Katie, these are powerful words, here. After five years in ministry on the margins of “Our kind of people,” I’ve heard all these excuses and seen all the responses you’ve identified. What complicates my experience is that I present as OKOP. The disappointment — even betrayal — manifest when I land on the “wrong” side of a debate or decision still surprises me. But the consequences are always the same.
Keep preaching, Katie! Good news is not always easy to hear, but our common life depends on it.
This is a fantastic post Katie, thanks for writing it. I feel like I'm really in the middle of the barely subterranean tension and conversation happening across the Episcopal Church. I suspect in our poorer and less white sections, it is a much more active conversation. I never intended to become such a grumpy radical, and I really hate being the guy criticizing all the time..... yet locally in East Tennessee I have become "that guy".
My diocese has got to be at least 90% white, and VERY highly educated- a lot of doctors and lawyers and professors and everybody seems to send their children to college or grad school. God love all those folks, and you know what for white Christians in East Tennessee we are about as "woke" as can be. I think our diocesan culture can be defensive and prideful at time because it is a big deal for privileged white Southerners to welcome the full racial rainbow, to include LGBT people; I showed up in 2018 for the first time and could tell there had been the major battle over same sex marriage, and some folks had split off and the ACNA happened and all that. Ain't no politics like church politics, and I can see why my parents left all this stuff and raised me outside of organized religion (but kept the Christian morality).
Anyway- our relative lack of cultural, educational, racial, and perspective diversity is causing us to look like a dying fleet. If the numbers are any indication, by 2040 we are going to be struggling to sustain ourselves. Our buildings are gorgeous and will be up for a while, but are we going to have any people in them? And how the heck will we afford to pay for this stuff? My degree (to sound all middle class white guy) is in Integrative Sustainable Design in a sense, and I can tell a fragile system headed for a die off when I see one. Either we make big moves now, or we wait until 2040 because a lot of older people don't want anything to change, and then we are all like OH SHIT!!! I don't mean to be brutal, but I can read patterns and systems theory pretty well.
We need to invite in the Rainbow in every way possible. We need to try out some radically different stuff, even if it doesn't work. My general perspective is a kind of "Whole Parish Living", where we combine our Spiritual, Economic, and Ecological Lives. Christian communities in this age should have a deep spiritual practice that offers full time living to those who want it, it should run a self supporting economy that can help us support ourselves, and we should be laser focused on Earth Restoration as our primary goal. Climate chaos y'all. And oh by the way, the fascist government in Washington (just say it, don't deny it).
Some hope through the challenge- I have been getting real support from my excellent priests and our Bishop here. My parish priest who Baptized me is the always amazing Father John Mark Wiggers (also from Alabama), who is no idealist about the form of the Episcopal Church and has pushed some cultural boundaries over time to do some remarkable justice work locally, something very few other white ministers have done here. He's one of my personal heroes. And then Bishop Brian Cole has been listening to some of my dreams about a renewal work of the partnership between us and the much poorer, much browner and highly indigenous South Dakota diocese. I laid some radical stuff on the line and he really listened, he appreciates my prophetic voice and I really appreciate him and how he has gotten us to nudge out of our cultural comfort zone.
But this is the time guys- the next 10 or 15 years is going to be make or break. Ecologically, politically, economically, spiritually. I said to somebody, does the Episcopal Church have some sort of DEFCON 1 status that we can pull out in a crisis, like say, a Civil War? We should probably go to DEFCON 0, quite honestly. If they try to kick me out like James Pike, well at least I was honest and I didn't hide my vision.
Whatever happened to Matthew Fox's Original Blessing? I would imagine this is the kind of time for Reformation Revolutions. We should push it forward with love and kindness and also fearlessly, and we should push it forward now.
Rainbow Church is the church that lives. Also Poor Church- a church of the poor, by the poor, and for the poor. What I like about poor people is that they are practical. Justice means we have food and shelter, that's God's Kingdom. It's not social gospel, it's liberation theology for suffering people here and now. If the Episcopal Church keeps me involved and some days that's liminal, it will be a big beautiful vision of a Permaculture future where we create the Paradise Jesus says we already live in. We are too assimilated, too white, too privileged, and too American.
It is time to simply be Christian above all other things. We are the Kingdom Builders.
Preach it, friend! I am convinced that any future flourishing of The Episcopal Church will be because we decide to have a Pentecost moment... throwing open all the doors, the resources, the leadership, to people who have been historically underrepresented in the denomination (which is, like, 85% of the country). Let me know if you've written more about this kind of thing.
If you check out my Facebook page over the past year or two, I yakk regularly about my vision of a radical and transformational Christianity, the kind of Christianity I was hoping to see more of in the Episcopal Church.
I don't want to overstate it. We do glorious stuff, and probably more than I know about. Father John Mark Wiggers and his work with Justice Knox has been brave, bold and the biggest multiracial church network in Knoxville since the Civil Rights movement. It's impressive and formidable, and scares the political powers that be which is a good sign. Several years ago at another parish we had a long planned Celtic Christian weekend, featuring the writer and teacher John Philip Newell. Newell laid it on the line, and said that organized Christianity in the West is virtually done and ready for the "rummage sale" Phyllis Tickle talks about and is clearly happening. That weekend I felt the kind of awareness I had long suspected was bubbling up, and yet can be hard to witness Sunday to Sunday.
And then there is this emerging and still unknown renewed partnership with out South Dakota kinfolk. Those folks are interesting, and an indigenous Christ is a longtime fascination for me. Maybe it will be Euro-American Christianity that finally listens to the native peoples, and maybe they can help us understand what Jesus was really saying? If we can get that partnership going and make it as amazing as I want it to be, it will convince me that our church is headed in the right direction. My basic vision is small New Monastic communities, that perform Earth Restoration projects and also run Regenerative Businesses that sustain the partnership, so we can have a self funding church that functions as an economy, and not depend on an inheritance economy because my generation definitely cannot sustain much of what we have now.
Feminine, Indigenous, Rainbow, Earthy, and Poor. This is our future, if we are to have one, in my view. God bless you for all the work you are doing Katie, and tell people that there is an emerging partnership between East Tennessee and South Dakota, and that we want to make it amazing. If folks want to know more about it or have advice, tell them to check out my Facebook page. I'm kind of the South Dakota guy around here I preach about it all the time (ask my priest, he's sick of me talking about it :) )
I recently had a chat with another priest about this. He’s quite conservative for an Episcopal priest, but he’s way more welcoming to people of color than most folks I know. He changed his church’s music to something more churchy, and it started to lose members until recently, when it started growing again. It’s reviving, but most Episcopalians seem puzzled by him. He doesn’t follow their rules, yet he handles a much greater diversity than most churches. I think our church values the wrong things or at least the shallow ones.
Katie, I think you hit it. It also affects small churches who can't give 10% to the Diocese, but are sustaining each other and their neighbors as best they can.
I identify so much with the kinds of exclusion you mention. I think all of those have happened to me at different times. I'm going to subscribe because I want you to continue reflecting and writing on this. Love you!!
So painfully true. And we need, desperately, to take down those exclusive/exclusionary walls. Thank you for saying this out loud and in front of God and everybody.
Thank you for writing what I see. Here in NH, the most "Our Kind of People" population density state in the US. I lead a very small congregation in a rural town after 7 years being lay led. The struggle is real. There are little funds to promote growth. I look forward to reading along and learning from your experiences.
We had a diocesan event here in Kansas several years ago devoted to developing a greater sense of openness in our congregations. The visiting presenter's talk was entitled "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You-Really?"
Katie, this is awesome writing! Thank you.
Katie, these are powerful words, here. After five years in ministry on the margins of “Our kind of people,” I’ve heard all these excuses and seen all the responses you’ve identified. What complicates my experience is that I present as OKOP. The disappointment — even betrayal — manifest when I land on the “wrong” side of a debate or decision still surprises me. But the consequences are always the same.
Keep preaching, Katie! Good news is not always easy to hear, but our common life depends on it.
This is a fantastic post Katie, thanks for writing it. I feel like I'm really in the middle of the barely subterranean tension and conversation happening across the Episcopal Church. I suspect in our poorer and less white sections, it is a much more active conversation. I never intended to become such a grumpy radical, and I really hate being the guy criticizing all the time..... yet locally in East Tennessee I have become "that guy".
My diocese has got to be at least 90% white, and VERY highly educated- a lot of doctors and lawyers and professors and everybody seems to send their children to college or grad school. God love all those folks, and you know what for white Christians in East Tennessee we are about as "woke" as can be. I think our diocesan culture can be defensive and prideful at time because it is a big deal for privileged white Southerners to welcome the full racial rainbow, to include LGBT people; I showed up in 2018 for the first time and could tell there had been the major battle over same sex marriage, and some folks had split off and the ACNA happened and all that. Ain't no politics like church politics, and I can see why my parents left all this stuff and raised me outside of organized religion (but kept the Christian morality).
Anyway- our relative lack of cultural, educational, racial, and perspective diversity is causing us to look like a dying fleet. If the numbers are any indication, by 2040 we are going to be struggling to sustain ourselves. Our buildings are gorgeous and will be up for a while, but are we going to have any people in them? And how the heck will we afford to pay for this stuff? My degree (to sound all middle class white guy) is in Integrative Sustainable Design in a sense, and I can tell a fragile system headed for a die off when I see one. Either we make big moves now, or we wait until 2040 because a lot of older people don't want anything to change, and then we are all like OH SHIT!!! I don't mean to be brutal, but I can read patterns and systems theory pretty well.
We need to invite in the Rainbow in every way possible. We need to try out some radically different stuff, even if it doesn't work. My general perspective is a kind of "Whole Parish Living", where we combine our Spiritual, Economic, and Ecological Lives. Christian communities in this age should have a deep spiritual practice that offers full time living to those who want it, it should run a self supporting economy that can help us support ourselves, and we should be laser focused on Earth Restoration as our primary goal. Climate chaos y'all. And oh by the way, the fascist government in Washington (just say it, don't deny it).
Some hope through the challenge- I have been getting real support from my excellent priests and our Bishop here. My parish priest who Baptized me is the always amazing Father John Mark Wiggers (also from Alabama), who is no idealist about the form of the Episcopal Church and has pushed some cultural boundaries over time to do some remarkable justice work locally, something very few other white ministers have done here. He's one of my personal heroes. And then Bishop Brian Cole has been listening to some of my dreams about a renewal work of the partnership between us and the much poorer, much browner and highly indigenous South Dakota diocese. I laid some radical stuff on the line and he really listened, he appreciates my prophetic voice and I really appreciate him and how he has gotten us to nudge out of our cultural comfort zone.
But this is the time guys- the next 10 or 15 years is going to be make or break. Ecologically, politically, economically, spiritually. I said to somebody, does the Episcopal Church have some sort of DEFCON 1 status that we can pull out in a crisis, like say, a Civil War? We should probably go to DEFCON 0, quite honestly. If they try to kick me out like James Pike, well at least I was honest and I didn't hide my vision.
Whatever happened to Matthew Fox's Original Blessing? I would imagine this is the kind of time for Reformation Revolutions. We should push it forward with love and kindness and also fearlessly, and we should push it forward now.
Rainbow Church is the church that lives. Also Poor Church- a church of the poor, by the poor, and for the poor. What I like about poor people is that they are practical. Justice means we have food and shelter, that's God's Kingdom. It's not social gospel, it's liberation theology for suffering people here and now. If the Episcopal Church keeps me involved and some days that's liminal, it will be a big beautiful vision of a Permaculture future where we create the Paradise Jesus says we already live in. We are too assimilated, too white, too privileged, and too American.
It is time to simply be Christian above all other things. We are the Kingdom Builders.
Preach it, friend! I am convinced that any future flourishing of The Episcopal Church will be because we decide to have a Pentecost moment... throwing open all the doors, the resources, the leadership, to people who have been historically underrepresented in the denomination (which is, like, 85% of the country). Let me know if you've written more about this kind of thing.
If you check out my Facebook page over the past year or two, I yakk regularly about my vision of a radical and transformational Christianity, the kind of Christianity I was hoping to see more of in the Episcopal Church.
I don't want to overstate it. We do glorious stuff, and probably more than I know about. Father John Mark Wiggers and his work with Justice Knox has been brave, bold and the biggest multiracial church network in Knoxville since the Civil Rights movement. It's impressive and formidable, and scares the political powers that be which is a good sign. Several years ago at another parish we had a long planned Celtic Christian weekend, featuring the writer and teacher John Philip Newell. Newell laid it on the line, and said that organized Christianity in the West is virtually done and ready for the "rummage sale" Phyllis Tickle talks about and is clearly happening. That weekend I felt the kind of awareness I had long suspected was bubbling up, and yet can be hard to witness Sunday to Sunday.
And then there is this emerging and still unknown renewed partnership with out South Dakota kinfolk. Those folks are interesting, and an indigenous Christ is a longtime fascination for me. Maybe it will be Euro-American Christianity that finally listens to the native peoples, and maybe they can help us understand what Jesus was really saying? If we can get that partnership going and make it as amazing as I want it to be, it will convince me that our church is headed in the right direction. My basic vision is small New Monastic communities, that perform Earth Restoration projects and also run Regenerative Businesses that sustain the partnership, so we can have a self funding church that functions as an economy, and not depend on an inheritance economy because my generation definitely cannot sustain much of what we have now.
Feminine, Indigenous, Rainbow, Earthy, and Poor. This is our future, if we are to have one, in my view. God bless you for all the work you are doing Katie, and tell people that there is an emerging partnership between East Tennessee and South Dakota, and that we want to make it amazing. If folks want to know more about it or have advice, tell them to check out my Facebook page. I'm kind of the South Dakota guy around here I preach about it all the time (ask my priest, he's sick of me talking about it :) )
I recently had a chat with another priest about this. He’s quite conservative for an Episcopal priest, but he’s way more welcoming to people of color than most folks I know. He changed his church’s music to something more churchy, and it started to lose members until recently, when it started growing again. It’s reviving, but most Episcopalians seem puzzled by him. He doesn’t follow their rules, yet he handles a much greater diversity than most churches. I think our church values the wrong things or at least the shallow ones.
A sad truth, written with dignity.
Katie, I think you hit it. It also affects small churches who can't give 10% to the Diocese, but are sustaining each other and their neighbors as best they can.
I identify so much with the kinds of exclusion you mention. I think all of those have happened to me at different times. I'm going to subscribe because I want you to continue reflecting and writing on this. Love you!!
Got to admit we need a new way of doing church plants
So painfully true. And we need, desperately, to take down those exclusive/exclusionary walls. Thank you for saying this out loud and in front of God and everybody.
Thank you for writing what I see. Here in NH, the most "Our Kind of People" population density state in the US. I lead a very small congregation in a rural town after 7 years being lay led. The struggle is real. There are little funds to promote growth. I look forward to reading along and learning from your experiences.
We had a diocesan event here in Kansas several years ago devoted to developing a greater sense of openness in our congregations. The visiting presenter's talk was entitled "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You-Really?"