This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

CHANGING TIMES 151Episcopalians had often done a better job than other denominations in employingthe Dakota language in church services and in raising up a native ministry.A century after Hare’s episcopate, in fact, some bishops were even touting thebenefits of Indian ritual and spirituality for use in the Episcopal Church. Forinstance, Indian ritual was commonplace during the 1980s and 1990s at servicesin Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Craig Anderson, who servedas bishop of that diocese from 1984 to 1992, saw clear parallels between Christianliturgical practices and Indian ritual (e.g., the relationship between confirmationand the traditional naming ceremony; the use of the Indians’ honoring song as away to remember Christian saints; the burning of sweetgrass instead of incensein worship; the employment of the sweat lodge ceremony at times of fasting). Allthose rites, Anderson said, served as correctives to the majority culture in theUnited States by calling people “back to [their] senses,” to “a renewed sense ofincarnation,” to a fresh understanding of “what it is to be a part of this planet.” 75This openness to Native American spirituality was also matched by a strongercommitment both to the recruitment of clergy and to new evangelistic strategiesamong American Indians. In 1971 Harold Stephen Jones, the suffragan bishop ofSouth Dakota, became the first Native American to be elected to the episcopate,and between 1974 and 1989 the number of American Indian priests and deaconsin the church tripled. Another highly significant milestone was the creation of theNavajoland Area Mission out of portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah in1979. Steven T. Plummer, who in 1976 had been the first Navajo ordained to thepriesthood, was consecrated as bishop of the new diocese in 1990. 76 Finally, at areconciliation ceremony held in November 1997 in Jamestown, Virginia, the EpiscopalChurch formally apologized for the atrocities that Anglicans had committedagainst Indians in colonial times. Symbolizing the church’s penitential attitude,the service of reconciliation included the use of American Indian music, dance,and prayers. 77ECUMENICAL RELATIONSOne of the most ambitious ecumenical proposals of the twentieth century waspresented by Eugene Carson Blake, the stated clerk of the United PresbyterianChurch. Preaching at the invitation of Bishop James Pike at Grace Cathedral, SanFrancisco, in December 1960, Blake suggested that four major denominations—the United Church of Christ, the Methodist Church, Pike’s Episcopal Church, andhis own United Presbyterian Church—unite to form a single ecclesiastical bodythat could claim to be “truly catholic, truly reformed, and truly evangelical.” 78Pike strongly supported Blake’s proposal, and within two years the Consultationon Church Union (COCU) was organized in response to the initiative. Eventually,nine Protestant denominations joined COCU, and over the succeeding decadesrepresentatives from each church carried on discussions and issued reports aboutthe desirability of church union.Despite these hopeful initial efforts, plans for the merger of the churches were