I hope that readers will pardon any excessive sentimentality or moroseness! I assure you that this too shall pass. Joy cometh in the morning. R+
I visited General Seminary today and was immediately struck by just how much of a shock it was for me to see the West Building boarded off as it makes its transition from oldest building on the seminary Close to high end condo building. Other parts of the Seminary, such as the apartments across the street, are also going through the same transition. General no longer felt like General as I walked up and down the length of the Close.
This is not to say that the change is all bad. The new Keller library looks fantastic. The classrooms in Seabury Hall are modern and bright. There are bathrooms from the 20th century on the Close now.
Still, as I sat in the new Hobart room, I could not help but feel as if I were in a place I no longer recognized. The pieces were there but none were in the right place. I even recognized the paintings on the wall from various other places around the Close.
My idea of General Seminary, the General Seminary that occupied the block of Chelsea Square, the General Seminary that sullenly yet proudly used classrooms that felt like they were last painted when they were used as shooting locations for “Our Miss Brooks,” the General Seminary where maintenance deferred was maintenance denied – always. That General Seminary is no longer there.
No students will hang out on the roof of the Maoist architectural experiment that was Sherrill Hall with a cigar and scotch, watch the lights of the Empire State Building in the autumn air, and label all manner of things modalist, modernist, or some dreadful combination in between.
Like so many things the place was a product of countless moments. It was map quiz liturgies, Solemn Evensong, class pranks, St Patrick’s Breastplate, the Hogwartsesque refectory, Fr Wright’s corrections and reproofs, Dick Corney’s cram-packed blackboard, early mornings in the sacristy, late nights in the oratory, the Barbie Dream Chapel, and more. Each person will have a General that is theirs and, when they return, it will ever be no longer there.
Yet the heart of the place – the Chapel of the Good Shepherd is there – with bells still clanging and calling students, faculty, and staff to pray together. You always know what the heart of General is – even as so much around it changes the chapel serves to always remind one that you are at General because it is there that its life as a community is formed, refined, expressed, and made alive. You know you are there, at GTS, when you are in the chapel.
In the future, I am sure others will bemoan that General is no longer General because some other this or that is no longer there. Yet, God willing, they will have that chapel to talk about. They will know they are talking of the same place because that space will have shaped, formed, and nurtured them. It will still be calling faithful people to prayer.
I suppose I was feeling more sensitive to issues of time and place because in between wonderful meetings with potential curates for Ascension House I was engaged in an online conversation about Communion without Baptism. The whole conversation left me with the same sense of profound displacement. As I read of Eastern Oregon’s resolution coming to General Convention and heard of a similar resolution being proposed for Connecticut, I could only think that it seems that the Church I took for granted is no longer there – and may never have been.
I have said, when people ask me about General, that I loved the “idea” of General Seminary perhaps more than its actuality. There was a certain charm and resistance to the changes and chances of the world that marked it as a place set apart even as it sought to engage the needs of the changing world and church. Its quirkiness appealed to me deeply – moreso than its execution of its day to day operations ever could!
Perhaps, I am discovering, I fell in love with an “idea” of the Episcopal Church.
I joined a church that valued tradition and yet was engaged with modernity. I joined a church that embraced the timelessness of dignity and beauty. I joined a church that was engaged theologically and reasonably rather than emotionally in issues of doctrine and order. I joined a church that was a true blend of Catholic and Reformed. I joined a church that valued the uniformities of the Prayer Book even as it explored how to plumb its depths in manifold ways. I joined a church that was sacramentally grounded. I joined a church that believed that how we pray says something about what we believe.
Just as when I went to General, finding the Episcopal Church was a joy and it felt exactly like where I was called to be. I felt at home and it was a place that made sense because there was a there there.
I am not sure where the there is now.
As I talk to priests too happy to ignore rubrics and ordination vows to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church because they have decided their sense of “welcome” is more important than the church’s call to common identity,
as I attended a Diocesan Convention at which we sang treacly hymns with narcissistic lyrics,
as I talk to priests in pitch battles in their dioceses about baptizing in the name of the Trinity,
as I attend Eucharists where priests make up the Eucharistic Prayer on the spot (“meal of power” not Body and Blood and “the systems of the world are broken” at the Fraction),
and as I watch the Church one more time hurtle into a divisive squabble, I am feeling profoundly out of place.
The Church that is slashing funding for Christian formation and youth ministry while hurtling toward “Open Communion” is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that has a diocesan convention at which we sing “Shine, Jesus Shine” and ignore the Prayer Book is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that is defining sainthood as anyone who has done something good and worthy rather than someone who has done good and worthy things because of their faith in Christ is not the Church I thought I was joining.
The “debate” over Communion without Baptism is opening, for me, a sense of cognitive and spiritual dissonance. It is one part of a broader shift. There are wonderful churches that do manifold things differently than the Episcopal Church. You can make up Eucharistic prayers, communicate anyone who walks through the door, and baptize in the name of whatsoever contortion you wish to make of the Trinity, you can do all of that in other traditions, churches, and faith communities.
That is not what we have done. It is not what marks us as a Church. It is not what gives us an identity. Those things are part of the life of other traditions.
My question for people who wish all of these things is “Why this Church?” Why choose this tradition when those things are available free of charge and canonical responsibility in other places? I would suggest that we are having difficulties as an Episcopal Church because we are, in too many ways and places, forgetting how to be Episcopalians.
I came to the Episcopal Church because I found a home that valued dignity, was steeped in history, and believed the Sacraments did something. My first parish home was a large Rite I parish which was filled with young people similarly drawn. There I found people who were called to life in Christ through a worship and sense of place that called them beyond themselves – to strive for faith – rather than asking little and changing no one.
I realize that perhaps I joined my idea of the Episcopal Church rather than its actuality.
Even, at Christ Church, as we engage in mission efforts, young adult ministry, and seek to deepen our participation in the life of Christ in the Church, I am aware that it is now feeling more and more like a rearguard action as I watch the very Church we are working so hard to form young people for drift further and further away from its core identity.
I see signs of real hope – our diocese has helped us undertake new mission work in the Hill neighborhood at Ascension. The young people that are part of Saint Hilda’s House are faithful, passionate, and care deeply about the world around them. Here, at Christ Church, we are living into a fulsome blend of Catholic tradition and full engagement with the world around us. I have wonderful conversations with new clergy partners and potential curates for Ascension.
Yet those moments are feeling increasingly rare and precious.
There are boundaries within which one says “that is x.” In the past, we have used the Prayer Book to do just that. We have said, this is what we believe. Yet we are not only redefining “x,” we are deciding “x” is irrelevant. We no longer desire to have any sense of boundary, discipline, or conformity. Those things which mark us as a community and a people of faith are being undone with incredible rapidity. Over and over, I hear the language of the narcissistic world that wants its way right away creeping into the language of the Church.
What heart will be left? As we reconfigure the definition of sainthood, dismantle the Sacramental tradition we have been handed from the first Christian communities, ignore the Prayer Book, second guess canons on a parish by parish and priest by priest basis, and so much more, what heart will be left to the place?
When I first came to the Episcopal Church, I felt like a pauper given a key to a treasure room – everywhere I looked was something I could have only imagine owning – and yet it was now, by grace, mine to care for, share, and pass on.
Too often now though, I feel like I am watching those very treasures sold off as here for a day and gone tomorrow furnishings are tried out – jumped on and slouched into like a knockabout futon. The sad thing is we are not buying anything very new – it’s as if we’ve walked into a 1968 Futons-R-Us store and said, “I’ll take whatever dated, period-specific, scratch-and-dent, discolored thing you have!”
I can only hope enough others too have found, valued, and long to hold onto and pass on some of the inheritance before we are left with far too many faded pieces and no longer recognize the place around us.
Robert+
A Desert Father 
I remember the General you speak of and which we both remember fondly. And I too pray that we will never find ourselves remembering fondly The Episcopal Church.
Very thoughtful and thought-provoking. Thank you.
You captured what I have thought and felt and given me some understanding of what was making me so very angry with the church I have loved since the age of 9.
There is so much to ponder here . . .
But mainly I am left with the sense that I could not agree more. I find it gets harder to put on the uniform, as it were, when I consider how what I thought I was joining in 2001 has turned out to be something else . . . Or, put another way, even the biggest tent has got to have some walls in order to be a tent . . .
Thank you for your reflections and insights. Hang in there. Your voice is an important one. Our Anglican journey in the middle way is filled with learning and careful retaining and reworking. As to GTS, I remember the days when lady visitors had to sign in at the gate, there was only one bathroom for us, and we could only eat dinner in the refectory on certain nights. Times have indeed changed.
My dear Robert,
I think this is a powerfully written piece, and I find myself agreeing with much of what you say. It is true, of course (as Cardinal Newman of blessed memory has pointed out) that the church is always undergoing change. Throughout the centuries of the church, there have been reforming movements that have emerged to draw the church back to its ancient core of spirituality, repentance, discipline, and Godly structure, and indeed this was the call of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, too.
Are we guilty of having come to this church for ordination thinking that it would not change? Perhaps. I entered the Holy Orders of this church specifically because it did seem to be more stable than others, and we actually did have a place for Scripture and tradition as well as reason (which has now become quite unreasonable in places, as it does when divorced from the other two).
What is clear to me is that voices that are opposed to this change need to be heard. They need to be organized and they need to take a stand. The currents of the church (particularly General Convention) are flowing in the direction of this Eastern Oregon resolution, and I suspect it will pass unless it becomes known that there is resistance to it.
-Chris+
I think, as has happened before, the hope is in Anglo-Catholic parishes. There is a consistency there, a regard for history, and a willingness to submit to the canons – which, really, are very liberal already, no? – that is indeed slipping away elsewhere.
And, of course: this isn’t the first time all this has happened! Isn’t it true that English parish churches were using baptismal fonts as umbrella stands before the Oxford Movement came along?
I think it was they who helped build up what you came to in the first place – so, perhaps all these things are not so important. Perhaps, as has happened before, the good things will survive and be renewed – and the rest will wither away. Yes?
Amen, Father. A brilliant reflection and one with some profound implications to ponder, and especially appropriate as we move through Holy Week with the emphasis on reaching back to find grounding in a changeless promise and Covenant, a canopy of steadfast grace and hope, an immersion in the renewing and life-giving waters of a faith not growing out of a tradition, but a life-giving and hope-filling faith that is molded, anchored, and resonating of a tradition that has found us as much as we found it.
Your words of feeling out of place and disconnected echo conversations from this part of the Episcopal Church and the your friends at St. Columba’s. We can’t be too disconnected when our words are strikingly similar a thousand or more miles away. It seems we need to find ways of letting the faith we found in the Episcopal Church and the Catholic tradition that speaks so loudly to a new generation young and new Christians echo as loudly as the alleluias of our Easter Masses.
Meanwhile, we’ll keep lighting candles for Mother Church with the prayer and confidence to stand firm in faith and trust that her light will no know setting and be the guiding light into future generations.
Brilliant post – thank you for it. I certainly needed to hear it.
Benedicite –
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It’s certainly not — in most places — the Episcopal church I came into more than 40 years. But there are still places that are keeping the treasures alive, and thanks to modern technology we have webcasts from St. Thomas Fifth Avenue. And if one were to think about leaving, there is no place to go. So we hang in and give thanks for the parishes and clergy and musicians that haven’t given in to dumbing down, no matter what the rest of the world is doing.
‘Meal of power’?!? Ye gods and little fishes, that made even this most Protestant of Episcopal hearts blush with shame. Thank you for your candor, and well turned post. As I read accounts of our changing church in relatively modern history I am struck by the continuity of the one (and a bit) argument: “the church is not what it used to be and this new church is not what I signed up for.” I still routinely hear remembrances, rendered with both fondness and disdain,of a time when Eucharist was celebrated monthly (occasionally, only on high feast days…) But I believe our church is eternal and will certainly outlast any and all contemporary thrusts. That said, there does need to be a ‘there’ there, though the ‘there’ is different for (perhaps) you and I, certainly for many. (Sound a bit like Abbott and Costello baseball?)
I do think our sacred spaces address people’s need to experience the transcendent God, but to experience the immanent God who avails God’s nature to us by the revelation of God’s presence within us and in each other is revealed in many ways, in the sacraments certainly, but if (one believes) only in the sacraments then do not the sacraments themselves become idols? I don’t know – I’m really exploring this issue just now. (And I’m not being at all antagonistic or snarky (mean) – I am wrestling with how the immediate future of our church might incorporate the ‘there’ of most recent history, the continued push toward Anglo-Catholicism, and the priest who might function and move in the world where people long for Christ, and a Christian community, but are not (yet) called to weekly worship.
All things change, God is eternal. This is the only thing I know for sure. The rest is circumspect. Again, thanks!
Well said. I couldn’t help myself and leaned a little snarky in later comments. I was snarky in love though. You hit on how we can indeed make idols of our traditions (not saying anybody here is doing that). Also, the full on kingdom of God alive and kicking will not need churches or priests. If we do our job right, we are out of business.
You know: being a member of the Episcopal Church is optional. It’s not all that great, sometimes, frankly; in my personal experience people have been sometimes rather cold and unwelcoming. (There have been a few terrific exceptions to this, of course.)
What I do like about Anglicanism is what it teaches. I like that it comes of out Benedictine tradition, grounded in daily prayer and for that reason has a certain stability. I’ve just left my parish, though, after 7 years, because after thinking back I realized that nobody’s ever asked about me or called me unless they wanted something. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of discipleship going on, either; almost everything I’ve learned about Christian faith (I’ve only been a churchgoer for about 10 or so years now) I’ve learned on my own, or via friends on the internet. And I’ve been a member, in real life, of not just one but two parishes that prided themselves on CWOB – the only churches I’ve ever belonged to, in fact.
BTW, a recent survey put the Episcopal Church dead last, when kids were asked how welcome and valued they felt at their parishes. So I’m not the only one who doesn’t feel the church is a very warm or welcoming place to be – although it’s proclaiming that this is what it’s doing by offering CWOB.
I’m considering becoming Lutheran at this point, because I can’t get what I need these days at the Episcopal Church. And yes, I’ll continue to go to church because I do need to, so that I can learn and grow. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and the spiritual life is the one thing that helps me stay sober and alive. (A.A. tells us to return to church or synagogue or mosque when we get sober – and I always do what A.A. suggests.) You may be able to leave whenever you like for a Kingdom of God of your understanding – but I don’t have that luxury. I need regular, orderly worship and I need to keep growing spiritually; there’s no possible way to do that on my own.
The Episcopal Church does not seem to be helping me anymore. It was at one time the only place I could feel safe (I’m gay, too) – but I need a spiritual life that doesn’t seem to be available any longer, because nobody seems to value it.
Unfortunately, I have zero confidence that this “new Reformation” is going to be anything I can rely on, either immediately or going forward. (Spong uses this phrase, too – but offers absolutely nothing in the way of theology or even simple faith. We hear, all the time, about “what’s wrong with the church” – but he doesn’t seem able to come up with any sort of replacement for it. I don’t even know what he’s talking about, in fact – and I suspect he doesn’t, either.)
If I can’t grow in faith, I will die – so I won’t have any choice but to go elsewhere; I need a church that plans to stay in business, and to be there for me and others like me.
I know what the Christian faith is; I know that people have relied on it for 2,000 years. I know that it kept people like William Cowper alive for many years when he surely couldn’t have survived otherwise; I know that it has enabled people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to do things they might never have been able to otherwise. Christianity produced the beloved St. Francis. It produced the slave girl, Blandina, who died for her faith saying “I am a Christian, and we commit no wrongdoing.” It produced people like William Wilberforce and Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King.
So, I have a good deal of respect for it, and would rather be with others who think it valuable, too. If the Episcopal Church no longer values its own traditions – which are the things that brought me here to begin with – then I will have to leave and find a place that can help me to survive.
Thanks for another fine post. You get at something that has been percolating in my mind this week. We sometimes claim that ours is a Benedictine tradition. Given the importance that Benedict (and, for that matter, many others such as the writers in the Philokalia) gives to humility and obedience as foundational spiritual disciplines, how can I trsut the spiritual maturity and discernment of those who will not live in the relatively simple obedience to the canons and the rubrics of the Prayer Book? Such willful exercise of the ego is antithetical to Christian maturity.
Thank you for another fine post. You get at something that has been percolating in my mind this week. Given the importance placed by Benedict and others such as the writers in the Philokalia on humility and obedience as foundational spirtual disciplines, how can I trust the spiritual maturity and discernment of those who will not live in obedience to even the relatively simple rules of the canons and the rubrics of the Prayer Book? Such willful exercise of the ego is antithetical to Christian maturity.
Hmm,
“how can I trust the spiritual maturity and discernment of those who will not live in obedience to even the relatively simple rules of the canons and the rubrics of the Prayer Book? Such willful exercise of the ego is antithetical to Christian maturity.”
Well, if you hold a high view of the sacraments, then you trust them because they are ordained, right? As one who does break the canons, I can say that it isn’t always a case of ego (sometimes, yes). I see it more in line with the cloud of witnesses who stretched the boundaries of practice. That would include Jesus, Elizabeth, and the whole American Episcopal experiment. I say all of this with regard to open communion . If you don’t like Trinitarian language, want to sing choruses, and use whatever liturgical color you want then you are definitely wrong, immature, and using that fine BCP paper to roll a few. – So, making a jab about mature is an example of Christian maturity? Seriously, I want to know if you can see where I am coming from on that last question. I want to dialogue.
Robert…thank you for your insightful…and perceptive reflections…throughout your reflections…I found myself saying…yes…yes…yes…
Your article describes a journey that is parallel to mine except mine began as a new Episcopalian in college who was called by the Lord to the Anglican way of faith and worship in 1964. My long time vocation to ordained ministry began to be fulfilled when I entered the Close in 1968. My three years there were ones of joy in the rich traditions and beauty of worship, and learning at the feet of holy scholars like Bosher, Parker, Dentan, Dawley, Wright. It was also the time of transition to the reductionism which has now borne the fruit in the present GTS which you so ably describe. Your discovery of the trajectory of our church began for me in the 1970’s and many, if not most of friends from then have left to go East, to Rome, or to the Anglican alternatives. I still sense God’s call to stay, but often feel like one of the chaplains on the Titanic as it sank. Your insightful writing is a bit more optimistic than I am, but you have the blessing of not experiencing the long decline of faith and order in our beloved church. When I visited General six years ago I was heartbroken at its condition. Fr. Wright and the chapel remained as sources of blessing. I remind myself that as an institution, TEC is crumbling, but that the Faith of God’s Church is eternal. I remain convinced that classical Anglicanism (Cranmer, Hooker, the Caroline Divines and the great Evangelical Catholics such as Wesley, Hobart, Kemper, Muhlenberg, etc. has an enduring, vital, powerful and graceful witness to the whole Gospel of God. My prayer is that you persevere as we abide in the great Communion of Saints in Christ.
Robert,
Amen, Amen, Amen. I have had variations of this conversation with fellow classmates at Sewanee, and in the diocese with other priests after my ordination. What is most frightening to me is that to attempt to retain the theological understandings put forth in our prayer book and liturgy, is to be seen as regressive at best, or unwelcoming, perhaps even bigoted at worst. There seem to be fewer and fewer clergy who are grounded in the Scriptures and Tradition that are willing to show the kind of courage you have shown by this post. I know countless priests who wonder, “what is my line in the sand, what do I do if the church moves beyond that line?” I wish I had answers to the problems you have identified. Unfortunately, I think it moves many of us away from our sense of catholic faith, becoming more and more congregational in our attitudes, as we attempt to proclaim the faith we signed up with in our own small communities, attempting to ignore or shut out the noisy din from the larger church. That is a short term solution, but one that is doomed to failure in the long run. My belief is that there are far more clergy and lay people who are thinking along similar lines, but many are fearful of the seeming inevitable response by those who are attempting to move the church further and further from what is has been and is. We are in dire need of a reform movement that is able to connect those with similar attitudes. We will certainly be a minority voice, but as a group, we will have a larger voice than those of us “crying in the wilderness” alone.
May God Bless and Keep you.
Thank you for this post. It captures exactly my feeling of displacement in the church in which I have spent over thirty years of ordained ministry. I have this great sense of an utterly squandered inheritance. Yet there are those who maintain a faithful witness and for that we give thanks to God.
I love the comments that say that your voice must be heard. It will be heard,by a few, and then ignored. For in this Episcopal church, you and I are a quaint remnant of another church that is being choked out of the picture. It will soon exist only in memorials, exhibits, and when people laugh about those silly ignorant traditionalists. God bless you.
I appreciate your reflection on our sect and the changes that it is experiencing. I graduated from GTS in ’99. The efforts to save the remnant are commendable. The practice of Anglicanism that I was taught there fits what you are missing. I remember some positive statements regarding open communion that almost sent 99% of my class into near stroke mode. Change is here bro, and I agree with the folks who say that we are in the midst of another reformation.
As a faithful priest who disagrees with much of what you lament I will give my answer to a few of your questions and generalizations.
I am a priest who endorses and promotes open communion in my congregation. I am not all to happy to ignore the canon. I have seen fit stand with a number of thoughtful, faithful Anglican Christians who are exploring what we feel the Spirit may be calling us to. I am not going elsewhere because such a ‘test’ of practice is part of the tradition of the Church. Anglicanism embodies that comprehensive spirit more that any other tradition. Furthermore, the broad scope of things you address could lead some to think that what you are saying describes one group (Those practicing open communion are not high church, sing Shine, Jesus, Shine, and baptize in the name Moe, Larry, and Curly). The flip side of that would be for me to say that you obviously ignore the power of God to transform someone because you want to verify it with a year’s attendance, a 12 week class, and a certificate. Most days I don’t believe that about folks opposed to open communion. Most days I believe that they are faithful people seeking to hold onto the rich tradition of the Christian faith. So am I (most days).
I am not leaving because I do indeed love this Church. I should not have to leave my country just because I disagree with some of its practices. I believe that exploring open communion is not unlike healing on the Sabbath, or not requiring circumcision. We need folks like you to speak from your perspective. We need to have some real conversation. For the most part we act like secular culture and whine, call each other names, and surround ourselves with folks who agree with us. I pray that such can change.
Keep the faith, and please check the generalizations. I will try to do the same.
Regrettably, it is goodbye to the Church of Him, Us, and Ours, and welcome to the Church of The Most Holy Me & St. Myself…
You are just rearranging the deck chorus on the Titanic
Well, hell.
You know how you can feel something vaguely, but not be too troubled by it, until it’s put into words? And once it is, you can’t ignore it or live with it?
Well…hell.
I attended a public university in IL in th 1970s and attended Mass at the Newman center. I was so turned off by feeling I was at an ati war rally that I eventually left the Catholic church. Tradition is sacred and must be preserved.