Ship of Fools: TEC Rite I/1928 Low Church/Evangelical Parishes

Thread: TEC Rite I/1928 Low Church/Evangelical Parishes Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by jlav12 (# 17148) on :

Mirroring the Anglo-Catholic version below but what are the "flagships" of this group?

I can think of St. John's, Savannah and St. Andrew's, Fort Worth (although I think they went with Iker).

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

St Andrew's Fort Worth is indeed presently part of the Iker schism. Given that they are a relatively small congregation of rich folks who are undoubtedly attached to their building, I've little doubt they will be back in TEC if the schismatics lose their lawsuit. The Supreme Court of Texas has already heard oral arguments and should be producing a judgement by this June.

Are they a flagship? I'd find it hard to think so. They were always completely out of step with their Anglo-Catholic diocese, as far back as when it was all the Diocese of Dallas, and the Diocese of Fort Worth hadn't even been created yet.

I have been to Mass there two or three times. The first time I didn't know anything about the place and went to the 8:00 a.m. Holy Communion in their chapel. I'd truly never seen anything like it. No manual acts at all. I could easily have been in a UMC place that followed the traditional UMC liturgy for the Eucharist. On a later occasion I went to the 11:00 on a Sunday when they were having the Eucharist at that service time (fluctuates with Mattins, of course), strictly out of curiosity. The rector announced they would be having a tour of the stained glass windows for parishioners one night that week. What a dead place, I thought! This was many years ago, but their then rector was so informal in his style of celebrating Mass that I found it to verge on the sloppy. I've seen 1928 done in other low church contexts in an appropriately reverent way, but not at St Andrew's.

Posted by jlav12 (# 17148) on :

What would the TEC low church "flagships" be? I use this in quotations because I'm not sure if that's the best word but that's the word used in the other thread.

In my own diocese, we have an historical low church parish, St. Peter's, which uses Rite I and alternates between Morning Prayer and Holy Communion.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

Well, I think a flagship needs to have a decent sized congregation. For instance there are some historic Anglo-Catholic shrine churches that I wouldn't call flagships because they are too small or diminished these days and don't have any real outreach. This is the point with St Andrews in regard to being a low church flagship. It's too small and introverted to really be a flagship IMO. At one time I would have thought that St John's across from the White House would have qualified as a low church flagship, but I believe they are now quite MOTR. I really don't know -- it would have to be fairly large, viable parishes that have frequent choral mattins as the principal service and celebrate the Eucharist in surplice and stole.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I really don't know -- it would have to be fairly large, viable parishes that have frequent choral mattins as the principal service and celebrate the Eucharist in surplice and stole.

That's MOTR around here!

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :

I would say the primary criteria here are that the parish use the 1928BCP, have Mattins as principal Sunday service, and have all of the distinguishing liturgical markers of low church Anglicanism. Such parishes are almost vanishingly rare in TEC these days. This would be more what you would find in the Reformed Episcopal Church, although even many parishes there have climbed the candle a bit (eucharistic vestments, mass as principal Sunday service, etc.).

St. John's (Savannah) is the only one I can think of offhand.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

But not in America.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

Just for the sake of discussion, where would Trinity Boston fall? Solid MOTR, with low church leanings? I'm not connected to that place at all. Based on my second- and third-hand information, it seems to be all over the radar.

Posted by jlav12 (# 17148) on :

What about a place like Grace in NYC? They have Choral Mattins alternating with Holy Communion, although they are Rite I.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

If they celebrate Mass vested in surplice, and have a decent sized congregation, I would think they exemplify this now vanishing style. I believe St Bart's on Park Avenue used to be quite low church, but that's all in the past now. It is a very residual style in TEC.

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

From PD's description, I'm always given to think that St Thomas, Fifth Ave was somewhere in this camp until it began to ascend the candle.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

I think that somewhat true, LQ, but St Thomas always did cathedral style liturgy, I think. It's just that it is higher church cathedral style now. They are also an example of a Rite I place that uses both some 1928 bits - the Prayer of Humble Access is the old version - as well as a few Anglo-Cathollic accretions.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

The original Low parish in NYC was St Stephen's, but it was followed by St George's and Calvary, all three of which had shot their bolt by 1900, though Calvary did have something of a revival under Sam Shoemaker in the 1930s and 40s.

Grace is perhaps the most reflective of the old MOTR-Low style today, but had always been liberalish.

St Bart's was Low and Liberal under Greer in the early 20th century, and stayed that way through most of that century until the 1979 BCP came in at which point it started creeping upwards.

If you go back far enough St Thmas, 5th Ave., was High and Dry, but unlike Trinity which went Tractarian, then mildly Anglo-Catholic, and finally Liberal Catholic, St Thomas, 5th Ave., stayed "Dry rather than High" and became Cathedral style. At times it was liberalish - i.e. +Pike was invited to be the Holy Week preacher after he went weird. AFAIK it has always been the sort of 'board up the back' place that was found in the more conservative English Cathedrals until the 1970s. It has also gone up the candle in much the same way.

PD

[ 27. March 2013, 05:53: Message edited by: PD ]

Posted by Mr. Rob (# 5823) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jlav12:
Mirroring the Anglo-Catholic version below but what are the "flagships" of this group?

I can think of St. John's, Savannah and St. Andrew's, Fort Worth (although I think they went with Iker).

The low church "flagships" are now all gone, except for the survivals you mention. The adoption of the 1979 BCP put an end to most of it. Everything across the nation is MOTR and upwards where the size and financial resources of the venue allow any amount of liturgical elaboration.

*

Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on :

How come nobody's mentioned Trinity Church Boston? It's always been famously low church, (still is to some degree) and they do Rite I morning prayer with monthly communion at the 11:15 service. They are a pretty liberal parish, but I don't know if that fits in the equation.

Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on :

And they still do try and maintain a pretty classically open Evangelical preaching tradition that attempts to engage the whole city.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

I think what may have put folks off is that the 'evangelical' epithet in the thread title. Since the time of Phillips Brooks Trinity, Boston, has very largely been the archetype Low and Liberal episcopal parish. I guess a lot of us do not connect Low Church (Evangelical) with Trinity, Boston.

Virginia should have a bit flagship Low Church parish, but it does not, though there are some big MOTR-Low parishes like St. Paul's, Richmond. I suspect that it because the lack of churchmanship issues meant that parishes developed as "much of a muchness" so the atmosphere for shrines to develop was absent.

I am trying to figure out which parish was the old Low Church shrine in Philadelphia. The churches I know of in that next of the woods are all of that other persuasion though historically the diocese was low-broad having been Evangelical under Potter and Stevens back in the mid-19th century.

PD

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The original Low parish in NYC was St Stephen's, but it was followed by St George's and Calvary, all three of which had shot their bolt by 1900, though Calvary did have something of a revival under Sam Shoemaker in the 1930s and 40s.

Grace is perhaps the most reflective of the old MOTR-Low style today, but had always been liberalish.

St Bart's was Low and Liberal under Greer in the early 20th century, and stayed that way through most of that century until the 1979 BCP came in at which point it started creeping upwards.

If you go back far enough St Thmas, 5th Ave., was High and Dry, but unlike Trinity which went Tractarian, then mildly Anglo-Catholic, and finally Liberal Catholic, St Thomas, 5th Ave., stayed "Dry rather than High" and became Cathedral style. At times it was liberalish - i.e. +Pike was invited to be the Holy Week preacher after he went weird. AFAIK it has always been the sort of 'board up the back' place that was found in the more conservative English Cathedrals until the 1970s. It has also gone up the candle in much the same way.

PD

I'm not sure you could describe St Thomas 5th Ave as high and dry anymore. They now use incense at the offertory, censing the altar, oblata, ministers, choir, and congregation. They elevate, have three sacred monsters vested respectively in chazzie, dalmatic, and tunicle, do a gospel procession (albeit somewhat restrained in style), commemorate the BVM in fairly florid language, and display a few other Anglo-Catholic accretions. It is indeed cathedral style, but the ceremonial hovers just on the border between High Church and Anglo-Catholic. The rector, after all, was sometime rector of Advent, Boston.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

No, it has not been "Dry" (it wasn't High) since, probably, the 1950s. The then rector took it towards the liberal side, then the chap who was ++Ramsey's chaplain (John Andrew?) started taking it higher. These days I would tend to call it 'Prayer Book Catholic' but it still has not crossed into spikiness, which is part of the charm, as NYC has no great lack of Spikey Churches.

PD

Posted by LA Dave (# 1397) on :

I agree with others that the adoption of the 1979 Prayer Book put paid to many of the low church flagships. In Grand Rapids, the classic low church flagship was Grace Church, home church of Jerry and Betty Ford and many other prominent local Episcopalians. The current rector is a former Nashota House faculty member and there is a definite up the candle feel to the place (as much as I can devine from the website).

In LA, I am not aware of any such flagships, though the very decentralization of the city means that the most prominent churches may be in the suburbs. All Saints Pasadena, the largest parish in the diocese, is very liberal MOTR, though it does have a great choir program.

Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PD:
Virginia should have a bit flagship Low Church parish, but it does not, though there are some big MOTR-Low parishes like St. Paul's, Richmond.

St Paul's is just odd. The last time I was there the service was advertised as 'Morning Prayer.' The ministers wore surplice and stole, the BCP didn't get a look in. There was a 'children's sermon' though of such buttock-clenching cringeworthiness I remember it to this day.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
St Paul's is just odd.

You can say that again. +Spong is their Holy Week preacher this year, and they seem to be quite delighted about it. I am sure some folks find him stimulating, but personally I find watching paint drying more interesting.

With very few exceptions outside of Virginia most Low parishes have been liberal since c.1900. Virginia was a bastion of what in the UK we would called Liberal Evangelicalism, a couple of generations back until the 1980s. Actually is not all that liberal, but neither is it fundamentalist, literalist, or Calvinist. However, Bishop Lee was around long enough to change the complexion of the diocese quite a lot.

PD

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
There was a 'children's sermon' though of such buttock-clenching cringeworthiness I remember it to this day.

Quotes file. (Though as a complete tangent, I may ask, is there any other kind of children's sermon?)

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

OK, so remind me - how does one get coffee out from between the keys of one's keyboard?

The typical Low Church parish out here in Snakebelly Land had communion at 8am and Morning Prayer at 10.30am thrice a month, and Communion once. Surplice and stole was worn for ev-er-y-thing! Back in 1960 there was only one chasuble parish in the whole of Arizona! (St Andrew's, Tucson, IIRC.)Even now "bag and stole" is common, and even in those parishes where the chasuble is used, dressing for dinner is the norm.

The funny part is that by the 1950s a lot of parishes had the six office lights, replacing the branched candlesticks of an earlier era, then added two for the Communion service. Eight candles on the altar at Communion and the celebrant in surplice and stole was very much a snakebelly land thing in the 1950s and 60s, but once the green, then zebra Books, and 1979 BCP began to gain ground things began to move higher. That was also the period when Heresy Hill started to replace ETS/EDS as the main seminary for the Diocese, though candidates from AZ still seem to scatter themselves around most of the Episcopal Divinity schools except for Nashotah. Anyone who has been to Nashotah is usually a "blow in."

PD

Posted by Try (# 4951) on :

A new Mystery Worship report has uncovered St. John's Cold Spring Harbor, which appears to fall into the low and liberal category. They have Morning Prayer as the principal service essentially every other Sunday, and that Morning Prayer is Rite I, as is their 8-AM Eucharist. The parish website makes a point of saying that "at the Eucharist, an alb is worn with stole"- thus implying that they do not use the chasuble.

Part of the problem with finding traditional evangelical Anglican churches in TEC is that that sort of churchpersonship is not just a vestige, it's a vestige of a vestige. By that I mean that the schism of the REC in the 1870s and ACNA in the 2000s have made evangelical Anglicanism a very uncommon theological position within TEC to start with. On top of that, since the 1970s Anglican evangelicals have been moving away from that type of service, and moving twords contemporary worship with praise band. Sometimes this service is a modern, Rite II liturgy and sometimes there is no trace of liturgy at all.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

Link to the report.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

I hit one of our MOTR-Low places a couple of weekend back, and to my great delight the pews were full. I also experienced a tremendous wave of nostalgia for that way of worship. I had forgotten how much I enjoy a straight BCP service with a minimum of fuss.

PD

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