High Episcopal
I was raised an Episcopalian, but it was not a “generations” family tradition. Mom was raised in England in the Roman Catholic Church, Dad was raised in Cincinnati in the Jewish Reformed Temple. There was no easy way to “mesh” their backgrounds, but their love for each other overcame all. Dad didn’t want us raised as Catholics, but wasn’t all that concerned beyond that. So, after World War II when Mom and Dad moved back to Cincinnati and had kids, Mom decided to turn to the most familiar Church she could find.
The Episcopal Church is the American version of the Anglican Church of England. A very brief history: the Anglican Church was created when England’s King Henry the VIII (of the six wives) was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry decided to establish an English version of the Catholic Church with much the same liturgy, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury in England rather than the Pope in Rome. Henry himself appointed the Archbishop, so that empowered him to “run” his own church.
When America revolted against England, the American version of the Church broke away from English regulation, thus creating the American Episcopal Church. So while our Episcopal Church in Cincinnati down on Clifton Avenue was two “degrees” from the Roman Catholic Church, much of the symbolism and ceremony was the same. Mom got us in a Church as close to Catholic as she could find.
Calvary on Clifton
From the earliest times I can remember, we all dressed up on Sunday morning to go to Calvary Church, sit on the hard wooden pews, and squirm through prayers and speeches. Mom and Dad often enjoyed Reverend Hansen’s sermons, though my father had the “Dahlman gene” of being able to fall asleep at any place, at any time, in any position. Elbowing Dad to stop his snoring was part of the “fun” of Church!
And, as I learned later, there were two books on the back of the pew in front of us. The first was the Hymnal so we could all join in for the songs. And the second was the “Book of Common Prayer”. When Henry the VIII broke away from Roman Catholicism, one of the first changes was to allow “regular folks” access to prayers, in English, instead of the Priests praying in Latin. So the “commoners” got a book of prayers they could use in services. That book has been used and revised ever since, with the Episcopal Church in America ratifying their own, similar version.
Whether you are sitting in Calvary Church in Cincinnati, Canterbury Cathedral in England, St. Mary’s Cathedral in South Africa or the Church of the Holy Spirit in Florida; the prayers are virtually the same. There is a common base of reference, a common set of words and beliefs, that everyone in the Church recognizes and acknowledges. Unlike the prayers of the Priesthood, these were the prayers for the common man. I no longer belong to a faith, but when I do happen to go to an Episcopal Church for weddings or funerals, the prayers still ring familiar. They bring back all those memories of dress pants on wooden pews, smothered giggles and stern warnings; and a faith I failed to find.
Information
We live in a world of information. What used to only be available to those willing to delve into the “stacks” of academic libraries, now is right in your own home, just a few strokes of a keyboard away. The outdated “priesthood” of academics with special knowledge of history, now is accessible to everyone, in every home, at any time. That should generally be a good thing. My parents paid a stiff “fee” for my access to the “stacks” at the Denison University library. Knowledge should be as available as possible, not hidden behind a tuition “paywall”.
There is a phrase: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. But with the immense flow of information available today, there might need to be a corollary phrase: “Too much knowledge without understanding can be a dangerous thing as well”. We have “fire hoses” of information coming at us, all the time: on our phones, on our computers, on our televisions. It seems that there’s so much information, that only the loudest and most extreme views stand out.
We have no common way of moderating the “fire hose”. We have lost our “common book of knowledge”. America, and maybe the whole world, no longer has a common set of facts we can agree on.
It’s not that the “facts” themselves have changed that much. Anyone who studied history gained an understanding that there were always flaws in everyone, whether it was George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or Booker T Washington or John F. Kennedy (or even my hero, Dr. Fauci). The difference today is that the “bad” of each of those figures is presented as “cancelling out” the good. If every good is cancelled out, then where is the “common understanding” we need to be a “congregation”, a nation.
Teaching History
When I taught history, it was always important to be honest with my students. I presented the flaws of our predecessors, but all as a part of the reality of their humanity. The “American common story”, was that out of their flawed lives, they produced amazing results that furthered our country. No one was perfect then, and no one is now either. As the teacher, I served as the “moderator”.
Today there are those who “discovered” the flaws in our history and say it negates all of the good. And there are those who are so afraid of those flaws, that the don’t want our story “moderated”, they want it sanitized, without flaws at all. Neither of those choices are good for students, or for America. What we need is a common understanding of the good and the bad, the personal failures and the national triumphs.
We need a “common book of truth” that includes all.
