What is it about being an Episcopalian?

Why am I an Episcopalian? In these times of controversy, litigation and cultural captivity in the Episcopal Church, I seem to be asked that question more and more. It is a valid question and deserves a thoughtful answer.

As background let me explain that I was called into the ministry from another profession. After 15 years in medical research, I responded to the call to parish ministry. My wife and I had been Episcopalians since 1975, and we had also been involved as leaders in the nondenominational youth ministry, Young Life.

When it came time to more fully discern my call, I enrolled in classes at a local Presbyterian Church in America seminary to be sure that I had the aptitude and appetite to be a faithful minister of the Gospel. This experience verified my call to vocational ministry, but left open the question of denomination.

Upon reflection, I saw that God's hand had been in the entire progression. In addition, a major part of the process was in the context of the Episcopal Church. I knew that Bishop John Spong was publishing books denying the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Some seminary professors were even teaching that the resurrection was a spiritual experience within the individual believer and not the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A number of Episcopal theologians were touting the Bible as the record of man's experience of God rather than God's living Word. Christian morality was seen by many in the Episcopal Church to be relative and situational.

Even in the mid-1980s the Episcopal Church was no locus of Christian orthodoxy. Yet the more I asked the stronger the answer came back that I was to minister in the context of the Episcopal Church. It was only then that I went to see the rector of our church and began the discernment process in the Episcopal Church.

That brief background demonstrates that I was called into the Episcopal with my eyes wide open. There was no doubt in my mind about the spiritual condition of the Episcopal Church then and there was equally no doubt in my mind and that of the community with which I worshiped that I was called as a priest in this denomination. Today neither the fundamental position of the Episcopal Church nor my call has changed.

You might be asking if I am embarrassed to be an Episcopalian. Sure, I am embarrassed by some of what the Episcopal Church does, but I am not embarrassed to be a Christian in the Episcopal Church.

When you accept a call from God, there is only an audience of One. If He called me into the Episcopal Church, who is it before whom I am going to be embarrassed? After all, is He not the Holy One who was not too embarrassed by my sinfulness to become a human being? Did Jesus Christ not come to a religious group, as a member of that religious group knowing he would be rejected by them? Yet He came to them in order to reveal Himself to them so that they might repent, believe and accept the gift of His kingdom.

A role is always inherent in a call. What do I see as my role in the context of the Episcopal Church? I am to preach the Gospel by word and deed. I am to announce and demonstrate God's purpose and promise wherever he places me. Presently, I understand that to mean that I am to be a reasonable voice for the traditional interpretation of God's word in the midst of the Episcopal Church.

My call is not to reform the Episcopal Church, nor is it to form a better and more obedient church. God has blessed me with a task that cannot fail, if only I am obedient. I am called to be steadfast in expounding the truth of God's word in a manner that it might be heard by Episcopalians. I am not responsible for any result other than my obedience. The truth is that the Episcopal Church is in God's most capable hands.