Anglicans should throw out dry tradition

Churches should rip up the pews and encourage real participation, and make the act of worship again

I wrote an article on this site a few months ago in which I expressed a change of mind. After many years of kicking against my native Anglicanism, I found that the American version of it, the Episcopal church, was to my liking. I want to follow this up. Let me start with a shocking confession. It has crossed, and recrossed, my mind that maybe I should seek ordination into the Episcopal church. I don't know if they'll have me, but watch this space.

As I previously explained, this church is proof that Anglicanism is not necessarily defined by the intolerable (to me) conservatism of the C of E. There is a world elsewhere. I always vaguely knew this on a theoretical level, but since moving to New York I have experienced its truth.

But there is another factor in the rekindling of my Anglicanism, which I want to dwell on here. Church, the business of turning up on Sunday mornings, and joining in with the goings-on, isn't really so bad. I want to talk about worship! It feels almost taboo to raise the issue in any detail, even on the world's most intelligent and open-minded religion site. Can the atheists handle the provocation?

To read more, click here.

While the author of this article is a liberal and he is writing about a liberal Episcopal church, a number of the observations that he makes are valid. Anglican churches seeking to reach the post-Christian, post-modern segment of the unchurched population in North America need to make their worship services more communal, interactive, organic, and participatory.