Twenty-our things (most) Episcopalians Believe (on good days)
Posted on February 6th, 2006 by catalyst into the Uncategorized category 
I received the following email from someone who referred to themselves as the worst student PBC has ever seen. I thought David Straup had that title wrapped up, but apparently Dave’s got some competition. I’ll have to let him know.
Twenty-four things (most) Episcopalians Believe (on good days):
1. Some Episcopalians will take issue with some or all of what follows. Most Episcopalians believe more or less than 24 things! So this list is not the last word!
2. God is Creator. God is creative love. God is life-giving Spirit. God is thus three “persons” of one “being.”
3. “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves” –St. Julian of Norwich. God is also “wholy other”, beyond our knowing. We live in this paradox.
4. God is manifested vividly, fully, compellingly, in Jesus of Nazareth, who lived, taught, healed, proclaimed a new commonwealth, was killed, and raised to life. He is God’s “Word” made flesh.
5. Jesus remains among us to invite resurrection from the many forms of death around us and in us and to offer us the gift of life.
6. Evil is real. We are capable of doing evil. In our baptism we renounce it. And God transforms evil into his own good and gives us the will and strength to transform it in ourselves and the world.
7. Community with Jesus as the center, grounded in the life of God, enlivened by the Spirit, is a gift. The institutional church is a major way that community is accessible to us. So even as an institution the church is a sacred thing. But God is not captive to the fallibilities of the church!
8. Christian community becomes what it is in sacramental acts, specific, tangible, material things in which the mystery of God’s love is made known to us, especially in Baptism and the Lord’s supper or Eucharist or Mass. Those “religious” sacraments help us to see everything sacramental; the whole world discloses the generosity of God, the whole world is a sacrament of grace.
9. The worship of the community involves everyone and is the offering of the special gifts of each.
10.Christian community does not exist for itself, but to invite the transformation of the world. The community becomes what it is not only in “sacramental acts” but in reaching out with Christ’s love, justice and mercy to heal and free. Christian community works best when it is self-monitoring. Our leaders engage in an annual process of self-examination. Our leadership is trained to identify and prevent the spread of such institutional evils as racism and child abuse.
11.Uniformity of beliefs and disciplines is stifling. Our differences disclose the variety of gifts the Spirit gives. We will have different perceptions about what friendship with God requires of us. So we don’t tell each other what to do or make judgments about each other. We do try to be supportive of each other. We try to be “a church in which there are no outcasts” as our former Presiding Bishop puts it. We struggle hard to overcome those fears which keep us from being fully inclusive. God is not through with us yet. So we strive to be a community in which we have “in all things essential, unity; in all things non-essential, diversity; in all things, charity.”
12.The full participation of women in all aspects of the church and the honoring of their gifts is something the Spirit requires of us. There is no place in the church which is not women’s place. As women’s full participation in the community and special gifts are respected we discover that God is not only our Father but our Mother.
13.Abortion is an agonizingly complex question. We are both pro-life and pro-choice. Those seemingly contradictory positions seem to us to be consistent and reasonable. We are pro-life because a fetus is potential human life in a unique way and requires respect and reverence. On the other hand the life and health of a woman is of considerable moral meaning. When those claims for life conflict, women and their husbands and families and physicians are the best people to make moral judgments. The state needs to respect the moral agency of these people. And the Church needs to emphasize the sacred and fragile nature of God’s gift of life. We struggle with this issue.
14.On the whole, truth is likely to be found more in what is affirmed than in what is denied and more in “both/ands” than in “either/ors”. So black and white thinking and thinking dominated by negations probably is not helpful.
15.Institutions are necessary, but should be kept in the service of community, not the other way around. Hierarchies seem not to be the wave of the future, at least not the future of God, who creates not from above but from the midst of the world. The kinds of hierarchy which remain part of church life exist to serve the people of God, not to dominate them. There are some among us who don’t get this.
16.The Scriptures speak God’s truth with special power and are God’s Word. Simplistic and literalistic interpretations may miss the point of what God says to us.
17.Tradition is a treasure through which we can discern God’s future, not something with which to enshrine our past. There is much rich insight in the tradition which helps us to look forward to God’s future. “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” (Jaroslav Pelikan’s “The Vindication of Tradition”)
18.Reason is a gift. We should accept it even in religious matters. We affirm the importance of an ongoing conversation between the voices of faith and those of science, art, culture, economics and public life.
19.Some of us know conversion as a specific, sudden experience. Most of us know it as a life-long process. Those who know it as a specific experience find that it is authenticated in a life-long process of growth.
20.Friendship with God and God’s people is serious, but it is held lightly in joy. Play is as religious as work.
21.Friendship with God is acted out mostly in our daily lives in what we do, with few pronouncements.
22.Anyone who claims to speak for God should do so only after listening in much silence.
23.Any church with Henry VIII among its members surely would understand something about forgiveness!
24. We are not the true church. But we are part of it! It has many parts. In affirming loyalty to our own church we do not disparage others.
This statement was mostly written by the Rev. Canon Ronald Osborne.
RSS feed for posts
February 6th, 2006 at 7:24 am
The point…?
February 6th, 2006 at 7:28 am
I guess the point is, “Do you agree with them?”
I only agree with about half.
February 6th, 2006 at 8:36 am
I think the Episcopalians might be the perfect example of “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.
February 6th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Some of the kindest people I’ve known in my whole life have been Epsicopalians….and I don’t know them to be filled with moral turpitude, nor do I know them to be particularly gullible or prone to deception. Every direct experience I’ve had in working with Episcopalian congregations and their members has been overwhelmingly positive. And, as an added bonus, they’ve had the best music, too. I see no major problems with what is written here….and come on, jonah….they’ve made a number of clear stands. They’ve just also been farsighted enough to say that it’s not set in stone. Remember, firmly and clearly refusing to make a firm stand on a particular topic is making a stand of a different kind. It’s making a stand for flexibility. Good for them.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:12 am
A stand for flexibility? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
February 6th, 2006 at 9:43 am
ha-ha…That was good, Jonah!!! And true!!! One of the saddest states of “Church”ism today is the deterioration of the principles that the Episcopal Church once stood for. It doesn’t make Episcopalians bad…it’s just a sad state of affairs for them.
They’ve been so wishy-washy with moral rights, it’s been abysmal!!! At their general conference last year, they had a “free-thinker” proclaim - “God has changed God’s mind”…How pathetic…
Just goes to show you, if you don’t stand for something, you fall for anything…
Right on Jonah!!!
February 6th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Jonah:
If flexibility can be understood to be a principle, then one can make a stand for it….so no, I don’t think it is an oxymoron.
And really, someone saying, “God has changed God’s mind” does sound quite silly and inarticulate, but in reality, it’s just a little more transparent than what evangelicals typically say. God always seems to think exactly what makes evangelical/fundamentalists feel comfortable (i.e., whatever supports political and ideological conservatism and keeps dissenting voices silent), and the things that seem uncomfortable for whatever reason are conveniently ignored….so that everyone can continue driving their SUV’s in peace, all the while blissfully assured of their place in heaven because of their ineffable moral stance. Please. No one’s hands are clean here….none of us is getting it totally right, so why don’t we have some respect for the efforts others are making to get it right. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be critical…I’m just saying we shouldn’t be looking down our noses, particularly if we’ve never been in an Episcopalian church for any length of time.
February 6th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Ive never seen an Episcopalion but I see there old ass church buildings everywhere. They kind of seem to be the sign of the times as far as the fading of the American church. Cool buildings though…
Went to a good punk concert in the basement of an abandoned one in Portland awhile back.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Anyone that agrees with Jonah is living their life in reaction mode to whatever they hear over the pulpit. When one really looks hard at biblical passages concerning topics such as abortion they will find that it is in fact an agonizingly complex issue that pat answers will never solve. Kudos to the person that dug up this statement of faith. I have to agree with Jiminy Cricket. It’s too bad that the evangelical church youth movement is raising up an army of “Jonah’s”. I’ll bet he has an Abercrombie sweater on right now.
February 7th, 2006 at 7:58 am
If it is reactionary to believe that men ought to lead in their churches and families instead of letting the women do all the work, that a tiny human life is created by God for a purpose and that “God created them male and female” (that’s from the Bible and He created them to go together), then I certainly meet your definition of a reactionary (although I think Noah Webster might not agree with it). And actually, I’m wearing an adorable Victoria’s Secret pajama capri set that my darling husband gave me!
February 7th, 2006 at 8:46 am
And her husband is going to kick your ass.
February 7th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Her husband is a spineless dweeb who gets suckered into buying her endless amounts of that Victoria Secret crap.
Shame on those “christians” for having sex without the sole purpose being to create another person!
Shame Jonah! Shame be on you.
Thus sayeth the Lord God Almighty! Our Alpha and Omega. Our mother and our Father which art in Heaven.
P.S. This is how rediculous PF sounds to the average person.
Same old crap. New day to tithe.
February 7th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Anonymouse, Sounds like you’re a little jealous. And you are reminding me of this guy: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45131
February 7th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Speaking as an Anglican Communion/Episcopalian…….I hope that you might take the time to research the Anglican/Episcopal tradition….both worldwide and in America as well. It is a Christian denomination that I truly love and am elated to be a part of. There are many biblical orthodox Anglican/Episcopal churches; and many different types of congregations, from what we call “low church” (more evangelical with expository preaching and bible study); as well as “high church” (more Anglo-Catholic in tradition and structure) but still very much biblically orthodox and true to His Word. Do some internet searches, and do some reading…..you may be compelled to convert such as I did. God Bless you all here…and I hope you consider my words!
February 7th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Actually, I am anna’s husband….I forgot to change the name……sorry! (On the previous post)