An Introduction to the Episcopal Church - Joseph B. Bernardin

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“The Most Reverend John Doe.” In conversation, male parochial clergy are called Mr. Doe, Father Doe, or Dr. Doe, and female Miss Doe, Mrs. Doe, or Dr. Doe, depending on their preference and whether or not they possess a doctor's degree from some institution of learning. Archdeacons, deans, bishops, and archbishops are usually referred to in this country by those titles and their own names, as “Dean Doe,” but in other countries by the title of their office, as “the Dean of X.” Lay members of male religious communities are addressed as “Brother John” and ordained members as “Father Doe.” Members of female religious communities are addressed as “Sister Jane” and their heads generally as “Mother Jane.”

      The Preamble to the Church's Constitution begins: “The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church), is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer”.

      The Episcopal Church is an independent part of this larger whole, which includes: the Church of England (2 provinces), the Church in Wales, the Church of Ireland (2 provinces), the Episcopal Church in Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (9 provinces), the Anglican Church of Canada (4 provinces), the Anglican Church of Australia (5 provinces), the Church of the Province of New Zealand, the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, Nigeria Tegarideria the Church in the Province of the West Indies, Nippon Seikokai (Japan), Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (China), the Church of the Province of West Africa, the Church of the Province of Central Africa, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Church of Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire, Igreja Episcopal do Brasil, the Church of the Province of Burma, the Church of the Province in Tanzania, the Church of the Province of Kenya, the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, the Church of the Province of Melanesia, the Church in the Province of The Indian Ocean, the Church of the Province of Papua New Guinea, the Church of the Province of West Africa, the Iglesia Anglicana Del Cono Sud de Las Americas, and a number of extra-provincial dioceses scattered throughout the world. Approximately every ten years the bishops of these Churches consult together at the Lambeth Conference in England.

      In addition, there is a body of Churches known as the Wider Episcopal Fellowship possessing the historic episcopate, with which the Episcopal Church is in either full communion or a relationship of intercommunion. Among these are the Old Catholic Churches, the Philippine Independent Church, united churches containing former Anglican dioceses, such as those of South India, Pakistan, and North India, Bangladesh and a number of other national Churches.

      BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

      Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, (revised every three years).

      The Episcopal Church Annual. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, (revised annually).

      HOLMES, U. T. III, What is Anglicanism? Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1982.

      MCADOO, H. R., The Unity of Anglicanism: Catholic and Reformed Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1983.

      Chapter III

      The Church's Bible

      All religions of civilized peoples possess collections of sacred writings which they regard as an authoritative revelation of the nature of their deity and of his will, In every case these writings were written by religiously-minded men to meet the needs and situation of their own day. Tradition soon endowed them with a divine origin and a sacrosanct authority. Consequently, in later times it became necessary either to revise them or make interpolations in the text; or else to resort to an allegorical exegesis in order to fit them to the religious needs of succeeding generations. What is true of the sacred books of other religions, is also true of the Bible, the sacred book of Christianity.

      The Bible means books. It is a collection of writings ranging in date from about the year 900 B.C. to A.D. 150, written by men of religious insight for the needs of their own generation, and in many cases revised by others in succeeding years for their own times. The Bible is divided into two parts: the Old Testament, comprising 39 books, and the New Testament, containing 27; although a better translation of the Greek titles would be the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

      The Old Testament contains a record of God's relation to humanity and humanity's relation to God under the covenant which He made with them under Abraham, and which was renewed under Moses at Mount Sinai: namely, that if they would be circumcised and keep His covenant He would be their God and give to them the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. Similarly, the New Testament contains the record of God's relation to humanity and humanity's relation to God under the covenant which He made with them in Jesus Christ; namely, that those who believe in Him and are baptized into His Name and keep His commandments will obtain everlasting salvation.

      The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, except for a few short passages in Aramaic. In the Hebrew Bible it is divided into three parts: the Law, comprising the first five books of the Bible, supposed to have been written by Moses; the Prophets, divided into the Former Prophets (our historical books) and the Latter Prophets, comprising the three major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets; and the Writings. The earliest and the most sacred of these was the Law which in its present form dates from the time of Ezra about 444 B.C. The prophetical canon, that is, the books forming the Prophets, was formed about 250 B.C., but the final decision as to just what books comprised the Writings was not made until a council held in Jamnia in Palestine toward the end of the first century A.D.

      In the course of time Hebrew became a dead language, and it was necessary to translate these writings into other languages in order that the people might understand them. The two principal translations were that into Aramaic for the people of Palestine, called the Targum, and that into Greek for those outside, called the Septuagint. The Greek Old Testament contains in addition to the books found in the Hebrew Bible a number of others.1t was this Greek Old Testament which was the sacred book of the early Christian Church and out of which they claimed to prove the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord.

      At the time of the Continental Reformation Luther and the other reformers rejected the books of the Old Testament which were found only in Greek, and not in Hebrew, and which still form part of the Bible of the Church of Rome and the Eastern Churches. The English Church, as often, took a middle position. Removing these books from their usual order, it placed them together in a group between the Old and the New Testament and labelled them the Apocrypha, declaring that they were to be read for example of life and instruction of manners, but not for the establishment of any doctrine. Parts of them are among the most beautiful and helpful passages in the whole Bible and will repay a careful reading.

      The earliest Christian writings, so far as we know, were testimonia, or collections of Old Testament texts supposedly predicting the events in our Lord's life, which were used in controversy with the Jews. Next come collections of our Lord's sayings. Both of these, as well as the forms into which oral preaching had become stereotyped, were made use of later when men began to draw up accounts of the good news that salvation had come to the world through Jesus Christ—the writings which we call Gospels. The earliest of these is the Gospel according to St. Mark, written by him in Greek about the year 65 in Rome for the use of the Church there and, according to an early tradition, based on the reminiscences of St. Peter. St. Mark aims chiefly to give an outline of the major events of our Lord's ministry; to prove that He was the Son of God, and to show why, nevertheless, it was necessary for Him to be put to death; and to encourage Christians by His example to endure the sufferings to which they were subjected.

      Another Gospel was written for a Church in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, possibly Antioch, about the year 80, based chiefly on the Gospel according to St. Mark and a lost collection of sayings of our Lord which scholars call Q (from the German Quelle,

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