Category Confusion?

The House of Bishops met in Texas this past week, and issued a statement responding the Dar es Salaam Communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion. The House of Bishops repudiated all the requests made of the Episcopal Church, in no uncertain terms.

One thing that their letter said about the request to have a Primatial Vicar to oversee conservative dioceses (and parishes?) was, “It violates our founding principles as The Episcopal Church following our own liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England.”

I have read on quite a few “reappraiser blogs” words to the effect that “we fought a war to end British control of this nation.” It is this idea, reflected in the above quote from the HoB’s statement, that leads me to the idea of category confusion. We fought a war in 1776 to attain political independence from Great Britain. But when the dust settled, and the Protestant Episcopal Church was formed in the United States, we went to great lengths to maintain spiritual interdependence with the Church of England.

We did not organize dioceses and then elect bishops and consecrate them ourselves. Rather, the first bishop we elected was sent to England to be consecrated by English bishops, to show our connectedness to the Church of England. When, because of requirements in the English Prayer Book that the candidate affirm loyalty to the King made it impossible for an American to be consecrated bishop, the Rev. Samuel Seabury went to Scotland and the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church, who had no such requirement in their service of ordination for bishops. The Church of England later recognized the need for Americans to have bishops of their own, and did not require an American candidate for bishop to swear loyalty to the Crown.

And when we formulated our own Book of Common Prayer, we wrote in the preface that we had no intent of leaving the Christian faith as it had been expressed in England, but rather “that this Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship, or further than local circumstances require.” We acknowledged that we were a daughter church and that we were connected to the Church of England in a spiritual tie.

If we are connected to the Church of England, and to her other daughter churches, by spiritual ties, then we should heed their voice as they address us. The United States may be politically independent from Great Britain, but that does not make the Episcopal Church independent of all the other Churches of the Communion. Why should we not accede to the voices of love that bid us review our decisions and see if they are appropriate for a Christian Church to make? Apparently, however, we would rather be like the scribes and chief priests, who would rather challenge Jesus than be challenged by him.