What is in Kelvin's Head?

We love you, American Episcopalians!

14/11/2014

Two hundred and twenty five years ago today, something special happened in Aberdeen.

Two hundred and twenty five years ago today, Anglicanism in the USA was set ablaze with the consecration of the Rt Rev Samuel Seabury, their first bishop.

The fact that the consecration took place in Aberdeen is one of those quirks of church history which has shaped, and continues to shape the church of today.

The short version of the story is that the American church needed to have a bishop and elected one of their own and sent him across the Atlantic to be consecrated by the Church of England. The Church of England in its turn was having none of it, frightened off appearing to offer support to revolutionary tendencies in the United States. Frightened of promoting revolution.

Seabury had come a long way to be made a bishop and needed to look elsewhere. He had previously studied medicine in Edinburgh and perhaps we can presume that his thoughts turned back to Scotland because he had previously been north of the border. He made the the trip up to Aberdeen where he was consecrated by Robert Kilgour of Aberdeen (who was the Primus), along with two other Scottish bishops, Arthur Petrie (who had connections with my own congregation here in Glasgow) and John Skinner.

The deal was that they would consecrate Seabury so long as he took back the Scottish Liturgy to the American church and work for it to be adopted on the other side of the Atlantic. When you are in the know about matters liturgical, you can still see the similarities between the liturgies from our two churches.

The particular thing that the Scottish Rite had was the Epiclesis a prayer invoking the holy spirit over the communion elements. The Church of England didn’t have it thought they’ve come close to adopting it since. Here in Scotland, that prayer is part of who we are and was part of our gift to America. Any true Episcopalian on either side of the Atlantic knows that the Scottish Episcopalians didn’t just hold up their hands to consecrate a bishop, but blessed the American church with something else that was holy too. And along the way, of course, we helped to kick what was to become the Anglican Communion into being. One sometimes feels that the C of E has never entirely caught up with the implications of that in the years since.

Today, on this anniversary, I want to celebrate the US Based Episcopal Church. I wish they hadn’t tried to change their name to The Episcopal Church a few years ago, as it is downright confusing, but they’ve done so much good that I try to forget about that as much as I can.

In the various disputes within the Anglican Communion in modern times, we must never forget that the Scottish Episcopal Church was the Church that liked to say, “Yes”.

May it ever be so.

The US church received the Epiclesis from Scotland.

They’ve been using it well ever since.

God Bless America and God Bless the US-based Episcopal Church today.

5 responses to “Heresy hunting”

Nick Brindley

14/05/2014

It is probably helpful to be clear about the distinction between “dogma” (which is best understood as the definition of orthodoxy and of heresy, of the things it is mandatory to affirm and the things it is forbidden to affirm) and “church order” (the rules about how people are to conduct themselves). These are related but by no means the same thing.

“Doctrine” is a third thing again, to my mind. It is the body of teaching that the church affirms but is much more extensive and changeable than dogma.

Of particular relevance is who has the authority to pronounce on these things. Denominational authorities quite properly establish church law and discipline (this needs to be done and there’s nobody else to do it) but would go beyond their proper sphere (in my view) if they tried to establish new definitions in the field of dogma.

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Andrew

14/05/2014

I feel the need to separate praxis and doctrine, but I suppose that is probably a minor heresy in itself, in a church that hides its doctrine in its liturgy. Although I suppose the deftness of the ‘McCarthy Liturgy’ has maybe sidestepped that pitfall as deftly as an 18th century non-juring bishop side-stepping western orthodoxy and the rest…

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Rosemary Hannah

15/05/2014

To a degree I think it is a matter of tradition. Anglican churches have tended (and it is only a tendency) to insist of orthopraxis. Church of Scotland churches have tended (same health warning) to emphasise orthodoxy of belief, call it doctrine or dogma. St Andrews is not of course a C or S institution, but it used to be, certainly in my day, and to a degree in yours, heavily steeped in C of S ethos. St Mary’s trained C of S ministers and that was ALL the training they got, because then they knew Orthodoxy.

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Jimmy

15/05/2014

The links on this post have led me to think of this –

The Inner Party – The Outer Party – The Proles.

The model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or “reintegration” by Miniluv, while proles can be allowed intellectual (and sexual) freedom because they lack intellect. Winston nonetheless believed that “the future belonged to the proles”. Wikipedia.

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Allan Ronald

19/05/2014

There was most definitely a C of S ethos at St Andrews in my day [67-71]. Robin Buchanan-Smith was running a packed college chapel and one president of the SRC and one president of the Union were St Mary’s men who went on to ordination and, in one case, to be Moderator of the Kirk. Perhaps they got their orthodoxy from Matthew Black at St Mary’s and their skill in future clerical politics from their student posts…….

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