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Living with ambiguity
by Gene Geromel
Years ago, when I met with one of the advisors on my PhD committee, he told me that if I was going to survive the programme I would have to learn to live with ambiguity. He was correct.
This acquired skill had one unexpected by-product: it allowed me to live with Anglicanism in the United States.
Who is Anglican?
When my parish was negotiating to leave the Episcopal Church I was told that we could not use the term 'Anglican' since we would not be in communion with Canterbury. Our Episcopal visitor was a diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church.
I was eventually licensed in five Episcopal dioceses. As you know, the majority of Episcopal bishops ordained women and discriminated against those who could not accept women's ordination on theological grounds. In a number of Episcopal dioceses the women's movement had special services using milk and honey intending to represent women's bodily fluids. On the other end of the spectrum, not long ago I attend an AMIA (Anglican Mission in America) meeting where the communion service had no words of institution!
What does it mean to be an Anglican?
What must one believe? I am not saying that all members of the Episcopal Church or all members of AMIA have strayed from the Faith Once Given. There are many Episcopal priests and a number of bishops who are orthodox and/or Anglo-Catholics. There are members of AMIA who hold the Catholic faith and understand Anglican worship. And there are some in both groups whom most of us would question. At best, it is a sloppy situation.
Like most seminary-trained Episcopal priests, I once had a certain distrust of those in the Continuum. There was a sense that many of their clergy had worked their way up from parish lay reader to parish priest. Worse than that was the perception that they had almost as many clergy as parishioners.
After I was deposed for leaving the 'communion of the church', I attended the recent Synod of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, a diocese which requires its members to be members of Forward in Faith. Talk about eating crow! Yes, some of the clergy did not have an MDiv but 'only' a license in theology. They, of course, knew more Greek, Hebrew and Latin than I. Many of the other clergy had multiple degrees. Of the twenty-some clergy there, eleven had earned doctorates.
Continuum parishes
I have heard many criticisms of continuum bishops because they never sat in the Episcopal House of Bishops. Yet, some of these same critics have no difficulty making common cause with Anglican and Episcopal bishops who support the ordination of women and may even have discrete and genteel doubts about the Real Presence.
Yes, many of the continuing parishes are small. Average Sunday attendance is under 70. Yet, if the truth be told, a full 70% of Episcopal parishes also have attendance 70 or below! There is a website which provides attendance and giving statistics about every parish in the Episcopal Church
Many would have closed down years ago, if it were not for endowments. Parishes which once had multiple staff can now barely support a rector. Those who criticize the Continuum are comparing it with a church which, in reality, no longer exists. The Anglican Province of America, the Anglican Church in America, the Diocese of the Holy Cross have as many churches as, and equal attendance to, those classic Anglo-Catholic dioceses of the late twentieth century. Yet, they are still looked at askance.
Many continuum priests have sacrificed much. There is no church pension fund to count on in the old age, no disability when they are young. Yet, they continue faithful priests. Don't get me wrong, many of our Anglo-Catholic priests still within the Episcopal Church also sacrifice a great deal. I know a number of priests who could have taken the 55 years of age or 30 years of service 'and out' option. But they choose to stay with their parish because they know that in hostile dioceses they may well be the last orthodox priest that parish will see.
When you subtract what their retirement would have been from their actual salary they might well be working at minimum wage.
You see, that is the ambiguity with which we must live. Each of us must choose where we stand, and with whom we stand (and whom we will protect).
We may well work with different people to advance the Catholic faith. Some may believe that common cause should be made with a particular group, while others cannot bring themselves to work with that same organization.
To say that things are sloppy is a gross understatement. Yet, somehow we must understand that those who believe all the same essentials which we accept may choose to 'fight the good fight' in different ways than we would. For me, that is the ultimate of living with ambiguity.
Getting a PhD was much easier, but certainly far less important.
