Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

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Concerning Prince Harry, Episcopalians and the choices faced by millions of 'nones'

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Concerning Prince Harry, Episcopalians and the choices faced by millions of 'nones'

If low-church Anglican evangelicals were active in the whole naming-saints thing, you know that the process would already be in motion to honor Queen Elizabeth II. The quiet dignity of her Christian faith was at the heart of her long life of service.

This brings us to what I would argue is a valid religion-angle story linked to “Spare,” the tell-all confessional memoir Prince Harry has released from the media-friendly alternative palace that he is creating with Meghan Markle here in America.

Here is the basic question: In what church will Harry and Meghan raise their children?

This points, of course, to broader questions about the seismic changes inside England’s Royal Family after the passing of Elizabeth the Great. Yes, some of these questions are linked to the complex ecumenical history of King Charles III (see “The Religion of King Charles III” at The National Catholic Register). But it’s pretty clear that there is another divide — in style and content — between the king and Prince Harry.

This brings us to a good news-bad news situation for one of America’s most symbolic denominations.

The good news: Prince Harry would make a great Episcopalian.

The bad news: Prince Harry would make a great Episcopalian, or he could be another “none” or “nothing in particular.”

In a way, Prince Spare faces choices about faith — even liberal Protestant faith — linked to the great exodus of Americans from established religion and, in particular, from the fading “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism. Will the Duke of Sussex and his family become active, vocal Episcopalians or will they become examples of trends described in the book “Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America,” by Stephen Bullivant.

Think about this for a minute. If you sort through the 17,900,000 or so stories in a Google News file about “Spare,” it’s hard to find a better high-point in this drama than the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. And who was the rock star of that media circus? It was the preacher — the leader of the Episcopal Church in the United States. You can hear the hosannas in the overture of this celebratory New York Times feature:


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Anglicans are wrestling with 'climate change' in their pews: Will they adapt and survive?

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Anglicans are wrestling with 'climate change' in their pews: Will they adapt and survive?

Journalist Michael Kinsley famously added a twist to American politics when he redefined a "gaffe" as when "a politician tells the truth -- some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."

As the Rev. Neil Elliot of the Anglican Church of Canada discovered, this term also applies to religious leaders.

After seeing 2018 General Synod reports, the denomination's research and statistics expert produced an analysis that included this: "Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040."

Reactions to his candor varied, to say the least.

"I think of it very much like … people's responses to climate change," said Elliot, updating his earlier remarks in a video posted by Global News in Canada.

Signs of church "climate" change? In the early 1960s, Anglican parishes in Canada had nearly 1.4 million members. But that 2018 report found 357,123 members, with an average Sunday attendance of 97,421. The church had 1,997 new members that year, while holding 9,074 burials or funerals.

Canada's national statistics agency reported that 10.4% of all Canadians were Anglicans in 1996, but that number fell to 3.8% in 2019.

People have one of three reactions when faced with these kinds of numbers. The first "is denial. People are saying, 'We're, we're … It's not happening,' " said Elliot, while counting the options on one hand. "Then there's people who say, 'We can stop it.' And then there's people who say, 'We can adapt.'

"The adapt language is much more rare and I'm only starting to hear it on the media in the last few months. … That's what I'm trying to get us to do within the Anglican church. It's, 'How do we adapt to it?' not, 'How do we stop it?' or … people burying their heads in the sand."


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Terrifying statistics from 2019 offer another Groundhog Day jolt for Episcopalians

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Terrifying statistics from 2019 offer another Groundhog Day jolt for Episcopalians

With America facing a bitterly divisive election, Episcopal Church leaders did what they do in tense times — they held a National Cathedral service rallying the Washington, D.C., establishment.

This online "Holding onto Hope" service featured a Sikh filmmaker, a female rabbi from Chicago, the Islamic Society of North America's former interfaith relations director, the female presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a Jesuit priest known for promoting LGBTQ tolerance and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Our ideals, values, principles and dreams of beloved community matter," said Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, the church's first African-American leader. "They matter to our life as a nation and as a world. Our values matter!"

This was the kind of rite -- think National Public Radio at prayer -- a church can offer when its history includes 11 U.S. presidents and countless legislators and judges from coast to coast. Episcopal leaders also know President-elect Joe Biden is a liberal Catholic whose convictions mesh with their own.

That's the good news. Episcopalians have also been hearing plenty of bad news about their future.

For example, Curry became a media superstar after his soaring sermon at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding. But wedding trends in his own flock have been pretty bleak. Ditto for baptisms.

A stunning 2019 report from Episcopal parishes showed 6,484 weddings (down 11.2%). Baptism rites for children fell to 19,716 (down 6.5%) and adult baptisms dropped to 3,866 (down 6.7%). Baptisms are down 50% since 2003.

Office of the General Convention statistics reported 1,637,945 members (down 2.29%) and average attendance fell to 518,411 (down 2.25%). Median attendance dropped from 53 worshippers to 51, while 61% of parishes saw attendance declines of 10% or more.

All of these statistics predate the coronavirus pandemic.

Episcopal News Service offered these blunt words from the Rev. Dwight Zscheile, an expert on church renewal and decline: "The overall picture is dire -- not one of decline as much as demise within the next generation. … At this rate, there will be no one in worship by around 2050 in the entire denomination."


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Covering 'mainline' faith: Why do the old Protestant churches get so much news ink?

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Soon after I left the newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News to teach at Denver Seminary, in the early 1990s, a general-assignment reporter was asked to do a story about a trend in religion. It was something to do with prayer, if I recall, and editors wanted to run it on Easter.

The reporter went to three or four nearby churches in downtown. As you would expect, these were old flocks linked to Mainline Protestantism and one Catholic parish. All were, to one degree or another, both historic and struggling, in terms of attendance and membership. The city’s biggest churches were in the suburbs, especially in the booming territory between Denver and Colorado Springs — already a nationally known evangelical power base. The state included at least five internationally known centers on spirituality and prayer, one evangelical, one charismatic Episcopal, one Buddhist and two Roman Catholic.

The story ended up with voices from the dominant flocks of Denver’s past, when liberal Protestant voices were the statistical norm.

Many times, through the years, religious leaders have asked me: Why do the oldline Protestant churches receive so much news coverage? During my Denver years, Episcopalians and United Methodists did make lots of national news — as doctrinal wars escalated about sex and marriage.

These were subjects that editors considered news. Evangelical Presbyterian churches growing to 6,000-plus members in their first five years of existence? That might be worth a column. It’s not big news.

I thought of these discussions the other day when I read a Religion News Service — a long feature with lots of valid material — that ran with this headline: “As a pandemic peaks at Christianity’s Easter climax, churches adapt online.” Here’s the opening anecdote:

On Palm Sunday (April 5), the Rev. Ted Gabrielli, a bespectacled Jesuit with a bushy beard, stood in the bed of a roving pickup truck that traveled through Boyle Heights, a mostly Latino neighborhood on Los Angeles’ east side.

Gabrielli, a pastor at Dolores Mission Church, greeted neighbors from the truck and blessed the homes, alleys and streets he passed. He greeted many by name. One neighbor, caught on a Facebook livestream of the procession, stood from her home waving palms, the symbol of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem in the week before he was crucified.


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Yo, New York Times editors: The Episcopal Church's leader is The Most Rev. Michael Curry

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Needless to say, your GetReligionistas understand that people in the press — on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean — are happy that there is a new baby in England’s Royal Family, and one with a complex and interesting connection to the USA.

Journalists may not be as excited as Prince Harry is, at this moment in time. But that is understandable. Check out the top of this New York Times report about the prince’s informal and very untraditional presser, which — #GASP — broke with the royal norm. I think the key word here is “amazing.”

LONDON — Prince Harry could barely contain himself. Facing a news camera to announce his son’s birth, he rubbed his hands together, bounced on the balls of his feet and seemed unable to stop himself from grinning, even for a second.

“It’s been the most amazing experience I can ever possibly imagine,” he said, standing in front of the stables at Windsor Castle, where two black horses nodded behind him.

“How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension, and we’re both absolutely thrilled,” he said about his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. The duchess, he said, was “amazing,” and the birth “amazing,” and the love and support from the public “amazing.”

So that’s that. Later on in this Times report there is a passage — caught by an eagle-eyed reader — that draws us into a subject that has been discussed many times over the years at this here weblog.

The question: Why are more and more reporters and copyeditors ignoring Associated Press style rules when it comes to the formal titles of ordained religious leaders? In this case, I will go ahead and add a question that I have asked many times (one example here): Why do formal titles that have existed for decades (or in some cases centuries) seem to vanish when journalists write about (a) African-American clergy and/or (b) ordained women?

Here is the passage in question, in which someone at the Times (I will not assume the reporter) was caught up in informal Meghan-and-Harry fervor and, well, forgot to give a certain American clergy person the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. that he deserves.


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Mirror-image news again: Mother Emanuel hosts historic racial-reconciliation service

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In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to give thanks for a recent event linked to racial reconciliation in the deep South, a worship service held in a highly symbolic sanctuary.

I will get to that in a moment.

But first, let’s engage in another “mirror image” experiment. This is a common GetReligion device in which we create a news story — an upside-down or inside-out version of a real story — and then ask what kind of mainstream news coverage it would have received.

So, let’s imagine that the leader of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, had traveled south to preach at the historic Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Readers may recall that Curry delivered a long and spectacular sermon at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It was quite a scene.

Readers will, of course, remember that Mother Emanuel was the site of the massacre by white supremacist Dylann Roof, who gunned down eight worshippers during an evening Bible study.

So let’s say that Curry comes to this holy ground to preach on racial reconciliation. The church is packed and another 400 people watch the service on closed-circuit video in another sanctuary nearby.

My question: Would this event have received significant coverage in local, regional and even national media?

I am guessing that the answer is “yes.”

Now, the mirror-image question: Was it news when Southern Baptists — led by South Carolina Baptist Convention President Marshall Blalock — filled Mother Emanuel for a “Building Bridges” worship service, praying for racial reconciliation in their state and in America as a whole? Yes, 400 more watched a closed-circuit feed at Citadel Square Baptist Church.

Was it news? As best I can tell, with online searches, the answer is “no.” This surprises me, since Southern Baptists statements on race have made news in recent years. Maybe that’s an old story now?

Anyway, here is some key material from Baptist Press:

"I don't know if we've ever been in a more sacred place," Blalock told messengers and guests. "As we gather in Mother Emanuel Church, the place itself speaks to us of the power of faith in Christ Jesus. We're in a place of safety because, while it's where hearts were broken, it's also the place where the life-saving power of God's grace is."


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Click, click: Tough calls journalists must make, when facing good news and dumb news

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What we have here is the kind of laugh-to-keep-from-crying conversation that journalists have had for ages and ages. Amen.

However, the topic discussed in the YouTube located at the top of this post -- offering us a chance to touch base with former GetReligionista George Conger (in clericals) -- has become even more common in the digital news era. You know, this current age in which the journalistic temptation to seek out cat videos and "You won't believe what happens next" listicles continues to grow.

Yes, "Anglican Unscripted" is not a mainstream news product. It's an Anglican affairs video podcast with a conservative point of view.

Still, about two minutes in, Conger and co-host Kevin Kallsen (with guitar) start discussing a very important editorial matter, which is why it makes little sense in the internet news era to cover "good" stories that everyone already knows about and "dumb news" that may be humorous or somewhat ironic, but it's so predictable that no one needs to pays attention.

As George states: "Consistently good news, and consistently dumb stories, eventually do not sell."

Let's just say that a key phrase in this discussion is, rather than, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" is "One Lord, one faith, one toilet."

The key question: Why didn't the following press release -- a letter from the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and other leads in the denomination -- generate mainstream news coverage, even in liberal settings that would logically support this action? Here's the key passage:


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Episcopal leader cleans house, while reporters ignore that whole 'bugging' thing

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It's time for an update on a "mirror image" post that I wrote a few months ago during the media dead zone that is the days just before Christmas.

That was, when you may recall, the new leader of the Episcopal Church -- Presiding Bishop Michael Curry -- sent out a very interesting letter (in the midst of a personal medical crisis, no less). In said letter he wrote the following, which I argued was very important news if the Episcopal Church remains a highly important institution in American religious life (and, thus, in the news).

The headline on my post was, I thought, pretty sexy: "Zero news coverage? Episcopal Church's new leader cleans house (including a possible spy."

Yes, "spy," as in a corporate spy, as opposed to the Rt. Rev. James Bond, or something. The Curry letter said, in part:

I need to inform you that on Wednesday I placed on administrative leave Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer, Samuel McDonald, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Director of Mission, and Alex Baumgarten, Director of Public Engagement. This is a result of concerns that have been raised about possible misconduct in carrying out their duties as members of senior management of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.

So what kind of mainstream news coverage did the more controversial elements of this bombshell receive?

(Cue: crickets)


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Journalists must look to the left, as Anglican Communion goes into 'stoppage time'

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Over time, mainstream journalists around the world have gradually come to realize that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the "Anglican pope." In most news coverage these days, he is referred to as the "symbolic" leader of the global Anglican Communion or as the "first among equals" when the Anglican archbishops are doing business.

Let's focus on that second image for a moment, as I point out one or two elements of the flood of news coverage of the "special," as opposed to normal, gathering of the Anglican primates in Canterbury the last few days.

If Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is the first among equals, then it is important for journalists to realize that the other archbishops really do see themselves as, well, equal among the equals. Thus, when you are working through the tsunami of global coverage of the vote by the Anglican primates to "suspend" the U.S. Episcopal Church from many official roles in the Anglican Communion (don't forget Father George "GetReligionista emeritus" Conger at Anglican Ink), it helps to focus on the previous actions taken by the primates on issues linked to the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex unions.

Yes, we are back to that complicated Anglican timeline thing. There is no way to avoid it.

When you look at the current events in the context of an accurate timeline, it's clear that (a) the Episcopal Church has merely been placed in "time out," (b) that the global primates really do think this dispute is about the Bible and marriage, (c) that the state of sacramental Communion among Anglican leaders remains as broken as ever and (d) that all Canterbury has really achieved, with this meeting, is send the contest into extra innings (or perhaps "stoppage time" is a better term among global Anglicans).

So where to start?


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