“Is it okay if I just skip the Episcopal phase of my deconstruction?”

I love this. And of course it stings a little. I mean, it’s where my own solo machete-hacked path of deconstruction led me, so it’s a little embarrassing to have planted my flag so firmly in this place others would consider a stopping place, on to greener pastures. Am I a sucker? Am I naive for landing here? Am I naive for landing at all? 

After some soul searching, the only answer I can come to honestly is, perhaps. And also, I’m okay with that. The Episcopal Church is a place us ex-Evangelical wanderers end up because there is something good here. While it's not the right place for everyone, those who stay find rootedness, connection to seasons, and a rhythm of tradition. In the opening lines to bell hooks book Belonging: A Culture of Place, she writes this, “The idea of place, where we belong, is a constant subject for many of us. We want to know whether it is possible to live on the earth peacefully. Is it possible to sustain life? Can we embrace an ethos of sustainability that is not solely about the appropriate care of the world’s resources, but is also about the creation of meaning––the making of lives that we feel are worth living…Even the old, the elders, who have lived from decade to decade and beyond, say life is different in this time, “way strange,” that our world today is a world of “too much”––that this too muchness creates a wilderness of spirit, the everyday anguish that shapes the habits of being for those who are lost, wandering, searching.”

The Episcopal church––and almost all mainline denominations, really––are compelling to us ex-non-denominational folks, or ex-Acts 29ers ultimately because they provide a steadiness upon which a life of meaning can be made. The churches we have known operate on the inspiration and personality of the male head pastor; the worship services are a flood of hype––of emotional “too muchness”; and the focus is on your personal relationship with God rather than the corporate, communal context in which we actually live. So when we walk into an Episcopal church and find an ordered service: a liturgy that remains relatively unchanged week to week, a lectionary cycle of reading the Bible so that the preacher is held accountable to working through the text, a corporate confession, and a Book of Common Prayer that governs the flow of every Episcopal service around the world, we feel reprieve from the everyday anguish––a sense of home.

So yes, it might be inevitable that we all stop off here. And while it’s not a perfect place to be, I’m not embarrassed that I’ve stayed. I’ve found a place that’s not afraid of ambiguity, questions, or wondering, and one that lives by a rhythm of practice and seasons within which a whole lot of life can be had. 

I know this guy tweeting was just being funny, and it is funny, but I think these Episcopal waters are actually pretty great and worth the stop.