The Episcopal Church Needs a “Come to Jesus Moment!”

The Episcopal Church is declining not just because of changing demographics, but because most of our proclamation lacks the transformative and conversionary power of the Cross and Resurrection! What is preached in many Episcopal Churches today is a combination of therapy and progressive theology and politics. It is not the loving, liberating, and life-giving Gospel that Bishop Michael Curry declares when he preaches.

Why this is important? Because under our current progressive leadership, the decline will predictably continue as our leaders continue to do what they have done for the past two decades. For things to change would take a serious intention of newer leaders to change our theological foundations and consequently our behavior.  This situation is drawing to a pivotal moment needing serious change. Sadly, for most of the last 20 years, TEC leadership has been dominated by the progressive wing of our denomination. Progressives under the often-well-intentioned banner of “Love Wins” and driven by the goals of diversity and inclusiveness have led the Church through the loss of almost half our membership. Sure, some have passed away, many have left, and some have been driven out.

What needs to change is a radical re-thinking and spiritual revival around one essential and key theological and spiritual dynamic that has simply evolved into a predictable short coming of progressive theology. What does serious and radical rethink involve? The answer is profound. It is Christology.

Here is the background: Under the dominance of progressive theology which you can read in current Episcopal literature or hear from many Bishops, teachers, and in local sermons has evolved into this.

The Apostolic Church of the New Testament believed that the experience of the early church with the Resurrection of Jesus was the insight foretold by Jesus himself that God would raise him up as vindication that he was the expected Messiah and suffering servant who would free God’s people from their sins and deliver them from the evil forces of this world which included in the first century the oppressive rule of Rome (Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels)  They also believed that he was the ‘Lamb of God,” who was sacrificed for our sins, and not for “ours” only but for the sins of all the world making him worthy of worship and by revelation God’s only divine Son (John’s Gospel)  They believed his resurrection declared him not only King of the Jewish nation, but also Lord of the world who we are to believe in and follow as his disciples (Acts and Paul) And Luke, the only Gentile writer of the New Testament, summarized this in the significant title “Savior of the whole world.”

Progressives believe this Apostolic Witness was simply either misguided or as some more radical progressives say was maliciously wrong. They speak of this as “how Jesus became the Christ” by which they mean they understand how these misguided conclusions of the Apostolic Community evolved.

In progressive theology, they believe that they have returned to the Jesus who was a rabbi who was something of a cynic and a teacher of love and justice who was accidentally executed by the Romans after being falsely accused by the threatened Temple authorities of blasphemy. For progressives, the reported healing events and miracles of Jesus’ ministry are the Apostolic Church’s reading back into Jesus’ life and ministry events that probably did not happen literally but were merely of metaphoric inventions to project back on the early Jesus the Church’s claims about him.

This “insight” of progresses leaves us with a Jesus who as one famous progressive leader summarizes “is not a divine being and miracle worker who we must worship and will return at the end of time, but a moral teacher whose moral directions we must follow.” For progressives Jesus did not peach the “Kingdom of God” that points to an eschatological end and has for progressives overtones of power but “the reign of God,” their preferred term, is about how God wants humans to live in relationship to one another now. For progressives this is Jesus’ singular contribution. This has been the repeated and extended natural progression, pun intended, of this movement whose failure to sustain the unity and growth of the Church has clearly been demonstrated for the past 20 years with few but significant outlying TEC congregations modeling a different way.

This is a position that credal Christians of all kinds and especially historic and traditional Anglicans (who say the Creed every Sunday) cannot accept because the Church is “one catholic and apostolic Church.” Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Lutheran Doctrinal Scholar and convert to the Orthodox Church later in life affirmed the continuity of Apostolic Faith into Catholic Order and Doctrine.  This is a credal belief and the reason so many progressives want to drop the creed from our liturgy is not that modern people find this difficult to understand but because progressives simply do not believe that this or much of the Creed is believable and only acceptable as a historic relic of the now enlightened progressive Christianity. By the way, just because something is complex does not mean that it is not true after all the Universe is complex! And as Orthodox clergy often explain to American converts, “You do not HAVE to believe the Creed, you GET to believe it as a member of the Church” because the Church is Christ’s gift to his followers and the world.

In summary, we have seen the predictable and frankly expected decline under our current dominate progressive leadership especially when you add to this the actions of progressives to push out of TEC those who hold to the more historic and traditional view. As someone who believes myself to be what Archbishops Michael Ramsey and Rowan Williams described as Prayer Book Catholics, I too have received plenty of invitation from progressives to leave. Since, I am fundamentally an Anglican Episcopalian, I am not leaving, and one key reason is that there will come a time when progressives will run their course and the Church must return to its true DNA: Apostolic and Reformed Catholic or die. This return which I find as a longing in many of our younger clergy is coming sooner than progresses expect. What will it involve?

It must involve a revival of the Christology of the New Testament, all of it. As Pelikan said and has often been quoted, “The truth is that the only Jesus we know is the one whose witness is presented and proclaimed by the Apostolic Church. As critics have often pointed out “the real Jesus” who progressives attempt to find is simply a projection of their own selves, their values and the teachings of many of their seminary professors into the unknowable, a Jesus without Apostolic Witness. Apostolic Witness is in fact what makes the New Testament such a commanding and inspired Spiritual Book believed by millions.

As the authors of Episcopal/Luther Dialog #2 concluded, the way forward to a united Church with shared worship and life is the full restoration of both Apostolic Order (a big thing for Anglicans) and Apostolic Doctrine (a fundamental issue for Lutherans) and the two must not be separated. Significantly, this insight into the true meaning of Apostolic made our shared communion between the ELCA and TEC possible.

In conclusion, The Come to Jesus moment is before us. If we who remain in TEC embrace it, it would mean that we could find a way to restore Anglicanism from its fractured forms in North America into “the big tent” it once was and yes progressives can be a part of this. It will also retore the Anglican/Episcopal Church in North America to be the ecumenical force and identity that is one of the great gifts of Anglicanism today for the whole Christian Church unlike the partisan nature of the current Episcopal Church with all its issues and agendas. 

For this to happen would mean that it will take the action of God’s spirit to convict us and revive us, but it also means that TEC’s leadership and all our membership with have some serious sorrow filled confession and repentance to do to allow such reconciliation to happen. Something akin to what Peter must have experienced when the Resurrected Jesus appeared to him after his denial. You can read more of Pelikan in his History of Christian Tradition and his Commentary on the Book of Acts in the Brazos River Commentary Series.  

Read more from Jaroslav Pelikan, The History and of Christian andTradition The