The Questioning Christian

What Do You Love About the Episcopal Church?

Written by

D. C. Toedt III

in

Yesterday commenter bls suggested (scroll down in the comments to Jan. 12 at 08:41 a.m.): 

Why don’t we all try to figure out, and write down, what it is we love about the Church and use what we come up with for evangelism? This is a good approach, I think, and if a lot of people did this, we’d get a really broad range of responses. That way, we could appeal to a broad range of people.

I think that’s a marvelous idea.  Feel free to chime in below in the comments section.  (She may have meant the Church as a whole, but from the context I think she was talking about the Episcopal Church.)

I’ll start with one of the things I love about the Episcopal Church:   In the main, we worship God without too much excess doctrinal baggage.  We don’t feel we have to believe everything that, say, Roman Catholics believe, but at the same time we don’t go as far in the other direction as the Unitarian Universalists (who a friend once described as "[not] believ[ing] in anything other than general human warmth").

Others?

Comments

9 responses to “What Do You Love About the Episcopal Church?”

  1. David Huff Avatar
    David Huff

    A lot of what I love about the ECUSA can be summed up, rather whimsically, by the stmt:
    “You can be Episcopalian and still believe in dinosaurs.” 🙂
    For lots more reasons, see 365+ Reasons for Becoming an Anglican/Episcopalian by Louie Crew.

    Reply
  2. Salt Avatar
    Salt

    What I love about the Episcopal Church

    1)

    Reply
  3. bls Avatar
    bls

    I definitely did mean the Episcopal Church in particular. Episcopalians seem to have a deep and particular love of our Church, one that you rarely see expressed elsewhere, and I’d like to try to get to the heart of that. I’m still thinking about it – I started a list of my own, and will post more later.
    I’ll start by saying that I love that you can pretty much say anything at all in this Church; you can be who you are, and talk about where you are in the faith journey, honestly. IOW, I like the freedom to think what we like and to debate it openly.

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  4. D. C. Avatar
    D. C.

    John Wilkins at the Salty Vicar sent a trackback ping (above), but the ping report doesn’t show that he lists a baker’s dozen of reasons he loves the Episcopal Church.

    Reply
  5. pdbanos Avatar
    pdbanos

    As a UU who hangs out sometimes with Episcopalians, I was amused by your remark that
    “at the same time we don’t go as far in the other direction as the Unitarian Universalists (who a friend once described as “[not] believ[ing] in anything other than general human warmth”).”
    Not offended, mind you, not in the least. We’ve heard worse – we’ve said worse – about ourselves. I personally like the one about the distinguished UU minister of the last generation who challenged a Sunday school class to come up with something positive UU’s believe in, not just a list of things they _don’t._ After a puzzled silence one child ventured, “Adlai Stevenson?”
    I would just like to point out for the record (a) that “general human warmth” is no small matter, and not to be taken for granted; and (b) that nothing prevents us from believing in more, indeed I suspect most of us do; it’s just that shared propositional belief is not our basis for coming together in community.

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  6. bls Avatar
    bls

    Here’s my 12-point platform describing Why I Love the Episcopal Church on my blog. (It just came out that way; I wasn’t trying to get to a magic number or anything.) I’d post it here, but it’s pretty long.
    Hi, pdbanos! I love the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism. I’m sure you know the old joke: An Episcopalian asked a Unitarian, “Do you believe in One God?”; the Unitarian responded, “Oh, at most.”
    😉

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  7. David Huff Avatar
    David Huff

    pdbanos wrote: it’s just that shared propositional belief is not our basis for coming together in community.
    (sigh) looks like us fractious Episcopalians could learn a thing or two from the UUs. Matter of fact, at one time I could have made somewhat of a case that ECUSA folks were good at not letting individuals’ various beliefs stop us from being a community. Sadly this is no longer the case.
    I swear, if the First Unitarian Church of Dallas were closer to my house, there’s at least a 50% chance that I’d have jumped ship by now. (this percentage is as high as it is primarily because there are precious few real Episcopal churches in my AAC/”Network” diocese).

    Reply
  8. pdbanos Avatar
    pdbanos

    Thanks, David and bls, for your kind welcome to this blog.
    I must say that before I finally faced the fact that I couldn’t sincerely affirm any specifically Christian sort of faith, I spent several years in ELCA and then ECUSA, and am still very fond of both denominations – they have a beautiful liturgy, and in my experience are very open to a wide range of ideas.
    When I told my Episcopalian friends of my move to UU several of them said things like, “I’m really a UU at heart” or “I’d join you except I’d miss the liturgy and sacraments.” And believe me, I understand perfectly.
    I’d invite you to drop over to my own blog (it seems you can get to it by clicking on my signature) but it’s brand new and doesn’t have much on it yet and I’m not sure I know how to do it right…

    Reply
  9. D. C. Avatar
    D. C.

    BLS, my favorite of the 12 points on your blog (which I’ve added to my own blogroll) is # 3:

    The “Via Media.” It’s a very good thing to have liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, “orthodox” and “progressive,” Jack Spong and Jack Iker, all in the same Church. I’ve said a million times, and it sounds like a cliché, but opposites need each other to remain vital; a system without opposition becomes moribund.

    I couldn’t agree more.

    Reply

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