We are living in a time of monumental change, both politically and culturally, in North America. This can be an opportunity for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to rethink our mission to and role within our respective contexts
The significant events that led to the re-election of President Trump are rightly being analyzed and discussed from different perspectives. What can be said at this point is that he was brought back with the surging help of many working-class Americans. Clearly these voters, although hardly a monolithic or univocal block, wanted change.
What are we to make of this desire? Before drawing any sweeping social analysis based on Trump winning the election, let’s gain some perspective, which is central to this essay. There are about 330 million Americans; about 240 million were eligible to vote in 2024. Of those, 150 million voted; 90 million did not vote. Of those 150 million who voted, 77 million voted for Trump. That means 32 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot for Donald Trump. For an even broader perspective, that is 23 percent of the population, less than a quarter.
What responsible conclusions might we draw about American culture from this? If anything, despite those percentages, it is no less true that a significant number of Americans, at least enough for Trump to win the presidential election in 2024, are dissatisfied with progressivism and as a cultural ideology as they perceive it. What does this mean for Christian churches in the North American context, specifically the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada?
My Viewpoint
First, let me clarify my perspective, especially because it is not the general perspective of the current leadership of the Episcopal Church. I am a priest educated primarily in classical liberalism. Fundamental to this is the view that tolerance of others and respecting individual rights is the best way to build a community that will assure an open society. I believe that this allows us to live together and thrive.
Further, I am a social moderate, and for me this is rooted in wanting to maintain an openness to differing people and opinions. I am not ideologically or theologically a progressive. I am a Prayer Book Catholic steeped in the creedal faith of traditional Anglicanism. As an old boomer, I have experienced the triumph of the progressive wing of our denomination over the historic coalition of Anglican comprehensiveness that was often called the Big Tent. This triumph led to the fracture of Anglicanism in North America, and it has played a significant part in the decline of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. I have served over 50 years in ministry and during the past 30 years taught leadership to both lay and ordained Christians.
How Episcopalians Tend to See Ourselves
When teaching, I have often tried to raise awareness of our cultural assumptions and blindnesses. In many groups, I have asked this question of our leaders:
What percentage of Americans have a college degree or at least two years of a college education?
For over 30 years and in many different settings, the answer to that question has usually been “around 50 percent.” This answer, astonishingly inaccurate, is telling. I would then point out that to understand this consensus takes two factual observations.
First, that 50 percent number is the educational make-up of most Episcopal leaders. This remains one of the most observable characteristics of our community. Note that:
- In general, our bishops have some form of post-baccalaureate graduate education, a seminary degree, or some other kind of advanced education.
- The same can be said of parish clergy, although the three-year residential M.Div. is no longer the norm.
- Most of our vestries are made up of lay leaders with two years of college education. There are many parishes in which graduate degrees are quite common. The exceptions to this are found in rural and blue-collar congregations. (However, our number of blue-collar congregations has dropped dramatically since 1979.)
- We should caution ourselves on any pride we may take from how educated we are, however. What this means is that our leadership, even our average membership, no longer shares the same life experiences and many values of the people in our communities.
Second, the statistical answer is that Americans with at least two years of college education is now 37 percent. The percentage of those holding a bachelor’s degree is lower.
Why This Matters
Progressives have had a major effect on our society and especially the Episcopal Church. However, latest information from the Pew Research Center points out that the progressive left is a very small portion of the electorate and is predominantly white and wealthy. The Episcopal Church maps onto this demographic; we are 85 percent white, and our main diversity is gender identity. The best way to describe progressives in both our society and in the church is that they are influencers. Of course, this leads to another question. Why and how have they had this influence?
My answer would be that they have learned that their concerns, such as social, economic, and environmental justice, along with racial and gender equality, can best be achieved not just by advocacy but by institutional especially in the areas of educational, government, and religious institutions. This method of using institutions, especially the government, to affect social change is rooted back to the start of the 20th century.
Today, the hot button for both ends of the political spectrum seems to be DEI, (which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion). The impression is that progressives are using the levers of government, especially the administrative offices, to implement DEI to achieve their desired social changes. It is important to remember that many of these regulations in governmental agencies and universities have not been voted into place but administratively created. It is no surprise that in the early days of the new presidential administration, DEI programs and staff are being targeted.
A decided pushback against progressivism has included a seeming reformation of the Republican Party at the hands of Donald Trump. His popularism, as opposed to some of the old signature principles of the G.O.P. has connected with working-class Americans. This connection is now apparent even to many progressive leaders. Progressivism, at least in terms of the government levers and institutional channels it most prefers, has been put on hold and some commentators believe it has reached a dead end.
Progressivism and the Episcopal Church
If progressivism, as a political and social ideology, has been set back in government, it has not been set back in the Episcopal Church. Progressives hold almost all offices of our denomination and continue to be advocates for the justice mandates they uphold. I believe Progressives will remain a significant voice in the Episcopal Church because they are supported by Boomers and GenX who are now in their 50s to 70s and still remain active leaders. Why not?
While I do not identify as a progressive, I would readily admit that progressives and their concerns for the justice mandate of Scripture have made contributions to Anglicanism. I believe the recent statement from the House of Bishops about immigration is important and fits with many scriptural statements and Jesus’ concerns for the vulnerable among us. It is appropriate, biblical, and consistent with much of the church’s mission.
We Are at a Significant Moment
Because of our decline in numbers and loss of influence in our society, our church has already, before the election, begun a reassessment of our life. This is simply repeating what our new Presiding Bishop has said. Bishop Sean Rowe was elected on the first ballot of the House of Bishops and has a very clear mandate to carry out this reassessment of past assumptions and which was called for in two previous General Conventions.
But I believe more is needed along with this reassessment. We need a revisioning of the Episcopal Church that allows us to speak to the complexity of our current realities. And as I have said, a significant number of Americans are saying that progressivism, an ideology is simply unacceptable even though it so saturates how we Episcopalians live and move and have our being.
Unless we are willing to accept the Episcopal Church as less than 1 percent of the population, made up of a small group of Christians who only talk to ourselves and not to our wider culture, serious reassessment and revisioning must happen. At the same time, we cannot hide on the margins of sectarianism or pat ourselves on the back for occupying some sophisticated “deeper” enclave. Moreover, this revisioning should be guided by respect for our own history and the realization that our tradition has been enriched by various significant movements in Christianity, Anglicanism in the big tent vision. Among these movements, I would mention:
- The Protestant Reformation
- The Welsh and English evangelicalism of Wesley and Whitefield with its adjunct social consciousness represented by Wilberforce.
- The rediscovery of patristic faith and Catholic order led by the Oxford Movement
- The ecumenical Social Gospel Movement.
- The post-World War II Ecumenical Movement.
- The Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement of the 1970s and 80s.
- The Civil Rights movement that was supported by many of our courageous leaders, such as Presiding Bishop John Hines.
- And of course, the Progressive/social justice of recent decades.
This Big Tent image is consistent with worldwide Anglicanism which incorporates many of these. We are not a win/lose community. This inclusive and incorporating attitude may be one of the most unique, consistent, and persistent contributions of our tradition. It will take a radical rethinking of how we form our current and future leaders, especially in the face of the progressive narrative that “The Episcopal Church has always been a liberal denomination.” Any review of these facts clarifies how oversimplified and inaccurate that narrative really is.
Two Paths Before Us
I believe that at this critical moment, we have two paths before us. The first option and the dominant voice right now is to “join the resistance,” double down specifically on our DEI commitments, and remain a small, declining community that has lost much of our influence. But this position is based on the misguided belief that other people outside our denomination care about the positions we hold. Do we really believe that the wider community cares about our most recent General Convention’s resolutions?
The Pew Research Report revealed something very interesting about demographics as it applies to the Episcopal Church. It pointed out that it is possible to profile some common characteristics among us. Remember Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington? Besides her recent post-inaugural sermon that got much attention, she is important for another significant reason. What the Report points out is how much she represents our largest demographic.
The bishop is highly educated; she is an older white woman; she is (presumably) financially affluent by American standards, and she holds left-of-center political positions. But there is an even more revealing piece of information about the people she represents. They are the fastest declining group in church membership in America! Doubling down seems to be a decision that will only hasten the decline of our church. The first path maintains our isolation and refusal to engage our wider community for the sake of the Gospel proclamation.
There is a second path we should consider, a re-centering of our mission and our self-narrative. We can recapture the wider voices of Anglicanism, especially those of the Global South. Anglican Churches of the Southern Hemisphere are mostly fast-growing communities that appeal to a much wider demographics of their various countries. How might we speak to the growing diverse communities of our country in our context?
If we refer again to the Pew report, the demographics of the most growing group in American Christianity is males, age 20 to 35 who tend to be on the more conservative side, politically and socially, of our population. Note, the demographic data does not reveal that all these young men are flocking to conservative evangelical churches as some news agencies report. Pew found that they are also moving also toward Orthodox and Roman Catholic congregations. These spiritual seekers are drawn by the liturgy, worship, and theology of these more traditional expressions of Christianity that often brings structure to their chaotic world. My experience resonates with this data. I have noted many testimonies on the internet of younger people, especially former evangelicals, who are drawn to our church not by our positions on issues but on the richness of our Prayer Book tradition and the substance of our creedal faith.
In summary, instead of doing what we have been doing and focusing only on the interests of our current demographic, it would be far wiser for the health and future of Anglicanism in North American to develop a strategy of greater inclusivity in reaching a wider potential of further disciples for the Anglican community.
I realize that I have not presented anything other than a path toward reaching a wider and less restrictive cultural audience. I have not presented any plan or agenda other than a conscious decision to expand our recruitment of younger leaders. It will be, of course, the leaders of their own generations that will have to accomplish this. But I have asked if we look more carefully at reality, who we now are, and what is our potential mission field, that even that suggestion can be a source of a hopeful future. Of course, I expect this to meet initially some resistance. We do have stakeholders in our status quo What I am saying is that the values of our past are the best place to begin to build a hopeful future for the Anglican community in North America.
Take at least one historical example from our own past. As the industrial revolution grew rapidly in the urban areas of England, the Wesleyan Movement leaders reached out to the working classes of Britian of their time when, according to the London Museum, “the established church was largely indifferent to the working classes of their age.” Today Methodism rivals the Anglican Communion in global numbers. The price of ignoring the great commission to make disciples of all nations always leads to the isolation and decline of the present church structures!
By God’s grace such a revisioning with a heart toward our fellow Anglicans, where ever we find them, may fulfill our Lord’s prayer in John 17 “that we all may be one” by reaching out to the wider and divided Anglican community in North America today, not for some sort of organic reunion, but for a common sense of heritage and mission. Should we not seek a wider and more representative field of Americans today? What greater gift can the Episcopal/Anglican community in North America give to our fractured and polarized community and to our divided Christian faith at this moment than by such an intentional and heartfelt search?
The Very Rev. Kevin Martin is a Guest Writer. Now retired, he served as Dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral, Diocese of Dallas, as Canon for Congregational Development in the Diocese of Texas, and other congregations in Connecticut, Ohio, and Washington state. He is the author of several books on congregational development including 5 Keys for Church Leaders (Church Publishing, 2006).
