When the Church is fulfilling its vocation to worship the Lord and to evangelize the people it is always adapting and changing. Not adapting and changing its doctrines, basic forms of worship, moral teaching and discipline, and Ministry, for to do so would be to engage in the path of apostasy. Rather, adapting as occasion requires, its methods of communication, its style of presentation, its ways of having fellowship, its use of music, its relation to the local community and culture, the relation of clergy and laity in shared ministry, and so on.
Certainly the local church/congregation cannot avoid being in the world, situated in specific place at a given time, and this means it is within a given society and culture which in outreach it has seriously to take into account. Yet the church is not to be conformed to the world even as it seeks to be for the world – that is, for its conversion to God, for its spiritual and moral renovation and for its physical welfare.
When the surrounding society and culture is part of “Christendom” and is generally governed by Christian views of personal and family life, then the pressure on the Church to follow the world and be conformed to it is not usually towards the changing of the internal doctrine of the Church. Rather it is more towards a dull orthodoxy and nominal Christianity.
However, when the surrounding society and culture is rejecting Christendom and adopting secular principles and values, then the pressure on the Church to modify or change its doctrine, worship, moral teaching and discipline becomes intense. The members of the Church live in a society where new and exciting ideas are being propagated and where calls are being made for changes that seem to be just and reasonable. Such a situation was faced by the Churches in Europe and the USA from the time when the Enlightenment made its impact in the late 19th century and the intensity of this pressure reached its zenith in the period after World War II to the present time.
If we now look only at one denomination in the USA it will be the easier to face the question concerning the chicken and the egg. We know that the Episcopal Church made great changes or introduced major innovations from 1950 to 2005. Did these arise because this Church, as inspired or pressed by changes in society and culture, began to see truths in the Bible that she had previously missed? Or did these arise because she consciously or unconsciously followed or imitated society and then looked to the Bible for justification? Or did these arise partly through the reading of Scripture and partly through the imitation of secular trends?
The major innovations of this period adopted by the Church seem to be the following: the acceptance of artificial means of birth control, including abortion, in some cases, as morally acceptable; widespread marriage of divorcees in church as morally acceptable; full membership and rights for all ethnic and racial minorities; the ordination of women to the Three Orders of Ministry contrary to the long tradition of a male-only Ministry; the creation and adoption of a new Prayer Book (a Book of Varied Services) which was falsely called “the Book of Common Prayer” as if it were another edition of the classic Book of Common Prayer; the commitment to new language for God and human beings which recognizes that women are half the population; the acceptance that there is a minority in society who are “homosexual” in “orientation” and that as such they should be given full membership of the Church and full rights therein; and the emergence of the office of bishop as the Chief Executive Office and Chief Liturgical Officer of the diocese.
When we examine these innovations it is reasonably clear (and sociological studies are conforming this) that in most cases it was clearly a case of the Church following trends and changes in society and culture.
In the case of remarriage, there was a tremendous increase in divorce after World War II and the Church, it may be claimed, acted pastorally by first counseling and then blessing the marriages of many divorcees. What began as a pastoral emergency became the way things were and still are – with nearly half of the adult membership divorced and remarried. Re- marriage in church is now an established right. (In this general context, the purpose of marriage was redefined in terms of personal fulfillment and in this procreation became an option!)
In the case of the ordination of women, again it is clear that the powerful forces of secular feminism were felt within the Church and it was these which caused a majority to vote for the entry of women into the Ministry even as they were entering other “professions.” Again, in the case of active “homosexuals” being admitted to full membership including ordination, it is a clear case of the Church following what was occurring in society and culture.
Now in these three cases, the experiential context is that once you feel convinced that what is being done is right then you will look for ways to justify it or at least show it is not wrong from your sacred tradition, especially your holy Books. This led to new ways both of translating the Bible and of interpreting the Bible. Texts which previously said “No” now said “Yes”. These new ways are now thought of by many as the normal ways. But the use of the Bible was secondary to the influence of secular teachings.
If we think about the granting of full membership rights to ethnic minorities then we are perhaps in a different context. While the pressure came from society, it was pressure led in the main by persons who were acting out of Christian faith and morality (e.g. Dr Martin Luther King). So in this instance the Episcopal Church did what was right and what had been there for all to see in the Bible since the apostolic age – to make clear that in Baptism and church membership there is equality of races and the sexes.
The changing role of bishops to become CEOs is obviously imitative of the way business is supposedly run efficiently; and the training of clergy to be skilled in counseling and management (so as to manage well a congregation) reflects both the influence of theories from secular management and secular psychology. The latter have been tremendously influence on a whole range of doctrines and practices creating sometimes a therapeutical religion.
Finally, the readiness of the General Convention publicly to endorse a falsehood in the title of its new prayer book, points to the arrogance and self-confidence of a Church that believed that it is autonomous and that majority decisions made by it are the will of God!
The spirit of the 1960s had gone, as it were, to its head and it believed that the majority vote was the action of the Divine Spirit. The Episcopal Church still glories in its autonomy and that it abides by its rules meticulously in its innovating!
What is abundantly clear is that the Episcopal Church has in terms of its worship, doctrine, discipline, language used to address God, and polity changed dramatically – even as it has diminished in membership and influence – since World War II, and especially from the late 1960s. It is also very clear that it has been secular forces which have supplied the major energy and ideology to cause this dramatic change, and to set in motion an avalanche that is apparently impossible to stop.
The amazing thing is that in a few dioceses, and in parishes in other dioceses, there has been a remnant which has not been taken in by the whole of the innovations, but which has managed to keep at bay some of them, and thus by God’s favor maintain a semblance if not an example of godly worship, order and piety! Whether the remnant can and will hold out remains an open question!
petertoon@msn.com December 10, 2005
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