Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

There are often comments about our front-page letters on the Anglicans Online Facebook page. You might like to have a look.

This was our front page last week.

Do learn more

Perhaps before you try to enlighten your friend you might consider a more extended conversation about what was problematic for her, perhaps what was behind the rather hostile remark (maybe not the latter). I would also want to hear more about worship experiences she has had that have had special meaning for her. This might give you some ideas about whether or not and how to proceed. Sounds like hard work to me!

Judith Guttman
SEM Villa Eucharistic Community
Milford, Ohio, USA
judithword@gmail.com
10 August 2015

Nor should we presume

As a priest of now some 30+ years I have often been struck that 'non-liturgical' Christians (who actually listen and enter into the worship) have been struck by its integrity. A Headmaster of a Baptist school said to me once after a particularly traumatic funeral of a parent. "Your liturgy just resonates the Scripture!" Though I don't, by and large, like the whole prayer...I do believe the sentiment in all our liturgies 'We do not presume....' could well be assimilated by other Christian sisters and brothers before they sit in judgment on our worship, prayers and spirituality.

Stephen Clark
St Mary Magdalene's, Adelaide
Adelaide, SA, AUSTRALIA
frstephenclark@gmail.com
10 August 2015

Any upbringing?

Oh my! How to respond? Any response "depends" upon her Calvinist (nurturance ?) background &/or upbringing, if any. Calvinism is a very broad spectrum (& depends upon his Institutes or the myriad interpretations of this work). So here might be my responses as a spiritual director:

• -if she has been instructed (catechized in Trinitarian Christianity) then I might refer her to the BCP Catechism with teaching
• -after this, an instructed MP, EP & Compline & only after these have been demonstrated & explained move to an instructed Eucharist by a compassionate/educated/contemplative priest (I mention this because ideology & economics rather than scripture, tradition, & reason (comprehension) drive many priests (& other ordained persons)
• -determine if she is simply mimicking what she has heard or read
• -perhaps a sensitive introduction to the Anglican via media & our Benedictine spiritual heritage
• -& if all else fails, prayer!

Clint Capers
St. Alban
Waco, Texas, USA
clint.capers@yahoo.com
11 August 2015

Would St Augustine help?

In reference to the twenty-something friend who visited church with you: I wonder if she would find the opening essay to the St. Augustine Prayerbook a helpful description of the spirituality behind liturgical worship? Her comments, it seemed to me, not only disparaged the service, but also the people present--as if they really weren't even there to worship, but to check something off of a to-do list. It might help her to have an explanation of how what we're doing is a type of worship.

Cynthia Whittington
St. Mark's Episcopal
Raymond, Mississippi, USA
12 August 2015

Letter to the editor

At my former parish, they have done away with Rite I and changed Rite II a great deal so (according to the priest) we would all be on the same page. You wouldn't recognize the Collects either - from some book of inclusivity.

That said, I believe it's the hymnal that keeps most people away from our church. How many parishioners sing at any of our services? Not many, I would venture. And we wouldn't dare sing one of the 'blood' hymns, you know, "Power, power, wonder working power...in the precious blood of the Lamb." While we insist on singing hymns only a chorister/choir director could love, we are losing members right and left, but we'll continue singing the un-singable until the only ones left are the priest and the choir. And in the pews...only the over-seventy crowd.

I was at a class reunion at St. Andrews-Sewanee a few months ago and a priest - somewhere out West - said we (the Episcopal Church) should be attracting newcomers by the dozen (or something to that effect). We have everything going for us in the Liturgy, the language of Cranmer, the beauty of our churches, the homilies (in most cases), but we continue to lose membership. Someone supposedly said, "Why should we attempt evangelization - everyone who should be an Episcopalian, is one!" It's going to be the death of us.

Thanks for asking and listening.

Ray Hester
St. Paul's Episcopal, Mobile, AL
Mobile, AL USA
rbhester@bellsouth.net
11 August 2015

But life is a multiplicity of shades

I read your current BLOG from the “Department of Worship Impressions,” with much interest. I was a cradle Anglican who attended church with my widowed mom up until after I was confirmed at the age of 12 in the parish of St. Mark’s Church, Longueuil. My high school years were ones of the typical 70’s teenager, rebellion, rock and roll, and experimentation with alcohol and drugs. During my senior year at High School I was associated with the 70’s Jesus Movement Experience and was “born-again.” I found myself unable to reconcile the God of my formative years with the black and white doctrine I was immersed in. So I mocked the Catholicism of my roots and dismissed it as irrelevant, humanistic and stale.

I attended Bible College, dreamed of engaging the lost, and probed the depth of the eschatological as to Christ’s return and the end of the world. I served for many years as a pastor in the evangelical tradition. Today I am an Anglican Priest serving as both an Associate and Chaplain in the Diocese of Toronto who has found a haven in the liturgies of my childhood and the central gathering around the Eucharist in our common worship together. What transpired was a movement from a faith of individualism, wherein the sermon is the central focus of the worship event, to one where the divine mystery of Christ is celebrated in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the common cup.

My life experiences forced me to reconcile my black and white divisions of life with the multiplicity of shades that life was. I was troubled with the image of a God who would dismiss entire cultures to darkness based on their understanding of the divine and their faith practices. How does one reconcile such judgement with a loving heavenly creator?  Seeking training in chaplaincy and the contrast I experience in incarnational ministry through seeing Christ in the other sealed my transition and journey back to my cradle roots.

I understand your young friend’s criticism of Anglican Liturgy as being “canned” or “scripted” or “fast-food.”

From my journey Evangelical liturgy was as a focus on the “experience” of the individual worshipers' “feeling” of divine presence within their relationship with God. The pastor provokes such a relationship with sermons that challenge “personal” purity and the immanency of sharing Christ with those who have not experienced re-birth. Communion is a memorial that is tagged on monthly as a reminder of what Christ has done.

As an Anglican Priest, the Gospel and readings become an invitation to life, to the family table of bread and wine and to the common meal of experience that feed our faith together. The Christ within each one of us meets at the common table of grace. The action of baptism wherein one becomes part of the kingdom and is received with the promise of each person present to support and nurture the baptismal candidate.

It may be difficult to reconcile the Anglican experience with her experience because the theology for the reasons for gathering and celebrating together have differing endpoints and worldviews. What is interesting to note are the numerous articles about evangelicals and evangelical congregations moving to a more “catholic” style of worship and recognizing the theological depth for making such a transition.

The Rev Donald Shields
Grace Church Markham
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
14 August 2015

Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.