I have just posted the full text of my 1994 essay, "Why Journalists Love the Episcopal Church." It was written for an Anglican publication, in response to hearing interesting questions from Episcopal laypeople, priests and even bishops. I added a short 2025 prologue.
I am very disappointed by your use of inflammatory rhetoric in this post... In general, I think it's not good to dismiss whole religious denominations with epithets such as "Republican Party at Prayer" or "NPR at Prayer." One could easily dismiss and demean whole groups of fellow Christians with similar disdain: "Walmart Shoppers at Prayer," "NASCAR Fans at Prayer," "The NRA at Prayer."
Please try to be more objective. And, if asking the most powerful man in the world to dredge up a small amount of empathy, kindness, compassion, and yes "mercy" is untoward or awkward, then so be it. If ministers cannot promote such values from the pulpit, even directing them at individuals in their presence, then let's just shutter the churches for we have left the teachings and works of Jesus very far behind us indeed.
“Republican party at prayer” has been an in-house phrase used by Episcopalians for at least 100 years. Apparently you think it was made up recently. Many of us Episcopalians talk about how we are now “the justice Democrats at prayer.” It’s all part of a very useful conversation about the way in which some members of every religious denomination let their politics determine their faith.
I was responding to Jeff not to you. Your rant about the Bishop of Washington was sad. I had decided to not comment on that as it comes across, to me, as an unhappy ex Episcopalian taking a shot at his past. My concern is what Ryan Burge pointed to, “People are picking their religion based on their politics, not their politics based on their religion.” We can see that in the comments, in many places, about the Bishop's sermon as they come from right and left. I've been reading Father Schmemann and his approach to the heresies we need to avoid a “secularism— "a negation of worship" and "the progressive and rapid alienation of our culture, of its very foundations, from the Christian experience” (which is what I see growing in my and the Bishop's church) and a “Manichean rejection of the world, for an escape into a disincarnate and dualistic ‘spirituality.’” "Heresy, however is always the distortion, the exaggeration, and therefore the mutilation of something true, the affirmation of one 'choice', ...one element at the expense of the others, the breaking up of the catholicity of Truth."
Yes, there are people choosing churches on the basis of politics. But there are many more choosing churches that will defend basic, ancient doctrines. In this case, I was asking if services of this kind needed to include diversity representing the whole of American Christianity, as opposed to only one side. Or, someone needs to allow a new president — an Orthodox Jew perhaps — to attended a service in a setting linked to her or his own tradition.
I apologize in advance if this offends anyone here, but I honestly don't understand this.
"The Episcopal Church isn’t an ecclesiastical body defined by a specific set of doctrines" -- why would anyone ever join then a church with no doctrine but is simply a “cultural aesthetic”? Why would any priest serve such a Church. If the Episcopal Church has no beliefs, what does the priest you interviewed think he's doing when he's muttering over the communion wafers? And why does he bother? How does such a place fill the "God shaped hole" in every human heart?
Well, the answer is, it doesn't.
Average Sunday Attendance: 780K in 2007 vs 410K today.
Baptized members: 3.6M in 1966. 2.3M in 2007. 1.5M today.
It gives me no joy to watch a 500 year old, global denomination crack up and fall into irrelevancy. But a church with no doctrine is no longer part of the Body of Christ. They are a heretical sect, modern day Arians. And as such, I would rather watch their collapse than their triumph.
Bishop Budde is already irrelevant, a clanging symbol full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. She thinks herself a serious religious advisor to the elite but is really just the beltway court fool.
Or one could say that it is high time someone told the sociopath-in-chief to slow his roll. One could say that. One could say that that is what is most consistent with the Gospel, that after years of watching good Christian folk scream for mass deportation and the subjugation of big chunks of the population, this was what was attracting attention.
You know, watching Franklin kiss his rear vs this. That’s the difference.
Again, you apparently think asking the President to be kind is a bad thing. Why do the kinds of preachers who demand repealing the 19th amendment get respect and she doesn’t?
Again, Trump’s style of public rhetoric is one reason that I am a third party voter and have never supported him. For decades I was a pro-life Democrat.
Really now? Even one linked, historically, to the Solidarity movement in Eastern Europe? You sound rather like the Trumpsters who insist that voting third party is a way of supporting Democrats.
Because it is. Because you decided that it is more important to punish women for having sex — that is the ONLY reason for abortion bans, so please admit it and quit the idiot ‘babeez’ rhetoric — than preserving democracy. If you aren’t against Trump you are for him, and in the case of misogynist groups like American Solidarity, you are effectively supporting his policies anyway.
Manicheanism lives again! This sort of division of the world was heretical in the 3rd century and it still is.
"The line between good and evil does not divide man from man, but runs through every human heart." That is one of the great traditions of Christianity, summarized by one of the great anticommunist dissidents of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn spent 10 years in a Siberian gulag and had every reason to divide the world into "good people" and "evil people", and yet refused to do so.
I suspect that one thing Bishop Budde may have accomplished with that message was to run off any conservative members the Episcopal Church still has--although I suspect most of them have already moved to the Anglican Church in North America. And she may have boosted a process that has been going on for years in her church--decline. This isn't just my opinion; it's rooted in a post by Ryan Burge at Get Religion that I read a while back, maybe a year or two ago. Burge estimated that the Episcopal Church might disappear by 2040. They have clergy, they have buildings, they even have money--but they are running low on members. Burge noted that their clergy are performing more funerals than weddings and baptisms. Statistics I have seen show that their current membership is about half of what it was in the 1960s; and this decline was going on while the US population has increased from 180 million to 334 million--not quite doubled. So while their membership numbers have halved, as a percentage of US population they are just over a fourth of what they once were.
To be fair, the Episcopalians are not alone in this problem--all of the "Seven Sisters"--the traditional mainline Protestant denominations--are in decline. The United Methodists have had a major split over the last few years that cost them about a fourth of their congregations (I haven't seen any numbers yet about how much attendance has declined at their remaining congregations). We are in a period of major change, in many areas of our society--politics, education, business, and especially media. The rise of Substack is one example of why the traditional media outlets are losing ground.
While the Bishop's remarks may be in line with what is popular fare, especially in Washington DC, I see no problem with a Bishop, or any cleric appealing to the conscience of their respective head of state to exercise Christian virtue. I see it as being no different than a bishop or priest doing the same thing with regards to wealth hoarding, abortion, same sex marriage, war-mongering, indifference towards the poor, loathing of the immigrant and refugee, gun violence, and much more. The idea that the pulpit ought to remain a-political is absurd and is not a position that the historic Church has practiced. The Christian life while not merely political, is by its essence political insofar as it involves the polis where Christians live and work out their salvation.
She is free to proclaim the beliefs of her church. No question. The issue is this one liberal cathedral being the only option for DC services of this kind.
I mean the far grander and more impressive Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on Catholic U's campus is equally, if not more equipped to handle such services. I'm always surprised that they don't ask for state functions to be held there. Maybe because it is also on a university campus that makes it more difficult. Also I'm sure the tradition of doing it at the Natl. Cathedral is part of the decision.
I mean I’ll agree that despite what she said being basically correct, it isn’t particularly prophetic insofar as she’s only saying what MSM agrees with and what is politically in vogue and safe to say. As a layman who hasn’t been in the “hot seat” if we can call the pulpit a hot seat, there is still an aspect of some moral cowardice.
I take the view that it’s ridiculous to go to a church service and then complain that the preacher has the audacity to preach at you.
#duh, that’s what they do.
So it would be pathetic and whiny for Joe Biden to complain that the priest at Mass preached on the evils of killing unborn babies and transing children…. duh. It’s a Catholic church. You don’t have to be Roman Catholic and you don’t have to go to Mass.
Ditto every other church including this one.
Trump can just not go if he doesn’t want to hear her preach.
So, the incoming president should refuse to go to a service controlled by PECUSA? How would that be received? Can you imagine a Democrat being sent to a service in, oh, an Assembly of God megachurch, a service with zero voices from traditions similar to her or his own? Please listen to the podcast.
It’s up to him. Show up and listen without complaining or don’t show up. Either is fine. Just own the decision.
And in fairness to Mr. Trump, the complaining is NOT from him. He just said he didn’t find it very good. That’s fair. He’s not required to like it. Fair response.
The pathetic stuff is from the hangers on and some Christians who are suddenly “shocked” that the episcopal church is episcopal. And apparently pissed off that a preacher actually preaches.
It’s pathetic. Right up there with going to John Piper’s church and being mad he preached Calvinism and didn’t endorse female pastors.
Don’t be angry when John Pieper is John Pieper and don’t be surprised when Episcopalians are Episcopalians.
Sure, but I’m not American. You guys do what you like.
If you’re going to change anything, I think you should get the flags out of the church. Speaking as an evangelical Christian it seems too much like confusing one’s nation with God.
I'm Protestant, but I wouldn't have any problem with either of these. The Body of Christ is very diverse, and it should be up to the President to decide where he wants to go to church. If he wants to raise his hands surrounded by charismatics, I would love to see that. And I suspect many Americans would too.
No, because those churches teach hateful doctrines. Jesus wasn’t hateful. Why can’t you see that? Why respect John Piper defending wife-beaters but not her?
Adding to my precious comment, the idea that women are banned from all parts of ministry that don’t involve scrubbing dirt is the origin of all their evil.
The idea that wives are worthless doormats who need to be subservient to their husbands, who in turn have effective absolute power over their families and can do ANYTHING they want to their wives and kids. Wife-beating and child abuse is at epidemic levels in conservative churches. Read the book ‘Wild Faith’ by Talia Levin.
I think you seriously misunderstand the Christian doctrine of marriage. The way we've explained it to our daughters (and the way our pastor explains it) is this:
Both sexes have equal dignity before God. "In Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage." But a marriage can still only have 1 captain. A wise ship captain listens to his crew and especially his First Officer and generally follows the advice he gives. Similarly, a wise husband listens to his wife and generally does what she wants. (She usually has a better idea what will be good for the crew -- the family -- than he does.) But the decision is ultimately his. And that means, if the ship runs aground, it's his fault.
To use another metaphor, my father and another man ran a business partnership for decades. They discussed everything and made decisions together. But a few times in all those decades, they couldn't reach an agreement. When the business was established, Dad was made 51% owner and Jay 49%. So in those few cases, dad got the final say (and Jay was fine with that.) Most business consultants recommend this structure for exactly this reason, sometimes, there needs to be one person that the buck stops with.
My wife is not a doormat. She knows she is my first officer. We discuss everything and make decisions together. But in the end, the buck stops with me. There are 200 families in our homeschool coop (from all different denominations from Holy Rollers to Catholics to Anglicans to Orthodox) and I know from listening to those mom's conversations with each other, nearly all of them view their marriages the same way. One of them, her husband is currently in the hospital for heart surgery, and she's having to run everything (home and business) for a few months. And she's doing great. Because for years she's been a first officer, not a doormat.
I have just posted the full text of my 1994 essay, "Why Journalists Love the Episcopal Church." It was written for an Anglican publication, in response to hearing interesting questions from Episcopal laypeople, priests and even bishops. I added a short 2025 prologue.
I am very disappointed by your use of inflammatory rhetoric in this post... In general, I think it's not good to dismiss whole religious denominations with epithets such as "Republican Party at Prayer" or "NPR at Prayer." One could easily dismiss and demean whole groups of fellow Christians with similar disdain: "Walmart Shoppers at Prayer," "NASCAR Fans at Prayer," "The NRA at Prayer."
Please try to be more objective. And, if asking the most powerful man in the world to dredge up a small amount of empathy, kindness, compassion, and yes "mercy" is untoward or awkward, then so be it. If ministers cannot promote such values from the pulpit, even directing them at individuals in their presence, then let's just shutter the churches for we have left the teachings and works of Jesus very far behind us indeed.
Jeffrey VanderWilt, Ph.D. (Theology)
I stand by the post as written. Listen to the podcast and you may understand my point of view better.
So mercy is bad in à politician? You would prefer asking that Trump rain hellfire on gay people?
Well said Jeff
Did you listen to the podcast?
“Republican party at prayer” has been an in-house phrase used by Episcopalians for at least 100 years. Apparently you think it was made up recently. Many of us Episcopalians talk about how we are now “the justice Democrats at prayer.” It’s all part of a very useful conversation about the way in which some members of every religious denomination let their politics determine their faith.
You will note that I said it was in place in World War I era.
I was responding to Jeff not to you. Your rant about the Bishop of Washington was sad. I had decided to not comment on that as it comes across, to me, as an unhappy ex Episcopalian taking a shot at his past. My concern is what Ryan Burge pointed to, “People are picking their religion based on their politics, not their politics based on their religion.” We can see that in the comments, in many places, about the Bishop's sermon as they come from right and left. I've been reading Father Schmemann and his approach to the heresies we need to avoid a “secularism— "a negation of worship" and "the progressive and rapid alienation of our culture, of its very foundations, from the Christian experience” (which is what I see growing in my and the Bishop's church) and a “Manichean rejection of the world, for an escape into a disincarnate and dualistic ‘spirituality.’” "Heresy, however is always the distortion, the exaggeration, and therefore the mutilation of something true, the affirmation of one 'choice', ...one element at the expense of the others, the breaking up of the catholicity of Truth."
I have long been a strong supporter of Ryan Burge's work and, for years, published it at GetReligion.org
His candor is refreshing. Anyone who agrees with Burge all of the time is not paying attention. His research frequently cuts both ways.
Yes, there are people choosing churches on the basis of politics. But there are many more choosing churches that will defend basic, ancient doctrines. In this case, I was asking if services of this kind needed to include diversity representing the whole of American Christianity, as opposed to only one side. Or, someone needs to allow a new president — an Orthodox Jew perhaps — to attended a service in a setting linked to her or his own tradition.
Yes, having an Orthodox Jew in the service would have been lovely.
I apologize in advance if this offends anyone here, but I honestly don't understand this.
"The Episcopal Church isn’t an ecclesiastical body defined by a specific set of doctrines" -- why would anyone ever join then a church with no doctrine but is simply a “cultural aesthetic”? Why would any priest serve such a Church. If the Episcopal Church has no beliefs, what does the priest you interviewed think he's doing when he's muttering over the communion wafers? And why does he bother? How does such a place fill the "God shaped hole" in every human heart?
Well, the answer is, it doesn't.
Average Sunday Attendance: 780K in 2007 vs 410K today.
Baptized members: 3.6M in 1966. 2.3M in 2007. 1.5M today.
https://generalconvention.org/membership-average-attendance/
It gives me no joy to watch a 500 year old, global denomination crack up and fall into irrelevancy. But a church with no doctrine is no longer part of the Body of Christ. They are a heretical sect, modern day Arians. And as such, I would rather watch their collapse than their triumph.
Bishop Budde is already irrelevant, a clanging symbol full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. She thinks herself a serious religious advisor to the elite but is really just the beltway court fool.
Or one could say that it is high time someone told the sociopath-in-chief to slow his roll. One could say that. One could say that that is what is most consistent with the Gospel, that after years of watching good Christian folk scream for mass deportation and the subjugation of big chunks of the population, this was what was attracting attention.
You know, watching Franklin kiss his rear vs this. That’s the difference.
One could also say that actual diversity in the WORSHIP service would have been a good thing.
Again, you apparently think asking the President to be kind is a bad thing. Why do the kinds of preachers who demand repealing the 19th amendment get respect and she doesn’t?
Again, Trump’s style of public rhetoric is one reason that I am a third party voter and have never supported him. For decades I was a pro-life Democrat.
3rd party is the same as Republican.
Really now? Even one linked, historically, to the Solidarity movement in Eastern Europe? You sound rather like the Trumpsters who insist that voting third party is a way of supporting Democrats.
Because it is. Because you decided that it is more important to punish women for having sex — that is the ONLY reason for abortion bans, so please admit it and quit the idiot ‘babeez’ rhetoric — than preserving democracy. If you aren’t against Trump you are for him, and in the case of misogynist groups like American Solidarity, you are effectively supporting his policies anyway.
Manicheanism lives again! This sort of division of the world was heretical in the 3rd century and it still is.
"The line between good and evil does not divide man from man, but runs through every human heart." That is one of the great traditions of Christianity, summarized by one of the great anticommunist dissidents of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn spent 10 years in a Siberian gulag and had every reason to divide the world into "good people" and "evil people", and yet refused to do so.
It’s been more than a day and you still haven’t answered: do you support repealing the 19th Amendment and destroying women’s citizenship or not?
So you support repealing the 19th Amendment?
Thank you!!
I suspect that one thing Bishop Budde may have accomplished with that message was to run off any conservative members the Episcopal Church still has--although I suspect most of them have already moved to the Anglican Church in North America. And she may have boosted a process that has been going on for years in her church--decline. This isn't just my opinion; it's rooted in a post by Ryan Burge at Get Religion that I read a while back, maybe a year or two ago. Burge estimated that the Episcopal Church might disappear by 2040. They have clergy, they have buildings, they even have money--but they are running low on members. Burge noted that their clergy are performing more funerals than weddings and baptisms. Statistics I have seen show that their current membership is about half of what it was in the 1960s; and this decline was going on while the US population has increased from 180 million to 334 million--not quite doubled. So while their membership numbers have halved, as a percentage of US population they are just over a fourth of what they once were.
To be fair, the Episcopalians are not alone in this problem--all of the "Seven Sisters"--the traditional mainline Protestant denominations--are in decline. The United Methodists have had a major split over the last few years that cost them about a fourth of their congregations (I haven't seen any numbers yet about how much attendance has declined at their remaining congregations). We are in a period of major change, in many areas of our society--politics, education, business, and especially media. The rise of Substack is one example of why the traditional media outlets are losing ground.
While the Bishop's remarks may be in line with what is popular fare, especially in Washington DC, I see no problem with a Bishop, or any cleric appealing to the conscience of their respective head of state to exercise Christian virtue. I see it as being no different than a bishop or priest doing the same thing with regards to wealth hoarding, abortion, same sex marriage, war-mongering, indifference towards the poor, loathing of the immigrant and refugee, gun violence, and much more. The idea that the pulpit ought to remain a-political is absurd and is not a position that the historic Church has practiced. The Christian life while not merely political, is by its essence political insofar as it involves the polis where Christians live and work out their salvation.
I appreciate your perspective!
Basilica is a MUCH easier church to reach. But National Cathedral is the DC culture church
She is free to proclaim the beliefs of her church. No question. The issue is this one liberal cathedral being the only option for DC services of this kind.
I mean the far grander and more impressive Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on Catholic U's campus is equally, if not more equipped to handle such services. I'm always surprised that they don't ask for state functions to be held there. Maybe because it is also on a university campus that makes it more difficult. Also I'm sure the tradition of doing it at the Natl. Cathedral is part of the decision.
I would agree. The issue is that this cathedral controls ALL of the services of this kind in DC culture.
I mean I’ll agree that despite what she said being basically correct, it isn’t particularly prophetic insofar as she’s only saying what MSM agrees with and what is politically in vogue and safe to say. As a layman who hasn’t been in the “hot seat” if we can call the pulpit a hot seat, there is still an aspect of some moral cowardice.
I take the view that it’s ridiculous to go to a church service and then complain that the preacher has the audacity to preach at you.
#duh, that’s what they do.
So it would be pathetic and whiny for Joe Biden to complain that the priest at Mass preached on the evils of killing unborn babies and transing children…. duh. It’s a Catholic church. You don’t have to be Roman Catholic and you don’t have to go to Mass.
Ditto every other church including this one.
Trump can just not go if he doesn’t want to hear her preach.
So, the incoming president should refuse to go to a service controlled by PECUSA? How would that be received? Can you imagine a Democrat being sent to a service in, oh, an Assembly of God megachurch, a service with zero voices from traditions similar to her or his own? Please listen to the podcast.
It’s up to him. Show up and listen without complaining or don’t show up. Either is fine. Just own the decision.
And in fairness to Mr. Trump, the complaining is NOT from him. He just said he didn’t find it very good. That’s fair. He’s not required to like it. Fair response.
The pathetic stuff is from the hangers on and some Christians who are suddenly “shocked” that the episcopal church is episcopal. And apparently pissed off that a preacher actually preaches.
It’s pathetic. Right up there with going to John Piper’s church and being mad he preached Calvinism and didn’t endorse female pastors.
Don’t be angry when John Pieper is John Pieper and don’t be surprised when Episcopalians are Episcopalians.
Would you support the inaugural service being in a megachurch or the Catholic basilica? Much larger parts of the current USA landscape
Sure, but I’m not American. You guys do what you like.
If you’re going to change anything, I think you should get the flags out of the church. Speaking as an evangelical Christian it seems too much like confusing one’s nation with God.
Ironically, the American flags are as common in liberal churches as conservative. Only the left would, in many cases, add Pride flags
Yep. It is very strange especially because it’s not simply one denomination. Sometimes the USA isn’t very foreign to me and sometimes it really is.
I'm Protestant, but I wouldn't have any problem with either of these. The Body of Christ is very diverse, and it should be up to the President to decide where he wants to go to church. If he wants to raise his hands surrounded by charismatics, I would love to see that. And I suspect many Americans would too.
No, because those churches teach hateful doctrines. Jesus wasn’t hateful. Why can’t you see that? Why respect John Piper defending wife-beaters but not her?
The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception?
Could you elaborate on what doctrines are hateful in these churches?
Adding to my precious comment, the idea that women are banned from all parts of ministry that don’t involve scrubbing dirt is the origin of all their evil.
The idea that wives are worthless doormats who need to be subservient to their husbands, who in turn have effective absolute power over their families and can do ANYTHING they want to their wives and kids. Wife-beating and child abuse is at epidemic levels in conservative churches. Read the book ‘Wild Faith’ by Talia Levin.
I think you seriously misunderstand the Christian doctrine of marriage. The way we've explained it to our daughters (and the way our pastor explains it) is this:
Both sexes have equal dignity before God. "In Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage." But a marriage can still only have 1 captain. A wise ship captain listens to his crew and especially his First Officer and generally follows the advice he gives. Similarly, a wise husband listens to his wife and generally does what she wants. (She usually has a better idea what will be good for the crew -- the family -- than he does.) But the decision is ultimately his. And that means, if the ship runs aground, it's his fault.
To use another metaphor, my father and another man ran a business partnership for decades. They discussed everything and made decisions together. But a few times in all those decades, they couldn't reach an agreement. When the business was established, Dad was made 51% owner and Jay 49%. So in those few cases, dad got the final say (and Jay was fine with that.) Most business consultants recommend this structure for exactly this reason, sometimes, there needs to be one person that the buck stops with.
My wife is not a doormat. She knows she is my first officer. We discuss everything and make decisions together. But in the end, the buck stops with me. There are 200 families in our homeschool coop (from all different denominations from Holy Rollers to Catholics to Anglicans to Orthodox) and I know from listening to those mom's conversations with each other, nearly all of them view their marriages the same way. One of them, her husband is currently in the hospital for heart surgery, and she's having to run everything (home and business) for a few months. And she's doing great. Because for years she's been a first officer, not a doormat.