Cleanings...an occasional miscellany of news, views, and opinions gleaned from the religious press.
Episcopal News Service. December 28, 1978 [78368]
Stephen L. Brehe
Ever wonder why there are so many empty pews? So did J. Russell Hale who traveled 30,000 miles, conducted 165 in depth interviews with 165 unchurched persons, and sorted through thousands of pages of transcribed tape recordings.
"The phoniness or religious people was the theme I heard everywhere," writes Hale in The Lutheran Leader. "Most of the sermons the unchurched heard were either 'dull monologues' keyed to the level of the uninformed or were emotional, too narrow, or diatribes against sin.... Others who had found the church meaningful at one stage of their lives felt that the church's message had failed to keep up with their own maturing insights.... The churches, depending on whom you talk to, are either too liberal or too conservative....
"I am convinced," Hale continues, "after six months of saturation with the autobiographies of a sample of our unchurched population that what I have been listening to is the honest authentic voice of another America which the churches have either not heard or heard and have dismissed as insignificant rationalization. In the process the churches have turned deaf ears to at least 40 percent of the American population (80 million) who at least according to the ones I interviewed are desperately anxious to be heard but with little consciousness or confidence that those inside the church are even ready to listen."
Who Are the Unchurched, an Exploratory Study, by Dr. Hale, is available for $2 from the Glenmary Research Center, 4606 East-West Highway, Washington, D. C. 20014
More and more Episcopalians want to be missionaries, preachers, teachers of Bible, and evangelists, reports The Evangelical Outlook.
"Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (2 years old) opened this fall with up to 50 enrollees," the newsletter of the Evangelical Education Society says. "Princeton Seminary (Presbyterian) has 27 Episcopalians; Fuller Seminary in Pasadena (interdenominational and Evangelical) has 43."
Is Anglicanism coming unglued or is there reason to believe a new adhesive will be developed to hold increasingly diverse Anglican viewpoints in one communion? Bishop Robert R. Spears of Rochester writes in The Witness that old structures of Anglicanism, such as liturgical uniformity, have disappeared, never to return. Spears quotes the Primate of Canada, Ted Scott, who asked bishops at the recent Lambeth Conference to ponder these questions:
Are we now engaged in discovering the resources which will enable and motivate us for ministry to this world, the one in which we now live and work?
Are we able to face the realities of racism and brutality and greed in this world and still respond creatively?
Have we found a basis other than habit for community?
Have we found ways of upholding basic Christian values and standards without condemnation or arrogance?
Can we respond to others' needs because we see and understand those needs and the persons who have them?
Do we find the resources which enable us to remain faithful when there are no immediate answers?
Spears points out that these questions reveal "a desire to face the world as it is, to engage in ministry in that world and not some other, and to build for the future on the basis of present relationships and realities." Therein lies the new glue for Anglican identity, Spears hints.
Alas, not all is serious. This month we start a new department: Provincia absurdorum. Item No. 1: The Temple of Bacchus in Wells, Maine, has won state recognition as an independent church. The temple will feature a six-day-a-week feast for members at $15 per person. It's all tax deductible, of course, reports The Christian Century. Only one possible snag could delay the grand opening (consecration?). They still need a plumbing permit from the town of Wells. Incidentally, town officials earlier had rejected the application of H. Carlisle Estes to open a restaurant in the home of Vincent Marion. Estes is now Bishop Estes. You guessed it. Marion is now Cardinal Marion.
Finally, a closing note as I look out my window and dread another Chicago winter. The Alaskan Churchman's frontispiece warms my heart: "O ye ice and snow, bless ye the Lord: Praise Him and magnify Him forever."