[Magdalen] A Note Re CofE and TEC History

[Zephonites at aol.com]

Jim
 
Thank you your mail was of great interest.
 
I agree that it does seem that we (by which I mean TEC and the CofE) while  
being in communion are substantially different in many ways.
 
Blessings
Martin
 
 
In a message dated 30/06/2015 17:26:30 GMT Daylight Time,  
jguthrie at pipeline.com writes:

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%20L
I%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