There is a very clear connection and route from the content of the 1979 Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church to its major innovations in sexuality of 2003-5. And that connection is through the constant use of the text of the “Service of Holy Baptism” (pp.299ff.).
I recall vividly being present at a meeting of the Standing Liturgical Commission at the Convention of 2000, where I was giving evidence on behalf of the use of the classic BCP of 1928. It was agreed that with the local bishop’s permission and under certain conditions certain services of the 1928 BCP could be used. However, of one thing they were all clear, and the female priests there present most clear. This was that there was no substitute possible for the use of the Baptismal Service. For herein was contained what they obviously believed was an essential part of the progressive religion of the modernized Episcopal Church.
I also recall vividly watching the installation – by himself! – in the National Cathedral at Washington of Griswold as the Presiding Bishop. Here it was made very clear that in Baptism God sows the seed of all possible ministry and ministries in the Church, lay and ordained. Thus at any time a baptized person may be called to any ministry, whatever the person’s sex or “orientation.” So, once baptized, any person is a potential candidate for all ministries and the fact of having been baptized is always to be the primary consideration.
Turning to the Service itself, one reads with horror the first sentence of the introductory comments: “Holy Baptism is full initiation….” A word that belongs chiefly to the human sciences such as anthropology and culture-studies, and that was used rarely in the Early Church of Baptism but has been pushed by the liberal ecumenical movement, is here used as the primary word of description for what Baptism is all about. It is the ritual entrance into a community (a community in modern terms is the coming together of “individuals” for a common purpose).
But what kind of community? This is presented within what is called “The Baptismal Covenant”. Though there is promise to be committed to certain traditional things such as church attendance, resisting of evil and proclaiming the Gospel, the innovation is in the questions which require an affirmative reply: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? And , Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?”
The Passing of the Peace, which often includes much physical contact, and is used often and widely within ECUSA, is intimately related to these commitment as a kind of outward and visible form of creating a community of people who affirm one another.
Anyone who has followed the debates and resolutions of the General Convention from the 1960s through to 2003 will have no doubt of the great importance attached to these innovative commitments, which provided for not a few Conventions their titles and themes. What these commitments mean – if we listen to the General Convention and the Executive Council – is a virtually total dedication to the expanding agenda of civil and human rights and the support of all moves to affirm self-worth and human dignity. Thus anyone making these commitments within the context of the Episcopal Church is virtually committing himself/herself to all the innovations introduced by the General Convention since the 1960s, from the right to divorce and remarriage in church, through a variety of women’s and minority rights, to the rights of homosexual persons to be true to their orientation. That is a commitment to a community which is not only in the world and for the world but is also of the world, differing only from the world (enlightened culture) in using “God-language” for human ideas and activity.
In the traditional Services of Holy Baptism, the emphasis is upon regeneration, birth from above, and dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ, for membership of a heavenly communion (not an earthly, activist community) where life on earth is a pilgrimage and where as a soldier and servant of Christ one is at war with the world, the flesh and the devil in the service of the heavenly Father. Let my reader compare the content of the 1979 service with that in the BCP of 1662 or 1928 in order to get the complete contrast between the doctrine, style and emphases as well as the content of the two different forms of entrance into Christian Faith.
Of course, there is sufficient traditional material in the 1979 Baptismal Service to hide its real and true purpose, which is that of initiating people into an activist community which, in the name of God, and with some use of traditional language and means, is primarily committed to bringing or reflecting change in human society, so that in it equality, justice and peace are to be found, and war and discrimination against persons are no more.
So I am very surprised, indeed shocked, that those who claim to be “the orthodox remnant” within ECUSA use this service all the time and seem not to realize that by using it they are supporting the very agenda that they say they oppose! I am more shocked that AMiA clergy use it as well!
Let them instead use the classic Anglican Service and, if they insist that it be in so-called contemporary language, some of us will be happy to provide such a text for them immediately.
(For a reasoned critique of the 1979 Prayer Book from the vantage point of the classic Anglican Way, see Louis. R Tarsitano & Peter Toon, Neither Orthodoxy Nor A Formulary…. Available on line at www.anglicanmarketplace.com or by calling 1-800-727-1928)
May 4, 2005, Eve of the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord. The Revd Dr Peter Toon
No comments:
Post a Comment