Why should there be an Episcopal Church? Why should there be any particular denomination? Is there something vital, authentically bearing witness to the good news of Jesus Christ in our fractured denominationalism? I remember a Roman Catholic professor and friend once saying that if he were in the business of creating a church, he would have the liturgy of the Roman Catholics, the theology of the Lutherans, and the polity of the Presbyterians. As a historian, I see the denominations as products of particular historical contexts, but also seeking to embody and preserve the truth of the gospel in those historical contexts, and deserving of survival and health insofar as they continue to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ in their particular forms.

After nearly two weeks of discussion around the Episco-web, we’ve finally come to the core question. On the surface, it may seem rather self-centered. After all, the Episcopal Church was not founded by Jesus Christ (the Roman Catholics make this claim, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;” the Orthodox also make the claim). We cannot. We were founded in the new United States by a group of Christians who found themselves alienated from their spiritual roots in the Church of England, yet desirous of rooting new shoots of that tradition in the soil of American democracy.

We can claim the marks of the true Church–for the Protestant Reformation it was “where the Word of God is truly preached and the sacraments rightly administered.”

We can also make claims to apostolic succession, although I would ask whether that is an ex post facto defense of authenticity and catholicity, rather than being central to the Anglican tradition (Richard Hooker, for one, thought that matters of church organization like the episcopacy were not central to the faith).

So what are we left with? Comments on facebook and the Episcopal Cafe focus on what makes the Episcopal Church, or Anglicanism, distinctive. And many of the comments stress liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer, the three-legged stool. What these comments point to is an Anglican (or Episcopal) ethos. It may be that in this case it is better to use Episcopal than Anglican, for there are unique elements in the Episcopal Church that help to explain some of the current conflicts we have with other Anglicans–namely, our mixed governance that includes laity as well as clergy in the decision-making process, the election of bishops, et al.

What is the Episcopal ethos? In a word, Anglicanism shaped by its American context. And that is decisive. I’m not flag-waving here. Rather, I want to point to the things that would prevent me from ever becoming Roman Catholic: papal supremacy, clerical celibacy, and the all-male priesthood. Those are symbols of something else, an understanding of authority and the nature of the church that is deeply problematic in the twenty-first century: centralization and hierarchy, sexism, and a lengthy historical development that have created the papacy in existence today. It did not always look like this; it did not always assert primacy, nor infallibility.

It’s interesting that a Mennonite convert to Roman Catholicism blogged today about her discomfort with the “Roman” piece of her Catholicism. But I do think that in the US, many of the challenges Roman Catholicism faces have to do with the American context and culture.

I believe deeply that the Episcopal Church as Episcopal bears truthful witness to Christianity–in its openness to intellectual inquiry, in the beauty of our worship, and in the way we try to be the body of Christ–with bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people, all commissioned ministers of Christ.

Are there other Christian traditions that bear truthful witness to Christ? Of course, and many of them have their unique charismata. In fact, one of the stumbling blocks that delayed my becoming Episcopalian was that I believed the denomination in which I was raised and baptized, the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, is a powerful, prophetic witness to other Christian communities, including Anglicanism.

Are the things which make the Episcopal Church unique available in other denominations (or in non-denominational congregations)? Many of them, yes, but not in the particular combination and with the unique history that has made us who we are. Will the Episcopal Church, will Anglicanism survive until the Parousia? I have no idea, and I don’t really care. What matters to me is that it is the place in which I can express my faith, and experience Jesus Christ, and that I believe others can do so as well. So long as that latter statement is true, the Episcopal Church, or the Episcopal ethos in so form, should survive, indeed continue to thrive. It is when we no longer bear witness to the continued vitality of that historical manifestation of the good news, that there is no reason for us to exist.