It’s commonly remarked that obfuscation is a job requirement for
liberal bishops in the Episcopal Church. Never content with reading
scripture’s plain meaning, they often explain away parts of the
Bible that sound unpleasant to today’s supposedly enlightened ears.
As if out of habit, this practice carries over into church
operations, where decaying Mainline Protestant houses of worship
situated near booming evangelical churches rarely lead to
straightforward discussions about church vitality.
It may come as a surprise, then, that Washington, D.C.’s
new bishop is being heralded for her candor in acknowledging the
Episcopal Church’s decline, even as she fails to identify the
underlying reasons for the decline that traditionalists argue got
the church into such dire straits in the first place.
Mariann Budde, the first woman to be installed as
Washington’s top bishop (another briefly led on an interim basis),
comes to the diocese acknowledging years of decline and a culture
of Episcopalians who, she told the Washington
Post, have lost focus on the core missions of worship
and evangelizing. Statistics released in October by the U.S.-based
church reveal it has lost over 40 percent of its churchgoers since
the mid-1960s. Budde replaces John Bryson Chane, who famously said
he was “so sick and tired of reading reports about the statistical
decline of The Episcopal Church” that he no longer reads them. In
selecting a replacement, the diocese sought a candidate who did not
fatigue as quickly.
Weak spiritual foundations and churches that don’t demand
enough commitment from members are among Budde’s targets. In
her
interview with the Post she
dramatically compared the denomination to the interstate bridge
that collapsed in her hometown of Minneapolis in 2007. But while
calls for children’s ministries and stronger pastoral care are
needed, the root of the church’s crisis lies elsewhere.
Budde told the Post of people wanting to “connect
to transcendence and the spiritual basis of life we call God” and
cheered the Episcopal Church being “open-minded and inclusive of
other faith traditions.” The Minnesota cleric’s choice of words was
typical of a Religious Left uncomfortable with Christianity’s
exclusivist truth claims, instead opting for a belief system where
nothing is certain in the character of God, save indiscriminate
affirmation.
In Budde’s view, the church’s longtime expectation of
monogamy in traditional marriage, and the loyalties inherent to
traditional families, make way for “full inclusion.”
Professing to be “thrilled” to be in D.C., where
same-gender marriage is legal, Budde
told the Washington Examiner: “I’m
pretty confident that the gospel is clear on this in terms of our
accepting people as we are created by God to be and not asking
people to change to conform to some uniform standard of human
expression.”
So we can forget about presenting people with a
transforming encounter with the living God; Christianity is about
“a spiritual basis of life” that is focused strictly upon
acceptance. Never mind that churches which elevate this teaching
are those experiencing the most rapid declines.
Budde has been touted in the local media as a church
growth expert, as her congregation initially grew from an
attendance of 100 to about 275 in her first years there. But only
in a diocese like Minnesota, losing a quarter of its members in the
past decade, would Budde’s own congregation — where growth has
stalled since 2003 — be identified as especially vibrant, and
Budde seen as some kind of miracle worker.
Perhaps most attractive on Budde’s résumé was a devotion
to liberal political causes. In an interview with the public radio
show Interfaith Voices, Budde cited “progressive
Catholics” as an early influence in her life, referring to those
who opposed “the Reagan wars” in Central America, and the Catholic
Worker Movement. Identified by the fawning interviewer as having “a
strong social justice agenda,” Budde said she would make her views
— and the progressive social justice views of the Episcopal Church
— known.
Washington’s new bishop seems the ideal candidate for
leadership within the Episcopal Church: motivating enough to
require more of her parishioners than simply showing up at Sunday
worship, but inoffensive enough to not challenge any of liberal
Protestantism’s shibboleths, such as universalist salvation or
complete affirmation of alternative sexualities and liberal
political advocacy.
In Budde, Washington Episcopalians see an official who
acknowledges with candor the failings of the church in evangelism
and hospitality, but who does not make theological demands that
would compromise the Episcopal Church’s new gospel of
indiscriminate inclusion and ultimately steer the church back onto
a path of renewal.
Speaking to the Examiner, Budde asserted: “The
Episcopal Church is a jewel of Christianity.” With a moneyed
history that built ornate houses of worship, the “jewel” language
seems apt, even if American Christianity seems to find less and
less of value in what the Episcopal Church offers.
