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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: I'm The Doctor, almost
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Dumbledore wannabe
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# 9310
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Posted
Sorry I've been away so long. Been writing my PhD. My moderator gave me the topic of trying to explain "why is the u.s. Episcopal church so odd?" As it's in 19th century American church history, I focused on the balance of lay and episcopal authority and polity in several cases of the Trial of Bishops.
Half way through, my first moderator was forced into retirement. I then finished the dissertation 2 months ago and turned it in. Then I was told my new moderator had a bad accident and was no longer able to work. My life always attracting such drama, I now have a third moderator who is nominal. Defense in two months. Enough context. Now the problem.
My 2nd moderator never had a chance to read my conclusion. I'd be grateful for your thoughts. I concluded that the reason the u.s. Episcopal church is so out of step with the rest of the Anglican communion is our inclusion of the laity in authority - who decided whether or not to include the hierarchy in limited authority (not the other way around). This utilized a very American ethos of competition. We set up a bicameral, bifurcated system where two compete (oversimplification lest this post become a dissertation!). There is competition between the local diocese and the federal denomination, and a type of competitive authority between republican democracy and the traditional hierarchy. A blending of two systems.
That's my theory, at least.
But I'm curious what you would say in trying to answer the initial question "what makes the episcopal church so odd (different)?"
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
Including the laity in positions of authority isn't automatically a recipe for whatever oddities the US Episcopalians have: otherwise, you'd expect churches in the congregational traditions to be equally odd. (And my impression is that laity tend to be more conservative than clergy in most Anglican churches.) Also, while the US Episcopalians are maybe at one end of a continuum within Anglicanism, I don't believe there's a sharp divide ... my impression is that Canada and Scotland at least tend in the same direction.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
It's an interesting position. If you believe that authority should be a representative of God though the archetype of Authority - then it's quite heretical. Creation is not democratic. It almost says that - we don't trust human authority to be truly representative, so we'll each of us do it ourselves. I guess it's better than a non-representative authority, but the question remains - is it representative at all? If there is Divine Authority and a divine heirarchy, then that should ideally be reflected in some form of structure or institution. I can't quite believe I'm arguing form this pov, not being very trusting of human institutions because of the way they bolster petty egos/demigods and rules "for everyone's best interest", but your question makes the predicament quite clear.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
The US Episcopal Church is different because the US is different. The US was founded on the principle of not accepting birth as the automatic key to the right to rule (although, given the Kennedys and the Bushes, that principle may be a bit shopworn!)
The New England idea of the town meeting was supposed to give everyone the chance to have a say, and that attitude coloured the way the church was/is managed -everyone has the right to express an opinion that should be considered.
This has gone off the rails with the Tea Party, and similar groups, in politics, because "the right to express an opinion" doesn't mean that such an opinion MUST be the automatic choice for everyone else, which is not accepted by said Tea Party, etc. "Their" opinion is supposed to trump anyone else's.
Most churches in other countries are followed by people who accept that a government is supposed to force issues. They see the US as "different" and it is.
Hence, in the US, voting is a significant part of church management. If the people of New Hampshire vote for an openly-gay bishop, that is accepted by the rest of the country as their right to hold a vote and live with it. Similarly, the election of Bishop Schori was seen as the must-live-with decision of a voting process. Decisions on acceptance or not of GLBTs or SSM or OoW are, similarly, open to acceptance or not by the individual churches.
Most other countries have bishops imposed on them by an inaccessible choice-making process, and other decisions tend to be imposed rather than chosen.
Canada is inclined in the direction of the US for obvious proximity reasons, but is cautious about "being too American" for the same reasons.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
I don't think it's inclusion of the laity.
As Dafyd said, in most cases, the laity are more conservative than the clergy. Besides, any major change has to pass both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. The House of Deputies contains a provision for a vote by orders which means that a resolution must be approved by a majority vote of both the lay delegates and clergy delegates.
This isn't to say that rouse of lay empowerment doesn't cause problems just not ones that are theological. Rather, the problem comes with organization. Trying to include the laity equally at every level makes church governance inefficient and ineffective. The Task force to Reimagine the Episcopal Church (TREC) is trying to correct the problem. The assumption is that lay people represent lay people better than clergy. I think this assumption is false. The average lay person in Michigan would feel better represented by their bishop who they sometimes see and played a roll in electing over another lay person from New York they don't know from Adam. Also, lay participation at the national levels is provided by those who have the time and resources to be able to attend commission meetings. TREC proposes giving the PB more power and eliminating all but one Standing Commission. As far it goes, I think that's a wise decision. The real way to involve the laity would be through empowering the provinces and deaneries.
But that's not what you were asking...
Why is TEC different?
Again, Dafyd is correct that TEC isn't as much of an outlier as you believe. TEC has just gone further than any other province so far. Why is that? Well, we aren't a commonwealth nation and have no real historical connection to the rest of the Anglican Communion. Most Episcopalians aren't sure what the Anglican Communion is and could care less if we are a part of it or not. Geography is also part of it for obvious reasons. As much as theological liberals would hate to admit it, a form of American exceptionalism plays a roll in it as well.
Another reason for TEC being an outlier to the extent it is has to do with our history. In TEC, the high church party became dominant by the 19th Century. Many in the high church movement embraced Tractarianism first and ritualism later. Their more moderate brothers wouldn't suppress them enough to satisfy the low church wing and the low church wing left. A hundred years later, after the ordination of women and the 1979 BCP, more conservatives left. So, in a hundred year period, conservatives on the high and low end of the candle left TEC. Then, of course, more conservatives left after Gene Robinson and KJS. So, over the past hundred years, TEC has become relatively monolithic and liberal. In our monolithic liberalism, we are different from the other provinces in the Anglican Communion.
That's my hypothesis...
I may be wrong but I'm not writing a dissertation. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
[ 15. September 2014, 16:04: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
If the laity has more say than in most Anglican churches, then could the perceived differences be something to do with the typical demographic of the laity?
I am not so familiar with the U.S. Episcopal Church, but here in Scotland the Episcopal Church is usually seen as 'posh'.* In other words, the laity is (stereo)typically well-educated and upper-middle class, largely conservative in politics but socially and theologically liberal.
*Whether or not this is borne out by statistics, I do not know.
[ 15. September 2014, 16:55: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Overall, TEC is posh. What counts as posh in Manhattan is different than posh in the rural Midwest but TEC has a reputation for being posh even if posh is hardly ever used in the United States. The rich lay people who attend General Convention usually aren't conservative. Even the political conservatives who are members of TEC are usually moderate by community standards. We are still the church home of the Country Club Republicans.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Dumbledore wannabe
I think you may be out of luck here. We have a general guideline about "homework" threads (i.e. threads for which the OPer indicates clearly that the answers may be helpful for some test, thesis, exam etc, which they are taking. They aren't allowed here, since they are not primarily about serious discussion.
And the straighforward interpretation of your Op is that you are indeed fishing for ideas to help you complete your PhD.
So I'm closing the thread pro tem. Please feel free to PM me if your intentions were different and, if so, consider drafting a more general OP.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
[ 15. September 2014, 17:56: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I'm glad to say that Dumbledore wannabe has messaged me with the news that the thesis is complete and submitted. So I'm happy to reopen the thread for discussion.
If Shipmates' brawny and brainy responses help him sharpen up for his viva (always supposing there will be one), that strikes me as OK in these circumstances. At any rate, I'm more than happy to extend that bit of goodwill. It's an interesting topic in any case.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
I'm curious - so would discussing it with your mates in the pub be plagiarism? When does discussion with other people cease to be reasonable and start to be against the rules of thesis writing?
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Overall, TEC is posh. What counts as posh in Manhattan is different than posh in the rural Midwest but TEC has a reputation for being posh even if posh is hardly ever used in the United States. The rich lay people who attend General Convention usually aren't conservative. Even the political conservatives who are members of TEC are usually moderate by community standards. We are still the church home of the Country Club Republicans.
Was it Dorothy Parker who said that Methodist is not chic, Episcopalian is?
Back to the OP: if the divide you perceive is on lay participation, then the line is England to one side, the remainder of the communion to the other, rather than the line you have drawn. Bishops elsewhere are elected and there is a very strong lay presence in Synods, Standing Committees and other governing bodies. It is only in England that the appointed episcopate continues and springing from that is the reduced role of the laity in both general governance and day-to-day government.
The better distinction seems to me to be that noted above, namely that TEC is monolithically liberal in a way that no other constituent church is. Canada and NZ perhaps come closer than others. Here, the evangelical wing in Melbourne, for example, is much more liberal. Forward in Faith has very little influence in the catholic wing. But there is the strong conservatism in much of Sydney, and also in Armidale and NW Australia. Overall, not the uniformity that you see in TEC
[ 15. September 2014, 22:22: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The position of the clergy in the Episcopal church in America was weakened by the fact that during the period between the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury in 1784, there were no bishops in America. Anyone who wanted to be priested had to travel to England, which was expensive.
The result was a serious shortage of priests, which led to laypeople fulfilling duties which were carried out by the clergy in England.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
THAT explains everything.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
There is that for the US, and for Australia, Canada (NZ to a lesser extent) and much of Africa there is the sparse population. Before cars and half-decent roads came along, parish visits by a bishop were necessarily rare. Even in a parish, a local rector could be hard pushed to visit each church over a month. Thus the tradition of lay involvement lies much more deeply in these parts of the Communion than in England.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Well, we aren't a commonwealth nation and have no real historical connection to the rest of the Anglican Communion. Most Episcopalians aren't sure what the Anglican Communion is and could care less if we are a part of it or not.
I think this is the main reason. In former British colonies/Commonwealth countries the Anglican church was dominant, in a way that it never was in the US, which was founded by a sizable chunk of religious minorities who left Europe after being bullied by the likes of the CofE and RCC. There was always plurality in US Christianity from the start. Therefore those with particular evangelical tendencies had lots of choice and left to join/start other denominations rather than to express that within TEC.
Add this to the fact that English-descended Americans tended to be more well-off and better educated, which has remained largely the case to this day. Education levels are correlated with liberal values and less religious adherence.
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Dumbledore wannabe
Shipmate
# 9310
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Posted
Yes, I'm finding it hard to let go of my baby! I know many others now have more involvement in church governance and elections, but I posit that the u.s. Church was the first. Laity deciding whether or not to include bishops (after so long without them) - not bishops deciding whether to share authority with the laity. Unique - but now shared by other churches.
Having put forward the thesis and it's historical roots (William white etc), I'm just undecided as to whether it actually works well. I like the theory of blending the historical episcopate with American republican democracy. But, my own experience (perhaps unique) is that our parish elects vestry members - but they want my recommendation because they think I know more about the individual candidates. Then, those people elect delegates to diocesan convention. I go with the delegates to the cathedral and they both invariably ask me "who should we vote for?" (Hierarchy over democracy). Bifurcated authority is great in theory but doesn't always work in practice. Yet, I don't believe we should revert to hierarchical despotism ( however benign). Canonical conundrum.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Could you give some examples from history of how the power of the laity relative to other provinces in the Anglican Communion made a difference in TEC's history? Honestly, I can't think of any but I didn't write a dissertation the subject either. My knowledge of TEC history apart from my own experience comes from two seminary classes and subsequent reading. So, it is hardly exhaustive.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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DangerousDeacon
Shipmate
# 10582
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Posted
Possibly the TEC was the first to have significant Lay leadership. In Australia we initially used the model of the Established CofE - it was not until the middle of the 19th Century that it was established as a legal point that the CofE in the colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) was NOT established.
Once it was clear we were not established, then we started to form models of governance which were clearly Synodical and had significant lay leadership. But in this we were probably a century behind TEC.
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'All the same, it may be that I am wrong; what I take for gold and diamonds may be only a little copper and glass.'
Posts: 506 | From: Top End | Registered: Oct 2005
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[...] The better distinction seems to me to be that noted above, namely that TEC is monolithically liberal in a way that no other constituent church is. [...]
Monolithically progressive might be a better term.
"Liberal" of course means different things to different people, but, as John Shelby Spong will testify, TEC isn't theologically liberal in the Tillich sense, or liberal in a limited government sense. (It advocates gun control on a scale Dianne Feinstein wouldn't dare to dream of.)
TEC's combination of egalitarianism with moderate theology and big government fits best into the American progressive movement.
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
There is that for the US, and for Australia, Canada (NZ to a lesser extent) and much of Africa there is the sparse population. Before cars and half-decent roads came along, parish visits by a bishop were necessarily rare. Even in a parish, a local rector could be hard pushed to visit each church over a month. Thus the tradition of lay involvement lies much more deeply in these parts of the Communion than in England.
NZ and "lesser extent" do not belong in the same sentence!
That said, the hubris of the kiwi church can be exhausting ... a sort of "anything different you can do we can do differenter." But I suspect the reason for that in this province is that we are so unimportant it makes us think we're cutting edge.
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
D W, the canons in Sydney, and much the same elsewhere in Australia, require an annual general meeting of a parish. That meeting elects wardens, a parish council, synod representatives and nominators. In our parish, the rector chairs the meeting and very sensibly does not say anything for or against any candidate.
Byron, you are right about terminology if you're talking in terms of a history of theological thought in the nineteenth century. Language has changed since then and I was using the word in its present day meaning.
Zappa, a bit of a sop to our NZ friends, I know. Much like Tasmania in geography and used be in churchmanship as well. But the Tasmaniacs have stayed in eighteenth century England, while much of NZ inhaled in the 60s and hasn't got round to exhaling yet.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Gee D:
D W, the canons in Sydney, and much the same elsewhere in Australia, require an annual general meeting of a parish. That meeting elects wardens, a parish council, synod representatives and nominators. In our parish, the rector chairs the meeting and very sensibly does not say anything for or against any candidate.
The canons aren't very different in TEC. One annual parish meeting elects new members to vestry and representatives to diocesan council. Often the nominees run unopposed. Everybody who wants to serve on vestry will get their chance to serve on vestry. Finding delegates to diocesan convention is like pulling teeth. At diocesan convention, lay delegates ask my opinion about the nominees for diocesan committees and delegates to provincial synod and General Convention because they don't know the people running. Lay people filling those positions usually live in or around the city where the diocesan offices are located. The makeup hardly reflects the whole diocese.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I'm curious - so would discussing it with your mates in the pub be plagiarism? When does discussion with other people cease to be reasonable and start to be against the rules of thesis writing?
That's not the point of the "homework" rule. "Homework OPs" aren't a request for a serious discussion, they are using the discussion forum to obtain RL help with a task. Part of the ethos of Purgatory is that it is not intended as a source of RL individual advice.
Feel free to open a discussion in the Styx if you like. I'm just following a longstanding policy line here.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[...] Byron, you are right about terminology if you're talking in terms of a history of theological thought in the nineteenth century. Language has changed since then and I was using the word in its present day meaning. [...]
Oh, I've no problem with it (why I acknowledged the different meaning's of "liberal" in my post), just wanted to explore the complexity of the label. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Dumbledore wannabe
Shipmate
# 9310
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Posted
Getting back to the original idea, do you believe the American ethos of competition made the episcopal church unique (even if others later copied it in their own ways)? Competition within religion makes me squirm, on one hand, because competition can easily turn to conflict if violence is introduced (19th century churchman ship battles). Even non-violent makes me squirm when * see candidates for b***oprics compete like politicians for the election (* prefer b***ops who ran from it rather than toward it).
Yet, competition drives us to progress rather than remain in grass huts. How do we keep healthy competition without conflict? Is it possible?
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Crap spouted by Dumbledore wannabe:
Getting back to the original idea, do you believe the American ethos of competition made the episcopal church unique (even if others later copied it in their own ways)? Competition within religion makes me squirm, on one hand, because competition can easily turn to conflict if violence is introduced (19th century churchman ship battles). Even non-violent makes me squirm when * see candidates for b***oprics compete like politicians for the election (* prefer b***ops who ran from it rather than toward it).
Yet, competition drives us to progress rather than remain in grass huts. How do we keep healthy competition without conflict? Is it possible?
Looking quickly at Wikipedia, with major 19th century industrialists being so prominent, it's easy to suppose that money opened doors and the laity were allowed to make decisions because of $$$ - and maybe that also brought in a strong whiff of Amarican capitalist ethos. * guess that the same happened to the early Christian church of Rome, but political power was the currency of the time. And in medieval Eurpoe, church, state and power went together. So my rather amateur and probably ignorant answer to your question would be that taking on the ideological trappings of capitalism (inc competition) is not very different from other ways the church has been institutionalised in the past - it's just that the State has been replaced by an ethos. Rather than providing a place where grand ceremony can be acted out, there is a tacit approval from God of the principles of finance and the stock exchange.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I never really thought of it as competition before - check and balance, more like, but maybe that's a form of competition. Having the House of Delegates along with the House of Bishops helps ensure that neither the hierarchy nor the laity will monopolize. And it's interesting too that it's not clergy v. laity, since priests and deacons are part of the House of Delegates.
A question about the OP, though. When you were given the question of why TEC is so "odd," what exactly did "odd" mean?
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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Dumbledore wannabe
Shipmate
# 9310
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Posted
Yes, I believe "checks & balances" is a type of competition. The real question is: what causes competition to turn into conflict? Is it violence? Is it lack of agreed rules? Ironic that this is playing out at GTS - a competition of authority (democracy vs hierarchy), and a competition between an older version of seminary training (conserving) vs a new version (liberal).
I regret that these church competitive dynamics keep turning to the secular state for ultimate power and authority. As soon as one party calls in the secular lawyers, church authority and balance is shattered. "Not in front of the neighbors, dear!"
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Dumbledore wannabe
Shipmate
# 9310
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Posted
To answer church geek, I believe my professor meant "odd" in the sense of "different". When others in the Anglican communion are baffled by the decisions and actions of TEC, he wanted a book that would explain "this is why we act differently, from an historical perspective".
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dumbledore wannabe:
... But I'm curious what you would say in trying to answer the initial question "what makes the episcopal church so odd (different)?"
I would say that question is so vague it is utterly meaningless.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dumbledore wannabe
Shipmate
# 9310
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Posted
As I've just submitted 500 pages on the topic, SM, that's a real bummer... Gee thanks.
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