Introduction to the Episcopal Church
Session
2
Who
are we? How did we get to be who we
are?
Our
Name: The Episcopal Church
We
have other names: The Episcopal Church in the USA. The Protestant Episcopal in the USA and we
have a legal name: Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
Are
we Catholic? Are we Protestant?
The
common street language use of the word Catholic really means Roman
Catholic. But we are catholic in the
sense that we use the Creed of the undivided church, the Nicene Creed and we
say, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” The word catholic comes from the Greek words “kata
holos” meaning “on the whole.” In the
Apostles Creed (an ancient creed and used at baptism) we say, “I believe in the
holy catholic church.” So we believe in
one church even though we know that in historical disagreements we have come to
meet in separate churches or communions.
We
are Protestant in the sense that we are not Roman Catholic. The Reformation had its own unique pattern
when Roman Catholic Christians in England in various ways expressed their
disagreements with certain practices that arose in the Roman Catholic
Church. English Roman Catholics were
influenced by Reformation movements that included the use of native language
for the prayers instead of Latin. Mutual
disagreement and mutual reaction and retaliation between the Papacy and the
English Crown along with a body of clergy in England who were influenced by the
Reformation led to the gradual separation between the Church of England and the
Roman Catholic Church, but the separation was not fully finalized until 1896
when a Papal document declared that Anglican ordinations were not valid
(canonically proper according to how the papacy defined validity). We are Protestant in that we embraced a
tradition that affirmed a greater role for the Bible, we believe prayer should
be in the common language of the people who gather to pray, we allow clergy to
marry and we believe that the Pope could serve as a “first among equals of all
bishops” but not as an infallible spokesperson for the entire church. As we shall see, we believe that God’s Spirit
is active in our age too and can lead us to see the wisdom to change some
ancient practices that seem to be unreasonable and promote ancient bias against
people who dearly love God and want to follow Christ and have the full rights
of all of the Church’s sacraments.
The
Episcopal Church: What does our name tell us about ourselves?
Episcopal
comes from the Greek word episkopos ἐπίσκοπος. It
literally means “over seer” and from Latin we have the word supervisor(not a
word that we use in the church). The
English word for episkopos is
bishop. So Episcopal means, “having
bishops.” This tells us something about
our polity or church structures. Other
churches have bishops too: the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Lutherans,
the various Orthodox churches and there are similarities and differences in how
bishops are appointed/elected/function and are defined in the various Christian
bodies.
In
the Episcopal Church in the United States we have a bishop in each
diocese. A diocese is a geographical
area where a bishop has over sight. The
State of California has six Episcopal Dioceses and St. Mary's-in-the-Valley is
located in the Diocese of San Diego.
And our bishop is The Right Reverend Susan Snook.
Exercise:
Ponder
the difference stated above between catholic and Roman Catholic. Is it scandalous that people who follow
Christ are divided into so many different “churches” even while we say there is
“one holy catholic church?” Could we also understand the division into
different churches as having diversity so that we can appeal to many more
people? If we had a “one size fits all”
approach, would not lots of people feel left out and not part of the body of
Christ? Diversity allows us checks and
balances since structural unity can be like a heavy handed “Empire.” Diversity helps us to expand our hearts to
appreciate differences.
Father
Phil
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