I Know It When I See It

I have wondered, sometimes, if I am especially called to be a Christian on the West Coast.

If that’s right, if I am more or less heeding God’s call by hanging out and serving in Anglican[1] parishes in British Columbia, California, Washington, and now Oregon, then what does that mean? What is the West Coast Anglican context? What does it mean to do church here? Are we even capable of finding an answer to that question? Or are we stuck borrowing Potter Stewart’s famous line and saying of West Coast Anglicanism:

I know it when I see it.

Recently, some colleagues, all of whom serve as priests on the West Coast, organized a convivium. (“Convivium” is not a word that I’d ever before had cause to use in a sentence. I’m glad that’s changed. “Convivium” is a wonderful term, it means something like a feast or a banquet, a gathering of friends. Maybe we could make the case that it is a synonym for “Eucharist.”) And through it I was motivated to wrestle a little more with these questions and with their implications.
 
In my explorations, I chose to focus on something that is often framed as a liability, and that is that the West Coast is a place in which Christendom (i.e., a society in which the church is utterly interwoven with government and day-to-day life) is well and truly over. I wonder, however, if the end of Christendom is actually something to mourn. I wonder, rather, if the end of Christendom might be a gift to Anglicanism.
 
Here’s where I’ve got so far.
 

1. West Coast Anglicanism means doing church in a context in which we have almost or, in some cases, entirely run out of people who come to church out social obligation, unexamined habit, or fear that God will punish them if they do not.
   
   
2. Because of that, those of us who love church are faced with a storytelling question. Do we interpret this data as evidence of Anglicanism’s decline – or, indeed, of the decline of the church in general? Or do we tell different stories? I believe that we are called to do the latter. I have (no fewer than) four stories.
   
   
3. My first story is that north of 90% of those of us in church on a given day are here because we want to be, because we find healing, belonging, and meaning in gathering as the Body of Christ. Given the choice between worshipping with a large number of reluctant, bored, or resentful worshippers and worshipping with a smaller number of committed and joyous worshippers, I enthusiastically choose the latter option.
   
   
4. My second story is that an increasing number of our neighbors grew up, as I did, with no church connection whatsoever. If these folks have negative opinions about church, they are secondhand opinions – there is no cruel nun or vicious choirmaster in their pasts. A good number of these folks (again in common with me) are what we might call cautiously curious about church. They/we will show up on a Sunday, hiding behind a pillar and ready to run at the first sign of fire and brimstone, homophobia, or the Prosperity Gospel. When they/we feel safe enough to sit down with a longtime Christian, they/we will reverse the tale that we are accustomed to hearing: instead of saying, “I’m 70, and my adult children don’t go to church,” they/we say, “I’m 25 and my parents don’t go to church.”[2]
   
   
5. My third story is that Jesus loves Sunday morning (having a rock-solid liturgy really matters if you are hoping to grow a church) but that Jesus is not and will not be limited to Sunday morning. If a parish pays its bills in part by renting to community partners who create art or serve children or nurture justice or whatever, that is not something for which we need to apologize: that is something for us to celebrate. Let’s trust that the Gospel is being proclaimed in this work. Let’s remember that remarkably few of the stories by Jesus and about Jesus end with, “And after they were healed, they became pledging members of the church.”[3]
   
   
6. My fourth and final story is that Anglicanism is especially well adapted to the West Coast context. When I speak to newcomers, whether they be the aforementioned 25-year-old or someone who has been hanging around this earth for a little while longer, they persistently mention the characteristics that John Westerhoff says make up Anglicanism: they are drawn to the liturgy and its roots in scripture and tradition; to the room Anglicanism holds for mystery and ambiguity; to the value we place on beauty; to our efforts to seek justice.
   
   
7. I am going to anticipate an objection here and insist that the four above stories are neither wishful thinking nor a Lego Movie everything is awesome flavor of denial. Rather, they are a strategy, based on evidence[4] and experience, that declares that the stories that we tell about ourselves and about our communities shape us. As my friend and colleague Caroline McCall puts it, “organizations are heliotropic”: we go where the light is shining. Learning from the experiences of struggling or dying parishes is important. But if our primary focus is on struggle and death rather than possibility and life, we maximize the likelihood that we will emulate those parishes.

 
What else belongs on this list? If you love Anglicanism, what draws you to it? How do you see it functioning on the West Coast? How does it – and how can it – best and most fully proclaim the love of Jesus?
 
- Martin Elfert
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[1] I am going to use the term “Anglican” in its traditional sense, which is to say members of the worldwide Anglican communion. For the purposes of this reflection, therefore, all Episcopalians are Anglicans.
[2] Full disclosure: I am not 25. Although that is more or less the age that I was when I first started dipping my toe into Anglicanism’s waters.
[3] Do not misunderstand me. Going to church and giving to church matter. The Eucharist is the foudation of my spiritual practice, and our family has found joy and meaning in tithing. I am by no means suggesting that these practices are unimportant. I am suggesting that Jesus is too wild, holy, and free to be confined to them.
[4] See Timothy D. Wilson’s Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change.