Sharing the Cat’s Gift: The Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Historic…
Sharing the Cat’s Gift: The Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Historic Episcopate
“The identification of what can be considered a ‘gift’ entails a delicate process of discernment. One may with some confidence identify a gift received from another community, although there might not be universal agreement. Discernment becomes more tenuous when seeking to identify as a ‘gift’ some aspect of one’s own ecclesial life offered to another community. The proposed receiving community may not feel particularly inclined to consider what is offered as a gift and may prefer to respond: ‘No, thank you.’”
Henn, William, OFM Cap. “Catholic.” The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2021, pp. 122–122.
“With deference it is asked, ought such an accession to your means, in executing your high commission, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ to be refused for the sake of conformity in matters recognised in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer as unessentials? Dare we pray the Lord of the harvest, to send forth laborers into the harvest, while we reject all laborers but those of one peculiar type?”
Muhlenberg, William A. “Memorial of Sundry Presbyters of the Protestant Episcopal Church Presented to the House of Bishops, October 18, 1853.” anglicanhistory.org/usa/muhlenberg/memorial.html. Accessed 21 May 2024.
Note: This essay uses three technical ecumenical terms with definitions codified in the full-communion agreements we have already accepted.
The first is Apostolic Tradition. To quote Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Issued 1982, officially received by the Episcopal Church at General Convention 1985) from the World Council of Churches,
In the Creed, the Church confesses itself to be apostolic. The Church lives in continuity with the apostles and their proclamation. The same Lord who sent the apostles continues to be present in the Church. The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic tradition until the fulfillment of history in the Kingdom of God. Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each. (p. 34)
The second is Apostolic Succession,
The primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole. The succession is an expression of the permanence and, therefore, of the continuity of Christ’s own mission in which the Church participates. Within the Church the ordained ministry has a particular task of preserving and actualizing the apostolic faith. The orderly transmission of the ordained ministry is therefore a powerful expression of the continuity of the Church throughout history; it also underlines the calling of the ordained minister as guardian of the faith. Where churches see little importance in orderly transmission, they should ask themselves whether they have not to change their conception of continuity in the apostolic tradition. On the other hand, where the ordained ministry does not adequately serve the proclamation of the apostolic faith, churches must ask themselves whether their ministerial structures are not in need of reform. (p. 35)
The third is the Historic Episcopate, which is sometimes what Episcopalians mean when they use either of the above terms. This is the process of a bishop being ordained by the laying on of hands of other bishops who were themselves ordained in the historic episcopate.
In churches which practise the succession through the episcopate, it is increasingly recognized that a continuity in apostolic faith, worship and mission has been preserved in churches which have not retained the form of historic episcopate. This recognition finds additional support in the fact that the reality and function of the episcopal ministry have been preserved in many of these churches, with or without the title ”bishop”. Ordination, for example, is always done in them by persons in whom the Church recognizes the authority to transmit the ministerial commission. (p. 37)
The historic episcopate IS a powerful sign of the passing down of the Apostolic Succession in a tangible, material way. But, it is important not to mistake the sign for the thing signified.
Now on to the essay proper.
Part One: Huntington’s Anglican Equivocation
When William Reed Huntington’s ideas for “a basis on which approach may be by God’s blessing, made toward Home Reunion” became codified for the Episcopal Church in the Chicago Quadrilateral in 1886, it contained a classic Anglican equivocation. The first three points of the Quadrilateral were almost universally recognized among creedal Christians and remain so in all of the Ecumenical dialogues of the Episcopal Church. It was the fourth point that has caused so much debate and angst:
The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.
The Episcopate is important to us as Episcopalians. After all, it is in both our informal and legal names as a denomination. However, we are notoriously bad at articulating exactly WHY, in formal, official theological terms, our bishops are so important to us. During our full communion discussion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in the 1980s and 1990s, this led Professor Stephen Sykes, then Canon of Ely Cathedral and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University to remark:
The frustrating character of the historic disagreement between Anglicans and Lutherans — its sheer folly — can be formulated thus. Anglicans say to Lutherans, “If you have no objection in principle to episcopal government, then your refusal to adopt it can only be obstinacy.” Lutherans say to Anglicans, “Of course we can adopt it, provided you Anglicans say it is not necessary for us to do so.” To which Anglicans reply, “We haven’t got any official theology which says that it, the episcopate, is of the essence of the Church, but we couldn’t possibly say, dogmatically, that it wasn’t.” This conversation is not merely frustrating, it is dumb. And our parent bodies ought to demand their money back from us if in this consultation we cannot show a way out of this ludicrous impasse. It is my conviction that all the necessary elements of deliverance have been placed by God in our hands. God wants us to work at it and to think and pray our way to a solution.”
Papers of the Consultation: Background for The Niagra Report, Geneva, 1987, p. 16
The theological morass we find ourselves in as Episcopalians regarding the Episcopate can be summed up elsewhere in Sykes’ work:
”There lie the roots of the modern debate — stimulated in part by the rise of the Ecumenical Movement — between those who see ‘the historic episcopate’ as belonging to the very definition of the Church (its ‘esse’, as the phrase goes), and those who see it as a matter of the ‘Well-being” (“bene esse”), or perhaps the ‘full-being’ (‘plene esse’), of the Church.
Booty, J. E., Sykes, S., & Knight, J. (1998). The study of Anglicanism. SPCK Publishing. p. 344.
There are those Episcopalians who regard a very narrow understanding of the historic episcopate as the Church’s ”Esse”. In other words — the serial laying on of hands of bishops back to the time of the apostles is the sole guarantor of the apostolic succession, and no ordained ministry outside of that succession can produce sacramental “Validity.” However, this is a highly problematic position from a historical perspective. As historian Richard Norris has pointed out, the debate of “Apostolicity” as it begins to be discussed in the second century was not primarily reliant on the tactile succession of bishops:
”By contrast, the argument that alleged an unbroken chain of succession from apostolic founders to contemporary bishops was secondary and merely supportive (To the argument that the ‘Kerygma’ or Apostolic Tradition bore the succession). It was also fragile, for the good enough reason that it was difficult to trace the links in the chain with any degree of certainty. Only Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and Eusebius of Caesarea tried; and they, as we know, did not succeed.”
Norris, Richard A. (1993). On being a bishop: Papers on Episcopacy from the Moscow Consultation, 1992. Church Pub Incorporated. p. 55
(As an aside, It is sometimes surprising to Episcopalians to find out that neither the Roman Catholic nor the Eastern Orthodox churches base their primary claim for apostolicity in the tactile succession of bishops. A cursory reading of Raymond Brown and John Zizoulas can put that to rest for both churches. (See J. Robert Wright’s, Ecumenical Breakthrough between and Lutherans in the United States: An Ecclesiological Reflection from 2001.))
Most Episcopalians are more likely to see the historic episcopate as part of the Bene Esse or Plene Esse of the church. God does not require it for “validity”, nor is a church that follows the apostolic tradition without the episcopate necessarily without apostolic succession. Most Episcopalians would tend to believe that episcopacy is a part of primitive order and the best way to order the church. In addition, most of us would agree that the historic episcopate IS a powerful sign of the continuance of apostolic succession. Something similar has been the position of the majority of Anglican theologians throughout our relatively short history. While upholding the episcopate, the Elizabethan archbishops (Including Cranmer) routinely allowed continental Reformed and Lutheran clergy to serve in the Church of England. Richard Hooker likewise held such an opinion. At the formation of The Episcopal Church, William White suggested that we might have to accept presbyterial order until a line of succession could be obtained. While there is certainly something from a preference (Bene Esse ) to divine commissioning (Plene Esse) for the episcopate in the “big tent” of Anglican theology, there is nothing of unified dogma or doctrine that suggests that a church without the historic episcopate does not bear the marks of apostolic tradition or succession.
Huntington delved into this kind of ambivalence with his classic Anglican equivocation of “The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.” It was a necessary ambivalence, as even within the Anglican Communion at the time, the ways the episcopate had been adapted to local circumstances were wide and varied. At its very inception, Huntington intended the definition to be generous.
Part Two: The Cat’s Gift and the United Methodist Church
“The way you’re talking about this — you know what it sounds like?” said the young UMC ecumenist sitting on the couch across from me. We were a group of UMC, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal ecumenists talking about the full-communion discussions between The Episcopal Church (TEC) and The United Methodist Church (UMC). We were all long-time friends. I had been discussing the “gift” of the historic episcopate that the UMC would receive as part of the full-communion agreement. “No, What?” I answered. She smiled sweetly. “It sounds like when your cat has been outside, it brings you back a mouse, lays it at your feet, and then looks up at you and expects to be praised.”
I have to admit, I was a little stunned. While I would never insist that the historic episcopate was necessary to maintain apostolic succession, I value it as a sign and symbol. It’s part of why I’m an Episcopalian. But as I’ve reflected on it for several years, “The Cat’s Gift” is likely an apt metaphor for how we, as Episcopalians, approach this issue. It has certainly made me think deeply about the ways I present our Episcopal distinctives in my own ecumenical discussions.
Going back to the quote from Roman Catholic ecumenist William Henn, which I led this essay with, determining “Gifts” within a Christian tradition is a delicate process of discernment. Importantly, they need to be discerned by those Christian siblings OUTSIDE of the tradition in which they are being discerned. When we attempt to discern the gifts of our own tradition, they all too often transform from an offered gift of the Spirit to a litmus test. When Huntington was helping draft the fourth point of the Chicago Quadrilateral, he was trying to be generous and bold, but it backfired in many ways. The development of what is now referred to as “Lambeth Anglicanism” has codified that fourth point almost to the state of dogma in a way that Cranmer, Andrewes, and Hooker (or even William White) would not have countenanced. In ecumenical discussions, we often present the historic episcopate (in our particular form) as not a gift we are willing to give for the life of the church freely but as a boon that may be awarded if the recipient proves worthy. Even so, why would the UMC, who is already episcopally ordered, be so wary of this “gift?”
The answer is that the historic episcopate, as practiced in The Episcopal Church, does not exist in a cultural or historical vacuum. Even after we managed to organize ourselves and obtain a line of episcopal succession after the Revolution, the historic episcopate as we developed it reflected the realities of our new nation. It looked unlike any episcopate that had existed in Christendom for some time, with Bishops elected by clergy and laity and divorced of civil authority. Moreover, while it had much to commend it as it took on the democratic ethos of the United States, it was also marked by two of the more troubling aspects of developing American society — race and class.
The Episcopal Church did not ordain its first bishop of color (for Haiti) until 1874. The Right Rev. Edward Thomas Demby, elected Suffragan bishop of Arkansas in 1917, was the first African-American bishop with authority on continental soil (though he was limited to work within the “Colored” community.) Indeed, the idea of a “Suffragan” bishop was created to ensure that bishops ordained for “Colored” populations would not have the right of succession of the diocesan like a co-adjutor would. Even so, the proposal to create suffragans only succeeded when it was amended to remove the right of suffragans to vote in the House of Bishops. The first African-American diocesan bishop would be the Rt. Rev. John Burgess in 1970. In The Episcopal Church, the historic episcopate has been an almost exclusively white and male institution for the majority of its history.
Likewise, there has been a historical class differential between Episcopalians and Methodists in the United States. Vance Packard, in his 1959 book “The Status Seekers” notes that Americans then were much more likely to attend churches that corresponded to their social class than with any sort of doctrinal focus in mind. At the top of this class pyramid were Episcopalians, who were the church of the ruling class. The often-repeated fact that 11 of our presidents have been Episcopalian while we represent less than 1% of the population is but one indicator of that historical truth. Packard notes “Methodism probably comes closer to being the choice of the average American than any other.”
Throughout the history of Episcopal/Methodist relations in the United States, Episcopalians have used the language of “Apostolic Succession” (in its non-technical form) as a hammer against Methodists. Because of our identity, such use has always come tinged with racism and classism, which has been particularly felt by Methodists in the historically African-American Methodist churches (AME, AMEZ, CME and others).
In short, while the Episcopal Church's theological mainstream has always allowed that the Apostolic Tradition can be maintained in churches without the historic episcopate, we have often wielded the (non-technical) language of “Apostolic Succession” to avoid closer relations with those denominations that do not “live up” to what often boils down to a vague class-based aesthetic.
The historical racial and class distinctives of the Episcopal Church have started to break down over the last several decades, but the echoes remain. We have to understand that when we discuss the historic episcopate with other American denominations, particularly members of the Methodist family, it comes with a baggage of race, class, colonial history and patriarchy we are often blissfully and naively unaware of.
One example of this baggage would be the statement that Methodists “Chose not to have the historic episcopate” after the Revolution. Looking at the model of the English bishopric of the eighteenth century with its intimate ties to the British Crown and the House of Lords, its history of involvement in the slave trade, and its obvious disdain of the remains of the colonial American church, it is easy to understand why the leaders of the American Methodist movement would look to other ways to exercise Episcope in their churches. Likewise, the suggestion that once the non-juring Scots had consecrated Samuel Seabury, the Methodists should simply have become part of the then-forming Protestant Episcopal Church ignores the disdain Seabury himself was held in as a notorious Tory and British army chaplain during the Revolution (A fact that everyone who has seen Hamilton now understands.) The historic episcopate as we received it did not come offered as a pure apostolic institution but with the history and weight of the British empire and government behind it.
History is always a blend of the sublime and the sordid, created by sinners and saints who are often the same people. When we talk about the “gift” of the historic episcopate with other churches, we must do so with our eyes open. We must acknowledge the dimensions of race, class and patriarchy that intertwine with this institution as we have received and developed it, and understand that our dialogue partners (who indeed also have had their own institutional struggles with racism and patriarchy) already know and feel that history.
If we refuse to be honest with ourselves, then it may be that as William Henn wrote, the “receiving community may not feel particularly inclined to consider what is offered as a gift and may prefer to respond: ‘No, thank you.’” It’s more likely they may see it as the “Cat’s Gift,” something they might be willing to take on to further our relationship, but with a deserved roll of the eyes.
But what if there is a better way to approach this — one that takes seriously the implication that a gift is something to be given away? What if we look to something greater than just the maintenance of a pedigree?
Part Three: Giving away the Gift for its Own Sake
By 1853, The Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg had already accomplished much. He had led the church-school movement, founding several educational institutions. He founded the Church of the Holy Communion and St. Luke Hospital in New York City and established the first American order of Episcopal deaconesses. But that year, WA Muhlenburg proposed what might be his most unusual project — his Memorial to General Convention. His “Memorial of Sundry Presbyters of the Protestant Episcopal Church Presented to the House of Bishops” was born out of his deep evangelical concern that the Episcopal Church was considered the religion of the rich (the class differential was self-evident to him) and was not adapting as it needed to reach out to the poor and indigent. His idea was to
”submit the practicability, under your auspices, of some ecclesiastical system, broader and more comprehensive than that which you now administer, surrounding and including the Protestant Episcopal Church as it now is, leaving that Church untouched, identical with that Church in all its great principles, yet providing for as much freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship, as is compatible with the essential faith and order of the Gospel. To define and act upon such a system, it is believed, must sooner or later be the work of an American Catholic Episcopate.”
The suggestion was that the bishops of The Episcopal Church could ordain bishops and presbyters for other denominations with no expectations — in effect giving the sign of the historic episcopate to others who would never be Episcopalians. This could mean
”An important step would be taken towards the effecting of a Church unity in the Protestant Christendom of our land. To become a central bond of union among Christians, who, though differing in name, yet hold to the one Faith, the one Lord, and the one Baptism..”
Muhlenburg’s vision, tainted as it was with the ever-present anti-Roman Catholic sentiment of its time, was of a united protestant house of bishops in America. Each denomination would remain its own ecclesial body, but the bishops of those denominations could meet together for deliberation, Christian fellowship and furthering the mission of the church catholic. It is a sweeping vision for a time when the Episcopal Church was very inwardly focused, still recovering from the trauma of the American Revolution and the organizational struggles that ensued.
We, as Episcopalians, tend to hold onto our distinctives tightly. That’s even more clear in an uncertain post-modern, post-pandemic age. But we must recognize that if these things truly are gifts, they are gifts given by the Holy Spirit, and are not meant to be hoarded. Indeed, if we value the sign of the historic episcopate, perhaps we should consider Muhlenburg’s vision and determine how we can further give it away in service of the Gospel. The crux of the argument is that by making temporary exceptions to our Anglican requirements of ordination by bishops in the historic episcopate in our full communion agreements, we end up strengthening the institution of the historic episcopate itself by bringing more Christians into it. Thus we transform “a linear historicity into an eschatological presence, as it were, a living memory of the future that is based more upon promise than upon pedigree.” John D. Zizioulas, Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Contemporary Greek Theologians, no. 4), Crestwood NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.
The striking thing about Muhlenburg’s vision is that it is now within sight. As of this writing, full communion agreements exist between most of the largest, episcopally-ordered protestant denominations in the United States. In addition, we have now had two decades of ordinations of ELCA and Moravian bishops that have included Episcopal bishops and other bishops in churches with the historic episcopate. This means that the ELCA, in effect, has wholly received the historic episcopate as initially envisioned in Called to Common Mission. The fact that ELCA and Moravian bishops have participated for over a decade in UMC bishop ordinations means that the UMC has already received the historic episcopate (at least in part) without our participation. That will only strengthen in time, whether or not we choose to be part of it. We no longer have the option to hoard this gift for ourselves. It has already been given away for the good (either Bene Esse or Plene Esse) of the Body of Christ. The choice we are presented with is whether to be a distinct part of this greater vision, or to continue to dwindle as an isolated splinter of the church catholic.
Full Communion between TEC and The UMC is one of the last links in these chains of bilateral agreements. Should it come to pass, the ELCA, Moravian, UMC, and TEC churches will remain separate churches with their charisms and distinctives but will be able to work together in Christian mission in ways we have not yet begun to consider. They will do so with the historic episcopate as a sign of the Apostolic Succession they all bear. The historic episcopate will no longer be a “Cat’s Gift,” but a bond that unites us all in a powerful symbol of the apostolic tradition handed to us by our Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. We will be one step closer to fulfilling Jesus’ prayer: “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” (John 17:20)
The Rev. David Simmons, ObJN, is an Episcopal Priest who serves an Episcopal Congregation with an embedded PCUSA congregation in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He serves as the Co-Chair of The Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (SCEIR), the immediate past President of Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical and Interreligious Officers, and the Chair of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. The opinions in this essay are his own.
Sharing the Cat’s Gift: The Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Historic… was originally published in Preaching from the Rood Screen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.