Urges Episcopalians Take New Look
Diocesan Press Service. December 6, 1963 [XVI-8]
Clifford P. Morehouse, president of the House of Deputies, has urged Episcopalians to take "a new look" at the Church's overall operation in order to achieve the "radical change in priorities" called for by the Anglican Congress document, "Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ."
The document, Mr. Morehouse said, "will require us to take a new look at our missionary program, at home and abroad; at our policies in social relations, in religious education, in urban and rural work, in theological training, and in every aspect of our national and world-wide work. "
He added that it also will mean "formulation of new policies" and will "compel us to rethink the basic question of the mission and function of the Episcopal Church, and its relation to Anglicanism, to other Christian bodies (both Catholic and Protestant), to our nation and to the world. "
The Episcopal layman, who is vice-president of the publishing company of Morehouse- Barlow in New York, spoke at the 158th anniversary of Anglican worship in Louisiana. The observance was held under the auspices of the Church Club of the Diocese of Louisiana in Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans, on Nov. 16.
Mr. Morehouse stated that overseas areas "cry out for attention." In Africa, he said, "the rise of dozens of new nations, the renaissance of Islam, the social and technological revolutions, and the threat of Communism makes a rethinking of the Christian mission on that continent imperative. "
He made it clear, however, that Anglican aid to Africa "must be clearly divorced from the kind of ecclesiastical colonialism that has prevailed in the past."
"We must," he added, "help them to help themselves; to train their clergy, educate their young people, and improve their health and general welfare. "
Turning to Latin America, Mr. Morehouse pointed out that the "English Church has generally been content with chaplaincies to English-speaking people" in South America. "If we have any mission in these countries, " he noted, "it should be the witness of a Catholic Church free from the domination of Rome, which can be a rallying point for their own cultural and spiritual traditions."
Turning to domestic missions, he called for restudy of "the nature of the ministry and of theological education. "
Here, he pointed out that, in recent years, an increasing number of priests have been drawn from the business, industrial, scientific and educational world, and that some of these priests "exercise a dual ministry--as priest and scientist, as priest and teacher," etc. Mr. Morehouse added that this type of ministry should be encouraged and parish and diocesan life should be modified to utilize special skills.
He also said that not only is the Episcopal Church undergoing swift currents of change but this also is true of the Roman Catholic Church--"hitherto considered the very bastion of ultra-conservatism."
If Episcopalians are not to be left behind, Mr. Morehouse stressed, "it is time for (us) to become more catholic . . . to make our own contribution to the modernization of the Church and its relevancy to the circumstances of our time."