[Magdalen] A Note Re CofE and TEC History

[Jim Guthrie]

On 2015-06-29, at 11:29 PM, Zephonites--- via Magdalen wrote:

> As TEC is part of the Anglican Communion as is the C of E church, I assumed
> a similarlity with the UK

Martin, as I'm sure you know, there were difficulties between the CofE in the 
Americas and the CofE until the American Revolution made some things irrelevant 
(like fealty to the King).  There were other changes to separate us from the 
CofE from the get-go.

The major effort to reconcile the two was promoted (and financed) by American 
Financier J.P. Morgan. As his father mostly worked in London, Morgan wanted a 
much closer relationship with the CofE.

One way he promoted this was to send out private railroad cars from the lines he 
controlled to pick up Bishops (and some favored lay deputies) to bring them to 
General Convention. He'd give them their marching orders as it were, and the GC 
generally worked Morgan's will. One particular fruit of Morgan';s efforts was 
the 1892 Book of Common Prayer. Another was the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral 
which laid out the general scheme of both unity and independence. William Reed 
Huntington was a friend of Morgan's, who initiated the movement and carried out 
through Morgan's [heavy-handed <g>]  influence.

But religion continues to develop differently in the United States. There are 
all manner of U.S. Churches invented here and reflecting American ethos and 
boosterism and history, such as the Southern Baptists (not to be confused with 
Baptists you might be  familiar with in the UK <g>), and the Mormons (who had to 
give up polygamy as a basic tenet of their faith in order for Utah to join the 
Union).

Likewise there are churches in the U.S. that resulted from splits large and 
small, as well as entire congregations being kicked out. In our history, for 
example, congregations of ex slaves and free Blacks were kicked out of the 
Episcopal Church in order to achieve "Reconciliation" after the Civil War. Some 
count that as a great achievement (compared to Baptists and Presbyterians and 
others who split over the war and either never reconciled or didn’t do so until 
fairly recently.  I count that post-war "reconciliation" as the most shameful 
single episode in TEC history.

Black folk were kicked out of other churches too -- so you see a slew of 
predominantly Black "American-Invented" churches as faith triumphed over bigotry 
and hate in the white churches.

And that's not to say TEC churches in the North weren't guilty of some of this 
stuff. See:

https://books.google.com/books?id=MHfs-OiUNGIC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=St+James+LI+Ku+Klux+Klan&source=bl&ots=hrjXk9Xtsw&sig=1NQlbLelvK2lUxAobCsOQhzlo3Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fLySVYjTC8Lt-QHwz4O4Ag&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=St%20James%20LI%20Ku%20Klux%20Klan&f=false

Raewynne will recognize the portico in the lower -- it's St James St James where 
she's Rector, and I attended as a teen. The Rector who ordered my father to 
present himself for communion  was charged with cleaning the place up when he 
arrived in the 1930s -- after a short Rector tenure who replaced the Rector who 
was cool with the Klan. The top photo is in the parish cemetery.

This is not the stuff of Parish Histories -- but occurred in several of the 
parishes on LI's North Shore as well as elsewhere.

Let me hasten to add that there was a faithful remnant of Black Episcopalians in 
the South, but in the great TEC effort to integrate churches in the South in the 
1970s and 80s, the poorer churches -- al Black -- were generally merged into the 
richer White churches, and the people of color discovered they really weren;t 
welcomed there any more than they would have been a hundred years later. Our 
"traditionalist" friends who lament the drop in TEC membership like to omit 
cases like this, but we digress.

Think the Mormon experience in bowing to government will on this is certainly 
indicative as to how ALL or religious cohorts adjust their beliefs to meet the 
general will of all Americans. Certainly same-sex marriage falls into this 
ever-changing view of the never changing word of Scripture ,g>.

TEC is no exception to this domestic cultural (an political)  influence. So I 
think you have to disabuse yourself of the notion that we're somehow related 
more closely that  distant cousins, however romantic those seminal moments when 
there is total unity for a short time, like the Morning Prayer Service aboard 
ship attended by Churchill and Roosevelt together in WWII.

I've written all this to point out that TEC is constantly evolving in different 
ways, from things that were Godly then and embarrass us now.

As you may be appalled by some of the things we do (and have done) here, I think 
everyone here is even more appalled that the CofE is subject to the whims and 
whiles of parliament, where people of all faiths get to have any say in CofE 
affairs.

I wonder how a disestablished CofE might have evolved differently.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie