Searching for God # 33

 In an op-ed in anglican.ink, dated April 17, 2025, entitled:

‘Why the Roman Catholic is Rising in England-and What It Reveals About Faith in an Age of Uncertainty’ we read:

(In a sub-head) Conviction is attractive. And strong convictions are strongly attractive…

In an age of moral confusion and cultural uncertainty people are drawn to those who actually believe what they say- and who live as if their core convictions are real and unshakeable. …This more than anything may explain the quiet shift now unfolding in England. For the first time in centuries, the Roman Catholic Church is England now surpasses the Church of England in active attendance. Among young people, Catholics outnumber Anglicans. In London, the shift is even more pronounced. The tide is turning-and it’s not turning toward trendy liturgies or progressive theology; it’s turning toward clarity, continuity, and conviction.

Every Anglican worldwide, and every Episcopalian in the U.S. knows that even after 500 years, the hierarchy of the church is still thinking through its theology. Its doctrine, famously, is up for a vote. That’s not a small thing.

Roman Catholicism is not democratic. It doesn’t ask the culture to weigh in on what it believes-it declares it. And in an age when society is debating everything-from truth to gender to morality- there is something profoundly reassuring about a church that does not budge.

Women priests? No

Abortion? Never

Gender fluidity: Not affirmed

However, the Anglican Church, even with its closely held principles, because of its penchant for shared governance and democracy and its allergy toward a Roman pope, always seems to be making up its mind.

Having spent well over three decades in the Anglican/Episcopal church, as adherent, member, Warden, seminarian, Deacon and Priest, after a two-decade career in education and journalism, I am somewhat familiar with the central issue as it is articulated in this op-ed, at least in Canada and the United States. No longer having any formal or informal ties to the ecclesiastical institution, I feel also free to ponder publicly on the implications of this demographic trend.

As one of what are considered ‘establishment’ churches in Canada, (along with the Roman Catholic), the Anglican church has, for over a century, been very cozy with political, economic, academic and corporate leadership. Indeed, funds from those specific sources have sustained the institution, both underwriting the operating budget as well as generating substantial trust accounts. Private schools for boy and girls, under the aegis, if not the formal umbrella of the church, have also catered to the children of both the exceptionally affluent as well as the nouveau-riche, and more recently to many children of Asian heritage. Daily chapel services, supplemented by weekly attendance in community cathedrals, were and are considered de rigueur for students and many faculty. Head masters and head mistresses generally ruled as benevolent rulers. A quasi-military regimen comprised the culture in most of those schools, at least in Canada. (I began my teaching career in one of those schools in Ontario). There rarely was any question or appeal of the ‘rule’ of the headmaster, given the assumed, assigned and conferred authority in the position. Of course, faculty and administration officials were engaged in discussions of policy and practices. The final word, however, remained with the ‘head’.

Catering to a plethora of linguistic, ethnic and religious heritages, the Anglican ‘faith’ was observed more in ritual and human relations than in dogmatic creeds or convictions, at least in daily parlance, discussion and informal debate. Pursuing the truth, with respect and dignity of all participants in most conflicts was a predictable, reliable and trust-worthy pattern for resolving disputes. There was, and likely still is, an ‘air’ of quiet, solemn and reserved decorum and attitudes among both students and staff. I really respected, and still do, that ‘cultural feature’ of those private schools, emblematic of and resonating with the tradition of the English public school.

Was the whole operation open to charges of snobbery? Absolutely. Whether in academics, athletics, or in career placements, these schools reeked of ‘elitism’ and ‘specialness’ especially when compared with the much more informal and unstructured public school system. Was there a kind of moral superiority? Not nccessarily; however, the matters of morality were often kept ‘in house’ as opposed to being aired, like ‘dirty linen’ in the public domain.

Fundraising, the driving engine of these schools, both in enrolment, as well as in scholarships, capital building programs, recruitment campaigns, and solicitation of esteemed board members, was never far from the consciousness of all members of the school community. “Civilizing finishing schools,” these institutions could and would be dubbed by many, including parents who subscribed to their elitism. Prayers from established ‘ecclesial prayer books,’ both traditional and more contemporary (“red” and “green”), were read a daily chapel services, along with the traditional scriptural readings designed by the church calendar. There was a ‘way of being’ Anglican, that, for someone like this scribe, offered relief from the bombastic, absolutist, convicted ‘fundamental’ ‘evangelical’ born-again’ theology of my youth.

Therein lies the convergence of how religion is practiced with the foundations on which such religion is believed to be traditionally, biblically and experientially supported and sustained. Chaplains, in these institutions from my limited experience, would be open to discussion of any biblical, or ethical or moral questions that were raised by either or both faculty or students. Never, however, was there evidence of proselytizing, converting, or even denigrating any because of their family’s faith tradition, if any.

Ungirding not only the praxis but the theology of any faith community, lies the conception of, through imagination, experience, reading and reflection one’s God, including one’s association with, understanding of, and application of both biblical narratives and principles. Whether specific classroom time was dedicated to scriptural and formal faith concepts varied from school to school.

Undoubtedly, in the residential schools, (the dark side of the private school façade of elitism) biblical studies were regimented whether those schools were operated by protestant or Roman Catholic educators. Scars, psychological, physical, cultural and sociological continue, decades after the schools closed, to plague students of the residential school system in both Canada and the United States, and both Roman Catholics and Anglicans/Episcopalians were engaged.

Any religion, applied with physical, emotional, psychological and cultural abuse, is not only abhorrent, and precisely counter to the intent and purpose of any faith worthy of the name. The very notion of ‘civilizing’ and ‘shaping the character’ of students lies at the core of both the private and the residential school systems. The difference lies at least partly in the tuition, boarding fees and financial contribution of all private school students and their families, (excepting those on full or partial scholarship), a source of funds absent from the residential schools.

Denigrating, bigotry, outright social ostracism seems to have characterized many of the experiences of indigenous students in the residential system, whereas, few, if any students in the private schools, were ever shown the contempt poured over the indigenous students.

The issue of faith conviction, espousing a set of doctrines, beliefs, and practices, including regular attendance, regular tithing, regular baptisms, confirmations, marriages and moats to cross in order to achieve a formal divorce, for example, are all benchmarks of the Roman Catholic church, most of which are more causally observed and required among Anglicans/Episcopalians. Even rules on marriage to those not of the Roman Catholic faith by Roman Catholic members in good standing, are (or at least were over the last two decades) more stringent that for those seeking to marry an Anglican/Episcopalian.

And yes, gay priests, as well as female clergy are not only ordained and practicing in the Anglican/Episcopal church, while the issue of formal celebration of LGBTQ marriages continues to stir considerable controversy. Therein lies one of the points of friction, not only between churches, but also among the culture generally, especially in the West.

Absolute opinions, as opposed to reflective exploration of options, seem to be serving as a magnet for those seeking some kind of ‘security’ in a world careening over multiple cliffs, economically, environmentally, politically, militarily, and especially culturally. James Hillman points to the dependence on literalism, empiricism as the primary mode of both perception and cognition; reality has to be based on what is literally, empirically proven, and even then, we are now living in a sea of ‘alternative facts’ (recalling those prophetic words of trump’s mouth-piece, Kellyanne Conway). Thinking constructs such as irony, metaphor, all based on one’s imagination, have fallen into public disrepute, almost as if they were ‘specious’ or irrelevant, in spite of the alternate view that we all deploy our imagination and our creativity each time we reflect on an experience, including whatever might be attempting to pass as a religious or spiritual experience.

Stories of biblical narratives, and those ‘precisely spoken words of Jesus’ although studied and somewhat ‘declassified’ as literally and empirically applicable to the mouth of Jesus, have become, for many metaphoric ‘bullets’ with which to attack any whose ‘faith’ seems questionable, and whose convictions seem wobbly at best.

Absolutism, as a kind of ‘rock of cognitive, ethical, moral and social determination of ‘right’ (and wrong), based on the belief that ‘we know without doubt or question the mind of God’ has become a magnet pole of Christian theology for many. And by that notion and conviction, the mind of God is ‘frozen’ in both time and eternity in a frame to which “I” (whoever I is) can demonstrate my allegiance and loyalty. Absolutism, in and of itself, becomes a metaphor for God’s will for human beings, who claim to have been ‘converted from sin unto eternal life’ as that portion of scripture holds. And therein lie two other of those cornerstones of Christian theology, the interpretation of both the Fall in the Garden, and then the key and path to forgiveness and the promise of eternal life in the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

 

Tow thousand years of writing, praying, debating and even excommunicating and military and political conflict have provided the curricular outline for the study of what purports to be the underpinnings of Christianity. Both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican/Episcopalian churches have self-proclaimed themselves as the ‘right and only Christian faith’ as their way to protect the institution from apostasy.

Institutions, by definition and both birth and development, have believed they had to set boundaries around whom to admit to their ‘inner sanctum’ as well as whom to exclude. And, as is true for most, if not all, humans, acceptance into the ‘inner-sanctum’ of whatever especially ostensibly sacred sanctuary, matters a great deal. Compliance and conformity to whatever the demands of the institution are the sine qua non to such ‘admission’ and ‘acceptance’ and ‘ordination’ as well as ‘blessing’ however such designations appeal and are applied.

Rewards and sanctions, too, are considered essential ‘instruments’ for administering and sustaining all institutions, especially given that religion has taken upon itself the role of defining a culture’s moral and ethical criteria. Again, for many of us, the notion of ‘fear’ as a core experience, irrespective of the name of nature of the ‘authority’ who/which has inculcated that experience, comprises an inescapable emotional and psychic ingredient as to what path seems to ‘fit’ and how rigorous is the requirement to ‘adhere’ to that path.

As one who has had to ‘dispel’ unwonted, externally-imposed illegitimate authority, much of it based on what seemed to have been a constricted and literal interpretation of the gospel, and who has also disavowed all images of a God who endorses the abuse of power in any and all its forms and applications, and who continues to operate under the minimal guidance of ‘question authority’ as an integral guiding principle of my theology, I seek the restraint of military, social, economic, political and academic conflict that abuses any and all parties. Truth, in so far as we can together begin to establish it, (with relevant and respectful participants), compassion, empathy and kind generosity (see that Sermon on the Mount again), seem to offer expression of a theology worthy of both a ‘believer’ and a God of Love.

As Tolstoy reminds, us, those concepts and notions seem to have been engraved within the heart and mind, the spirit and psyche and soul of each and every living and deceased person, whether recognized, acknowledged or applied. The pursuit of absolute ‘anything’ including a God suffering from any form of reduction, continues outside my search for a faith community…indeed perhaps even outside my search or expectation of a faith community….as William Blake held, ‘I am a searcher and not a joiner!’

And my search will no longer be either complicated nor confounded by nor ‘approved and affirmed’ by any ecclesial institution.