Adelphoi,
A few thoughts on...
The 74th General Convention 2003 & Continuing Change within the ECUSA
The Blue Book (Reports to the 74th General Convention) now published in preparation for the July 30th meeting in Minneapolis provides only one indication of possible, further dramatic and substantial changes in the worship, doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church - a Church that been involved in innovation in major areas since the 1960s. Other indications of change come through surprises in necessary business and through resolutions submitted by dioceses.
One indication of a major change that many people are aware of is the probable acceptance by a majority in both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies of that person approved by a majority within the Diocese of New Hampshire to be its new bishop. The confirmation of persons duly elected by dioceses is commonplace at Conventions; but, this one will be different in that the candidate is not only a divorced man (once a barrier but no longer) but is also a gay man, living in a sexual partnership with another man. If he is approved then the ECUSA will have - by the back door as it were - made it clear that it is acceptable for a bishop (and therefore for a priest or lay person) to be active homosexually, while serving as a bishop. In one stroke of the pen, as it were, the received doctrine of the Church of God of the Old and New Testaments will have been set aside.
If this bishop-elect were not approved there would be a revolt within the Convention, the like of which we have not seen in recent years. For there is a vocal minority that intends to have gay partnerships approved one way or another NOW, not tomorrow.
In terms of continuing changes in Liturgy (structure, content, doctrine & style) what seems to be the intention of the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music is as follows:
Do studies of what is going on now in the churches and of what people say they need and of what the Commission thinks that people need.
Use these studies to call for innovation.
Do not set aside the 1979 prayer book as yet, but supplement it with a growing corpus of alternatives. Also use the 1979 prayer book in a revised form - introducing a full agenda of non-excluding or inclusive language into it.
Keep on producing new services for every conceivable perceived need in a multi-cultural, multi-generational etc. church. Take note of innovations being developed around the church and publicise the best of them.
Call that which is evolving nationally and locally by the term "Common Worship" and so give it a kind of historically-based respectability and of a kind of tie to the Church of England where the new Directory of Services if called "Common Worship".
When there is the production of so much material and where the general claim is made that "the law of praying is the law of believing" (i.e. that liturgy creates doctrine) and where that which is produced bears little relation to historic texts in terms of the theological content and syntax/style, then a revolution is occurring and all without the production of a new prayer book. That is "Common Worship" is said to exist and to do so in a vast corpus of materials, the full scope of which only a few truly are aware of.
In the Reports of other Commissions - Mission & Evangelism, Ecumenical Relations and so on - there is likewise innovation being pursued in many major areas but only a careful examination of the proposals in the context of knowing what have been the doctrines of the Church, the Sacraments, and Salvation in the Anglican Way will lay bare what these are. And this requires a long essay.
It would appear that most Episcopalians, brainwashed since the 1960s by constant innovation and change, do not generally recognize how far away from classic doctrine and practice their Church has moved. It is only in such areas as accepting gay partnerships that they really note innovation these days. The changing doctrines of God, the Holy Trinity, the Person and Work of Christ, Salvation, Christian Hope and so on seem to occur and arrive with little notice! Pantheism, Panentheism and Unitarianism, for example, enter the door and people clap, not recognizing that without the Confession of the Trinity as a Unity and a Unity in Trinity there may be religion but there cannot be Christianity.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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