Episcopal Identity, Part 2: Inclusive Theology
FROM THE RECTOR
Last week, I began a three-week series on our identity as Episcopalians by exploring the first thing that drew me into the church—our worship. I heard from several people who shared similar experiences of feeling a new connection with God when they first experienced the beauty and intentionality of worship in the Episcopal Church. This week, I want to build upon those experiences and explore how a commitment to worship in the Anglican tradition has shaped our theology in ways that have helped me know that I am at home in this church. Again, I hope you will share some of your own experiences with me.
I did not know it at the time, but that initial feeling that the Episcopal Church is a denomination that cares deeply about its worship is also a reflection of its commitment to inclusive theology or, to be more precise, its commitment to a theology that arises from and is reinforced by the unity of worship among its diverse members. Later on, I will discuss the historical reasons for that, but first I want to describe my own transformative experience of that unique approach to theology.
When I first started attending an Episcopal Church, I was overwhelmed by the sense that I mattered—that my words, my movements, my participation were an important part of what was being done in worship. Instead of spending ninety percent of the service as a passive observer, I was encouraged to bring my whole self and my best self into the presence of God and participate in that divine encounter in ways that changed my life. At the same time, however, I was also aware that my contributions were only a small part of something much bigger and that the experience I had of God’s presence was only possible because of the worshipping community that had gathered.
In a strange way I had never known, Episcopal worship made me feel like my relationship with God was something I could not experience unless it was both deeply personal and profoundly communal. I am sure that the Episcopal Church is not the only tradition where that duality is emphasized, but this is the place where I understood it for the first time. Looking back, I think that the fact that our church expresses its theology primarily through worship allowed me to experience that truth even before I was aware of it.
Perhaps a story from my early days in the Episcopal Church will express that more clearly. I remember feeling confused when I asked a priest what the Episcopal Church believed about salvation. I was confused because he did not give me an answer but instead turned the question back around on me: “What do you think about salvation?” At first, I thought it was either a doctrinal test—an attempt to get me to say the wrong thing so that he would know how to correct it—or a pastoral response—a way of making me feel valued even if I were wrong—but it turned out that the priest wanted me to know that, regardless of what I felt about salvation, simply asking the question and searching for an answer within the community of faith meant that I was already on the right track.
I had grown up in the Methodist Church, which taught me that God loves all people and that those who choose to respond to that love by inviting Jesus into their hearts are saved, while those who reject that love are not. At that point, I had tried choosing to accept that love for almost two decades. I had an abiding sense that God loved me, but I was not sure that I had loved God back in the right way. Considering the eternal stakes involved, I found it terrifying to not know for sure whether I was saved, and I wanted someone with authority to help me obtain that certainty.
Instead of telling me what the Episcopal Church taught about how people are saved, that priest invited me to find my own confidence—my own faith—that God had already saved me. Although I ultimately found that confidence in an ecumenical camp setting (a topic for another article), it was the invitation to trust that God’s saving love was a gift I could receive in whatever way I received it that made the difference. Instead of trying to force-fit my experience of God into a model that did not quite make sense to me, the Episcopal Church allowed me to bring my understanding of God to the community and share it with others so that, through prayer and conversation, it could be gently shaped into a faith that I could give my whole self to—heart, mind, and body.
I still had a lot to learn about being a Christian, but I discovered that the Episcopal Church was a place where my experience of God mattered. Just as my participation in worship was encouraged as if I were an integral part of a much bigger whole, I found that my desire to be faithful was accepted as if I belonged at the table with Jesus. Our church is good at helping people know that no matter who they are or where they are on their spiritual journey they are beloved of God and welcome at God’s table, but that is more than a tagline for the priest to say during worship. It is also how we know what we believe.
Although it is an oversimplification of a complicated history, I like to think of the Episcopal Church as the fruit of what happens when leaders get tired of punishing disagreement and instead focus on celebrating unity. In the decade after the death of Henry VIII, the Church of England, our spiritual ancestor, experienced theological whiplash as the reigning monarch went from a thoroughly Protestant Edward VI (1547-53) to an ardently Catholic Mary I (1553-58) and back to a clearly Protestant yet clearly compromising Elizabeth I (1558-1603).
Instead of continuing a cycle of retribution against those who disagreed with her, Elizabeth sought and obtained a spiritual compromise for her people and for her own political security. Instead of demanding that the clergy and laity profess their allegiance to her version of Christianity, she simply insisted that they come together for worship, using the authorized liturgies contained in the Book of Common Prayer. As long as her subjects would go to church and say the appointed prayers, no one would ask them what they believed about Holy Communion, purgatory, or any of the other hot-button theological topics of the day.
Common prayer was enough to hold the people together even if they did not all have common beliefs, and it still is. In the Inquirers Class, we will not tell you what you are supposed to believe about what happens to the bread and wine during the Eucharist. In order to be an Episcopalian, you can believe whatever you would like about Communion, but, when you come to church, you will hear only those prayers that have been authorized. It does not matter whether I think the language about eucharistic sacrifice should be left out of the liturgy because it does not fully reflect our Protestant heritage. No individual—bishop, priest, deacon, warden, youth minister, organist, or seminary professor—has the authority to edit our liturgies to suit their needs. Instead, the church invites us to bring our needs to God through whatever liturgies have been approved and trust that who we are and what we believe will be shaped by the prayers we say together.
This prayer-first, dogma-second approach to church has helped us become a more fully welcoming and inclusive community. Instead of starting with strict doctrinal limits within which the faithful must live, we begin with a widely permissive liturgical structure, which values the experience of individuals and allows us to find our own place within the church, even and especially if we do not think like everyone else. “Don’t ask me where I stand,” an old Episcopal bumper sticker proclaimed, “ask me where I kneel.” If we can find a way to pray together, we believe that God can find a way to hold us together, and that basic understanding has allowed the Episcopal Church to broaden its theology without losing its tradition.
One of the Anglican tradition’s main gifts to the world is a commitment to common prayer that transcends doctrinal differences, but that does not mean that staying together is always easy. Next week, I will explore the third and final topic in this series—global community—as I seek to describe why I remain in the Episcopal Church and why I cannot imagine being a part of any other denomination.
Yours faithfully,
Evan D. Garner