American Bible Society's For Ministry website temporarily misplaces The Episcopal Church in its denominational listings
By Mary Ann Mueller
VirtueOnline Special Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org
2/3/2009
Oops. It's a computer glitch.
Even the American Bible Society is not exempt from computer foibles. Apparently, on its outreach For Ministry website through a "sin of omission" The Episcopal Church was inadvertently deleted from its denominational list.
This omission raised the hackles of John White whose wife is the rector of St. Andrews in Albany, N.Y., when he attempted to seek entry into his For Ministry posting.
"When I tried to update my For Ministry webpage recently, I was denied access, saying the account was inactive. The tips they suggested on the host site for reactivating did not work, and emails to the For Ministry administrator were unanswered. I told our parish webmaster, who said that he had heard of similar problems," White explained in his weblog "Openly Episcopal" in Albany.
"The board of The American Bible Society had just welcomed a new member from the breakaway Anglican diocese in Pittsburgh," St. Andrew's webmaster explained.
"Perhaps TEC was being squeezed out? Hmm, I thought, sounds like a conspiracy theory," White's web musings continued.
Actually, there is nothing sinister behind the computer glitch. The American Bible Society is not out to undermine The Episcopal Church.
White then got a hold of another Episcopal Internet blogger, The Rev. Br. Tobias Haller, BSG, the vicar of the historic Church of St. James in the Manor of Fordham nestled in The Bronx, with his complaint,.
Monday (March 2), the Episcopal monk/priest e-mailed Autumn Black, the American Bible Society's the director of public relations. In his e-mail he stated: "I note that when one enters 'Anglican' as a general denomination (there being no entry for 'Episcopal')", Haller said in his e-mail to Ms. Black, "A number of other Anglican churches appear as possible choices, but not The Episcopal Church, which is, at this time, the only U.S. church recognized as a member of the Anglican Communion."
"I hope this oversight will be corrected. It is shocking to think that The Episcopal Church is not listed in this directory, considering that one of the American Bible Society's founding member and first president -- John Jay -- was an Episcopalian," the priest continued.
However, Haller had an oversight of his own concerning John Jay's religious affiliation. Jay was Church of England Colonial Anglican not an American Episcopalian because the Foreign and Domestic Missionary Society (the Episcopal Church) was not formally established until 1821. First, there was the Revolutionary War, which helped break ties with Mother England. It wasn't until after the Revolution that the established Colonial Anglican Church became what is known today as The Episcopal Church.
Haller also said that he was going to pass the For Ministry problem on to the Episcopal House of Bishops and the House of Deputies.
That threat was totally unnecessary. When VOL contacted Ms. Black, it was explained that the problem was an obvious oversight. Since several Episcopal priests work at the American Bible Society, including her immediate superior, The Rev. Jeffery Morin and The Rev. Simon Barnes who is the ABS Executive Vice President, the oversight was known and would be corrected forthwith.
"All of the listings on ForMinistry.com are user-generated," Ms. Black wrote Haller copying to VOL. "We welcome you and your colleagues to list your respective denominations as deemed appropriate."
Apparently, the ForMinistry website displays overarching general denominational headings, lists such large multi-facetted church groups as: Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, Reformed and of course, Anglican.
Then under the specific denominational subheads come the definitive Anglican and Episcopal categories. Under this is listed: the Anglican Catholic Church; the Anglican Church in America; the Anglican Orthodox Church; the Reformed Episcopal Church; and the Traditional Episcopal Church.
Obviously, the computer's mechanical brain got the TEC acronym confused with the "Traditional Episcopal Church" thinking it was "The Episcopal Church".
"Although this list is user-generated, we would be pleased to also add "Episcopal" to the "General Denominations" drop down list," Ms. Black offered in her e-mail to Haller.
However, when one goes to the "ALL" under the General Denominations drop down, "Episcopal Church" shows up on the list between "Elim Fellowship" and the "Evangelical Congregational Church" even if it does not show up as a separate overarching denomination. When Episcopal Church is selected, up come 3224 congregations and ministries that have registered with ForMinistry.
Late Monday afternoon, the problem seemed to be corrected. "Episcopal Church" came up under the Specific Denominations drop down Under the General Denominations "Anglican" listing.
So for a few hours Monday, The Episcopal Church was temporarily misplaced, but not lost by a finicky computer. Must have been the snow.
---Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline
11 comments:
Actually, Ms. Mueller is incorrect about John Jay. The Episcopal Church was founded in 1789, not 1821, and Jay was among its active members -- he was a warden of Trinity Church NY, among other things. He was also a founding member of the Dom&For Missionary Society in 1821, and was a founder and second president of the ABS. My only error in connection with Jay was in mis-remembering him as the _first_ president of ABS.
However, I'm sorry to report that more problems with this website have developed. Although things seemed to be working correctly yesterday, as of some changes made to the system today, the category "Anglican" -- in the list of General Denominations accessed when one creates or edits ones parish listing -- has disappeared, and for a brief time my parish showed up as part of the Anglican Church in America! There is at this time no way to list the parish as Anglican as a general category -- although the search function still works.
We shall see how this turns out...
I'm glad that pecusa parishes can't list at the ABS site under the Anglican category. Since pecusa has been stepping away from the Anglican Communion since the summer of 2003 we wouldn't want pecusa to be confused with genuine Anglican churches. Whether or not the ABS wants to list heretical and apostate churches under The Episcopal Church is their call. The lifting up of John Jay as a reason for listing pecusa churches is particularly lame given the theological divide that separates the liberal Episcopalians of our day from the Episcopalians of Jay's day. Unless Fr. Haller can document that there is some theological connection between John Jay and the liberal protestant sect of today, I find this line of argument to be weak and disingenuous.
Thanks for the response, Mr. Seel. Actually I think many of John Jay's fellow Anglicans / Episcopalians of that era would find themselves right at home in TEC. You forget that the currents of rationalism were far more advanced in those days. The Episcopalian Jefferson, for example, actually rewrote the Bible -- something your colleagues are fond of claiming TEC has done.
However, my only concern here was to correct the error of fact on Ms. Mueller's part. I have no interest in debating whether TEC should be part of the Anglican Communion or is apostate. At present it is definitely the former, and you may be correct about the latter. However, that is a decision that doesn't rest within either your or my competence to decide.
As to the ABS website, at this point all Anglican churches, including those of the Episcopal Church, now show up when one searches the database, though this designation doesn't show up -- for any of them -- in the directory listings themselves.
It's Fr. Seel, thank you. To equate John Jay with Thomas Jefferson is to either be ignorant of history or to ignore it. John Jay was a committed Christian and not a rationalist deist or a modern-day liberal.
While I appreciate your interest in correcting Ms. Mueller, I think that you need to do a bit more reading on John Jay before you make any more statements about his Christianity.
From the John Jay Institute:
The Institute is named for American founder John Jay (1745-1829) who was arguably the most religious, social, and political conservative of the principal founders of America. His eminence in public life included service in various governmental capacities as a member and president of the Continental Congress, Chief Justice of New York State, diplomatic envoy, Peace Commissioner, and Foreign Secretary of the United States, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Governor of New York. Jay was also active in domestic and civil society as a dutiful son, faithful husband, and loving father. He was a vestryman in his local parish church, lay leader in the re-formation of a Protestant denomination, president of the American Bible Society, and a founder and patron of the New York Manumission Society for the emancipation of African slaves. Jay's prominence as a statesman, churchman, citizen and social reformer is a legacy to preserve and perpetuate. His dedication to the ideals of love and mercy, truth and justice guided his public labors in serving his country. In honor of his life and principled leadership, the John Jay Institute for Faith, Society and Law is dedicated to raising up and calling forth leaders like him for the future.
Fr. Seel (sorry, the omission was unintentional, as I don't know you personally), I am quite aware of John Jay's history. In fact, I brought the motion to the Diocese of New York convention to begin to honor his memory liturgically -- and to move towards a national recognition.
Postulating on his specific views on subjects that concern us today is probably a fruitless cause. I did not mean to suggest he was as extreme as Jefferson in his rationalism -- but I do think he was, generally speaking, what we would today call "liberal" -- as a single example, he was generations ahead of the curve on the abolition of slavery, which was still being defended by mainstream Episcopalians (including the PB) a good forty years after his death.
But, as I say, such speculations are rather pointless, and that wasn't my initial reason for mentioning Jay in my letter -- which was merely to point out the irony of the absence of reference to the Episcopal Church on the ABS website.
All the best for a Holy Lent and a glorious Easter.
Tony Seel said...
First, I appreciate the irenic tone of Fr. Haller's response. Next, let's deal with the content. Haller states that we should consider John Jay a liberal because he was in support of the abolition of slavery. John Adams was also against slavery, so this would make him also a liberal. Given this logic, William Wilberforce, roughly a generation later (1759-1833) would be another liberal. The problem with this view is that no unbiased historian would call any of these three liberals, particularly as the term may be applied to pecusa liberals today.
No, we can make judgements from history based on the documentary evidence, just as we do with the Bible. The trouble with liberals is they prefer fanciful ideas to documentary evidence. The idea that John Jay would be classified as a liberal because of his views on slavery is equal to saying that I am a liberal because I defend the human rights of babies in the womb. My view is also out of the mainstream of pecusa, yet I was at one time a pecusa priest.
It's not that an exercise in historical judgement is pointless; it is that such investigations do not serve the liberal agenda of many pecusa bishops and priests.
Thank you again, Fr. Seel. I suppose we are here in a tangle of definitions, and it depends on what one means by "liberal." My contention is simply that the Episcopal Church in general was more "liberal" (by our standards) than a number of other churches in that time. There were, of course, people like Seabury who were more conservative within that church. There were some like Jefferson who were so liberal one could arguably say they were apostate. But William White, John Jay, John Adams and others were, in my estimation, towards the more liberal end of the spectrum. You may recall that Jay was a deputy to the founding conventions of the Episcopal Church, and that the first convention suggested removing the Nicene Creed from the liturgy, and removing the Athanasian Creed altogether. (The kind of thing people accuse TEC of doing today, no?) After complaints from England the convention gave in on the former, but not on the latter; it is only with 1979 that the Athanasian Creed makes its reappearance. I don't know where Jay stood on this particular issue, though I do know of his closeness with White and his opposition to Hobart and Seabury (the "high church" wing), but I think this gives the general tenor of the time. In short, I think it fair to say that the Episcopal Church was generally more "liberal" than the Church of England at the time, though New England Episcopalians tended to be more conservative (no doubt in some reaction to their congregational fellow citizens.)
But you are quite right that speculation about the dead is largely that. And, again, this was not really my concern in bringing up Jay -- it is you who assert he would not approve of present actions of the Episcopal Church; and I think that assertion is beyond real proof. It may be likely, but we have no way of knowing.
At the same time, I think it important to note who misleading such categories can be. I am to the greater extent a conservative when it comes to theological and liturgical matters. I am dismayed at some of the trends in our church -- and so I know from personal experience the error of "tagging" someone as a "liberal" or "conservative" on the basis of one opinion on one rather narrow range of concern. Thus I have no trouble identifying opposition to abortion as a "conservative" construct, one which I in essence share, though I come at it from a different ethical direction than you do, Fr. Seel. For me it is a matter of taking definitive action (abortion) in a case of a lack of knowledge. I don't know when "life begins" -- and there is some disagreement in the tradition. My point is that, not knowing, one should should put a brake on definitive action. I have analogized it to pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger in jest when you don't know for sure it's not loaded. That, to me, is a more helpful way to address the issue.
In any case, thanks for the conversation, which I hope has been illuminating.
Fr, Haller, The conversation has been illuminating in that I think that I understand you better. I do not agree with you on John Jay or John Adams. I will need to pull my copy of the JA bio of a few years ago. Ringht now, I need to take my son to his Boy Scout meeting!
I do understand that we come at the abortion issue from different angles. I don't approach it from the perspective of the traditional when life begins question. I approach it from a strictly biological approach - when there is a new biological life in the womb, what is it? Is it human life or something else? I would argue that it is human life given that it is the reproductive product (a crass word for this discussion) of human beings. I would further argue that if it is living it is not some form of potential life. Therefore, even in the earliest stages of development this human living being is worthy of protection. I would think that this is a liberal position along the lines of human rights, but of course we know that in our present political or church circles this is not a liberal position. Gotta go.
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