One Body, Many Differences

A CHURCH BIG ENOUGH FOR DIFFERENCE

The Episcopal Church contains an extraordinary range of people.

People with graduate degrees and people who never finished high school. People who are financially comfortable and people trying to figure out how to pay this month’s bills.

Pacifists and military officers. Police officers and advocates for police reform. Elected officials and people deeply skeptical of political institutions. People whose families have known generations of stability and people whose lives have been shaped by poverty, racism, displacement, addiction, violence, or discrimination.

Our churches include conservatives, liberals, moderates, and people thoroughly tired of political labels. They include lifelong Episcopalians, former Roman Catholics and evangelicals, people returning to Christianity after years away, and people who aren’t yet sure what they believe.

LGBTQ+ people are not simply people we talk about welcoming. They are baptized members of the Church and already share in the worship, ministry, and leadership of Episcopal congregations, including St. Mark’s.

All of these people can find themselves somewhere within the Episcopal Church.

That can make us frustrating.

We consider it one of our strengths.

DISAGREEMENT IS AN OLD CHRISTIAN TRADITION

The first Christians argued about who could belong, what Christians could eat, how worship should work, what Christians believed about Jesus, and whether people who had abandoned the faith could come back.

Christians have been arguing about theology, authority, worship, Scripture, culture, and social questions ever since.

Anglicans eventually developed an impressive vocabulary for disagreeing with one another: high church, low church, broad church, evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, charismatic, traditionalist, progressive, and several dozen other descriptions depending on whom you ask.

So if you disagree with another Episcopalian, you have not necessarily discovered a problem with Anglicanism.

You may simply have discovered Anglicanism.

THE GOSPEL IS BIGGER THAN OUR CAMPS

That does not mean that nothing matters or that every idea is equally good.

Christian faith calls us to conviction, repentance, justice, mercy, forgiveness, and sometimes uncomfortable change. Jesus did not avoid the moral and social questions of his time. The Gospel has consequences for how we use money and power, how we treat strangers, how we understand our neighbors, and how we care for people who are vulnerable.

That makes the Gospel deeply relevant to public life. But the Gospel does not belong to a political party.

Episcopalians, including our bishops, clergy, conventions, and individual members, sometimes reach strong conclusions about what Christian faith requires in particular circumstances. Other Episcopalians may disagree with those conclusions.

We keep coming back to Scripture, prayer, worship, reason, Christian tradition, and discernment together.

CONVICTION, GRACE, AND RECONCILIATION

Our history gives Christians very little reason for arrogance.

The Church has sometimes defended things it should have condemned, ignored people it should have protected, and treated certainty as though it were the same thing as faithfulness. At different times, Christians have found themselves both victim and villain.

So we try to hold conviction together with humility.

We hope to tell the truth without cruelty.

We hope to receive correction without humiliation.

We hope to extend grace without abandoning conviction.

We will not always succeed. When we fail, the Christian response is not pretending nothing happened. It is repentance, forgiveness, amendment of life, and reconciliation.

THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS

The final biblical vision is not one tribe defeating every other tribe.

It is people from every nation gathered before God, with the leaves of the tree of life given “for the healing of the nations.”

Christianity ultimately points toward reconciliation, not permanent tribal warfare.

That begins much closer to home: learning to worship beside people we would not necessarily have chosen for ourselves.

At baptism, Christians receive an identity deeper than political label, social category, theological preference, cultural identity, or personal history.

We belong to Christ.

And because we belong to Christ, we belong to one another.

COME AS YOU ARE.

You don’t have to sort all of this out before walking through the door.

Neither have we.