This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

REORGANIZATION IN A NEW NATION 59AN UNCERTAIN FUTUREIn his study of the changes in Christianity in the United States in the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the historian Nathan Hatch observesthat Americans living at that time straddled a boundary between two worlds—anolder world, premised on attitudes reflecting deference, patronage, and respectfor the established order, and a newer one, in which people considered themselvescapable of thinking and acting on their own without reference to traditional authority.21 The founders of the Episcopal Church certainly experienced the awkwardnessof this position, for they faced the daunting task of preserving thedistinctive heritage of Anglicanism while simultaneously transforming it into an“American” denomination. Although some lay Anglicans were prominent revolutionaryleaders, the average American still regarded Anglicanism as fundamentallyalien to the culture of their young nation. The polity of the Episcopal Churchreflected American democratic ideals, but many elements of its worship—thearchaic language of prayer, the aesthetic principles represented in liturgical forms,the use of the church year as a way of marking time, and the bodily actions ofbowing and kneeling—continued to evoke the old-world traditions of hierarchyand subordination from which the colonies had declared their independence in1776. 22Thus, in spite of the achievements of Episcopal leaders in restoring stability totheir denominational affairs, the church’s prospects at the end of the eighteenthcentury seemed uncertain—even dismal. In 1790, in a nation of four millionpeople, the Episcopal Church had perhaps ten thousand adherents, and its growthover the next two decades proved to be extremely slow. In a country that wasoverwhelmingly rural, the denomination’s strength lay in urban areas, principallyamong the middle and upper classes. The vast number of poorer folk, however,found the experiential faith of the Methodists and the Baptists far more appealingthan the formal worship of the Episcopalians. Despite the desire of Absalom Jonesand his congregation to join the Episcopal Church, black Christians, too, understoodboth the inherently egalitarian potential of the evangelical denominationsand the elitist pretensions of Anglicanism. 23 Finally, anti-British feeling was increasingrather than abating, and it reached its peak during the War of 1812—asentiment that worked against the rapid revival of American institutions closelyidentified with England. 24In the individual states, the status of the Episcopal Church seemed even moreuncertain. New Jersey lacked a bishop until 1815, North Carolina till 1823, andGeorgia till 1841; Massachusetts had a bishop for only 6 of the 22 years between1789 and 1811. 25 In Virginia, less than 40 percent of the 107 Episcopal parishesthat existed in 1784 were able to support ministers between 1802 and 1811. In1802 the Virginia General Assembly declared that the denomination’s colonialeraproperties belonged to the state, and it authorized the sale of the church’sglebe farms for public benefit—an action that led to the financial collapse of thediocese. In Maryland as well, half of the parishes remained vacant at the turn of