The evangelical movement could claim half the total bishops and clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1850 but by the First World War representatives of this school were difficult to find in this Church. In contrast, the anglo-catholic movement which was hardly present before 1850 was widespread in 1914.
Why did such a large party, with such distinctive views, collapse and disappear? Professor Gillis J. Harp has made a major beginning in answering this question by his essay entitled, “The Strange Death of Episcopalianism” in Anglican and Episcopal History, Volume LXXIV, No.2., 2005, pp.180ff. He groups his different explanations under three headings – generational (the torch was not passed on by the older generation to the young one), institutional (the seminaries did not maintain and commend a viable evangelical Faith, Churchmanship and lifestyle); and cultural/theological (evangelicals tended to be of step with the romanticism and idealism whereas the new school of anglo-catholicism walked more in step with them). To these he adds two further factors, the departure of some Evangelicals to form the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873 and before this, the American Civil War which (in my judgment he does not emphasize sufficiently) seriously caused the weakening of the evangelical party.
I do urge my readers to study what Dr Harp has written and follow up suggestions in his notes.
My particular interest here is to suggest that the massive demise of Evangelicalism in the PECUSA provides us with a “cautionary tale” (I am rather fond of this expression for in his Preface to my first book, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in England [1967] Dr James I Packer stated that the story I told of the formation of this extreme type of Calvinism was a cautionary tale to all would-be Calvinists!) And this 19th century story of PECUSA Evangelicals is a cautionary tale not only to present-day Evangelicals in the ECUSA and AMiA but also to old-style Anglo-Catholics in the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions and also in the ECUSA.
In the latter part of the 19th century, the general cultural setting was such as to make the ceremonial, ritualism and drama of anglo-catholic liturgy more appealing to Episcopalians than the stolid and formal low-church, evangelical service of the Word. The shape and content of the Eucharist in the candle-lit building was more attractive than the preacher in a Geneva gown speaking from the big pulpit after the singing of canticles. The Evangelicals tended to carry on after the Civil War as before and much like they did at the beginning of the 19th century. They united their changeless Gospel to a seemingly changeless presentation and dress. And that dress was not in fashion after the mid-century. Apparently they did not distinguish the essence from the social and cultural setting and thus they did not do sufficient to adapt in terms of music, drama and the aesthetics of their services and liturgy. They acted as though the reading and exposition of the Word of God alone done in an eighteenth-century style would be sufficient to maintain the cause. And all this was done, to a large degree, because they believed that they were resisting the inroads of [roman] Catholicism into the Protestant ECUSA.
And so while the Evangelicals fumbled, the Anglo-Catholics (the “ritualists”) gained greater support; and even the low and broad churchmen of the day began slowly to make their services more colorful and ornate.
Evangelicalism wearing its early 19th century dress was not acceptable to churchgoers in the last part of the same century and so it did not reproduce itself and it gradually died out. Further, the three evangelical seminaries lost their fervor in mid-century and so they produced more ministers for the broad church school than for the evangelical cause. And once a great movement gets into decline, then the decline tends to accelerate! So Evangelicalism went off the map!
What is the cautionary tale here?
Perhaps it is that a church cannot live on nostalgia and imagine it can either maintain or re-create a past period of bliss or success. The 19th century Evangelicals erred in their seeking to keep the old ways in place when the changing world around them required that they adapt to be seen and heard. Modern traditionalists in the ECUSA and in the Continuing Jurisdictions, whatever their churchmanship, have to face this temptation and danger of thinking that, for example, the 1950s, before the ravages of the 1960s, is the decade to be made present again for then the traditional ways seemed to prosper.
Or perhaps it is that the Evangelical movement to be “successful” has to be securely based on Scripture and the classic Formularies, but at the same time has to be open to a variety of possible ways of worshipping God and serving him – without denying its true character. If it goes overboard on the side of relevance, simplicity and acceptability, then it loses its classic character and its Anglican nature; if it simply glories in its security in Scripture and the Formularies, then it soon ceases to be an active church. The 19th century Evangelicals had the Faith but they put it in sealed boxes, as it were, and so their worship and witness began to lose authenticity and appeal.
Modern ECUSA Evangelicals seem not to be in danger of losing the desire to minister to their generation in appropriate ways, but they are perhaps dangerously near to losing hold on their roots, of forgetting the historic and classic Formularies of the Anglican Way. So they are possibly near to being merely Evangelicals who happen to use a simplified liturgy, and, as such, they may be a long way from the wholeness of the Anglican Way.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
No comments:
Post a Comment