side has its most winsome spokespeople.

A Final Irony

I can't help but notice, however, that in the final analysis the issue that gave rise to the controversy, so to speak, was sexual expression. Nature, in the last analysis, may triumph over grace. Maybe that is the way our earthly pilgrimage is destined to be...

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