Anglican Values 1

I have been practicing simplicity the past week or so by cleaning out some of my files, throwing the truly useless away and digitizing others. Among the latter I have run across my collection of the monthly magazine written for St. Michael's, Anaheim, during the years I was Rector there (1992-2001). I wrote a small essay each month, a sort of mid-90's blog before there were blogs (or at least before I knew about them and had one). Surprisingly, they still read fairly well, at least to me. Beginning in October, 1995, I intermittently wrote a series called "Anglican Values". I wrote it in the hope of articulating what I think are distinctive Anglican values, and I hope they are still true. And before my dear p.c. friends start in on me for being exclusivist, let me just say that every virtue I find and label Anglican can of course be found among others as well, mutatis mutandis. But not perhaps in quite the same combination and packaging.

Through the miracle of optical character recognition I am able to share them. I thought I would publish them between now and the beginning of our Long Retreat, on July 28, as a sort of pre-retreat project, and see if they generate any interest. I'll footnote things that might be unclear to non-St. Michael's types.
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ANGLICAN VALUES
October, 1995

Today we hear a great deal about values. People are concerned that their families, communities, churches, workplaces represent and practice wholesome and helpful values. The current debate about values is an important and welcome development in a time in which the only value sometimes seems to be economic productivity. Church is a good place to look for values!

Every Christian church holds up Jesus Christ as Lord, proclaims His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection as the source and power of new life in Christ, both looks forward to and tries to begin to live in the Kingdom of God, and learns and teaches new ways of living according to God's values. But God's graciousness is so great that he has given us many kinds of churches, from many backgrounds, and with many ways to approach the New Life in Jesus Christ. Each church proclaims the same Gospel, but finds in the variety of human experience different ways of living it, and different sets of cultural values it honors as it practices the Gospel. All are gifts of God, each is distinctive and value-able.

Our Episcopal (Anglican) Church has a distinctive history and tradition and so we have distinctive values we stress within the Gospel life. I want to share three with you this month. We are the historic "Church of England", and although the Anglican Churches are now as much American, African, Caribbean, Hispanic and Asian as English, that is our "root". We grew up as the Church for the Nation in a special way, and that has left us with three Anglican Values:

Anglicans Care About Different Kinds of People. The Church of England welcomed everyone in the nation, unless they specifically "opted out". And so we are comprehensive. We expect to have all kinds of people in our church, with a very wide range of ideas, economic backgrounds, interests, causes and concerns. We are interested in everyone's welfare, and Anglican churches typically have a great concern for the poor which leads us to help. St. Michael's Nearly New Shop* and Feed The Hungry Program** witness to this value. Today, our Anglican Church has reached out to embrace people of every land and many different languages.

Anglicans Care What People Think. We have a rich legacy, growing out of our diversity, of differences of opinion within the Church. Today we honor and value that, and try to participate in it as best we can. This means we care greatly about education, and we try to get the best education we can for our children. And it means that we listen to Scripture, to teaching and tradition, and to each other, and don't close off discussion very easily, so that we can hear God's voice in life's complexity. We know that God's world is not simple, and we treasure the depth, wisdom and variety of his Word, ever new in His creation.

Anglicans Care About Beauty. Our Church has a long and wonderful tradition of art, architecture, music and worship. The artists, composers and writers who are part of the centuries-old Anglican tradition are too numerous to mention - indeed, the English-speaking world derives its culture from Anglican roots. And so our worship honors the past as well as the present. We care about form and custom, and about preserving the beauty of creation, while in our own way adding to it, both at St. Michael's and in our lives.

These are three, but only three - a start! I hope to share more Anglican Values in this space again from time to time!

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* Nearly New Shop: A thrift store operated out of a store front in a strip mall for many years by members of St. Michael's. The profits went primarily to fund charitable projects in the Anaheim community.
** Feed The Hungry Program: A dinner served at St. Michael's to all comers, mostly indigent and homeless, every Monday night at 6:00 pm for years and years. Those who came were guests: seated at tables with set places, and served on the church's best china. It had a very significant volunteer base from St. Michael's and others who joined in.