Barbarians at the Gate, or Reflections on my Peers in the Diocese of Olympia

[Tim Mathis]

Last night in front of a urinal at a pub, I had a moment to reflect upon a question, posed by a friend, about the trends I've noticed while working for our Diocesan Commission for Emerging Mission, traveling around and talking to young Episcopalians. Here's what I've noticed. I'm guessing this is loosely reflective of the national situation:

1) In our church, there is a group of young 20/30-something lifers - cradle Episcopalians - who really grasp the 'pearl of great price' that is Anglicanism. They've been formed by the community and its liturgies, institutions and practices, and have stuck with it despite the fact that most of their peers are long gone and their churches are greying. These people find something essential in the Episcopal tradition (often relating to personal and community connections or sometimes social justice concerns, and often to the visceral transcendence of the Eucharist), and seem to quite frequently end up in the discernment process for ordination. They also often communicate something of an air of desperation and/or resignation, related to the observable fact that for the last 30-40 years, Episcopalians have been losing the religious conversion race, and no one seems to know what to do about it - including most alarmingly the majority of those who sit in leadership of the church. These folks make up about about 4/10 of the Episcopal Young Adults I meet. They are generally curious about and a bit suspicious of:

2) Anglimergents: This group, in our diocese, makes up the bulk of young adults in church on a given Sunday, and is almost entirely comprised of converts - people mostly from evangelical traditions (4/10), fewer from the Catholic Tradition (1.5/10), and fewer still from non-Christian religious backgrounds (.5/10). This group has been drawn into the Episcopal tradition most frequently by its theological and social openness, the beauty and structure of its liturgical worship, and/or its strong emphasis on social justice. They have been squeezed out of their former traditions by outmoded modernist religious strictures or homophobic or patriarchal attitudes of leadership, or by the meaninglessness and loneliness of irreligion. Having been hurt by religious leaders in the past, this group often tends to bristle against the hierarchical structure and institutional culture of the Episcopal Church, but finds it to be a church of last resort - the only place where they could continue to be Christian (I'm speaking for myself here). They too find something really vital in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition, and as converts hold out a lot of hope for this particular tradition as an antidote to American religious woes.

3) The real problem at this point is that the two groups frequently don't get along. Anglimergents love Episcopalianism, but they don't necessarily love Episcopalians - those stodgy, institutionalist, upper crust liberals. Episcopalians say they want converts, and they want to grow the church, but they don't want to (or don't have the capacity to) deal with the immaturity, challenge and necessary change that comes along with new blood and fresh ideas. To Anglimergents, the lifers project a need to defend their own honor and protect their own territory, and a seeming lack of understanding of the depth of the Episcopal church's mission crisis. To the lifers, the Anglimergents project a dismissive disrespect and a too-easy tendency to challenge structures that have proven useful for generations. (I would say here that this dynamic is more evidenced among boomers and young Anglimergents than Gen X/Y Lifers - primarily b/c Gens X/Y hold almost no power in the Episcopal Church.)

4) The hope in this situation is that the Anglimergents have what the lifers don't - a strong sense of mission, marketing and evangelism skills honed during Evangelical Protestant upbringings, and a keen sense of what is valuable about Anglicanism for the outside world. And conversely, the Lifers have what the Anglimergents don't - a lifelong experience of the soul-shaping power of Anglican worship and community, and a depth of wisdom and understanding about what it means to be a part of this tradition. At this particular crisis point, the Episcopal Church is lucky that it is being invaded by convert barbarians - the barbarians ultimately just want to be friends, and really don't want to break what the Episcopalians have. If the barbarians can figure out what is appropriate and what is not when it comes to challenging authority, and if the Episcopalians can get used to the smell, we're going to have a pretty damn good team. Anglican Christianity - as a theological and spiritual system - is the most palatable Christianity out there for my money.

[Nurya Love Parish]

Thanks Tim, this is very helpful analysis. I wonder how this changes with context: i.e. for us in Western MI, there are only a few Anglimergents and it seems even fewer young cradle Episcopalians. As a result we aren't experiencing this tension (at least, that I know of). However I can easily see how it might emerge in a situation where both groups are expected to be buddy-buddy but actually enter the conversation with very different assumptions and lived experience.

[Joel Clark Mason]

Hi Tim,

Good posting - those mystical urinals do inspire sometimes. It feels as though humanity is being dragged kicking and screaming to a new awakening of some sort. Quite a few scholarly types like to tag this as 'postmodern.' However, this isn't the first time this has happened (see the world prior to Emperor Theodosius) but it is the first time that freedom of or from belief has been codified. No longer is it an expectation that you go to Church on a Sunday, especially in light of the wonderful diversity of faiths that have mixed together in our world. The Church, being the old creaky institution that it is (even the Anglicans) is having a hard time turning on this dime. The delivery of information has sped up so much that new paradigms come along before the Church has had the opportunity to develop relevant responses to the ones that came along four or five ago.

Here's a question for you - how attached are you to, say, the Nicene Creed? Our parish is in a Jewish majority community with several mixed families (including one Muslim) and Jews and Muslims really chafe at the Creed. So what are we willing to be flexible with and what can we give up and still maintain our Anglican identity? The Eucharist is central but what of all the accretions that have found their way into the liturgy over the centuries? St. Gregory's in SF is exceptional in the dynamic liturgy they offer but they grew up as a parish with that liturgy. How can that same dynamism be repeated among the frozen chosen?

The barbarians we have welcomed through the lychgate onto the sacred grounds of our Anglican experience (I speak here as a former Methodist) can either enrich our church with their varied gifts and perspectives on Christian being or we can try to squeeze them into a pre-fashioned Anglican cookie cutter so we all come out the same. In a postmodern environment that second option won't carry us too far.

Those in leadership fret about numbers. Perhaps the thing to fret about is how do we reach out to a hungry, frightened, angry, crying world with an invitation to be a part of a community that is rich in meaning and fellowship? Not with 20 or 30 minute sermons or boring liturgies but with a group of people who are willing to risk the intimacy that community calls for.

[Tom Devine]

Tim,
As a barbarian, I resonate fully with what you've written here. I joined St. Gregory of Nyssa parish in SF about 6 years ago, having been brought up RC but having left that church long ago. I love what I know and see of the Anglican tradition. I love it for the liturgy and its deep grounding in the English language; for its inclusiveness and its genuine ability to focus on the deep message of the Gospels, the underground root that keeps sending up unexpected shoots; and for the activism and democracy I see among the people at St. Gregory's and other Episcopal congregations. I hope and pray that this Church will continue to grow and offer its unique gifts to barbarians like me. I, for one, am so happy with it that I talk about my church constantly and have brought many friends to services. If other barbarians are equally evangelistic, we could be a genuine force for growth.

[Tim Mathis]

Eric,

Thanks for the comment. Those are big questions! A few short thoughts: As Anglicans, what we have to offer is, in large part, our liturgy and the gift of the BCP. I think those can and should remain central as we seek to live out our mission in a distinctively Anglican/Christian way. And if 'evangelical' means 'centered on the message of Christ', then we need to constantly be in the process of becoming more evangelical. If (capital E)vangelical means long sermons, conservative theology, and lots of praise songs, well, that's up to the individual parish. In my context, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to become more Evangelical in the latter sense b/c it doesn't resonate in Seattle, and I think can actually be a hinderance to (small e)vangelicalism in the local community.

My sense is (and I'm stating this very crudely right before I need to leave for a meeting) that it isn't our Anglican liturgical style that is a hinderance to growth, mission, and evangelism. It's that, in the US anyway, a lot of Episcopal communities have lost their mojo, and have too little confidence in who they are and what they bring to the community in terms of message and spiritual practice. Quite the opposite - more liturgy! more BCP!

[Steve Hollinghurst]

i think those using the emerging label in the UK see a lot on common with folks like COTA in Seattle or The Crossing in Boston and others like that, then there are those in the Anglican church who would use the fresh expressions langauge who on the whole will be less pomo/mulitmedia in aproach and clealry have a family relationship to emerging labbelled things but are sometimes culturally different. of course the whole point of fresh expressions is to encourae culturally different expressions of church by getting them to express the diffeent cultures they emerge within.

[Tim Mathis]

I'm really interested in the Emerging church in the UK. Would love to spend 6 months or so over there getting a feel for how it's developed and the form it's taking. The dynamic in the (Protestant Evangelical) emerging US is quite different, although there seem to be some similar trends in our parallel Anglican expressions.

[Steve Hollinghurst]

valuable observation
i think it is simlar and different in the UK. the emrging crowd are primarily peopel from mainstream backgrounds, but a good number have been in charismatic evngleical mainstream church, but then the Anglicans and RC's count for over two thirds of church goers over here and the largest group of charismatic evangleicals are in the Anglican church. this i think makes for some differences in dynamic, yet in the ealry years beofre the emerging lable came along many of these groups did contain folks moving away from evangleical backgrounds and into litrugical traditions, even if many weren't changing denomination.

[Nate Bostian]

You have read my soul. As a post-evangelical, post-charismatic, what-the-heck-have-i-gotten-myself-into-episcopalian, I strongly identify with the Anglimergent perspective you identify here.