Mississippi: 'Redoing church'

From the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. I found this article somewhat confusing - mentioned are Anglican churches under Kenya, but then it says that no Mississippi churches have left ECUSA, so I'm assuming the Anglican churches are all new plants. Also, incorrect national numbers are used (did you know that only 55 churches have left ECUSA?) and some other errors are present, but the situation is so confusing, I don't blame the reporter.

RAYMOND — A framed document hangs in a dining room-turned sanctuary on the outskirts of this tiny central Mississippi city that reads, "Diocese of Thika, the Anglican Church of Kenya."

The certificate shows who has authority over the two-month-old congregation, called St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church.

"We gave them what I call 'the kiss of peace goodbye,' " said St. Michael's priest the Rev. Linda Berry about her break from the Episcopal Church U.S.A. "Our main focus is on what we're doing now, which is redoing church."

Berry is part of a national movement of former Episcopalians and other believers aligning their congregations with conservative Anglican churches in Africa. Those seeking African oversight say they've become disillusioned with what they consider to be an increasingly secular drift in the Episcopal Church U.S.A.

And while church leaders battle over theological issues, many worshippers are seeking the African-affiliated Anglican churches for wholly different reasons. . .

. . . Therese Baker of Jackson, who had been baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal church, started worshipping at St. Michael's because she found most area Episcopal churches too large and unwelcoming.

"Unless you knew someone you were ignored," the former veternarian's assistant said.

About a half dozen people worship at St. Michael's, where churchgoers sit in a semi-circle in front of an altar set up in Berry's dining room.

Surrounded by the aroma of scented candles, believers help conduct the liturgy by taking turns reading the day's Scripture.

"They're so small right now you feel like you're actually part of something," Baker said. "I want to become closer to God and I feel like I'm getting that here."

Colorado transplant Lana Mapes, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who led small mission churches, attends St. Michael's because she finds a more authentic form of Christianity than among the people she's encountered in big, established churches.

"I see a lot of hypocritical behavior," Mapes said. "It's all about them, what's good for them, what's good for the pocketbook."

People attending St. Michael's also say they value such rituals as infant baptism and regular Holy Communion.

"That's always been a very basic part of our religion," Mapes said about sharing the Eucharist.

David Hein, a religion professor at Hood College in Maryland who specializes in Episcopal and Anglican history, said the new Anglican churches in the United States seem well positioned to attract evangelicals who want to connect with their faith's apostolic roots, but consider the Episcopal church too liberal.

"Some are moving away from churches that emphasize a glamourous preacher and are looking for an association with thoughtful holiness, which they find in traditional Anglicanism," he said. "There's a movement of evangelicals who are dissatisfied in large preaching temples.". . .

. . . "People think the split was about homosexuality," said Berry, 61, who was ordained a priest in August by a Kenyan bishop. "But that wasn't really it."

A major rift formed in 2003 between the U.S. Episcopal church and the more conservative leaders of the 77 million member global Anglican Communion when Episcopal church leaders elected their first openly gay bishop.

But Berry and other members of the new Anglican churches in Mississippi say they left the Episcopal Church U.S.A. - the name of the Anglican church in America - because of what they saw as an increasing emphasis over the past two decades on intellectualism over biblical authority, such as raising doubts about the virgin birth and the divinity of Jesus.

"We had to make a choice," said the Rev. Ruth Urban, who leads the Kenyan-affiliated Holy Apostles Anglican Church in Brandon with her husband John. "Are we going to uphold the Scripture or uphold the church?". . .

. . . The Kenyan churches are part of a small network of Anglican churches in the state including metro-area congregations St. Stephen's Reformed Episcopal Church in Flowood - which formed in 1984 before the current crisis in the Anglican Communion - and the Rwandan-affiliated Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Flowood.

The churches have not broken away from the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. However, most attract some Episcopalians disenchanted with their national church.

And even though only the Kenyan-affiliated church ordains women - which many consider a major theological difference - Anglican churches in Mississippi and elsewhere in the United States are working toward forming their own U.S. jurisdiction.

As of September, 55 of the 7,679 congregations in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. have either withdrawn from the organization or voted to leave, said the church's communications director Robert Williams.

No Mississippi parish has broken from the Episcopal church. . .

. . . Bishop Duncan Gray III of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi said he believes there's enough room in the Episcopal church for divergent views.

"I think there is within the Episcopal church within Mississippi both diverse congregations and diversity within congregations and that there's a place for everyone," he said. "I would hope that we could find what unites us and deepens that rather than spend enormous energy on defining what divides us."

But people involved in the new Anglican congregations in Mississippi say they expect the network of Anglican churches will soon form its own province in the United States. . .

Read it all.