Opinion of the Episcopal Church

[afleitch]

To elaborate, here are the reasons why I dislike the Episcopal Church:

1) Tolerance for blatant heretics and apostates. People like Bishop Spong should have been defrocked and excommunicated decades ago. I can deal with disagreements on more minor issues, but this sort of thing is non-negotiable.

2) Lawsuits against congregations attempting to leave the church.

3) They seem to be intent on abandoning the old BCP for weirder, newer stuff. I like the beauty of the old liturgy much better.

I dislike all of these things as well. The third is probably the biggest issue for me in that it was the proximate precipitating factor for why I stopped considering myself Episcopalian--the church I'd been going to for most of the past year at that point up and stopped using the Nicene Creed in its liturgy one day, and adopted a Eucharistic Prayer that was not in the BCP and was not printed in the order of service leaflet.

The horror!

In all seriousness, a congregation is traditionally entitled to determine it's own form of service is it not?  It wasn't the case that there was 'no Eucharistic prayer', there was just a different one. Nothing was ritually affected by that. Yet that was the catalyst for you throwing the Episcopalian Church under a bus...

[afleitch]

I've always found the Creed as helpful as knowing that cows go moo. As a statement of faith for the faithful it's self evident. It doesn't really need repeating at a communal level.

[afleitch]

It'd be kind of nice if that was the case. It'd really be kind of nice.

The point of saying the Creed communally, of saying or doing anything communally or collectively or en masse or by rote, is reaffirmation. Reminding oneself what one believes is useful both psychologically and symbolically, and doing this in concert with other people reinforces the sociocultural aspect of religion (which is half the point of being religious).

The Creed may be a reminder of what one believes, but it doesn't really encompass why one believes it. If anything it's the tacit acknowledgment of the congregation that 'we accord with what you (with 'you' being the body of the church or body) define as our articles of faith.' It's sort of the very first mission statement that, if you roll it back to the Roman creed is a countenance to Arianism. So for me, it's always been (not intentionally) but the congregant agreeing with the house rules if you will, rather than being a personal profession of faith.

It's ritual. And 'not being there' might be jarring to those who find comfort in that, but it seems understandably superfluous to me.