Note: This was written by Kenneth Keng.
I could go into the history of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines, detail its origins and trace its growth throughout the years since it was introduced in the American occupation. I could also scratch at the intermidable morass of interdemoninational politics (including all out open warfare, depending how far back one decides to go) that like as not have helped to define Protestantism and it’s Anglican/Episcopal denomination throughout its existence. Instead I will endeavour to as much as possible leave aside what would amount to paraphrasing Wikipedia articles and instead outline my church and its beliefs by hewing close to my own personal experiences and impressions of it.
The easiest religious body to contrast the Episcopal (in England, the Anglican) church with would be the Catholic church, for reasons of history and form. The Anglican Communion would be the body that Henry VIII ordered split from mainline Catholicism in his reign, birthing a new separate entity that most importantly for Henry did not answer to the Papacy. Depending on who you ask this was either a great victory for religious freedom against the tyranny of Rome or just another monarch following in Emperor Constantine’s footsteps, taking in a pet religion of his own to further secure his power base.
The end result however is a church that celebrates Mass and holds the Sacraments in the same manner as the Catholic church would. To a casual attendee of our Sunday services the form would be mostly familiar, except for the ‘ye olde English’ used in the prayers and the lack of elaborate decoration or ornamentation in the church itself. The priests dress the same, and communion is given after readings, prayers and a hopefully short homily; the liturgical calendar is followed so the year goes through its seasons of Lent and Advent and Easter and Christmas.
That priest however might be a man or a woman, and/or openly gay. These issues were more or less worked out in the latter half of the 20th century, and as it stands today the Archbishop of the American Episcopal Church is a marine biologist by the name of Katharine Schori. She herself has just recently caught equal parts admiration and derision (while causing a number of small schisms) for anointing the church’s first openly gay and partnered male Bishop, Gene Robinson.
A much older and long established tradition is the right of any of our priests to marry and raise children; this is in fact encouraged to avoid certain problems that might arise from sexual repression. As the Episcopal/Anglican Communion had at its inception rejected papal authority, the archbishops are the highest authorities within their national dioceses, most of which are independent of one another. The Archbishop of Canterbury stands as the closest thing we might have to a pope, but all acknowledge his role as that of an honored figurehead and not much more.
In terms of church governance even Archbishops answer to a power structure that devolves authority down onto congregations at every turn. Each church once established elects their own Vestry board which sits with the presiding priest and runs the day to day operations of the church as well as discusses stances on social issues; while archbishops and bishops are raised from the ranks of priests, they govern church matters always in conjunction with and are held accountable to members of the congregations in boards of various levels. Having attended some of these big church conferences, called diocesan conventions, I can tell you that they are raucous, messy and slow, but for the most part the decisions that come out of them are made with transparency and the input of elected representatives from every individual church involved.
Given the independence of the dioceses, the Episcopal Church of the Philippines, while considered radically liberal by the local Catholic church, is considered relatively conservative by Episcopalians from other parts of the world. While everyone is expected to accept practicing homosexuals as full members of the congregation without any ‘hate the sin but not the sinner’ hedging, most older priests would still have reservations if asked to consecrate a marriage between same-sex partners. While they remain a minority, female priests, addressed as ‘padi’, are accorded full authority and respect by church members and are considered nothing unusual. In the Philippines, an Episcopalian priest, male or female, who is married with children is considered the norm. Divorce, while extremely regrettable and always considered a last resort for the sake of the children, is also acceptable by the church.
The Episcopal church also acknowledges the supremacy of the scientific method and empirical evidence in matters corporeal, with many senior church leaders themselves coming from scientific backgrounds. Therefore there are, for example, no perceived conflicts with natural history and the teaching of evolution. The Bible is by no means to be taken literally.
As the ills of overpopulation are readily apparent given the evidence, family planning and articifial contraception is fully embraced by the Episcopal Church in the Philippines; our own church in fact ran a family planning clinic until complaints from the Catholic church down the street led to its closure.
Perhaps ironically for a church created from a political act, the modern Episcopal church espouses the separation of church and state, with secular governance held as the only realistically viable form in a multicultural, multireligious nation.
This open approach is reflected in the makeup of the average Episcopal church. There might be, in one congregation, people with views on either side of the sociopolitical spectrum- while I might be pretty liberal, my mother and most of the older members are definitively not. What I like is that we are encouraged to air these differences, discuss them openly over coffee and donuts then somewhere between it all sit quietly and celebrate mass together.
in today’s news from the Associated Press:
LONDON (AP) — A Church of England committee has decided against nominating a gay priest to become a bishop, British news reports said Thursday. Church officials would not comment, but Jonathan Wynne-Jones reported in Thursday’s Daily Telegraph that the Very Rev. Jeffrey John was rejected as a potential nominee to become bishop of Southwark in south London. Other newspapers had similar reports. John was nominated to become bishop of Reading in 2003, but withdrew in the face of an uproar from conservatives. He is now the dean of St. Albans cathedral.
The post does not say that the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) was founded by American progressives. Even the first bishop Charles Henry Brent was way before his time by insisting that Roman Catholics were not to be converted only the unchurched and the pagans would be. Brent called this "not building another altar over another". Brent is the fine witness to ecumenism before Protestants and Catholics realized it was the only way to go.
The ECP thus focused its missionary work in the Cordilleras, Mindanao and the Chinese in Manila aside from serving expats. The bishops of the church have been largely drawn from the Cordillera people.
The ECP being in a country with a Roman Catholic (RCC) majority naturally adopted an Anglo-Catholic direction. That's why the Anglican Mass is similar to the Catholic one in the Philippines. However, the ECP has adopted the Anglican synodical form of governance and this is where the main difference lies.
Aside from the RCC being subject to Rome, I wouldn't consider the ECP as more liberal than the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines. I would at times consider the RCC here as liberal or even more than the ECP. If the RCC were not liberal, why would Catholic traditionalists frequently complain how their bishops shepherd them? Many Catholic clergy believe that artificial contraception is OK, divorce in some circumstances is OK, female priests are OK, married priests are OK and celibacy is out of fashion. They keep these opinions semi-private in order to toe the Vatican line. But all Catholics know that these are open secrets!
The ECP is like the RCC in so many regards. Liturgically the Pinoy Anglicans are more conservative than their Catholic brethren. The final contention in both ECP and RCC would be about gays.
There is still discomfort among RCC and ECP congregations about giving gays formal blessings in church. But the ECP and RCC share the same line here. Being gay is not a sin but "gay acts" are. As in the ECP, gays are accepted in the RCC and can receive communion. Have ever noted how many gays attend Mass? I haven't seen any priest ECP or RCC deny communion to flaming gays!
The RCC (at least in the Vatican) has no problem with Darwin and his theory and so does too the ECP. In the Philippines only Protestant fundamentalists have problems with evolution.
However the ECP too has problems and it is related to the problems of its mother church, TEC headed by Dr Katherine Jefferts-Schori. The church in all its history received financial support from TEC until it became an independent church in 1992 thereabouts. The liberal direction of TEC has alarmed some in the ECP as the writer says, has a conservative bent (which I believe is even more than that of the Catholics notwithstanding the official toe-the-Vatican-line stand of their bishops). How will the ECP deal with Schori is a big question. Will the ECP fall on "utang na loob"? or would they join most of the Anglicans of the Global South and reject Schori's liberal direction?
And the story is complicated by the Pope's offer of an Anglican Ordinariate to Anglican/Episcopalians. The Anglicans will be allowed to maintain much of their traditions (including synodical governance and ta dah…. married and non-celibate priests) if they join the Roman Catholic Church.
Although i agree to a cretain extent that the episcopal church in the philippines was historically closely aligned to the ideals of 19th century anglo-catholicism (i emphasize the catholic with a small letter c in contradistinction to the same spelled with capital letter c which even to avid anglocatholics smacks with papistry that crosses the line from historic anglicanism) and with the ideals of the great ecumenist and first bishop of the philippines bp charles henry brent and fellow pioneering mission fathers, still it is not fair nor accurate and certainly misleading to presume that the episcopal church in the philippines then during its early american missionary days down to its current autonomous church province existence today still remains staunchly conservative when it is not. Some self proclaimed local anglocatholic divines might insist that the church still remains conservative as it was and will remain as such inspite of the progress and changes that had caused them alarm, but let’s face the truth, just like the contemporary roman catholic church here in the philippines, the ecp is now undeniably more open and progressive and the claims of anglocatholic conservatism remains all but in a nominal sense only. Take the most glaring example: the presence of women priests which the ecp and the aglipayans or iglesia filipina independiente now forms part of its clergies from deacons and priests (and soon bishops, as there is no canonical impediments that bars women from the episcopate in the church canon laws), then there is the ecp synod’s unanimous endorsement of the passage of rh bill which the roman catholic hierarchy had tried unsuccessfully to lobby against and block its passage in congress (the least they can do is a temporary restraining order from supreme court). Both of these: ordination of women and reproductive health are issues that are almost unthinkable for a conservative anglocatholic to conceive let alone support (thus the presence of small breakaway selfstyled anglocatholic sects after the ordination of philadelphia 11 that paved the way for opening ordination for women in the episcopal church in the usa and in the philippines), but try as they may but certainly they cannot deny that the episcopal church in the philippines had already openly supported, endorsed, and ratified women’s ordination and actively supported for the passage of rh bill (this despite the appeals of catholic bishops for the ecp not to support it). It seems the latest hotbotton topic these so called conservative anglocatholics are foisting on the ecp’s table agenda lies in blocking the eventual acceptance of blessing same gender unions and full inclusion of lgbtqs in the sacraments and ministries in the church, citing the example of global south anglican homophobic reactions to the rt rev gene robinsons consecration as bishop in the episcopal church in the usa and the blessing of same gender unions in the anglican church of canada. Curiously, it is in this agenda that both the conservative anglocatholics and evangelicals both danced to the tuned of “anglican waltz” humming threats of realignment and schism among its sympathizing mission partners and church provinces in the so called 3rd world global south, aiming at isolating the north american churches (and soon even the church of england, over women bishops) from their sanctimonious fellowship of confessing anglican churches, towards the creation of a new communion of likeminded conservative anglican churches whose main reason for its existence rests solely on this schismatical agenda. I must admit, the previous prime bishop of the episcopal church supported this and went on to release that notorious pastoral letter excluding openly affirming lgbt candidates for ordination found to be in same gender relationships, effectively barring out and proud lgbt clergies in the ecp and reinforcing that vicious “dont ask dont tell” policy and in blocking any attempts by lgbt activists in the ecp to follow the example of the episcopal church usa in opening the way towards full inclusion of lgbts in the church. To add salt to an open wound, he then attended the global south to south encounter in egypt and lent his signature and presence to support the conservatives in their schismatical agenda prior to the launch of gafcon at jerusalem that eventaully gave birth to the schismatical anglican church of north america, an ecclesial entity that was and is and never will be recognized by the wider anglican communion as a church province to supplant the episcopal church usa and anglican church of canada.While it is true that such was the tragic blunder of this poor and misinformed prime bishop who thought his actions would effectively secure the conservative global south foothold and control the church in the philippines, but thankfully and providentially, he was on his way out to his retirement and the new prime bishop successfully steered the church away from the path of destruction wrought by anglican conservative bandwagons and effectively distanced the church from the clutches of conservative anglican primates by hosting the pastoral visit of presiding bishop katharine schori of the episcopal church usa and ratifying the covenant of partnership between the ecp and the american church, and dealing a powerful blow to conservatives still dreaming of a conservative ecp with the ecp synod itself unanimously voted to reject the anglican covenant (the document originally intended as a response to the issue of lgbt ordinations and unions and setting policies of dealing with erring churches that dare endorse both), the synod called it as very un-anglican and detrimental to the life of the anglican communion. All in all, the ecp today may seem to be anglo catholic in externals (especially up in nothern luzon, but not among filipino chinese evangelical anglicans in binondo, and other anglican charismatic fellowships) but no longer in its theology and other matters or agendas, as it is clearly as progressive minded as its fellow protestant church members of the national council of churches in the philippines of which the ecp is a founding member, as well as in its congregational and missional outlook as evidence in the clerics, missionaries and lay people in the fertile mission fields down south in vizayas and mindanao, as well as its increasingly vocal and visible liberal parishioners both straights and lgbts alike. Ps: for more info on the current news and opinions of the episcopal church, please do read the philippine episcopalian found online in the official website of the episcopal church in the philippines. The magazine not only contains news from the church and mission fields in the philippines, but also the prime bishops thought on various important matters and issues, including the active and open support of the ecp to the passage of the rh bill and his views on the anglican ordinariate and the furrore on the construction of a roman catholic mission right on the slopes of sagada despite the spurious and flimsy reasons for its establishment (constructed on land under family property dispute), and proves how erronious the roman catholic understanding of the cliche attributed to bp brent “of not setting up an altar over and against another altar”, when their recent actions at constructing their mission right in the middle of afamily squabble of land proved how they pay lipservice to it and do more harm and division to the anglican community in existence in saganda since the american episcopal missionaries arrived over a century ago.
[quote] The Archbishop of Canterbury stands as the closest thing we might have to a pope, but all acknowledge his role as that of an honored figurehead and not much more. [/quote]
The A.B of C. is the ‘spiritual leader’ , the official head of the CoE is the queen of England.
[quote] Divorce, while extremely regrettable and always considered a last resort for the sake of the children, is also acceptable by the church. [/quote]
No surprise – as the church was founded from Henry-8 only because he wanted to divorce which was impossible as Roman Catholic.
Actually Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori anointed the first open partnered lesbian bishop, Mary Glasspool, this year. Bishop Gene Robinson became a bishop back in 2004 under Jefferts Schori's predecessor. Also strictly speaking the US branch has no archbishops, her title is presiding bishop, though she is considered the equal of the head of any other national church in the Anglican Communion (most of whom are called archbishop).