Amen! It is very challenging to raise children in the Episcopal Church in New England - in part because there are not a lot of opportunities for formation in the meaning of the creeds or the substance of the faith. I was brought up by parents who left the Catholic Church for the UU church and worship in an Episcopal church because it was the church that supported me in my conversion. But I often feel alone in raising kids in the faith.
I really feel for you on this. I don't have kids yet (someday, God willing) but my wife and I have already talked about how we can supplement what they'll get in church with things elsewhere. Even in churches with solid preaching and teaching, a lack of kids often means a shortage of opportunities for children and youth ministry...but of course sending them to the evangelical youth group next door as a supplement isn't without its challenges either. I'll be praying for you!
Whereas I find it very hard to be a priest in New England! I believe all the things Ben says, but I find the people in the pews don’t and aren’t curious to go deeper. They are very comfortable as they are. Some people in my parish think we should be a site for religious reflection not particularly Christian much less Anglican. And it’s hard to have children’s formation when parents won’t commit to bringing their children even once a month.
Totally! We have Godly Play through 8th grade and into high school. While I love it, my kids have been through it several times now. We often don’t get past the core stories since attendance is so spotty. My kids know the stories (awesome) and this form of worship (lovely) and are acolytes but don’t learn about the why or how it fits together. But by 5th/6th grade, they want to discuss, not just reflect. And it is hard to maintain regular attendance without a community that prioritized it. Bring an acolyte helps and they can pay attention to sermons now so they can participate more in the worship. But it is hard to do this without peers for your kids or yourself. I’m sure there is more I could do but when attendance is so low it is discouraging.
I'm in the same boat, with 3 kids in the 5-10 range. The fact that my eldest can serve as an acolyte, but we don't even have a Sunday School program currently, is definitely an illustration of Fr. Ben's point that we place so much emphasis on liturgy but don't always back it up with formation.
To be fair traditional Sunday school is grossly overrated as a method of Christian formation! It doesn’t do much to make lifelong disciples. Much better to work with the parents to make their faith be alive and lived at home.
Anglicans and Episcopalians - even quite conservative ones - are more affected than one might think by the great shift from religion as thinking (doctrine) to religion as feeling only vaguely connected to any articulate belief, and many have imbibed the polemic against "literal" reading of texts. When on top of this you put clergy who are neither able no willing to teach the doctrine of Scripture, Creeds, and Articles, you have the situation you describe. In my parish we DO believe we are to preach what Scripture Creeds and Articles teach, but you have put your finger on an issue that it might well be useful to highlight when we are preaching to listeners habituated to the doctrinal minimalism and vagueness of the Episcopal Church about the atonement, the resurrection, the deity of Christ, etc.
I see this issue as tying into another topic Ben has covered, around church decline, because while people who are still showing up may be alright with this dissonance between the liturgy and the service (or willing to put up with it), it definitely strikes you coming from outside. And it makes it hard to recommend an Episcopal Church to others when you can't be sure what they're going to hear in preaching.
Another oddity is many of the priests who preach against basic doctrines present themselves as taking a heroic 'counter-cultural' stance. But having grown up with secularism or atheism as the default, it is 'old-fashioned' Christianity that feels counter-cultural for me! I think this is largely a generational issue, but it's depressing to count on the passing of time to make things better.
I think there has for a long time been a momentum, an inertia, in mainline Christianity leading toward greater and greater dissonance with ideas or framings of Scripture “traditionally” held, and it’s become very embedded enough in the mainline spirit.
As a result, there's a tendency to automatically and reflexively perceive statements that contradict these traditional scriptural interpretations as being more nuanced, thorough, or correct.
So people I believe have even come to learn this in a way. And expect it. (Something I think you say basically).
It also reminds me of numerous instances where people tend to automatically regard the most skeptical or least faithful commentaries, notes (in study bibles or the like), articles etc as being the most “scholarly”, rigorous, and serious essentially. This happens even in cases where an objective evaluation of these things is likely to lead to the just the opposite conclusion.
Manvir Singh in The New Yorker recently observed that "A Mormon who says that Joseph Smith was a prophet but secretly thinks he was a normal guy doesn’t strike us as a real Mormon." I often think you don't strike me as a real Episcopalian, but for the opposite reason. Thanks for the posts - I do enjoy them.
I have been Episcopalian for 3 years now and I can proudly say that St Peter's Episcopal Church in Oxford, MS proudly preaches the bodily Resurrection of Christ and the rationality of our faith. I can say the same for All Saints in New Albany, OH and Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapid City, SD. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive to the point where I plan to seek Holy Orders, and it breaks my heart to hear how in some dioceses this type of preaching is common place.
Ben, a fine article, and I concur with its overall message. But I was surprised by the closing reference to John A. T. Robinson. I'm a Robinson scholar, maybe the most comprehensive, having cultivated a library of Robinson's writings second to none. I've read all his works many times over, and it is my considered judgment that he is quite on the side of the faith once received for the saints. While he was indeed warning us that we cannot be cavalier with remaining stolid in our religious language, he was *not* suggesting that we should rethink the Christian faith because its supernatural claims are no longer credible. Indeed, I'd argue that even Honest to God, not to mention much of his other writings, were as directed to the tepid compromise of the liberal wing as it was to the naive complacency of the conservative wing. And I think he'd have enjoyed an essay like this. As a long-time reader of your essays, I wonder if you'd indulge a PM conversation, as I'd like to hear more about where your impressions of Robinson come from, and share a bit of what I've learned along the way. Let me know. Thank you brother for your labor for the Gospel of Christ!
Amen! It is very challenging to raise children in the Episcopal Church in New England - in part because there are not a lot of opportunities for formation in the meaning of the creeds or the substance of the faith. I was brought up by parents who left the Catholic Church for the UU church and worship in an Episcopal church because it was the church that supported me in my conversion. But I often feel alone in raising kids in the faith.
I really feel for you on this. I don't have kids yet (someday, God willing) but my wife and I have already talked about how we can supplement what they'll get in church with things elsewhere. Even in churches with solid preaching and teaching, a lack of kids often means a shortage of opportunities for children and youth ministry...but of course sending them to the evangelical youth group next door as a supplement isn't without its challenges either. I'll be praying for you!
Whereas I find it very hard to be a priest in New England! I believe all the things Ben says, but I find the people in the pews don’t and aren’t curious to go deeper. They are very comfortable as they are. Some people in my parish think we should be a site for religious reflection not particularly Christian much less Anglican. And it’s hard to have children’s formation when parents won’t commit to bringing their children even once a month.
Totally! We have Godly Play through 8th grade and into high school. While I love it, my kids have been through it several times now. We often don’t get past the core stories since attendance is so spotty. My kids know the stories (awesome) and this form of worship (lovely) and are acolytes but don’t learn about the why or how it fits together. But by 5th/6th grade, they want to discuss, not just reflect. And it is hard to maintain regular attendance without a community that prioritized it. Bring an acolyte helps and they can pay attention to sermons now so they can participate more in the worship. But it is hard to do this without peers for your kids or yourself. I’m sure there is more I could do but when attendance is so low it is discouraging.
I'm in the same boat, with 3 kids in the 5-10 range. The fact that my eldest can serve as an acolyte, but we don't even have a Sunday School program currently, is definitely an illustration of Fr. Ben's point that we place so much emphasis on liturgy but don't always back it up with formation.
To be fair traditional Sunday school is grossly overrated as a method of Christian formation! It doesn’t do much to make lifelong disciples. Much better to work with the parents to make their faith be alive and lived at home.
Anglicans and Episcopalians - even quite conservative ones - are more affected than one might think by the great shift from religion as thinking (doctrine) to religion as feeling only vaguely connected to any articulate belief, and many have imbibed the polemic against "literal" reading of texts. When on top of this you put clergy who are neither able no willing to teach the doctrine of Scripture, Creeds, and Articles, you have the situation you describe. In my parish we DO believe we are to preach what Scripture Creeds and Articles teach, but you have put your finger on an issue that it might well be useful to highlight when we are preaching to listeners habituated to the doctrinal minimalism and vagueness of the Episcopal Church about the atonement, the resurrection, the deity of Christ, etc.
I see this issue as tying into another topic Ben has covered, around church decline, because while people who are still showing up may be alright with this dissonance between the liturgy and the service (or willing to put up with it), it definitely strikes you coming from outside. And it makes it hard to recommend an Episcopal Church to others when you can't be sure what they're going to hear in preaching.
Another oddity is many of the priests who preach against basic doctrines present themselves as taking a heroic 'counter-cultural' stance. But having grown up with secularism or atheism as the default, it is 'old-fashioned' Christianity that feels counter-cultural for me! I think this is largely a generational issue, but it's depressing to count on the passing of time to make things better.
An extremely excellent article.
I think there has for a long time been a momentum, an inertia, in mainline Christianity leading toward greater and greater dissonance with ideas or framings of Scripture “traditionally” held, and it’s become very embedded enough in the mainline spirit.
As a result, there's a tendency to automatically and reflexively perceive statements that contradict these traditional scriptural interpretations as being more nuanced, thorough, or correct.
So people I believe have even come to learn this in a way. And expect it. (Something I think you say basically).
It also reminds me of numerous instances where people tend to automatically regard the most skeptical or least faithful commentaries, notes (in study bibles or the like), articles etc as being the most “scholarly”, rigorous, and serious essentially. This happens even in cases where an objective evaluation of these things is likely to lead to the just the opposite conclusion.
Manvir Singh in The New Yorker recently observed that "A Mormon who says that Joseph Smith was a prophet but secretly thinks he was a normal guy doesn’t strike us as a real Mormon." I often think you don't strike me as a real Episcopalian, but for the opposite reason. Thanks for the posts - I do enjoy them.
I have been Episcopalian for 3 years now and I can proudly say that St Peter's Episcopal Church in Oxford, MS proudly preaches the bodily Resurrection of Christ and the rationality of our faith. I can say the same for All Saints in New Albany, OH and Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapid City, SD. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive to the point where I plan to seek Holy Orders, and it breaks my heart to hear how in some dioceses this type of preaching is common place.
Ben, a fine article, and I concur with its overall message. But I was surprised by the closing reference to John A. T. Robinson. I'm a Robinson scholar, maybe the most comprehensive, having cultivated a library of Robinson's writings second to none. I've read all his works many times over, and it is my considered judgment that he is quite on the side of the faith once received for the saints. While he was indeed warning us that we cannot be cavalier with remaining stolid in our religious language, he was *not* suggesting that we should rethink the Christian faith because its supernatural claims are no longer credible. Indeed, I'd argue that even Honest to God, not to mention much of his other writings, were as directed to the tepid compromise of the liberal wing as it was to the naive complacency of the conservative wing. And I think he'd have enjoyed an essay like this. As a long-time reader of your essays, I wonder if you'd indulge a PM conversation, as I'd like to hear more about where your impressions of Robinson come from, and share a bit of what I've learned along the way. Let me know. Thank you brother for your labor for the Gospel of Christ!