A mentor of mine once told me that “you can’t love someone if you don’t like them,” and I think this is true. His point was that if you cannot see your neighbor as God’s image-bearer, loved by God, and thus in some sense “liked” by God, then you bear a duty to see, if dimly, what God sees in that person and follow God’s affections.
This is easier said than done, of course, particularly when there has been hurt in the relationship. The relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America is one born of a broken relationship, and there has not been, at least to my knowledge, any formal relationship, other than perhaps lawsuits, since the ACNA’s emergence in 2006, an emergence partly due to departures from the Episcopal Church. For all our shared claims on Anglican identity, and perhaps even more so, our shared claims of Christian values of forbearance and forgiveness, it seems the possibility of loving (even in an idealistic way), let alone liking each other, is quite a way off.
As a graduate of Nashotah House, where there is a baseline of mutual respect between jurisdictions, which often grows to love across differences, I’ve been surprised and disheartened by how much acrimony there still is, at least on my Episcopal side of the aisle. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am; I’m young.
The fiercest fighting about the split occurred when I was just a child. Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t remember it; the split at my little Episcopal parish in northeast Arkansas is most certainly in my memory. My wife, too, has more recent memories of her Episcopal parish in Wisconsin splitting.
Despite these memories, there does seem to be a divide between the younger and the older on the level of acrimony between ACNA and TEC. It seems the younger, on both sides of the aisle, feel less residual anger. Though I imagine that it is a special burden of the older to carry that anger and the bitter memories that accompany it, so that the younger among us have an opportunity for mutual love.
I’m not sure how to move Episcopalians away from “loving your enemies” to realizing that the ACNA isn’t really an enemy. It’s a church full of faithful Christians and devoted clergy; it’s a place full of fellow ministers of the New Testament, full of people that are likable and lovely, but with views that are sometimes diametrically opposed to those in TEC.
I recognize also the unique tension that an LGBT person would feel toward that jurisdiction, or that a female priest might feel with some parts of the ACNA. I remember speaking to a certain female priest after her bishop left for the ACNA, and hearing her grief over his decision. Her grief was not just that he left, but that even in her love and loyalty to her bishop, she could not follow him, as the diocese he went to would not accept the orders of women. That feeling of being left behind is a common one that I hear from inside the Episcopal Church. More common still is a demonization of the ACNA.
Even with my disagreements with the ACNA, and as an Episcopal priest serving in an Episcopal parish, out of Nashotah House and her great peace, the famous Pax Nashotah, I still feel an affection for the ACNA. Of course we have differences, of course we disagree, of course we don’t see eye to eye on everything, of course there are hurt feelings and black eyes on both sides, but my friends are there. My friends are in the ACNA.
These are people I love and admire; these are sisters and brothers. People who love me and have treated me well and cared for me are there in the ACNA. I like them and I love them, even though we disagree. How could I not like them and love them? Part of the Benedictine ethos of Nashotah is that every student serves on some form of a work crew.
When I was there, I cared for the property of the House with them, tended to flower beds, loaded fallen limbs, washed dishes with them, prayed with them, played with their children and shared a table with their family. They are my family. And what is more: they are your family too. Because that’s what Christ does to us. He binds us together despite ourselves. He binds us through his Word and sacraments, which belong to no jurisdiction, but only to Jesus Christ.
The ACNA has struggled recently with its own internal division. And on the heels of a conflict about the ACNA’s Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces, we’re hearing about accusations of sexual misconduct against their primate. I feel no schadenfreude about this, and nor should any of us. The struggles of a sibling Christian, whether we agree or vehemently disagree, is cause for our prayers, not for joy—never for joy.
Even if you disagree with my fraternal feelings, which I understand, we should take no pleasure in the ACNA’s struggles. Their struggle, whether we wish it were so or not, are our struggles. For we share in one body and one spirit, one baptism, and one Lord. So too are their successes our successes, for we share one Gospel to advance, one Lord to exalt. This part must be believed, but I understand that it is a struggle to internalize. The successes or failures of any Christian body should be felt by all others in Christ. Even if we dislike them, perhaps doubly so if we dislike them.
The playing field has grown even more challenging recently with statements from GAFCON leaders further distancing themselves from the Instruments of Communion, a statement which came shortly after the announcement of the selection of the new archbishop of Canterbury. We are moving further apart from one another. The differences are doctrinal, of course, but are only exacerbated by the lack of relationship. The disease of mistrust has spread, with myriad symptoms that I don’t presume to have a holistic answer for. I do think that loving them, actually loving them, in the way that Christ loves us would be an important place to start.
As for me, I won’t stop loving those in the ACNA, not just because they are my friends, but because at the end of the day our mission should be the same: to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to make his word heard in all corners of the earth. Of course, for all my affection for these fellow Christians in the ACNA, I have made a different ecclesial choice, if that hasn’t already been made obvious by my being an Episcopal priest.
I understand their ecclesial decision, though I clearly disagree. That difference of ecclesial decision does not, and should not, be a barrier for mutual love and friendship, or dare we hope, a future of mutual ministry. We’re Anglicans. We’re big tent. There is always going to be a diversity of opinion, but there must always be charity, and there should be love and affection. In the words of my former professor, Matthew Olver: “Christians cannot be out of communion with one another.” He is right, for we are in communion with each other by being in communion with Christ.
I won’t tell people, either ACNA or TEC, that they should just let bygones be bygones, that they should forget the mutual wounding of the initial split. I don’t think that is reasonable or sensitive to the scars that have yet to heal on either side. But, as an Episcopal priest, I will always remind people that no church is a monolith, certainly not Anglicanism, and when I think of the ACNA, despite a complicated history, I think of my friends and mentors. I will celebrate with them, and weep with them. I will like them, and love them, and honor them. Because, though riven with division, we are still one body in Christ.
The Rev. Samuel Cripps is the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Wausau, Wisconsin.
