Is Liturgy the Answer to Every Problem?

An examination of Season of Creation: A Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes

In the last few years, the so-called “Season of Creation,” a time from September 1 to October 4 focused on God’s gift of creation, is suddenly everywhere in mainline North American Anglicanism. It’s not, of course, just an Anglican or just a North American thing. Back in 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople proclaimed September 1 a day of prayer for creation, a proclamation echoed by Pope Francis in 2015. From there came the proposal of a season stretching from the September 1 day of prayer to the feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4 – a proposal that has been endorsed by the likes of the World Council of Churches and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. Here in Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada officially adopted it in 2019. Down in the States, its celebration is increasingly popular too.

I should say at the outset that I am urgently concerned about climate change and believe that it is one of the greatest challenges of our contemporary moment. I see it clearly here in Canada; my neighbors talk all the time about how the changing climate has affected ice fishing and hunting and that mainstay of Canadian winter culture, the outdoor hockey rink. I should add that I think the church does have things to say concerning our climate crisis; it was right for the church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to speak against the oppression of workers in industrializing cities and so it is right for the church today to address environmental degradation.

However, I confess that I have my doubts about how it is celebrated liturgically in mainline North American Anglicanism. I’m going to look at a recent document called Season of Creation: A Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes, which has been authorized for use in twenty-seven dioceses of the Episcopal Church and is advertised on the Episcopal Church website, to explore these doubts. Let me be clear, though, that my purpose in examining this document is not to single out the authors for particular criticism – I think what makes this document worth looking at is how typical it is as an Episcopal/Anglican response to contemporary issues. In short, what I will seek to show is that this celebration guide displays two characteristic and troubling failings of contemporary mainline Anglicanism. First, the church’s answer to an issue of profound contemporary importance is construed as principally a matter of liturgy. Second, precisely because the issue is of such profound importance, other concerns about theological accuracy, liturgical logic, or indeed church polity get cast aside in the name of the church doing something about an issue of great urgency. The result of this is that we make a mess of our teaching, our worship, and our church order without meaningfully addressing the (deeply troubling!) crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and mass extinction.