CHAPTER FOUR: ANGLICANISM IN AMERICA The English did not come to America to stay until 1607. But before that, there were Church of England services held on the coast of California (1579, for Captain Francis Drake s sailors) and at the failed colony of Roanoke (1585). The colony at Jamestown planted the Church of England in Virginia. But it is well to remember, the colonists did not come there as Christians they came hoping to strike it rich. As one might imagine, many if not most were not particularly religious at all. Still, as English subjects, the church was a part of the fabric of their life. The Massachusetts Bay Colony brought non-anglican Congregationalists to America as well. These were dissenters from the established church in England, and they had not been very well treated at home, where they were considered dangerous radicals. 1620 was early in the reign of Charles I, but before the rebellion of the Puritans had unseated him and installed the Puritan Commonwealth government. The settlers at Massachusetts Bay were more properly called Separatists than Puritans: whereas the Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England by taking over it and purging it of all of its Papist influences, from bishops to prayer book, the Separatists wanted to get away from it altogether and start the church all over again from the root. You may have heard that they came to the New World seeking freedom of religion. That is simply not true! They came so that they could practice their religion freely, without interference from the English crown. But they were just as intolerant to others as anyone else. Religious tolerance was simply a speck on the horizon at that time. Remember, these were the people who brought us the Salem witch trials (though English Anglicans would have had similar beliefs about witches at the time as well.) Quakers were badly treated in both England and New England. Anne Hutchinson was banned from Boston, with her followers, for her criticism of its clergy leadership. Rhode Island was established as a Baptist haven, with relative freedom of religion, because its founder, Roger Williams, had been cast out of Massachusetts for non-conformity. So the colonial period saw the Church of England being established only in the colonies from New York south. In New England, the Anglican Church was pretty much anathema to the population. Anglicans were by far most numerous in Virginia, but the Church was not particularly well-rooted among the people anywhere. One reason for this marginalization of religion was the commercial aspect of the early settlements already mentioned. Another was the popularity of a philosophical movement known as Deism that came in along with the Age of Reason, and along-side that the relative lethargy of the Church back home in England. REASON AND EMOTIONALISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RELIGION Deism is a rationalistic set of beliefs that was popular particularly among the better educated, more prosperous, upper class people, and particularly among the men of the period. It was not a church, just an attitude that tended to keep those who held its views from being active participants in church. Basically, the Deists believed in God, but
not in miracles or anything supernatural. They were very scientific in their thinking (this was the early phase of the influence of science on Western culture). Their image of God was as a watchmaker, who creates the watch, winds it up, and then goes off and lets it run without constantly monitoring each tick, or resetting. Therefore, they did not believe in the activity of the Holy Spirit, or the divinity of Jesus, or the inspiration of the Bible, or any miracles, or any effectiveness of prayer. These beliefs had a negative effect not only on the Anglican Church, but on others as well. Congregationalism in New England was also decimated by it. Most of the founders of the United States, though members of either the Anglican or the Congregational Church, were at least to some degree Deists in their thinking. Among those from New England, there was a new religion formed, breaking from the Congregationalists, called Unitarianism, a non-christian body. (Today s Unitarian Universalist Church is the modern manifestation of that movement.) King s Chapel in Boston, an historic, downtown Anglican congregation, was overtaken by Universalists prior to the organization of The Episcopal Church. To this day, that congregation uses the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, with all references to Jesus as the Christ blotted out! But those Deists who were Anglican tended to stay in the Church (Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, for example), though they were often not very active church members. The colonial Anglican Church, sadly, was largely a church of women and children. The antidote to Deism (with its lack of belief in anything supernatural) tended to be the more emotionally Evangelical side of Protestantism, especially represented by the Methodists, the Baptists, and some Presbyterians (with their very strong belief in the miraculous and mysterious). There were also Quakers and Shakers, on a smaller scale and on the Reformation extreme left, plus some German evangelicals, such as the Moravians. Those people in the original colonies south of New York who were deeply religious were likely to be influenced by one of these groups, even if they officially belonged to the Church of England. These bodies grew rapidly among the poorer and less educated colonials. Even most Anglicans only received communion every quarter, or less, since the Mass was associated with Catholicism, which was still in bad odor with the majority of the population outside of Baltimore. Later, as the settlers expanded further and further to the west into Indian lands, it was the itinerant, less-educated evangelical preachers who went with them, or who were raised up among them. The priests of the Church of England, always limited in numbers and hampered by the customs of settled and parochial England, remained in the towns and plantation areas of the coastal plain. A CHURCH OF ENGLAND WITHOUT ENGLAND? Then came the American Revolution. It is said that about one-third of the colonists were pro-independence, about one-third were opposed to independence, and one-third were neutral or undecided. After the war was won by the rebels, however, it was suddenly hard to find anyone who had not been a patriot from the beginning! Many supporters of the Crown, including many prominent Anglicans and not a small number of
the clergy, packed up and moved to England or one of her other colonies, such as Canada, Bermuda, or the Bahamas, after the Revolution. The establishment of an independent United States of America almost killed Anglicanism in the new country. It is really almost a miracle that the church survived at all, for it struggled along under a number of serious liabilities. Here are some of the reasons. 1. The Church of England is a church with bishops, yet there was not one single bishop in America, and none had ever even visited here. All of the American church in colonial days had been under the absentee governance of the Bishop of London! 2. The Church of England is a church of parishes, geographical areas served by a local congregation. But the population of the English colonies kept moving further and further west, away from the parishes. After the initial settlements, these movements were unplanned, and the settlers did not take priests along with them; they went by family groups. Therefore, almost everyone outside of the main port cities was left to the Protestant revivalist ministers, who were members of the frontier families themselves, to recruit and serve. These frontier preachers had no educational or ordination requirements to fulfill. 3. The Church of England is a church of educated and trained clergy. But the only way to get educated and ordained to serve the church was to go to England! Many died at sea on the way, and many could not make such a trip. 4. For those clergy we had, life on the frontier was not very attractive. They tended to be from established town families, and they weren t about to go trekking across inhospitable mountains on horseback without their books! 5. The Church of England was well, from England, and it had become unpopular to have anything to do with the enemy mother country. Remember, as late as the War of 1812, the British burned Washington! Many Americans thought that Anglicans, and especially their clergy, were Tories (and a higher than average percentage of them were, or had been. Anglican clergy were required, at ordination, to take an oath of loyalty to the British crown. Clergy tended to take their ordination vows very seriously. 6. There had never been a branch of the Church of England that was not English. No one knew if it was possible yet. The connection between King and Church was a strong one. 7. The Church of England had always been the legally established church, even in many of the colonies. It was not accustomed to competing for members and funding with other denominations. One of the Bishop of London s deputies, Thomas Bray, did come to the colonies. When he returned to England, he worked hard to improve the work of the church in America. Two organizations he founded are still active in the Anglican Communion today. First, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) sent missionary priests
to work in the colonies. It is still a missionary organization today. Second, the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) worked to get Bibles, Prayer Books, and other religious materials into the hands of people in the colonies. That group still does the same mission around the world today. Because of the dedicated work of a few stalwart members and determined clergy, the Church did survive, and transitioned into the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. What happened was that loyal members and clergy in each of the new States met to form into a new church. But many thought that there should be a national church also, and a meeting was held to form one. Two things were needed right away in order to continue: an American Prayer Book for worship, and bishops. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Without waiting, a group of Episcopal clergy in Connecticut elected one of their number, Samuel Seabury, and sent him off to England to be ordained a bishop for their state. (Seabury made the mistake of being absent from the meeting.) Unfortunately, English law prohibited English bishops from participating in an ordination unless the ordinand declared loyalty to the English king something Seabury, as an American, could not do. (He had not favored the Revolution initially, but after independence, he was loyal to the new government.) So he went to Scotland, where he was made a bishop, in 1784, by three Scottish bishops who were not subject to that law. England and Scotland were, at that time, separate countries sharing one king. In gratitude, he agreed to work to include some distinctive prayers from the Scottish prayer book in the new American one. Soon, Pennsylvania elected its leading priest, William White of Philadelphia, and New York elected Samuel Provoost. By this time, the British Parliament had acted to allow the consecrations in England, and these two were ordained bishops by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other English bishops. Soon, James Madison (not the President) was also sent to England for ordination for Virginia. Now America had four bishops, and together they consecrated the next bishop, Thomas Claggett, for Maryland, on American soil in 1792. The General Convention of 1789 adopted an American Book of Common Prayer, not much different from the English one, but having a few Scottish influences. Mostly, the simply removed all references to monarchy, and inserted prayers for the President in place of the those for the King. That convention also set up the two houses of the General Convention, Deputies and Bishops, which we will learn about in a later chapter. There was still the problem of educating clergy. In many Protestant denominations, anyone who wants to can become a preacher. In the Congregationalist bodies, each congregation can ordain anyone it wants to. Not so for us we require approval at parish and diocesan levels and appropriate training first. The Diocese of
Virginia acted right away to set up the Virginia Theological Seminary for this purpose at Alexandria, near Mount Vernon. Soon after, the General Convention set up a northern seminary as well, at Chelsea in New York City, called the General Theological Seminary. Both of these still educate clergy and laity for the church today, along with some eleven others created over the decades since. (That number is a moving target, because at the this revision, 2011, Episcopal seminaries are closing, merging, and departing the church right and left.) The Episcopal Church was up and running in the U. S., but it had very different circumstances from the church back in England. Everything had to be built from the ground up, and everything had to be financed without government help. From the beginning, we were a small denomination. Generally in U. S. history, we have comprised between one and two percent of the nation s population. THE IMPACT OF METHODISM ON THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH We have already considered the impact of Methodism on the Church of England during the eighteenth century. We have noted that the story of Methodism actually originates in the experience of John and Charles Wesley as Anglican priests serving in the colony of Georgia, and their encounter with Moravians en route to England. In later decades, the movement they started back in England returned to America, where it has had an even greater effect than in their home country. During the later colonial period, a great many Americans in the southern colonies were officially C of E, but practically speaking, Methodist. They attended Methodist preaching and hymn-singing at local chapels, and went to their parish church only for baptisms, weddings, burials, and the occasional communion. Most received communion only once or twice per year, and many considered it not to be particularly important, even then.. After the American Revolution, with the Episcopal Church struggling to get established, American Methodist leaders seized the opportunity to take off on their own. They convinced the aged John Wesley to ordain the first ministers for a new American Methodist Church. (This despite the fact that he was a priest, not a bishop, and not entitled to ordain by Anglican/Catholic tradition.) At any rate, the new Methodist denomination, unburdened by the need for seminaries and bishops and already deeply rooted among the farmers whose families were spreading westward, was well positioned to expand quickly into the frontier areas. With their indefatigable circuit-riding preachers and their summer revival meetings, they drew large crowds, established congregations throughout the land, and soon became America s leading denomination. Of course, the Baptists and the Presbyterians, with similar tactics, were not far behind. EXPANSION AND THE QUEST FOR DIVERSITY IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH The Episcopal Church did eventually get off its duff and begin to take up its mission. During much of the first two hundred years, our church tended to fit a particular
niche in American society. We tended first of all to be well educated. Along with that, we have tended to be from higher social stations of society, and generally among the better-to-do. We have been predominantly white, and very Anglo in background. We have been strongest on the east coast. In the past, America was democratic in government, but American society was still highly class-conscious, in religion as in everything else. So if your family was a farm or working class family, you might be Baptist or Methodist. A middle class family might be Methodist or Presbyterian. A professional family might be Presbyterian or Episcopal (substitute Congregationalist in New England). A land-owning or industrialist family was probably Episcopal, Congregationalist, or Unitarian, perhaps Presbyterian. If your background was German, you d be Lutheran or Catholic. If Scandinavian, definitely Lutheran. In the mid-west, particularly, Disciples of Christ might substitute for Methodist. If French, then Catholic or (for Huguenots) one of the Protestant break-away denominations. If Irish or Italian, definitely Catholic! To be Greek was to be Orthodox. Of course, there was no rule about this, and there were plenty of exceptions, but religious affiliation just went along with ethnicity, family socio-economic circumstances, and geographic region. None of this is nearly so true today. Now we have predominantly black congregations galore, but also Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, and so on. A value for diversity is presently making for more mixed-ethnicity congregations. More and more, the idea that you go to the church that fits your income and education is waning, too. Here is some of the story of how we got to this point. Right after the American Revolution, Absalom Jones became the first man of African origins to be ordained by a hierarchical denomination in America, when he was ordained deacon and then priest by Pennsylvania bishop William White. Without doubt, there was and is much racial discrimination in the church. In fact, slavery was to be practiced yet for another sixty years after that! Yet early on, it was established that the Episcopal Church was not just for white people. We have been struggling to make that true in fact as well as in principle ever since. Mission among the American Indians has been very important to the Episcopal Church. As early as 1835, the General Convention formed the Domestic and Foreign Mission Society (even designating that to be the official name of the church!), and declared that every church member was a member of it also. Soon, Jackson Kemper was ordained the first Missionary Bishop, assigned to go out west and make a diocese for himself. He worked extremely hard, and soon attracted others to the work. Congregations were established in towns throughout the Midwest, and almost whole tribes of Indians were baptized into the Episcopal Church. As a result, there came to be only one ethnic group among which the Episcopal Church was the largest religious affiliation, and that was the American Indians, especially in the Dakotas and Navajoland, which is an Episcopal Diocese overlapping the corners of several states. Kemper also established Nashotah House Seminary in Wisconsin to train clergy for the west. Kemper himself became the first Bishop of Wisconsin.
As the United States gradually took over the center of the North American continent, its people spread out across the land, wresting it from the hands of the Indians and overwhelming the earlier Spanish and French- speaking populations. Episcopal missions tended to follow only after significant towns had been established. This is far from being the case back in the mother country, where every square inch of land is in the boundaries of one parish or another, and the church is stronger in rural areas than in cities. But in America, the revival preachers of the Protestant denominations were so much better at evangelism than we were, that the Episcopalians largely left the frontiers to them, and arrived later as soon as there were enough teachers, bankers, and businessmen and their families to minister to. Today, most every town of any size has at least one Episcopal church. Outside the Eastern Seaboard, though, one doesn t encounter so many rural Episcopal congregations. We are getting better at evangelism, but we still do better at collecting those souls who have fallen through the cracks of the more dogmatically rigid denominations than we do at direct conversion of non-christians. THE CHALLENGE OF SLAVERY Obviously, the American Civil War was a huge challenge to the Episcopal Church, as for all denominations in America. Slavery was a way of life in the American south; and even in the north, where it fell out of practice for economic rather than moral reasons, most people were pretty indifferent to the moral conflict it produced. Over time, however, more and more northerners became anti-slavery, and southerners became more and more defensive about the institution. As the Civil War approached, the denominations fought and split into northern and southern churches over the issue. The Episcopal Church did not split over slavery. Some of us lament that fact, thinking that our Church should have taken some decisive stand on such a major issue, but it is the case that we did not. Remember, our tradition calls for using the Bible, tradition, and human reason to settle such issues. The Bible clearly tolerates human slavery, and it had been the tradition through all of human history up to that point. Unfortunately, this was a different kind of slavery, based upon race rather than economics or the fortunes of war; nevertheless, Episcopalians tolerated both views, no matter what their personal convictions were. In 1861, the southern dioceses declared themselves to be a separate Confederate Church, simply because they lived in a different nation. The Episcopal Church continued to begin its roll call at General Convention, Alabama in alphabetical order; but during the war years, no one answered for the southern dioceses. When the war ended, at the next General Convention, the same roll call got an answer, Present, from the southern bishops and deputies, and the church was reunited again without incident. It took the Methodists half a century and the Presbyterians more than a century to reunite, and the Baptists have still never done so.
Today, we may be disappointed that our church did not take a strong stand against slavery. Many in the North (and a few in the South) did feel strongly opposed to slavery. If they had pressed that issue, however, it would have split the church angrily and perhaps permanently. The decision not to do so was based on the Anglican principle for authority, that nothing can be required of a person for salvation that is not warranted by Holy Scripture. After the nation as a whole agreed to eliminate slavery, then the church also took that stance, because it became verified as a part of our tradition through human reason (and there are also a few veiled anti-slavery Biblical passages as well). There is no question, however, that the insensitivity of our church and others to full equality for black Americans is the main reason for the dominance of the all-black churches in that portion of our society today. So we are all reaping the harvest of division and distrust that was sown over a century ago and continues even today. The decision, finally, to speak firmly against slavery has had lasting repercussions in the church, for it was the first time that we had allowed reason to over-rule tradition and so much of the Biblical evidence as well. Over a century later, that same kind of argument would be used again successfully to bring about the ordination of women to all levels of ministry in the church. PENDULUM SWINGS If we could go back in time and worship in an Episcopal Church in Virginia in the early 1800 s, we would hardly recognize it as our church at all. Episcopalians were very Protestant-minded in those days, and worship was very preaching and Word-oriented. There was hardly any music at all. The sermon might last an hour or more. Communion was rarely offered. But over the years, several theological movements have influenced the way our church has evolved. We have already described Methodism, which started as a renewal movement in the Church of England but became, first in America, a separate denomination. From their influence, we get hymn-singing in worship and a more evangelical attitude, at least among some of our members. The importance of confirmation as an adult declaration of faith is influenced by their insistence on deliberate conversion. By the time of the Civil War, another movement, also begun in England, moved us also in the opposite direction. This was called the Oxford Movement, because it originated from that university. The Oxford Movement reminded the church that we did not first come into being in the 1530 s, but are the same continuous church that was established in England in the second century and then spread to America. From 664 to 1536, the church was within the Roman Catholic Communion, but it existed separately both before and after that sojourn. Therefore, they taught, we should not act as if catholic = bad. There were many traditions and practices of the medieval church that were clearly helpful and meaningful to people, or else they would not have practiced them. Thanks to the Oxford Movement, and the later Ritualist Movement which soon followed it, we now have candles on the altar, vestments for clergy and choir, actions
such as genuflection and the sign of the cross, even incense, holy water, and the ringing of bells, which together make us look and sound very catholic (in some places). In recent years, the Liturgical Renewal Movement has brought more modern language into our Book of Common Prayer, more movement in worship, a less stiff kind of formality, and celebration of Eucharist in place of Morning Prayer every Sunday. AN ERA OF CONFLICT The first twenty years after the Second World War was the time of greatest growth, prosperity, and harmony ever in the Episcopal Church. Sadly, this time has been followed by almost a half-century of the greatest discord, danger, and disunity we have faced since our earliest days. One controversy after another, mostly of a social nature, but founded in theological attitudes as well, has rocked our communion, as well as the other Christian denominations, especially the Mainline, or traditional established denominations of the U. S. Consequently, we, as all of the other Mainline denominations, have experienced a decline in membership, support, and confidence as we struggled over these questions. Here are some of the late-twentieth-century controversies: Peace and Justice: our church has spoken out strongly against some of the actions of corporations, and our government s support of them, and against several of the military actions the U. S. has undertaken. This has alienated ardent capitalists and those who support America First. Civil Rights: though we were largely white and well-to-do, the church supported full civil rights for Americans of color, and an end to racial segregation everywhere. That position did not sit well with southern whites or others with racist attitudes. Capital Punishment: like other mainline denominations, our church came out (in 1958) against capital punishment. Church members are not required to agree with this position, but the fact of the church taking it was offensive to traditionalists who believe executions are a deterrent to crime. The Sexual Revolution: while we have not changed our basic positions on sexual morality, our church has tended to be less vocal than some in condemning divorce, relationships outside of marriage, abortion, and homosexuality. These are hot-button issues for almost everyone, one way or the other. Women s Rights: related to both civil rights and the sexual revolution is the role of women in church and society. The Episcopal Church decided in 1977 to ordain women to diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. To some, this was an unacceptable departure from strict interpretations of scripture and tradition, and we suffered schism and loss of members because of it. Others argued that the spirit of the Gospels requires equal treatment for all people. The Rev. Mary Adelia MacLeod, rector of St. John s Church, Charleston, WV, became the first American woman consecrated diocesan bishop. Today, the number of women priests and bishops continues to grow.
The role of gays and lesbians in the church and as clergy: General Convention has made clear pronouncements on God s love for homosexual persons and their full inclusion in the church. In 2003, General Convention ratified the election in New Hampshire of The Rev. Eugene Robinson, a partnered gay man, as their bishop, and he was consecrated later that year. That event set off a wave of reaction around the Anglican world, and its consequences continue. Some dioceses have undertaken to bless, or in jurisdictions that allow it, to marry persons of the same sex, though General Convention has not specifically authorized that practice, nor has it developed a liturgy for such rites. Modernism in General: revising the Book of Common Prayer in 1979 to produce a more contemporary-sounding liturgy angered and horrified many traditionalists who dearly loved the old Cranmerian English of the former books. We are still grappling with trying to produce language about God that is both orthodox and also inclusive of women. This is a lot to absorb in one generation, and it is no wonder we have had a rough ride over the past three decades. In all likelihood, the pace of change will not slow down anytime soon. What will be the issues producing conflict in the coming decades? It is hard to say. The present youth generation has little problem with the issues that were thought to be absolutely crucial a generation ago. Yet those are not the ones our youth today will have to confront! Instead, they will face questions for which the answers have not been worked out so fully.