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Toward a Missional Polity for the Episcopal Church. Dwight J

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Toward a Missional Polity for the Episcopal Church. Dwight J Luther Seminary Digital Commons @ Luther Seminary Faculty Publications Faculty & Staff choS larship 2008 A More True ‘Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’: Toward a Missional Polity for the Episcopal Church. Dwight J. Zscheile Luther Seminary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/faculty_articles Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Missions and World Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Zscheile, Dwight J., "A More True ‘Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’: Toward a Missional Polity for the Episcopal Church." (2008). Faculty Publications. 303. https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/faculty_articles/303 Published Citation Zscheile, Dwight J. “A More True ‘Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’: Toward a Missional Polity for the Episcopal Church.” In The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity, edited by Craig Van Gelder, 133–65. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty & Staff choS larship at Digital Commons @ Luther Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Luther Seminary. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. reclaiming of a de­ CHAPTER 5 d's mission in the ation needs to be he Western tradi­ A More True "Domestic and Foreign d, and the Eastern Society": Toward a Missional Polity the Godhead. A!l Missionary understanding of for the Episcopal Church '.stology. This ap- 1s so essential for Jays authority and Dwight Zschcile rihe church. These �10. 1 ns mto conver- se four different elop the specific mination and its Tlierc is 110 rrnson i11 tlic world wherefore we should esteem it ns and leadership 11eccssary always to do, as always to l,c/ieve, the sa111c things; see­ n an attempt to illg every 111(111 knowet/z tlint tlzc matter of faitli is consta11t, the missional per­ 111ntter co11tmriwise of action daily clumgeable, especially tlie urce for people 11111tter of action bc/011gi11g 11nto clwrclz polity. 1 Richard Hooker, Laws of Ecc/csiastirnl Polity, IlI.x.J ecame organi­ . in denomina­ have a polity; Context, Polity, and the Episcopal Church >. All too often secular organi: r Christian church is always contextual. From the early ugh f om bib­ The polity of the of leadership roles from the first-century synagogue, I demonstrate church's adaptation of Roman models of office into the Constantinian ing examined, to the incorporation church, to Calvin's use of the assembly system in Reformed Geneva, Chris­ redemptively tians have always taken organizational and leadership structures from lo­ 2 cal cultures and transformed them for church use. In that process they have sought to integrate these structures with biblical and theological norms. The contextual nature of polity reflects the incarnationalnature of 1. Richard Honker, Ecclcsic1stic,1/ Pc,/ity, ed. Arthur Pollard (Manchest�r, UK: Care.ind, 1990), l'.!o. Hooker (1553/4-1000) is th<: classic early expon�nt of AngliL'illl polity. '. 2. See James Tunstead Burtchadl, fr,1111 SJ'll11,�o,:11e to C/111/'c/1: P11/1/ic Scn'iccs <111(/ ()/ fices i11 tl1c D11 Ii est c:/1ristin11 CcJ1111111111itics (New York: Cambrid ge Univer,ity Press, 1992). 133 Dwight Zschcilc the gospel ,rnd the church's life: Christianity is ,dways embodied in local society, whi cultures, embracing, calling into question, and transforming the norms the commis and presuppositions of those cultures.' As the Richard Hooker quotation bishop ofL abnve suggests, polity is dynamic and must adapt to the church's changing The cl contexts in order to serve, rather than constrain, God's mission. the Book of The current polity of the Episcopal Church (USA) reflects three ma­ jor contextual influences: (1) the established state church of the English Reformation and Colonial eras; (�) American representative democracy; America un and (3) modern corporate bureaucracy. However, the twenty-first-century system evol American context of the Episcopal Church is shifting dramatically, calling Virginia an, for ,l critical appraisal of the assumptions and norms embedded in its pol­ people (usu ity. In this chapter I seek to explore the contextual influences - both theo­ cal clergy ar logical and cultural - that underlie the organization of the Episcopal This would Church today in light of the realities now facing the church. Anglicanism clergy that has historically cherished a balance between continuity and discontinuity, The roots� universality and locality: that is, carrying forward core values and tradi­ The P, tions from the past while still allowing flexibility for local adaptation and Unlike in E responsiveness in light of changing circumstances. It is in this spirit that I will offera preliminary sketch of some principles for reconceiving Episco­ pal polity in an emerging missional era. Establishment and the Legacy of Christendom: Sixteenth- to Eighteenth-Century Roots The Episcopal Church began as the Church of England in colonial Amer­ ica, where it was the established state church in the southern colonies. As such, the basic underlying assumptions of sixteenth- and seventeenth­ century England were transferredacross the Atlantic. These include the in­ tegration of church and state, the division of territory into geographical domains (parishes and dioceses) ruled by monarchical rectors (derived from the Latin rcgcrc, "to rule") and bishops, with the assumption that ev­ eryone was at least nominally Christian. The church was at the center of ♦ 3. "[T]he gospel, which is from the beginning tu the end c:mbo<lied in culturally con­ ditioned forms, calls into question all cultures, including the one in which it was originally embodied." Lesslie Newbigin, Foolis/111c;; to t/1c Greeks: Tl1c c;ospcl a11d W,·stel'll C11/t11rc ((;rnnd Rapids: Eerdm,ms, 1y86), 4. 134 A Marc True "Do111cstic ,wd Foreign Missio11wy Society" tdied in local society, which was reflectedin the taxation that funded its activities and by the norms the commissary, or deputy, who oversaw the church at the behest of the 4 er quutation bishop of London, under whose charge the colonial English churches by. h's changing The classic Anglican compromise of uniformity (the required use of the Book of Common Prayer, for instance) and flexibility (a diversity of pi­ ts three ma­ eties and theological commitments) came alive as Anglicanism began to r the English take f esh forms on American soil. Since there were no Anglican bishops in democr,1ey; America until Samuel Seabury was consecrated in 1784, a lay governance first-century system evolved in the colonies that differed significantly from England. In ·c1lly, calling Virginia and other Southern colonies, vestries comprised of prominent lay din its pol- people (usually the landed gentry) exercised much greater control owr lo­ both theo- cal clergy and the affairsof the church than had been known in England.5 e Episcopal This would lead to an important modification of the monarchical rule by f'-\nglicanism clergy that was more typical of the church in England and New England. i sco n tin uity, The roots for a more collaborative, lay-involved polity had been laid. s ,md tradi­ The parish system took root only tenuously in the United States." pt<ltion and Unlike in England, where residents of a particular parish were expected to spirit that I attend church of that parish, the American preference for freedom of ving Episco- choice eventually led to looser practices of domain. This was particularly true in those colonies where the Anglican church was not established, for example, in New England. The trajectory of American religious life was he,1ded increasingly in a voluntary direction, shaped in part by the settling of the continent by people who had resisted England's expectations of reli­ gious conformity. Nonetheless, the parish concept remains deeply influen­ tial in Episcopal polity to this day, even though it has never functioned onial Amer­ wry effectively. cnlonies. As even teen th­ l ude the in­ The Late-Eightee11th-Cent11ry Democratic Symhesis eographical rs ( derived At the time of the American Revolution, the Church of England in the col­ tion that ev­ onies faced a major crisis. Anglicanism was directly and symbolically he center of 4. David Hein and G,1rdiner H. Shattuck, Tl,c Episcop,1/io11s (We,tpnrt, CT: Praegcr Publishers, 20,>4), 16 . .:ulturally con­ 5. Rohert W. Prichard, A History of the l:i,isc,>pc1/ C/111rc/1, rev. ed. (Harrisburg, PA: Wa<.; urig inalJy iVlorehnuse Pub., 1999), 1". '"st,·1·11 Ci1lt11rc 6. Sydn�)' E. Ahlstrnm, A J/l'ligi,111s J-listory ti( tl,c A111,·1 ic,111 l'coplc ( New Hawn: Yale Uniwr,itr Press, 1972), 191-1i1. 135 Dwight Zscheile linked to the imperial power that the revolutionaries sought to overthrow lical or th (prayers for the king were included in the liturgy), and the distinguishing glican theol feature of its polity - bishops - represented exactly the kind of monar­ response to chy that Americans were rejecting in favor of democratic rule. Many An­ introduced glicans, especially in New England, openly sided with the Tories (including This Samuel Seabury). Yet the Revolution also presented a dramatic opportu­ nity to recontextualize Anglicanism in America. The process for revising the polity of the colonial Church of England to serve a disestablished Anglican church in the new United States involved considerable negotiation between the low-church Southern Anglicans and high-church Northerners like Samuel Seabury. Its most notable feature was the integration of historic Anglican norms with the representative de­ mocracy so valued by the revolutionaries. It is probably no coincidence that the crafting of the original Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States took place parallel to the develop­ ment of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia.
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