Well, I’m without a church home again, for the time being. People journeying between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America seems to be a recurring theme, and my own trip out has come up a few times recently. I don’t want to repeat the whole thing in full detail any more, if only because the story is too long, so I guess it’s time to just reboot this blog and get it done with once.
The Road In
So how did we get here in the first place? I was raised as an evangelical reformed baptist, fundamentalist, literalist, the works. I slowly shook my way loose of some of this, but I didn’t really have a firm alternative laid out at any point by the time COVID happened and I just quietly left the church entirely, having lost my faith and unable to make any sense of it. I followed my newfound atheism to what I felt was its logical conclusion, decided it sucked, and after a conversation with my uncle, slowly returned to the faith.
My first stop was at our nearest Episcopal church. It was as socially progressive as I am, not judgmental about me being non-binary, and overall seemed like a nicer place. I didn’t know what “liturgy” was, or that communion here was more than just a symbolic act- but I was finally experiencing faith after evangelicalism and it felt nice at first. Over time I felt frustrated by a seeming lack of depth, and when our membership classes included a book defending atheist bishop John Shelby Spong, part of my brain broke and wrote off the entire church- so I fled. I had already been struggling to understand practices like infant baptism coming from my old background and still wasn’t sure if “real” Christianity could be anything but conservative.
We took a little time off before trying the Presbyterian Church (USA), which was also affirming. In my head, Reformed Christianity was Serious, Biblical Christianity, so I was certain this would be too, right? We attended bible studies and still found that any time the scripture appeared to be challenging us, people would instead roll their eyes at the scripture. I grew steadily more frustrated with this state of affairs, feeling at times like it was a glorified book club rather than an environment that would push me to change myself if needed to grow closer to God.
Meanwhile, I was studying more church history and becoming more convinced by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy’s common theological claims, while rejecting some of their underpinnings such as natural law or claims to be the One True Church. On Christmas Eve, I attended an Eastern Orthodox mass that was so beautiful it moved me for weeks, especially in conjunction with my further study. I knew an EO mass would be too much for my wife’s health, and Rome’s beliefs on things like birth control being a mortal sin with each usage would have been a conversion to it dishonest for us. Between all of this, I became steadily more attracted to Anglo-Catholicism- and when our PCUSA church had a guest pastor that amended the creed, we decided to pull the trigger.
Arrival
By this time I’d had my eyes on a parish near us for some time. I knew they were explicitly Anglo-Catholic, and and that’s where I was at this point. They were more conservative than I was, and I was definitely scared by this- but I figured I could just shut my gender issues off on Sundays, hear the gospel, and deal. By this point I was convinced that maybe progressive churches would never actually preach the gospel and I just had to pick my poison on what to get rid of- and what was the point of church without the gospel?
For a long time things seemed refreshing. The liturgy was stronger than anything we had before, the altar struck awe into me, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit when communing. There was another person who went to school with me who followed the same exvangelical to Anglo-Catholic pipeline, and we had great discussions around theology and philosophy for a few months until his work schedule caused him to drop off. The church was small, so I was able to learn a lot about the liturgy, the prayer book, and the way the church operated by just talking to my priest regularly. I was already studying theology and church history on my own, so I was able to get the full package here.
The first warning sign was when my priest mailed me a copy of Forward in Faith North America’s Declaration of Common Faith and Purpose, along with a podcast produced by one Fr. Darryl Fitzwater covering it, asking for my thoughts on it. This was at the most trad phase of my life, so much of it I was able to agree with- but I disagreed strenuously with the statement’s coverage of transgender individuals, as well as Fr. Fitzwater’s brazenly ignorant commentary on the matter. Up until now I had been wrestling for years with a question of whether I was called to the diaconate or something higher, and having this sent to me was basically a shot across the bow that I had to interpret as “no”. I wrote back with my objections and explicitly noted this prevented any participation in the diocese for me.
My priest wrote back and assured me it didn’t, that different people interpret the statement different ways and that he didn’t take my objections as disqualifying. But to me, the issue was black and white, and my name would never be on that statement. I would continue life as a dedicated layman, serving God whichever ways I could. And hey, my free time would open up, right? Nobody would put those expectations on me, God was basically saying I would have more free time since I couldn’t go in that way. I knew my place.
Gulfs Opening
Just kidding! Apparently if you talk to your priest too much about how the church operates they will stop interpreting this as “I am a giant nerd” and will instead read it as “leadership potential”. You can even say “I’m disqualified from this position by strength of conviction” and they will still hint in various ways about your future in those roles. I became an acolyte and learned the liturgy more deeply, assisted in every way I could, and kept studying at home.
I also found myself continually drawn to learning things that only deacons really do, like learning to chant the gospel. In fact, I began studying how to chant enough to do the entire service if it was needed. I kept struggling against the fact that I had disqualified myself, but I also found myself continually pulled to do and envision things I said I could never do. It was frustrating in many ways, but I thought I was where I needed to be, and I was growing in the faith the entire time, so what was the harm, right?
Meanwhile more than one parishioner outright told me or my wife that they saw me in those roles, to the point of joking about sending me off to seminary. This was steadily driving me nuts over time- it was nice to have people see good things in me, but I had explicitly set all of this aside as something that couldn’t happen because God had set a clear roadblock in the way, and I just needed to serve as a layman and help where I could instead of being prideful and reaching for something I could never have. At the same time, I began to hear a steady number of jokes about transgender individuals, each one causing a pit in my stomach as I tried to deny a part of who I was for the sake of fitting in better, imbibing more conservative ideology that was steadily damaging me. And besides that, I was still good at connecting to trans folks- but I couldn’t really invite them to my own church. Pretty much all of the comments happened on days that my wife wasn’t there, so she couldn’t have the same reaction that I did.
The writing was steadily being written on the wall- but I didn’t want to hunt for a church again, my wife seemed happy here, we really were learning a lot, and besides- what if we left and found worse on the next attempt anyway? Where do you set your dealbreaker?
Hell Breaking Loose
April rolls around and we get confirmed at the diocesan synod. I feel a heightened sense of stress at the synod- the vibes are bad, they somehow don’t have it straight what name they’ll be confirming me under on the day of, and there’s just something off about the energy of the place. In the end, they confirm me under the same name I’ve been using the whole time and not with what’s written on my birth certificate (which I hate), but I leave the service feeling drained and frustrated for reasons I can’t fully understand.
The next day begins a local furry convention, where I also don’t quite feel that I’m fitting in. After a year and change of trying to stuff my gender issues into a box and just feel comfortable in my own skin again, my egg begins to fully crack again for the last time. Then I get the news that hours after confirmation, Fr. Fitzwater of the earlier mentioned podcast had just been elected bishop. I’m stunned- I hadn’t even gotten to hear the candidates ahead of time because the diocese screwed up their own process, and now somebody who wasn’t even in the diocese previously just became its bishop. I’m appalled- Fitzwater’s name precedes him at this point in the circles I’m in, and not in a positive way. The combination of his smug arrogance and ignorance doesn’t leave him suitable to be a rector in my opinion, let alone bishop over an entire diocese- and the fact that he got the nod is a damning indictment of the entire enterprise.
For over a year now I’ve been hanging out online with a crowd of people who are largely in the Episcopal Church, Church of England, and other churches still in the Anglican Communion. Oh, and the handful of other ACNA and Continuum guys, you’re all chill too. By now I’ve re-evaluated my hasty impression of the Episcopal Church as being a hotbed of tolerance for heresy- I now know a lot of orthodox, kind Episcopalians. I start to fantasize every so often. What if I found a good one? What if we could be in the same communion again? What if I could be open to everyone about what was going on with me, instead of having to bite my tongue and put in the work while hiding in plain sight?
The Road Out
My wife and I went on our tenth anniversary trip. I wanted to check out some of the churches in the area, maybe check out the local Episcopal cathedral mass, just work in a little of our faith into this vacation. We go and commune, and afterwards the Provost goes to speak to us. “You have seminary vibes,” they tell me. Then they immediately turn to my wife. “Actually, you do too. And now you’re looking at each other like I’m being ridiculous.”
I’m baffled at how this is happening immediately after meeting this person. She asks us about where we are, and I can’t help but notice how much of my own frustration is freely expressed in the conversation, how the way I’m talking is just a dead giveaway that my heart moved on months ago but I haven’t been able to admit it out loud. We spend quite a bit of time that week discussing what we want next in a church, how we should approach a search, what our non-negotiables are, and how much longer we should stay at the current place. At first we discuss staying through our rector’s tenure- who knows, maybe that’s a few years out? He said it was a few years out. We love him, we love his preaching, we don’t need to rush anything…
I don’t even last the rest of the day before saying that I want to go looking by the end of September. I don’t want to be in this church a single day under Bp. Fitzwater if I can help it. If we can’t find anything else, we can return, but the frustration is mounting and I need out sooner. We get home at the end of the week, my wife’s grandmother passes the next day, we see family that night, and then go home and come down sick, missing church. She’s still sick the following Sunday- but September is coming up, I want this conversation off my chest, and to give him the time to have us hand things off. I don’t fit here, but I want the ministry to succeed and grow even after us. So I go in for a closed door meeting with him after mass and tell him directly- we feel called to do more, but we don’t see any way around the diocese.
“Go. Get out of here. I can’t convince you. I’ve been the prodigal father before, we’ll leave the light on for when you come back to your senses and come back. You won’t find truth out there. You won’t find peace. There are consequences to upholding the church’s tradition [and on and on, I stopped retaining things around here]”
Having gone in with the goal of trying to keep helping, this was all a gut punch and went worse than I could imagine. I went home with runaway anxiety over the course of the next few weeks, initially blaming myself for even daring to leave, wishing that I could just be normal and actually more conservative- it was grotesque what I put on myself, largely out of shock at how deeply my trust wound up broken. The Friday this occurred I received an email stating that he would not be discussing any of this with the congregation to reassure me that any discussions I had with people were not colored by the knowledge. I wrote back frankly telling him that his behavior had caused me significant mental distress, and received back a non-apology focused on tone and how he had been steeling himself for me to “come to myself”. But the problem was never the tone- it was the content, suggesting that I would be forever spiritually homeless until I returned.
The following Sunday’s homily was directly about my wife and I. It repeated the talking points about the tradition and holding onto it, while also referring to previous young people who had been sent out of the church and how sometimes that’s what needs done as a church family for things to grow. I was left shocked that this was happening, made several mistakes acolyting afterwards, and had to decide for the fourth time in a week if I would let it go and commune, or remain away from the table. I chose to commune- in hindsight, I probably should not have.
The next week was another homily on tradition. That Wednesday, we wrote a letter saying September was out and we were gone. The week after that, I coincidentally started receiving messages from people who normally didn’t message just to chit-chat, and informed them I had left. Debates were attempted over it and shut down.
I broke out the anxiety pills I forgot I had prescribed. I clawed my way past the oppressive sense of doom, the sense that God himself was angry at me and had used one of his ordained men to tell me so. I slowly worked my way back to my personal devotions. I begged my friends to validate that I was still the same me. I took a deep breath, and tried the Episcopal Church again.
At mass, I was finally able to hear the name that had been written on my heart in truth. And on that Sunday morning, I felt God’s peace.