The Road to Anglicanism
A Little Biographical Interlude
At some point along in my
young adulthood, I began to reflect on the “early church”—a common fixation for
those who grow discontent with the highly modern, consumerist elements of
American church life. We look wistfully back on a time when the Old Testament
inheritance was not just historically but culturally part of faith and life;
when scientific rationalism had not yet parsed everything into its vitiating spreadsheet;
when the Holy Spirit was dangerously active in the daily affairs of local
communities; when those who once sat at Christ’s feet were themselves the
shepherds and stewards of the Church that He established.
Such reflections led me
away from the predominantly academic realm and into the messy world of ecclesiology—that
is, out of my books and into the pews, so to speak. Specifically, I was looking
for two tangible realities that were largely missing from the faith communities
of my youth: 1.) A recognition of both the historical and liturgical elements
that one can trace back to the first century, and 2.) a genuine sense of the
Holy Spirit’s power and presence in the life and transformation of believers
(individually and corporately).
With respect to the first consideration, my theological
convictions made it all but impossible to entertain any of the churches broadly
categorized as “Reformed,” no matter how stoutly liturgical they might be. The
Episcopal Church was another group of semi-ornate enigmas, which my mind had
somehow classified among the largely secular denominations committed to fundraisers
and “civil rights,” offering little spiritual depth and no prescription for
personal transformation. I had only a vague awareness of Orthodoxy at the
time—perhaps as a kind of anthropological residue of impoverished peoples in
Eastern Europe. So the natural place to start seemed to be Roman
Catholicism—except, having been raised more or less to think of Catholicism as
a cult, I had plenty of reservations there as well. Still, I was willing to
look more closely at anything with legitimate historical credentials and
suspend my preconceptions.
With respect to the second
consideration, my hesitancy toward the abused term “charismatic” made my
investigation a little more cautious. I wasn’t looking for an artificial
psychological frenzy or an “emotional enema” (cf. Aldous Huxley), and I
especially wasn’t looking for a new set of perfunctory behavioral expectations
by which others could judge my legitimacy as a “true believer.” I read a few
measured and intelligent books by respected members of mainstream charismatic
movements and discovered some important observations and moving testimonies. I
couldn’t, in the end, agree with everything, but it was clear to me that an
intimacy with and humble reliance upon the Holy Spirit was essential. I had given
lip-service to the idea for most of my life, but I didn’t really understand
what I was looking for.
Following at times one
impulse and then the other, I made both short and protracted ventures into a
variety of local congregations over several years and locations. I hovered in
more familiar haunts from time to time, but mostly those stints functioned as transitions
to subsequent investigations. Sometime after I met my wife in 2004, we started
regularly attending a Catholic parish in Chanhassen, MN. Sara, by the way, was
raised as a faithful Catholic, albeit with a highly inclusive attitude toward
other Christian expressions. This Minnesota parish was a warm and friendly place
with thoughtful clergy, beautiful services, and many young families. Thus, in 2006,
when my daughter was born, I began to think about her baptism. I won’t stop
here to offer an explanation of how infant baptism became an important and
desirable aspect of Christianity for me. I am sure there are numerous,
intelligent explanations from all sorts of angles, but let it suffice for now to
say that it is a long-standing practice of the Church (consider the book of
Acts, for example). You can find it still today as an integral part the
sacramental life in both Catholic and Orthodox parishes, as well as many
traditional Protestant churches.
Around this time my wife and
I, with little Lillian in tow, moved to Milwaukee so I could start graduate
school. We showed up once or twice at the local Catholic parish and scheduled a
meeting to discuss the parameters of our participation there as I also
continued to weigh our next ecclesial steps. After a somewhat disappointing
conversation with a lay-minister, I finally got it through my thick skull that
if I wanted my daughter to be baptized as a Catholic I was implicitly (perhaps
explicitly) committing to raise her in the faith and practices of the Catholic
Church. And I finally realized (not sure why it took me so long) that I, too,
would be unable to participate fully in their sacramental life unless I
capitulated to the requirements of full membership. I was not ready for this,
nor (as it turned out) would I ever be ready. I can outline why this is the case elsewhere, but for
now, let me stick to the rough historical narrative.
For the next two years, Sara
and I spent time at three or four different local congregations. We at some
point, I think, had Lillian “dedicated” rather than baptized, which really just
kicked the sacramental can down the road. Believe it or not, we ended our time
in Milwaukee at a large Assemblies of God church, which was a bit emotive in
its Sunday morning tenor, but evinced some of the vibrancy and sincerity we had
ourselves lost in the exhaustion and isolation of parenthood and graduate
study. To abstract from the particular
circumstances a bit, the trend for a few years was plainly a kind of
vacillation between pursuing my historical/liturgical inclinations and
satisfying my more immediate, personal desire for intimacy with God himself,
all the while never forsaking my high expectations for theological depth,
philosophical coherence, and hermeneutical rigor. I started to lose hope that all
these things could exist together in a single parish let alone a whole
tradition.
That burgeoning despair was stiffly
curbed when we moved to Colorado.[1]
The Discovery of Classical Anglicanism in America
For our first several weeks
in Colorado, we extended our excursion through comfortably charismatic
congregations by attending the local Vineyard church. Many of my heroes in the
Evangelical philosophical world had found homes in Vineyard congregations, and
that was high praise in my mind. However, I had never lost the taste for real
liturgy and a sense of reverence. This church, like many others, was something
like a Starbucks and a movie theater, or perhaps a daycare attached to a
concert venue. Now that we had two kids, I was more sensitive to what I would
be training them to think of as proper worship. Dropping my kids off for
playtime while I grabbed a latte and attended a rock concert was out of the
question. So the search continued.
I can’t recall the parameters
of the web search that led me to a small Anglican parish near Colorado State
University, but a review of their website suggested that there must be more to
Anglicanism than simply the British or Canadian label for the Episcopal Church.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this tradition, here’s a very
cursory synopsis.[2] Others can feel free to skip ahead.
The English Reformation
produced the Church of England (COE)—a predominantly Catholic faith (sans Pope)
for several decades that was slowly reworked and formalized into a unique
ecclesiastical entity—an optimistic “via media” between the Catholic faith and
more staunch reformed theology. The faith and polity of the COE, which were
exported through various means over the centuries, are known more generally as
Anglicanism. However, many non-British peoples who loved this faith and yet
were somewhat resentful of English hegemony preferred the moniker
“Episcopalian” because it avoided the etymological reference to its country of
origin. When America famously parted
ways with the British in 1776, the Anglican parishes in the colonies began to
share this preference. Over time, as the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC)
grew further and further from its original faith and practice, many faithful clergy
separated from TEC—sometimes joining the Catholic or Orthodox Churches,
sometimes finding a place in other Protestant expressions. However, a large
group of disenfranchised Episcopal clergy eventually sought to carve out their
own jurisdiction under traditional, conservative bishops from traditional,
conservative dioceses—mostly those in the so-called “global south” (e.g.
Africa, Latin America, and Asia). These
bishops found it convenient now to reclaim the moniker “Anglican” since their desire
was no longer to disassociate from England, but rather to disassociate from the
modern Episcopal Church. All of this means, more or less, that the Anglican
Church in North America (and related entities such as ACN, AMiA, PEARUSA, etc.)
came to be comprised primarily of small start-up parishes that represent as
best they can the classical, historical Anglican faith. The parish that I
attended was originally part of the AMiA (Anglican Mission in America),
deriving its identity both from these dedicated Americans and from the faithful
clergy in Rwanda. Later, when the AMiA cut its ties with canonical Anglican authority,
the parish retained its identity as a full part of the Anglican Communion
through province of Rwanda, currently overseen by Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje.
Obviously I didn’t know any
of this when I started to attend this particular parish, but even had I known
of the excessive acronyms and the tenuous status of these parishes vis-à-vis
the global Anglican Communion, the appeal of this particular community would
have been undeniable. Here was a group of families deeply involved in each other’s
welfare. Here was a parish with a strong commitment to the traditional practice
of liturgy. Here was a parish that was explicitly charismatic, invoking and
attending to the Holy Spirit. Here was a parish where the priest understood
scripture and taught it faithfully. We sat on metal folding chairs in a
pathetic little gym of a school that had probably never met fire-code, but it
was better than anything I had ever before experienced.
From my perspective, there
were very few problems with what I found in this community. The issues in the
broader communion weren’t yet on my radar, and my dissatisfaction with my own
spiritual growth had yet to hit critical mass (see the previous installments
for details in that regard). In certain ways, I thought I had found the end to
my ecclesiological quest.
Parish vs. Communion
For a long time—about 6
years—this was all I wanted. My ecclesial educators taught me that classical Anglicanism
was the inheritor of “three streams”: 1.) the Catholic faith
(whole/universal/historical), retaining apparent Apostolic succession to
bolster the claim. 2.) Evangelical credentials—a commitment to Scripture, the
Gospel, and missionary work. And 3.) Charismatic sensibility; that is, a
prioritization of spiritual renewal, attentiveness to inner convictions, and
genuine openness to the miraculous. This seemed amazing—even perfect.
What I didn’t know was that
much of what I found at this particular parish was more like Orthodoxy than
global Anglicanism. When I asked about liturgy, my priest gave me Orthodox
theologian, Alexander Schmemann’s For The
Life of The World. When I asked about prayer, my priest gave me, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain,
an insightful interview with an Orthodox monk. When I began to dig deeply into
the works and reflections of Anglicans like C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright, or when
I discovered podcasts by Archdeacon
Michael McKinnon, I began to believe Anglicanism was supposed to be just like Orthodoxy
except with open communion, fewer ritualistic carryovers, and a stronger
commitment to Biblical teaching. But I was wrong (and not for the last
time—it’s a habit of mine).
Without being unfair, I
think I can say that Anglicanism is almost impossible to define at this point
in history. There is a camp that likes to think of it as true “Reformed Catholicity.”
There is a camp that uses the term to refer to Protestantism par excellence. There are some who think
it is the most fulfilling version of progressive, religious quests for social
justice. There are others who think they are simply restoring the faith of the
early Church, perhaps with some of the useful cultural aspects of the English-speaking
peoples of the British Isles. In my opinion, it is at its best when it is
exactly as I discovered it in this parish in Northern Colorado, and yet it was
still amorphous and inclusive enough to make almost every western Christian relatively
comfortable.
Sorting It Out
The truth is, even though I
eventually left, the deficiencies of this church (or any church) were not the central
problem. Obviously, I don’t think Anglicanism is the answer, but it was at
least a beginning to the answer for me, and my tenure as an Anglican, brief as
it was, allowed me to find balance and process more deeply the hang-ups that
had long separated my faith from what I now believe offers the fullest version
of the true and ancient faith. Nevertheless,
underneath all my earlier “church shopping” forays (a horrific but accurate description) was an infectious sort of individualism—that
is, a belief that it was up to me what
a “good” Church should imply. I had
done my reading; I had thought and
studied and determined the “truth.” Why wasn’t there a church that conformed to
(or at least accommodated) my brilliant
vision? Once again, I had failed to see many of my own narcissistic
assumptions. I wasn’t looking for The
Church to which I could humbly submit myself for training in unity with
God; I was looking for a church,
rendered in my own image.
[Next up--Part Four: The Invisible Church and Other Barriers]
[Next up--Part Four: The Invisible Church and Other Barriers]
[1]
Note: During grad school, I met my first
Orthodox friend, a patient and gentle person with a lovely story. He helped to
broaden my view of both philosophy and theology, but at the time I regarded the
primary obstacles to my joining as largely the same as those I had discovered
in the Catholic church, though I dimly understood a few attractive differences,
e.g. no papacy, no purgatory, etc. I went to my first Orthodox liturgy there in
Milwaukee—the Paschal Vigil. It was beautiful, but very intense. The influence
of this friendship and such experiences had a deep, incalculable effect. In 2008, while still in Milwaukee, we named
our new baby boy Spiridon without any clue how
common such a name was in the Orthodox world. Eight years later, we joined the
parish of St. Spyridon in Loveland, CO and have now met six or seven others by
the same name.
[2]
To my Anglican
friends: Please forgive this highly truncated and simplistic account.
No comments:
Post a Comment