As a traditionalist Anglican in line with most of the worldwide Anglican communion (as I suppose Mr. Hayward is as well), I must confess to having similar thoughts. One of my grade-school friends had her family go over after Vicki Gene Robinson was made Bishop (yes, that's his actual name -- the story goes, he wasn't expected to live more than a few hours, so his father put both the chosen boy's name and the chosen girl's name on the birth certificate). She was married there this summer, and it was very nice. Of course, I went several times to a Russian Orthodox church with an Irish-American family in London (it gets better: the grandmother's a nun in France!), so it's hard for me to accept that one can be an Orthodox priest and not have an accent; but, if the Mar Thoma church is accepting that, I suppose it would be wrong of me not to!36 hours from now, I say goodbye to the Episcopal Church and will be received into the Antiochian Orthodox Church.
Rome's always attractive, of course, and you'd get fewer responses of "what?" when you say what church you go to, but I've got a few theological conflicts I couldn't quite manage. The Antiochians do it somewhat differently. I don't have any beliefs at all that conflict with official teaching of the Mar Thoma Church, which I got to know quite well during my thesis. The American-born generation that stays within the church is increasingly breaking away from being a culture-club, as I described at great length, and many have said I'd be welcome there. There are several native members of the church who have married non-Indians and brought them in; in Houston's churches, such spouses are welcome. (I hear it varies by location, however; as always, some people are more race-obsessed than others.) However, it's tense enough getting Bob to come to a non-threatening Episcopal service with me -- if I were taking him to something Indian, he'd throw a fit!
Then again, it is always useful to be able to claim Episcopalianism. If your conversation partner is liberal, they feel comforted. If they're conservative, you only have to add an affiliation with the Network or AMiA or otherwise a traditionalist stance, and you're fine there too. I'll just wait and see what happens. And I'll follow my priest, one of the most intelligent and rightest people I know.
(I'm off to do work now, I swear.)
"Then again, it's often useful to be able to claim Episcopalianism"
If my blog were up and running right now, that would almost certainly be a quote of the day!
Posted by: R. Alex | December 02, 2004 at 09:01 PM
what, no-lyfe's not yours?
Posted by: Adrianne Truett | December 02, 2004 at 09:24 PM
Well it's a temporary home while RAW360 is being transfered, though I'm trying not to deluge it with posts so that it doesn't become "RAW & Friends" like it ended up doing last time and instead can become the group blog it was originally meant to be.
Posted by: R. Alex | December 03, 2004 at 12:00 PM