Expectations

Here is something that I did not expect: I have more trouble agreeing with my fellow Episcopalians on campus than with those of different denominations. J keeps telling me I should have known, because what kind of Episcopalian would go to Fuller except an Evangelical one? (well there is me, but he seems to consider me the major exception to the rule, and I think he's right)

We actually had an argument in the Episcopal polity class about baptism! I mean, I'm sitting a few hours earlier in my baptism practicum and everybody is completely respecting everyone else - I am sitting there in a group from different mainline churches, and we all can come to perfect agreement on infant baptism, and even though they may not see baptism as doing what I see it doing, they think my way is "cool."

Then I go to the Episcopal class and these people don't understand infant baptism at all. I had to convince (which I didn't do at all) the people who were supposed to already agree! I was blown away. I mean, I had heard that this was still an issue, but do you know there are churches around here that will let you completely redo your baptism (though they call it anamnesis or "remembrance") as an adult?? How unbiblical to validate the mistaken belief that one's infant baptism somehow didn't count.

But the makeup of this group belies many prejudices. One person attends St. James Newport Beach, which is one of the churches now under the Anglican Province of Uganda (so he's not Episcopalian at all), one attends St. Lukes in La Crescenta, which belongs to the same organization as the splitters but they didn't split, and one has spent the last 10 years as "post-denominational" (bascially Evangelical) before God led her to the Episcopal church.

There there are three of us who are relatively new Episcopalians and are completely embracing that.

The thing I sense in all of these others is that they are somehow ashamed of who we are. I attended a service at St. Luke's and it was simply not Episcopal. We just didn't do anything any differently from the high church Presbyterian I used to attend. And I thought, where is my liturgy? My beautiful liturgy, the reason I love my church? And I also thought: huh, praise band and movie screens.

Yet I think the latter could be done effectively in the Episcopal Church (though I personally find them unnecessary and distracting). The thing that bothered me was throwing out the liturgy. Cancelling the epistle reading, our responsive statements, the corporate intercessions, even the greeting (which was "Good Evening" instead of "The Lord Be With You").

See we don't have to change who we are to attract people. I've been to several other Episcopal churches that are owning their identity and their gifts. They are not empty. This other service was empty.

The whole thing is just so frustrating. Now I am encountering the difficulty of being who I am at this seminary. And it's just so surprising that the troubles - the weirdness and the closedmindedness - are coming from my fellow Episcopalians. Days like these, I wish I were at Episcopal Seminary. No, actually, I wish I were at Fuller and was the only Episcopalian there. Sometimes that would be easier.