In twenty-seven years of writing to you, I have spent little or no time covering breakaway groups in the Bay Area which use our prayer book and hymnals, which advertise in the yellow pages under our name, but which have no legitimate standing in the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion.  My conviction has been that we as an historic people of God are on mission.  So let’s be about that mission; let’s not devote energy to the folks who have set up shop nearby and who trade off our good name.  The old saying goes like this:  “The dogs bark and bark, but the wagons moved on.”  So I’ve tried to keep us moving ahead on the mission of Jesus Christ, not bogged down in intramural squabbles

Nevertheless I want to share just a little sampling of my experience of these folks with you.  Perhaps this might be of help to you in the future as you discern what the words “Episcopal” and “Anglican” mean when you drive by church signs.

Communists

In 1979 Bishop Myers sent me on a three-day assignment.  I was to go to a particular congregation that was planning on dropping its affiliation with the Episcopal Church.  Remember now, these were the crisis days right after women’s ordination and prayer book revision.  Lots of congregations were on the fence about staying or bolting.

When I arrived, I interviewed individual parishioners and the rector.  Studied the history and demographics of the parish.  Went to small group meetings.  On the last day, I sat with the leadership at lunch and said this:  “I think I’ve got it.  You are saying that revising the prayer book and ordaining women are deeply destabilizing innovations which threaten the very core of our American, democratic culture and values.  Who would want to bring such harm to our country?  The Communists!  You are convinced that the Episcopal Church, wittingly or unwittingly, has become a pawn for the Communist Party and their intent to bury America.  Therefore, it is your patriotic duty to disassociate yourselves from this menace and from the Episcopal Church.”  Their eyes brightened.  “Yes, you understand."

These are people whom I love individually but who bought into Senator Joseph McCarthy, Anita Bryant, etc., and the hunt for red and pink conspiracies around every corner.  In the 1950’s they claimed that the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was a Communist document because it was translated under the direction of the World Council of Churches.  In their minds, a Communist front organization.  And they are still around today, stronger than ever in the form of institutes and religious lobbies.  They are politically correct enough not to use the word “Communist,” but the same fire burns in their hearts.  Their constituency has few people of color, no women priests, and old 1928 prayer books, and the money pours in from Pittsburgh and Texas with the intent to bring an end to the Episcopal Church.  They are a tough crowd, and they work non-stop to carry out their goals.

Counterfeiters

Last summer my wife, Mary, was in an Asian country shopping for a pocketbook.  She spied one she liked, but the label said “Classical Designs.”  Finally she said to the owner, “Do you have any Prada bags?”  He said, “Oh, yes.”  Then he reached into a drawer, took out a Prada label, removed the Classical Designs label on the bag of Mary’s attention, and inserted the Prada label.  Easy.  Get a great label even if the depth of quality isn’t there.

There is a little church a few blocks from our home that calls itself an Anglican church.  Obviously it is not recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and has no more right to be called Anglican than Mary’s pocketbook has the right to be called Prada.  But there it is in all of its counterfeit splendor.  It takes advantage of our “noble army of martyrs” who gave their lives quietly translating manuscripts or fighting against injustices or facing the political dynamics of their day or praying us through ordeals.  The counterfeiters freeze-dry us in time, usually 1954, then thaw out our labors on Sundays.  In their boutique fake Anglican churches, devoid of the mess of history or the blood of Incarnation, they show antiseptic reruns of us.  As a tee shirt in the Bahamas says, “Nobody move, nobody get hurt."

A couple of churches in the Bay Area don’t even bother to switch labels.  They use our prayer book and hymnal, sometimes even invite one of our clergy to officiate, and run an Episcopal-type church without carrying the responsibility of commitment to a larger vision of the Body of Christ.  They chose neutral titles for themselves such as the Church on the Hill or in the Forest.  These are like couples who live together but don’t want the accountability of a marriage commitment.  No ties.  No big picture.  Just cul de sac religion.  Or rather just enough ties to figure out how to usurp the work of others and skim off enough cream to serve a rich local liturgical dish to unsuspecting attendees.  A parody by parasites.

Catholics

Every time there is trauma in the Episcopal Church, there is an effort by some of the counterfeiters and the Communist fixators to join forces but nothing – nothing – ever comes of it.  Those who cannot tolerate the catholic, universal nature of the Church, with the strain of holding everything and everyone together, certainly cannot live with the idiosyncrasies of each other.  Once a church group learns to say, “I don’t need you all any more,” then they are on the road to exponential isolation.  The opposite of catholicism.  What truly is worth striving for is to make the Church more catholic, or more catholic than it was when we inherited it.  Paul inherited a one-race Church.  When he died, the Church was multiracial.  There is the model.  Move outward; embrace more of the human predicament in the Name of Jesus Christ.

No one has cornered the market on being catholic.  No one has ever seen the catholic nature of the Church in toto.  It exists only in the mind of God.  We do see miniatures of it occasionally, and we lurch toward it blindly in our deepest yearnings.  The Roman Catholics do not exhaust the catholic nature of the Church, nor do the Orthodox or the Protestants.  We all carry its seed in our fragmented groupings.  Truly catholic means all of the above and more.  Lots more, as the Holy Spirit leads us into the Truth of the One.

Therefore, as a bishop I spend most of my time strengthening and expanding the Church’s infrastructure and institutions so that we can make the long, hard pilgrimage toward the catholicism that Christ intends for us, the wholeness He holds in His heart.  All of it is important – the seminaries, the social services, the retreat centers, the congregations, the worship, the ever-expanding ethnic constituencies.  We must be on our way toward a catholic destiny where God is all in all.  We aren’t communists or counterfeiters.  We are the real thing, catholic Episcopalians who pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us ever deeper, ever deeper into the full revelation of the Body of Christ.

The Rt. Rev. William E. Swing
Bishop