I arrived in Roanoke, Virginia, last night after a long couple of flights from Manchester. The Diocese of Bradford has a longstanding link with the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia and I am here (with a couple of colleagues) for the ordination/consecration of the new bishop tomorrow. I came here for the first time in January 2012 to get to know the diocese and attend the annual Diocesan Council (equivalent to a diocesan synod in England). So, it is great to meet such wonderfully gracious and hospitable people again so soon.
Of course, this also offers a further opportunity not only to learn about The Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in the USA), but also to look though its lens at the context I work in in England. If anything, the visit and all the encounters and conversations reinforce the lesson I learned at the Lambeth Conference back in 2008: a bishop is not a bishop is not a bishop.
A bit obvious, you might say, but the common language we use can easily shape our assumption that the same words in the different contexts (and church polities) refer to the same thing. They don't.
For example, this morning I attended a media round-table discussion between the Presiding Bishop of TEC, the outgoing Bishop of SWVA and the bishop-elect. The discussion revolved around how the church is changing as society around changes. For example, depopulation of some areas – largely down to urbanisation – renders some churches too small to sustain stipendiary ministry and the local churches have to try to adapt accordingly. The role of the bishop here was successively described in terms of a 'pontifex' – a bridge builder and connector of people and places as together we discern the will and call of God. They talked about how to maintain presence as some places decline in population or the demographic becomes more impoverished financially.
And here lies the interesting bit – for me, at least.
When they speak of 'parish', an Englishman needs to hear 'church'. An English parish is geographical and demographic: every blade of grass in England grows in an Anglican parish and a vicar is the vicar of the parish, not the chaplain of a congregation. This means that the English parish demands church engagement with civic society, politics, local community and services, people of all faiths and none, and ecumenical obligation. That dynamic does not exist here in anything like the same way. Add to that the fact that the individual parish is responsible for appointing and paying the priest, and we see the discontinuity in the reality behind the common terminology. Hence, the Church of England's parish share system (by which parishes take common responsibility for mission and ministry across the diocese – the wealthier paying more and the poorer paying less) has no equivalent here. And this means that deploying clergy across a diocese is a very different exercise here from in Bradford.
Naturally, this has other consequences. The role of the bishop is not the same as the bishop of a diocese in England where the Church is 'by law established'. Put me and the Bishop of SWVA together with the Bishop of Khartoum in Sudan – our third mutual partner – and we discover that, as I crudely put it, a bishop is not a bishop is not a bishop. Context, history and polity directly shape understanding, ethos, relationship (of clergy to bishop and bishop to people) and practice.
This observation might seem to be what Monty Python calls “the bleeding obvious”. Yet, the obvious isn't always obvious until you look your counterpart in the eye, listen to the language she uses, and ask to what the terminology actually refers. This is an exercise in translation – of words and culture – and it is neither obvious, nor easy.
The media session was followed by a Eucharist for clergy and spouses in the diocese and this was followed by a wonderful lunch and a session for clergy with the Presiding Bishop. It has all been very stimulating. The following caused me to put pen to notebook paper:
- Some people in the USA who do not buy into the environmental sustainability agenda are finding that expanding poverty is challenging their perception: especially the connection between food, the earth, climate change and migration and their impact.
- 'Inclusion' has traditionally been used in the church to refer to whom 'we' might wish to include, whereas increasingly we are moving into a world in which 'we' will need to ask who will include us.
- Clergy a responsible for pastoral discipline, catechetical teaching and associated sacramental provision; their leadership role brings these responsibilities with it and it must be taken seriously as well as creatively. How are 'parishioners' to learn about and understand their place and role in the wider community of the church and not just the local expression of it? Anglicans are – according to their basic ecclesiology – not congregationalists; but, if that is de facto the culture and polity of the TEC expression of the Anglican polity, what are the implications for the church's self-understanding (to say nothing of its mission)?
A final observation that I need to think further about. The Presiding Bishop was clear in a couple of contexts that the church must move to become less hierarchical and more connexional (in the sense of being horizontally networked rather than up-down managed/directed. She also suggested that this is “where the Spirit is leading us”. This echoes some of the discourse in the UK with Fresh Expressions and its assumptions about English societal trends (assumptions I still think are partly questionable). Yet, the bit that struck me was not whether or not this is where the Spirit is leading the church, but who is meant by 'us'.
England is not the USA (for reasons I mention above) and the English parochial system is still essentially 'communal' rather than 'associational'. In other words, 'place' matters to us. When other denominations close down and move out of some of the hard places, the Church of England cannot. Supported and often financed through the diocesan parish share system, presence and engagement are sustained for the sake of the local society and the church's commitment to worship, evangelism and service locally. Buildings are retained where this is sometimes costly and hard to do.
Clearly, all this is contingent on other commitments that are integral to and inherent in English Anglican ecclesiology (and, yes, I do realise that there is a certain apparent tautology in that phrase). The American dynamic and polity are different. This is not to say that the Church of England has it right over against the TEC model – or vice versa; it is to recognise that each brings its own questions, dilemmas and opportunities. However, it also makes clear that we are not comparing like with like – even when we use the same language to describe different phenomena.
We live in different worlds, but in the same world. And that is why such diocesan partnership links are so important not only to the Anglican Communion, but also to the wider Christian Church. When we look at the Episcopal Church in Sudan (ECS) through the lens of TEC or the C of E, or TEC through the lens of ECS and the C of E, or the C of E through the lens of TEC and ECS – especially where all three are held together in conversation and committed relationship – we learn (a) just how difficult translation is, (b) that the contingent challenges and opportunities are complex, and (c) that we need each other to provide those lenses without which we become easily and arrogantly self-justifying.
(I prepared for this visit by reading E.L. Doctorow's Civil War novel The March. Probably a bit tactless, really.)
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July 19, 2013 at 11:16 pm
[…] Of course, this also offers a further opportunity not only to learn about The Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in the USA), but also to look though its lens at the context I work in in England. If anything, the visit and all the encounters and … View full post on anglican – Google Blog Search […]
July 20, 2013 at 11:11 am
I’m an ordinand in the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC). I read your comments on the differences between TEC and the CofE with interest. It might be interesting also to compare the CofE and the SEC. I’m no expert, but it sounds from what you say as though the shape of the SEC may sit somewhere those of the CofE and TEC, and that its challenges may be different again from those faced in Sudan, America, and England.
As a Scot who grew up just on the north side of the border between Scotland and England, with English parents, the apparent lack of understanding I encounter of the nature of the SEC and its distinctiveness from the Church of Scotland (from English folk) as well as the the CofE (from Scottish folk) continues to surprise me. Perhaps it’s inevitable since the SEC is a much smaller province and, as a non-established church, also a “minority” voice even within Scotland. Whatever, your post made me think (again) that there might be profit in more constructive sharing of our different contextual challenges across the border.
July 20, 2013 at 5:47 pm
“the Church of England’s parish share system (by which parishes take common responsibility for mission and ministry across the diocese – the wealthier paying more and the poorer paying less) has no equivalent here”
Wonderful, thoughtful post. There’s no doubt it’s a different world in TEC (the “dark lord” archdeacon in the television show Rev is unthinkable in any US diocese I know, because the diocese just doesn’t have that kind of day to day power) but the sentence above is not entirely true, at least not if the parenthetical part really describes the parish share system. TEC dioceses work in slightly different ways, but in all the ones I know the wealthier parishes do in fact pay more than the poorer, in that they are assessed the same percentage of a much larger income. And in some dioceses, at least, the assessment is progressive — so the wealthier pay a higher percentage. And some of that assessment goes to supporting mission churches, which can’t support themselves.
July 21, 2013 at 2:07 am
I am a priest in the diocese to which you are referring. I thank you for this reflection. I note with particular interest “… ‘place’ matters to us. When other denominations close down and move out of some of the hard places, the Church of England cannot….” I serve two of our tiny missions – we do not have “church” status. As we have been looking at the sustainability of our diocese and our churches, “place” was not given any value at all. As our areas depopulate, thinking about ‘place’ as you have mentioned it, is a worthy study for us, and for our ecumenical partners.
July 21, 2013 at 4:11 am
Mark, I realise that the situation is more nuanced than I state, but I simply wanted to indicate the difference in dynamic and polity. Rather than being right or wrong, they are simply different. Thanks for commenting.
July 21, 2013 at 4:13 am
Becky, ‘place’ is really significant in terms of identity and mission, but our different contexts will colour the term differently. Did we meet today?!
July 23, 2013 at 5:00 pm
This is a general point on Diocesan links.
Yes, they are important, and I genuinely got a lot out of this article, even though I have more or less nothing to do with either Bradford or Virginia: the points you make have a wider validity.
But what strikes me is that the links are a bit arbitrary and don’t bear as much fruit as they could do: where I feel it could really take off is if we restructured them towards population movement.
e.g. I live and work in Southwark and so the ‘official’ link dioceses are in Zimbabwe, a captivating, fascinating and challenging country. I’ve also met some Zimbabweans in the course of my ministry. However, I’ve met loads of Nigerians and Sierra Leonese. The congregations of Southwark churches especially in the Woolwich area are much more linked, it would seem to me, to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone than to Zimbabwe.
I sometimes feel that the link with Zimbabwe, where very few people have a genuine foot in both places, is a distraction from the links which need fostering between West Africa and Southwark. Here, there are congregations with 40% to 80% West Africans and even parish populations with 30% West African presence, yet it feels like the Church of England just sticks with whatever link was first set up, presumably in quite an arbitrary way. Southwark has Zimbabwe; Nigeria is split between Chichester, Guildford and Liverpool. Yet how many Nigerians live in Chichester, Guildford and Liverpool?
We passionately need greater understanding in South London between English people and clergy and Nigerian people and clergy. Here are two questions I have struggled with: what are the expectations from a Nigerian of his/ her local priest? how can a white English priest best encourage leadership from among his Nigerian congregation? The ‘link’ system would seem a natural place to foster answers in this debate and yet it structurally works against it.
Arguably, it’s not necessarily an “either… or…” debate: someone could theoretically visit both Nigeria and Zimbabwe and have links with both places, but given how much energy is needed, I’m not sure it’s sustainable.
A practical example. The diocese is keen for the school where I used to be a chaplain at, Archbishop Tenison’s, Lambeth, to build up its link with Cyrene, a school in Matabeleland. That’s all very well, but the infrastructure is weak.
Yet 60% or more of Tenison’s students have family links to Nigeria or Ghana. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to set up a school link there?
It seems to me that the diocesan link system is good, but it could be much better if it matched the global population movements more closely.
July 24, 2013 at 3:50 am
Robert, your questions are good ones and ones raised during my time in Southwark. Links serve different ends and the Zimbabwe links might be developed differently from other more local ones. You should raise this with the bishops.
July 27, 2013 at 9:04 pm
I think that we can be quite blinkered when we compare like for like between the CofE and other Anglican Provinces, particularly the TEC, which evolved in a quite different context starting from scratch, while the CofE basically inherited from it’s forbears.
The model of the TEC parish where resources are retained and used locally might be something that would need to happen in England if the CofE were to be disestablished – could we really claim ownership of each parish (or place) as we currently do?
I saw a post somewhere today from a Baptist pointing out their single level organisation – the church is local, self governing, and only looks to the Baptist Union for strategic guidance.
Personally, I could see our own CofE parish (which has 5 soon to be 9) surviving on that model, albeit, losing one or two rural churches along the way. In this context a self-governing model, appointing their own clergy, providing housing and other benefits could work well.
This would create a completely different relationship with the Diocesan Bishop. Would we need deaneries? Would we need dioceses? Difficult one
As we continue to be an apostolic church I suspect we need bishops, but their roles need to change to more pastoral and guidance than oversight or governance..
An loose, interconnected association of local churches (i.e. Churches together) has perhaps a better chance of implementing mission and kingdom building locally than a diocese, often remote from the day to day life of each parish and locally shared concerns and needs to be met from local resources.
For many of us apart from meeting diocesan time consuming information demands, contact with diocese is minimal. And to be frank, on occasion unwelcome. Because it’s mainly a ‘give and take’ relationship, we give, diocese take.
This isn’t a statement for UDI, just a thought process, provoked by your post of how the CofE needs to continue to pursue the re-imagining ministry project, outlined by +Stephen Croft recently, if we are to build the Kingdom and build a sustainable model of what may or not be called church for the future.
July 28, 2013 at 1:37 am
A critical issue in all this is the relatively fundamental question: What is a bishop? Since very early days in the life of the Church, that question has had a variety of local answers enshrined in canons. The answer to that question affects all other matters of polity– hence the cultural and national differences. Our fundamental source is the Biblical corpus: “episkopos” (literally “epi” upon, or over + “scopo” look/see).
The formative theological work for the Church of South India was brilliant– and honest. All the uniting churches agreed that in one way or another they had a role of somebody who was responsible to “see over” the congregations in a given area– a conference ministry, a general presbyter, a moderator, a regional president, a bishop. All agreed that such a role– coordinating and pastoring exists by nature. The did not agree on the juridical role such as practiced canonically in the Euro-American scene. So, as a founding principle the Church of South India accepted the role of an episkopos– whose function would be to see over, know about, share knowledge and resources, be the functional connector, and function in a pastoral role (the pastor of pastors)– without juridical functions.
There are significant differences between TEC and CofE, and most other parts of the Anglican Communion. In most cases these are differences in the details of juridical models of episcopacy. The real differences are between juridical and non-juridical models of episcopacy.
Another topic of great importance is the matter of clergy preparation and education. In many parts of Africa many topics of importance in the churches of the northern hemisphere (e.g., psychology, sociology, philosophy, world history) are considered irrelevant to clergy preparation. Therein lies the heart of much conflict.
July 28, 2013 at 4:34 pm
As someone who trained at TISEC, served in the Borders, and then moved south – I would agree that there are striking differences between the SEC and the CofE. The analysis will be interesting as others add to this conversation, I would only add that the relative smallness of the SEC is hugely to its advantage in so many different ways not least liturgically, and missionally.
The discussions [for instance] concerned with women being consecrated as Bishops, took place in 2000 in Edinburgh; and just as the established pattern of voting for SEC Bishops is unheard-of in England – so is the pattern of Local Collaborative Ministry.
July 28, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Another difference: when everyone in a diocese gets paid (more or less) the same thing, there’s a lot more camraderie among clergy, than there is when your salary is tied to the income of your church congregation and everyone is always looking for the next step up the income and career ladder. I’m not saying there’s no careerism or climbers in the C of E, but in my experience it’s a much more supportive environment to be a priest than the U.S.
August 4, 2013 at 9:12 pm
[…] bishop Nick Baines has posted about the differences between the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Church of England. After a […]
August 10, 2013 at 9:23 pm
Bishop Baines: I have been on vacation since I posted to your blog, hence the late response to your question about meeting. Not directly, I think. Although I met you previously in Lexington at a clergy gathering. I look forward to reading more of your blog. Thank you for the discussion of “place”