Note: Some features of the course require Macromedia Plug In. Click here to download Macromedia Player Version 7.

CLASS 6:

Introduction

In the previous class, we discussed the historical development of the prayer book. We noted that the American prayer book had its origins in Scotland with the 1537 Scottish Prayer book and the "Wee Bookies" prepared for the nonjuring clerical refugees of the Church of England who took up residence in England when William and Mary claimed the throne of England. In this class we will look at the Anglican tradition of the three legged stool as it was developed by Richard Hooker in the Elizabethan settlement, because "reason," one of the legs of that stool, plays a prominent role both in the enlightenment in Europe and the development of the colonial churches. Next we will examine the historical development of the Episcopal church and the recent and current controversies within the Episcopal Church. This class draws on many resources, but particularly the very good book on the development of the Episcopal Church by Robert Prichard (see the bibliography).

The Three Legged Stool

The three legs of the Anglican stool are scripture, reason, and tradition. Hooker as the principle architect of the Elizabethan settlement, which was the middle way between the Roman Catholic and Protestant points of view that prevailed in England at the time. The Roman Catholic view stressed the importance of church tradition and church teaching, whereas the reformers stressed the importance of scripture and personal revelation in salvation. At the extreme of the Protestant spectrum was the Puritanical view that said that whatever was not expressly commanded in Scripture was unlawful. Opposing this was the Roman view that the church did all of the interpretation of scripture and transmitted that work to the people through the teaching magisterium of the Roman Catholic church. Anglicanism, as it developed during the 17th and 18th centuries was a middle road (via media) between these approaches. We start here in our discussion of the Episcopal tradition, because I believe that American denominationalism - of which the Episcopal church is a very small member - is the natural outcome of the via media process when it occurs in a non monarchical society.

Richard Hooker

Richard Hooker was born in 1554 and attended Oxford. He was a student of John Jewel (see Class 5), and was friends with a number of Puritans who would later become prominent (such as Rainoldes, who would champion the Puritan cause at Hampton Court in 1604 under James I - see class 5). Between about 1590 and 1593, he wrote Of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, his most influential work. Hooker died in 1600.

Hooker was at the center of the reformation controversy in England at the time of Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. At issue between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants was he role of the church and the role of the individual in salvation. The Roman church stressed the importance of doctrine and the magisterium and the Protestants stressed scripture and scripture alone. The extreme Puritan view was that whatever was not expressly commanded in Scripture was unlawful. By this interpretation, many modern inventions like the button, the automobile, and the airplane are not Biblical, and therefore not meant for humans to use. There are groups in the U.S., like the Amish, that still subscribe to this reforming view. Hooker took the Aristotlean position that God's law can be discovered in the laws of nature (or natural law). He also believed that everything - including scripture - had to be interpreted in light of reason. Hooker argued that human beings were free to do things that were not specifically contradicted by scripture. Thus, modern inventions such as the button, automobile, or airplane are lawful for humans to use because they not contradicted by scripture.

Because the Elizabethan Settlement was constructed as a middle road between two extremes, it never developed a confessional or creedal expression of belief like Lutheranism. Anglicanism did not have a Thomas Aquinas or Luther, or Zwingili or Calvin. No authority equivalent to the magisterium of the Roman church developed in Anglicanism. Being less rabidly Protestant, Anglicanism also failed to develop the strong theological themes of the Reformed Protestants (Sikes, et al., 188). What became normative for the Anglican tradition is the Book of Common Prayer. If anything can be said about the Anglican spirit, it is that the Anglican tradition is a form of "Christian praxis" whereby Christian theology and Christian practice are interdependent.

Worship in the Anglican Tradition

The Prayer Book is a book of liturgy, and as we saw in class 5, the first prayer book of 1549 was assembled by Cranmer from Latin, Greek, Orthodox, Lutheran, and other sources. It contained the daily offices of morning and evening prayer, and the forms for administration of the eucharist and baptism and the other sacraments; the litany; the Ordinal; the Psalter; and the lesser rites and collections of prayers. The 1549 text became an experimental text that was modified in subsequent revisions (1552, 1559, and 1662). This process of liturgical formation created a form of Christianity that was both reformed and Roman Catholic. The texts themselves that are heard and prayed together with the lessons from the lectionary, inform the self-understanding of Anglicans. The book together with scripture are what define the Anglican spirit.

Lex Orandi Lex Credendi

In the Anglican tradition, worship plays a distinctive and central role in defining who we are theologically and spiritually. We experiment with our liturgy because it is how we come to formulate our theology and doctrine. The relationship between worship (or prayer) and belief is often expressed in the Latin phrase, Lex orandi lex crenendi, "the law of praying is the law of belief." The prayer book, as it originated and developed, formed the Anglican tradition: we are what we pray.

---

The Founding of the Church in the Americas (1585-1688)

We will watch the video The Story of the Episcopal Church, Part I: From Jamestown to the Reformation. Cathedral Films and Videos.

Colonization

The first colony of Anglican settlers in America was at Roanoke Island in the late 1600's. They named the colony "Virginia" after Elizabeth I (the virgin queen). Jamestown is the more well known colony north of Roanoke, which was settled at the beginning of the 17th century, and named after James I of England. Other colonies were also founded during this early period in the Caribbean and elsewhere along the east coast. More is known about Jamestown than other settlements.

Pocahontas

The law in 1610 required that the colony gather daily for morning and evening prayer, Sunday worship, and on Sunday afternoon for catechism. Clergy were to preside and preach. Evangelism was a principle focus under Elizabeth and James I. Manteo was the first Native American baptized by an Anglican, and John Rolfe stated that his marriage to Pocahontas (engraving at right) was "for converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature" (Prichard, 5). Isn't that romantic?

Under the reign of Charles I, colonization increased because of Charles' Roman sympathies (see Class 5). Many of the colonists who left England were from the Puritan end of the spectrum. They were people who also favored parliamentary government as opposed to Charles' belief in the divine right of kings. In 1630, Charles granted a large royal charter to colonies in New England. However, the people who immigrated to New England tended to be those Puritans who wanted to move away from episcopal polity and toward congregational polity. Indeed, the settlers in New England limited church membership to those people who abandoned the use of the Book of Common prayer.

After the English civil war, the flirtation of Parliament with Presbyterianism, the interregnum under the protectorate of Cromwell, and the beheading of Charles I, Charles II took the throne, and shortly thereafter, Parliament re-established the episcopacy and the thirty-nine articles; Parliament also enacted legislation to guarantee dominance of the Church of England. In an effort to appease all religious groups in England, Charles II and his brother king, James II who succeeded him, granted toleration to dissenting Protestants. That toleration extended to the colonies. About 300,000 people including Presbyterians, congregationalists, and independents, withdrew from the Church of England (CoE) and formed separate denominations (Prichard, 13). Many of these people came to the Americas. In the colonies, congregationalists and other denominations outnumbered members of the CoE by three to one. By 1688 denominationalism, something that is unique to the United States, was already in place. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Congregationalists, and Baptists had all established areas of influence.

There was no concept of or will to form a national church in the Americas at this time in American history. It was too fragmented politically and religiously to allow such a notion. The idea of a national church would come forth at the close of the nineteenth century.

The Age of Reason

During the hundred years or so preceding the war for independence, Western Europe was undergoing a radical intellectual transformation as a result of the Renaissance. The Age of Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason) was dawning. In England, the formation of the Royal Society serves as an example.

In the middle of the English civil war (ca 1650), a group of scholars began to meet at Oxford to discuss intellectual matters. A major goal of theirs was to combine faith and reason into something that would compete with the bloody piety the English had endured for many years. These people included chemist Robert Boyle, astronomer Edmond Halley, philosopher John Locke, Bp. Thomas Sprat, Bp. Salisbury Ward, architect Christopher Wren. Charles II gave them a charter in 1662, and the Royal Society was formed. Isaac Newton would later serve as president (from 1703-1727). John Locke published a work entitled, The Reasonableness of Christianity, which captured the intellectual imagination of England. That work, and the works of others based on it, stressed a kind of practical morality and philanthropy rather than a doctrinal approach to religion. In time, owing to the military successes of England and her colonization of the world, Anglican "Christian belief went hand in hand with domestic peace, scientific advancement, and the success of the British Empire" (Prichard, 23). Locke also wrote An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690 in which he argued that he intellect was the most elevated faculty of the soul, employed with greater and more constant delight than any other. Locke believed that the intellect was the true source of wisdom, and that the intellect could control the passions (if this sounds like Aristotle, it should, because Aristotle was highly influential during the enlightenment period).

Establishment of Anglican Parishes

Following the ascent of William and Mary to the throne of England, English monarchs began to exercise more control and authority over the colonies in America. Previously granted charters were cancelled and the territories became Royal Colonies. Massachusetts, Bermuda, New York, and Maryland were among the first such colonies. Once these colonies were officially part of the British Empire, it was a simple matter to establish the Anglican church in them. Maryland and South Carolina were instructed to establish the CoE in 1702 and 1706, respectively. Other areas followed in the mid 1700's including Nova Scotia, Georgia, and North Carolina. The first parishes in the colonies were in Massachusetts (King's Chapel, Boston, 1688), Pennsylvania (Christ Church, Philadelphia, 1694), New York, (Trinity, New York City, 1697), New Jersey (St. Mary's Burlington, 1703) and Connecticut (Christ Church, Stratford, 1707) (Prichard, 27).

Governance in the Absence of Bishops

In England during the early 1700's, bishops appointed individuals called commissaries to provide leadership for congregations in distant regions of colonial dioceses. This system was applied to the colonies. A few years after the establishment of the commissaries, several colonies were calling for direct Episcopal oversight. In 1713, a delegation caught the attention of Queen Anne, and she instructed that legislation be prepared to authorize consecration of Bishops for the Americas. But she died before this legislation could be passed.

The SPCK and the SPG

Missionary activity during the late colonial period was a major focus of some Anglican communities. Thomas Bray was the successor of the first commissary of Maryland, James Blair. Bray came to Maryland in 1700 and recognized the need for catechumenical materials. He organized the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1698, and in 1701 he secured a charter from William III to form the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts (the SPG). The SPG started schools for the Blacks in America. It is noteworthy that the missionaries of the SPG were to "employ both natural reason and revelation in order to bring others into the Christian faith" (Prichard 35). This shows the influence of the Age of Reason and the Royal Society on Anglican thinking in the colonies.

---

The Great Awakening (1740-1776)

The First American Celebrity: George Whitefield

George Whitefield

In 1740-41, George Whitefield (1714-1770), a young English priest, came to the colonies to support the Bethesda orphanage in Savannah. Whitefield was trained at Oxford, and studied with and learned from John and Charles Wesley (the founders of the American Methodist movement). Whitefield arrived in New England by ship in 1740 to begin a series of preaching tours. In all, Whitefield made five such preaching trips to America. He was fabulously successful, drawing crowds of up to 15,000. He could speak and be heard by a crowd of 30,000. In his lifetime he would deliver over 18,000 sermons in England, Ireland, Scotland, and America. He established ties with other revivalist preachers, including the equally famous Jonathan Edwards. Together, these revivalists created the "Great Awakening" in the colonies.

Whitefield's popularity was due in part to his departure from the reason-filled messages of the enlightenment preachers produced by the Age or Reason. He broke away from the Anglican style of reading a sermon with no or little eye contact, using instead a passionate oratory style. He was also critical of certain Anglican doctrines, including the necessity of apostolic succession. His style of preaching has been called "sentimentalist" wherein he played on human affections. Regardless of what one says about him, his style and message caused people to express a new seriousness about religion. Of key importance to Whitefield's message (and that of the other revivalists) was the necessity for people to feel the message and experience conversion of the heart.

Anglicans Oppose Whitefield and the Revivalist Movement

The effect of Whitefield's preaching was led to a powerful call for a revival in American churches. American churches had little choice but to align themselves with the revival movement or be considered critical of it. "New Light" congregations evolved from congregationalist churches, and adult baptism became to be seen by some as the sign of an awakened adult faith. Not surprisingly, most Anglican clergy, steeped in the tradition of the Age of Reason, rejected Whitefield's preaching. This had mixed effects. In New England, churches grew. In other areas, they shrank. The Presbyterian and the Baptist churches grew very much during this period.

The Anglican response to the revivalist movement was to educate people about the "errors of the awakening." They established King's College (later renamed Columbia), in New York, and helped support the College of Philadelphia. Samuel Johnson at Yale and Timothy Cutler at Harvard also pushed a conservative Anglican church. In later years, the Anglican influence would be puched out of these institutions.

The Anglican Awakening

John Wesley and the Oxford Group

An Irish priest named William McClenachan returned to Philadelphia after a stint as an SPG missionary and triggered an awakening in the ranks of the Anglican churches in America. This happened during Whitefield's fifth preaching tour of America. It was not McClenachan's preaching alone that caused the awakening, the Methodist movement triggered it as well.

The Methodist movement of John Wesley, which began at Oxford, England came to the Americas during the mid 1700's. Wesley eventually sent ten lay preachers to America, and it was Francis Asbury who would later emerge as the greatest leader of the Methodist movement in America. The methodist movement was important in the development of the awakening in the Americas, because the organizational structure of the Methodist system provided the infrastructure that allowed revitalized churches to grow and spread.

Eventually, the Anglican Awakening resulted in adoption of sentimentalist styles of preaching, and a call for adult conversion. But the Anglican's would not give up their ties to Apostolic succession or the use of the prayer book, two things Whitefield had always called for.

 

 

---

The Revolution (1776-1800)

Recasting the Great Awakening In Political Terms

Patrick Henry (1736-99) was among the first to speak to the role of the hand of God at work in the politics of the time. The revivalists had spoken about the hand of God at work in spreading the revivalist spirit of the mid eighteenth century. Now they spoke of the hand of God directly at work in the American Revolution. That kind of thinking (which is very dangerous) led the colonists to choose sides. "Depending on one's point of view, God would guarantee either the success or failure of the Revolution. The choice, therefore, between the patriotic or loyalist side was a choice between faithfulness and infidelity" (Prichard, 74).

The Anglican Church Sides with the Losers

The Anglican church in the Northern colonies chose poorly. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer directed all priests and deacons to pledge loyalty to the King at the time of their ordination. The prayer book also contained collects for the English Monarch with the petition that the King of England would vanquish and overcome all of his enemies. The moral obligation on Anglican clergy was clear: they had to support the King and oppose the patriots and the American Revolution. This was not unlike the situation with the nonjuring clergy who left England for Scotland after William and Mary were given the throne of England.

Not all of the colonies followed a strict interpretation of the prayer book. The legislatures of the southern colonies ordered clergy to omit references to the King in their liturgy. Consequently, they followed the local legal authority, instead of following the legal authority of a distant King and overlord. In the end, two thirds of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Anglican lay persons from the Southern regions of the colonies.

Disestablishment

The northern colonies were more fiercely loyal to the King. In many of the northern colonies - particularly Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Anglican church had not been the established church (that is, established by an act of legislation, as was the case in the Southern colonies). Consequently, land for Anglican churches in these states was private land. In the southern states where churches were established by the government, the land used for churches was public land. Clergy in the southern colonies were also supported by the legislatures. Once the revolution was underway, disestablishment became the norm. The stipends for Southern clergy were stopped. In the north, Universities that had enjoyed previously strong Anglican influence had that influence stripped away. Anglican clergy actually supported disestablishment, because they wanted total freedom and control of their own affairs. This would not actually occur until 1783.

The Effects of Revolution

After Independence, the Anglican church needed to be reorganized. Its ties with the crown were now severed. The Maryland Anglican churches held a convention and renamed the church of England the Protestant Episcopal Church as the name of their denomination. They drafted a charter that granted them title to church property and governance by a synod of laity and clergy.

William White (above)

Francis Seabury (above)

In the 1780's William White (portrait at right), a priest ordained in the CoE in 1770, published a pamphlet calling for all states to form conventions like that which was held in Maryland. These conventions (or "General Vestries" as White called them), would elect presiding clergy who would exercise the role of a bishop at least until the nation gained the episcopate. This is one of the functions of the standing committee in each diocese today: to provide oversight function when there is no Bishop. In 1784, a meeting was held in New York that ratified these ideas. They decided that the first convention would meet in Philadelphia in 1785; they also adopted the Proposed Book of prayer.

The First American Bishops

Representatives from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island did not attend the General Conventions of 1785 and 1786, objecting to the "grass roots" policies described by White. They favored the historic episcopacy. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut (portrait at right) was elected as a candidate for Bishop. Seabury could not swear loyalty to the English King, and so in 1784 he sailed to Scotland where he was consecrated by three non-juring Bishops. He signed a concordat with the Scottish church recognizing that church's legitimacy, and agreed to advocate for the use of the Scottish prayers of consecration, drawn from the 1549 prayer book, and not from the 1552 prayer book upon which the 1662 English prayer book was based (see class 5).

One of Seabury's main thrusts as Bishop was his advocacy of the episcopacy as the agent through which the Holy Spirit was conveyed. This provided a badly needed response to the Great Awakening. So, not only had Thomas Bray linked the covenant of the church to the episcopacy, Seabury linked the presence of the Holy Spirit to the episcopacy.

But establishment of the episcopacy through the Church in Scotland was not completely straightforward. In June 1786, the British Parliament passed legislation providing for consecration of three Bishops for the American church. William White and Samuel Provost were consecrated to the episcopate for Pennsylvania and New York. James Madison of the College of William and Mary was also consecrated, but he failed to gain endorsement from the General Convention. By 1789, the American Episcopal Church had three denominations: The middle and Southern states' church with its ties to the British church through Madison, White, and Provost; The New England Church headed by Seabury; and the Methodist Episcopal Church that came about through the actions of John Wesley. Because the Methodist Episcopal Church broke away from the Protestant Episcopal Church rather quickly, we will not discuss it further.

The General Convention of 1789

The two other Episcopal Churches were initially hostile to each other. But at the convention of 1789 in Philadelphia, concessions were arrived at that appeased both Seabury and the Southern-Middle churches. The convention formed a bicameral form of governance with a House of Bishops and House of Deputies, with Seabury as the first presiding Bishop. The Book of Common Prayer of 1789 was adopted, which was based on the Proposed Book of 1785-86. In 1792, Seabury, Provoost, and Madison consecrated Thomas Claggett of Maryland; Claggett became the first bishop consecrated on American Soil.

By 1792, the Episcopal Chuch was officially established as an American denomination.

---

The Civil War and Black Episcopalians (1800-1880)

Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the Episcopal church flourished in the South. It was second in number only to the Methodists. While the Methodists were carefully and systematically evangelizing the west as new territories were opened, the Episcopal church put missionary work in the back seat, concentrating instead on revitalizing the church on the Eastern seaboard. The Episcopal Church adopted a laissez-faire policy toward western and foreign missionary efforts.

Black Episcopalians

Absolom Jones

Black Americans who had gained their freedom during the eighteenth century began to assert their right to self-determination when it came to matters of religion. In Philadelphia, Absolom Jones and Richard Allen left St. George's Methodist Church and formed their own church, taking the name St. Thomas' African church. St. Thomas' joined the Episcopal Church. Jones was ordained as deacon and then priest in 1804 (portrait at right). He was the first Black to be ordained by a "mainstream" denomination in the United States. Richard Allen later worked with other Black Methodists to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

Slavery

After the revolutionary war, the economy of the United States slowly improved. Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808, and this created a booming internal slave trade. In the deep South where plantation owners were enlarging their land holdings, there was a huge need for slaves. Black leaders like Absolom Jones and others fought slavery, as did a few white Episcopalians. However, by the mid 1800's all denominations in the U.S., with the exception of the Quakers, dropped their protests against slavery. Slavery had become an accepted institution.

Two Conventions During the Civil War

Between 1861 and 1865, the Episcopalians met in two separate bodies: the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), and the General Council of the Confederate States of America. When hostilities ended, the church reunited. During reconstruction (1865-1877), the PECUSA established the Episcopal Freedman's Commission as a department of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society to help rebuild the church in the south. It initially concentrated on building schools. By 1878, the Commission was ended.

---

The Social Needs of an Industrial America (1880-1920)

The Episcopal Church's Response to the Industrial Revolution

When the Bishops and deputies gathered in Chicago for the 1886 General Convention, America was no longer an agrarian nation. It was becoming an industrial giant. Within about 20 years, the 48 contiguous states would be part of the union. Huge economic empires spanning the continent were being built by the Cargenies, the Morgans (J.P. Morgan was an Episcopalian), and the Rockefellers. The American population was increasing; it would more than double between 1880 and 1920 to 105 million. The Episcopal Church grew too during this period; nearly 1% of the population was Episcopalian (it is now about 1.8%). New seminaries and new Diocese were added; in 1880 there were 87 dioceses in the U.S.

The Episcopal Church was among the leaders in the U.S. when it came to responding to changes brought about by population growth, the shift from a farm-based to a city-based economy, and industrialization. Prichard says that "Episcopalians, still deeply affected by the belief that they had a responsibility not only to their own parishioners, but to society at large, saw the need for actions. Their reaction was not always immediate, but collectively, as a denomination, they responded more quickly than any other American religious body." (Prichard 175). The church responded to the needs of immigrants, poor urban workers, and a variety of social concerns for children and youth. Outreach women's groups and men's groups of Episcopalians were formed in the latter decades of the nineteenth century including the Women's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions (organized 1871, and later reorganized as the Auxiliary to the National Council), the Girl's Friendly Society (1877), the Church periodical Club (1888), the Daughters of the King (1885), and United Thank Offering (1889), the Order of the Holy Cross, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew (1883), and the Order of the Holy Cross (1881). Missions for special groups were also started by Episcopalians including the True Sunshine Mission for Chinese-Americans, another mission for Japanese-Americans in California, and missions to the Sioux in South Dakota, the Arapahoe and Shoshone in Wyoming, the Navajo in Arizona, among others. The social justice issues tackled by the church were manifested in a series of national conferences that were organized into the Church Congress (which was later disbanded).

Unfortunately, socially accepted norms affected Episcopalian outreach ministry, and the Episcopal Church actually did things to favor segregation. The Episcopal church was involved in assisting new congregations or encouraging new churches to grow. Episcopalians encouraged and helped form classes to target specific groups of people, such as the deaf, Blacks, Asians, or the rural poor. When these classes reached a certain size, they were organized as congregations. Unfortunately, they were organized as separate congregations, if they were non-Caucasian (Prichard, 181).

Lambeth Conferences: The Emergence of the World Church Body Politic

In 1867, Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, invited all of the Bishops and primates of the Anglican communion to his home at Lambeth Palace in England. With the exception of WWI, the Bishops have met at approximately decade intervals at Lambeth since then. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss issues of importance to the body politic of the Anglican communion.

One such issue that arose in the late nineteenth century was the notion of a national church. Episcopalians believed their church should play a major role in forming a national church, if there was to be one. In 1886, William Hunington proposed and convinced the House of Bishops to adopt the quadrilateral. It was a four point outline of what the Episcopal church expected a national church to have. It included belief in the Holy Scriptures, acceptance of the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, belief in the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, and acknowledgement of the historic episcopate. The quadrilateral has been endorsed by every General Convention since. A copy of the exact wording of the quadrilateral can be found in the current Book of Common Prayer on page 877. This is an important document, because it has improved ecumenical relations with other denominations in the United States. (See Class 10)

Also, at the turn of the century, the Episcopal Church began to call for a national cathedral, something with which Episcopalians could ennoble the society in which they lived. In 1907, the national cathedral in Washington, D.C. was begun as part of a general cathedral movement in the United States that gave rise to Chicago's Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (1861), Minnesota's Cathedral of Our Merciful Savior, New York's St. John the Divine, and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. A photograph of Teddy Roosevelt laying the cornerstone for the National Cathedral is shown below.

T. Roosevelt at the laying of the corner stone for the National Cathedral, 1907

An exterior view of the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.	A view of the nave.

---

Social Upheaval and Current Controversies

By the middle of the twentieth century, church was important to many Americans. In 1960, one out of 86 Americans was a member of the Episcopal church. America was a triumphant nation, having been victorious in the two World Wars. Seminary communities had begun to talk about neo-orthodoxy in the 1930's, and this became the framework for looking at Christian faith in the context of the modern world. Christianity was seen by many to have triumphed in the world,a nd Christianity became a source of inspiration and pride in America. James Pike, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine began a television program that was nationally broadcast for six years (Prichard, 231). Although some theologians, like Richard Niebuhr warned that human beings (including triumphant Americans) in society can do unjust things. "No society," he wrote "will ever be so just that some method of escape from its cruelties and injustices will not be sought by the pure heart. The cross was not triumphant in the world and society. Society in fact, conspired the cross. Both the state and the church were involved in it, and probably will be to the end" (Prichard, 233).

But most in the church were not willing to hear such a call, preferring instead to listen to a post-war neo-orthodox analysis of the errors of their past wartime and current cold war enemies rather than to look closely at the ills of their own nation. Seminarians were trained to be good listeners, and to enable parishioners to each their own decisions, and to rarely be critical or give unsolicited advice.

The Episcopal Church spent a good deal of time in the mid 1900's revamping its infrastructure. Until 1944, the office of presiding Bishop was a part-time office, allowing the Presiding Bishop to simultaneously retain the bishopric he served prior to his election as Presiding Bishop. In 1944, General COnvention adopted legislation requiring Presiding Bishops to resign their sees within six months of their election as Presiding Bishop. In 1964, the House of Deputies created the position of Vice-President for the body. Seminaries grew rapidly as well. The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, my alma mater, was begun in 1952 under the leadership of Gray M. Blandy, the first Dean.

Although the mid 1900's were a time of great growth, there were deep undercurrents in society. Three of these were the equality of women, racial equality, an most recently, equality for non-heterosexuals.

Civil Rights and the Episcopal Church

In 1883, a group of white Bishops met in Sewanee, TN to prepare for General Convention. At that meeting they adopted what became known as the "Sewanee Canon" which if adopted would have separated Black Episcopalians from white church members, into non-geographical racial dioceses. This was not a new strategy to isolate Blacks; the Methodist Episcopal Church adopted a similar idea in 1870. The Sewanee Canon was defeated, but that did not stop the segregationists.

From the end of the Civil War to the mid twentieth century, the United States lived under the rubric of “separate but equal” for Black Americans, which had been the case since the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and since the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that upheld the notion of a "separate but equal" status for Blacks. These actions had the effect of legitimizing the segregation of blacks from whites in the United States. This view was also expressed in the Episcopal Church. For example, members of Black congregations were not allowed to sit at General Convention. Although Blacks were allowed to be Suffragan Bishops since 1907, they were allowed no vote at convention. Interestingly, only two Blacks were ever elected as Suffragan Bishops for the purpose of ‘colored work,’ Bp. Demby and Delany.

The civil rights movement began in earnest in the United States in 1954 with the Supreme Court decision of Brown v Board of Education. Although this case was about desegregating the schools, the call for society wide desegregation and full recognition of Blacks spread rapidly. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the Black section of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. This was a crystallizing event in the Civil Rights movement and led to the prominence of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the leader of the civil rights movement and the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In many ways, the response of the Episcopal Church to racial issues reflected what was happening in society in general. In the United States, the 1950s was a nostalgic period. Values of a previous era were highly valued because they were perceived to provide social stability. Three factors contributed to the sense of stability: small town life, religious congregations, and triumphant American nationalism. In the United States, being a member of a Church was part and parcel of what it meant to be an American, and many denominations reached the zenith of church membership in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The Episcopal Church during the 1950s was a “people’s church” that promoted social contact through potluck suppers, socials, youth programs, aid societies, and similar social building programs. The Episcopal Church was at the time a hierarchical and clergy-centered organization.

The response of the church during this period reflected the move toward desegregation, although perhaps with less than altruistic motives. The Oxford Conference at the beginning of the 1950s called for the Church to a position of fellowship and equality before God, and promoted the idea that the church should be accountable for its actions. On the issue of segregation, Bp. John Hines called for equality within the church, mostly because of his concern that communism might gain a foothold in the black community. Most of the Episcopalian seminaries began to admit Black students (1951 at the Virginia Theological Seminary), and the seminary in Austin admitted Black students from its founding in 1951 ( Prichard, 244). However, not all schools followed suit. The seminary at Sewanee objected to desegregation, and retained its racist admission policy. School faculty resigned in protest, and students transferred to other schools. It was not until 1953 and 1954 that Black students entered the University and the Seminary at Sewanee, respectively ( Prichard, 244). In 1954, South Carolina became the first Diocese to desegregate its convention. The 1955 General Convention was a testing ground for the Church, in that it was set to take place in Houston, TX, and was to be an integrated event. However, when political forces to maintain segregation on the general convention floor, the convention was moved to Hawaii, where Black and White congregations could meet together. The church had responded to the call for civil rights. However, the call to de-segregate, while heard mainly in the secular sector, was slow to come to America’s churches. Martin Luther King said that “the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning." Although the Episcopal Church seemed initially to move toward desegregation and a full embracing of civil rights for African Americans, the Episcopal house of Bishops resolved in 1958 to continue the validity of racial segregation.

In 1959, the Episcopal Church responded to the secular civil rights movement by founding the Episcopal Society for Cultural & Racial Unity (ESCRU). This group was very progressive, putting interracial marriages high on its agenda. This was not politically popular at the time. In the 1960s, people from the northern United States made trips to the Southern United States in an effort to show solidarity with Blacks in the South who were actively protesting segregation under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom riders took buses to the South, and members of ESCRU were part of the freedom rider movement. However, the House of Bishops was conspicuously silent during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The 1960s was a period of new ideas and outlandish behavior (at least compared to the nostalgic 1950s). New spiritual avenues were sought, and drug use among youth increased in some areas of the country. Freedom of choice and freedom of conscious were important values, and consumerism increased, as the country entered a new age of prosperity with a young vigorous President leading the way. Church membership began to decline during the decade of the 1960s. The period between 1963 and 1964 began the most tumultuous period for the country and for the Episcopal Church in terms of racial issues, civil rights, and the Viet Nam war. Civil rights demonstrations occurred in several places in the United States. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act. In that same year, Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger declared that racial discrimination was insupportable, and asked Episcopalians to become involved in the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act was also finally passed and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964 followed by the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Also in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the general convention to speak for civil rights. Although the passing of new laws and the call to integrated worship led to the merging of some Black and White Episcopal Churches, many Blacks felt that they were second class citizens. Eventually, in 1968, when the Viet Nam war was on the nightly news and the military draft was in full swing, the Union of Black Clergy and Laity (later knows as the Union of Black Episcopalians) formed in New York in an effort to increase the voice of Black Episcopalians policy and decision making on the Diocesan and parochial levels. In 1969, Bishop John Melville Burgess became the first Black Diocesan Bishop in the United States.

In the years following 1964, the civil rights movement continued. Less visible and less vocal, the leaders of the movement have sought to achieve more by political means through elective office than by demonstrations. In addition, leaders have sought to achieve economic gains and development of educational programs through affirmative-action. From the 1970s until the present, the civil rights movement has focused on other under-represented groups and topics including women’s rights, other minority groups, and gay rights issues. A notable achievement in terms of women and the civil rights movement within the Episcopal Church was the election of Barbara Harris as the Suffragan Bishop of The Diocese of Massachusetts in 1989.

The civil rights movement points to a failure of the Episcopal Church to lead the country by example. The Church mainly took its lead from the secular and political arenas as opposed to providing a prophetic voice and serving as a moral compass for the nation. In 1958, three years after Rosa Parks was arrested, the House of Bishops astonishingly resolved that racial segregation was a valid theological view to uphold. Although the church has “caught up” its institutional and bureaucratic behavior seems to bode poorly for making rapid responses to social issues during the current period when so many different perspectives need to be addressed. The fact that the Episcopalian ethos is one that historically embraces diversity of opinion and attempts to hold diversion in creative tension further complicates the ability of the Church to effective and rapidly respond to issues. Armentrout and Slocum have stated the problem well when they wrote,

The Episcopal Church … struggle[s] to maintain comprehensiveness and unity. Shortly after his election as Presiding Bishop, Edmond Browning promised that there would be ‘no outcasts’ from the Episcopal Church. This goal and ideal has been difficult to fulfill. Modern controversies have forced the church to face a variety of hard questions about how to respond to disagreement and change: Can the church value different perspectives while listening and seeking consensus? Can the church include a host of views while maintaining a distinctive witness? Can the church face modern controversies in ways that serve mission and strengthen witness? (Armentrout, 573)

In the Episcopal Church today, there are currently about 16,000 clergy listed in the clergy directory. Of those, 515 are Black (3%), and of the Black members, only 16 are female (amounting to about 0.1% of the total clergy of the church). The low number of Black leaders in the Episcopal Church (particular Black women) probably relates to the Church’s slow response to integration between 1950 and 1970, and its failure to encourage Black women and men to consider the ordained ministry.

Women in the Episcopal Church

A distinctively Anglican theological and historical tenet of the Episcopal Church is the principle of the via media. Richard Hooker, the principal author of the Elizabethan Settlement, proposed the middle way between the extreme reformers and the Puritans as a compromise to a theological and political issue. The concept of the middle way is a great asset and a terrible curse of the Church. The blessing is that the middle way produces an ethos that should be tolerant of diversity. The curse is that the desires to embrace diversity and hear all points of view, makes the Church ponderously slow to effect change. Frustration by factions within the church to see change occur often results in divisiveness and/or non-canonical behavior. That is one explanation as to why the ordination of women was so long in coming.

During the 1940s, in response to the influx of new members in the church and a clergy shortage during the war years, women began to teach at seminaries. Women, who focused on becoming teachers of Christian Education in parishes began to appear at the same time, and rectors of parishes in the nation were anxious to have women teach Sunday school. Between 1964 and 1976, the General Conventions of the church began processes to increase female participation in the church beyond the role of Sunday school teachers. In 1967 Convention authorized women to serve as lay readers, and to serve as Deputies to convention. In 1970, a group of forty-five Episcopal Church Women worked to eliminate the distinctions in pension benefits, educational requirements, and ordination rites between male and female deacons. Finally in 1973, a caucus of women's groups asked General Convention to open the priesthood and the episcopate to women. The resolution failed.

The process of clearing the way for the full inclusion of women in the church moved too slowly. On July 29, 1974, one year before the General Convention voted to ordain women to the priesthood and the episcopate, retired Bishops Daniel Corrigan, Robert Dewitt, and Edward Welles irregularly ordained eleven female deacons without the approval of their Diocesan bishops or their standing committees. Four other women were ordained by retired Bp. George Barrett on September 7, 1975.

The decision to ordain women remains optional in each diocese, however. Today three dioceses in the United States continue to refuse to ordain or recognize the priesthood of women (Fort Worth, Texas, Quincy, Illinois, and San Joaquin, California). Women now comprise approximately one-quarter of all ordained clergy in the Episcopal Church, up from 14% in 1998 and 20% in 2001. Their average age at ordination is 42 (versus 33 for males). They continue to be underrepresented as rectors and bishops, however.

Philadelphia Eleven Ordination Services, Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, PA, July 29, 1974. Photograph from the Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship, The Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary.	Carter Heyward and Suzanne Hiatt, Philadelphia Eleven Ordination Services, Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, PA, July 29, 1974. Photograph from the Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship, The Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary.

Both photographs downloaded from http://www.archives.gov/grants/annotation/march_2002/print_ friendly.html?page=women_theological_scholarship_content.html&title= NARA%20%7C%20NHPRC%20and%20Other%20Grants%20%7C%20Annotation

Homosexuality and the Church

In November 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated The Rev. Gene Robinson as Bp. of New Hampshire. Bp. Robinson is the first openly gay man to be consecrated as a bishop in the church. At his consecration in Durham, NH, The Rt. Rev. Robinson said, "You cannot imagine what an honor it is for you to have called me." However, also noted that many people in the church were in "great pain" because of his consecration. Indeed that is the case. His consecration caused international furor and continues to threaten the integrity of the world wide Anglican communion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, said at the time that the action on the part of the Episcopal Church would have dire consequences for the Anglican Communion. He then appointed a Commission to explore ways in which the Anglican Communion might live with the differences that exist within the world wide fellowship of Anglican provinces and dioceses.

That Commission finished its work and the report was released in London on October 18, 2004 in conjunction with a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Primates and the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council. The Commission was not charged with giving a definitive position on homosexuality. Rather, the commission was to seek ways of keeping the Anglican Communion intact when some provinces take action on issues that other provinces find controversial. GET THE FULL WINDSOR REPORT.

The Presiding Bp. of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Frank Griswold responded to the Windsor report as follows:

I write to you from London where I am attending a meeting of the Primates' Standing Committee. I have had a matter of hours to review the Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, thus I will now offer only some preliminary observations. It will take considerable time to reflect upon the Report, which consists of some 100 pages. Over the next months it will be discussed in a number of venues, including the Executive Council meeting in November and the Winter Meeting of the House of Bishops in January. After an opportunity for further study and reflection, I will have more to say about the Commission's work.

The members of the Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, clearly have worked with care and great diligence, and the fact that they have unanimously put forward the Report, which individually may give them pause, is no small accomplishment.

The Commission was obliged to consider a number of sometimes conflicting concerns, and therefore in these next days the Report will doubtless be read from many points of view and given any number of interpretations. It is extremely important that it be read carefully as a whole and viewed in its entirety rather than being read selectively to buttress any particular perspectives.

As Anglicans we interpret and live the gospel in multiple contexts, and the circumstances of our lives can lead us to widely divergent understandings and points of view. My first reading shows the Report as having in mind the containment of differences in the service of reconciliation. However, unless we go beyond containment and move to some deeper place of acknowledging and making room for the differences that will doubtless continue to be present in our Communion, we will do disservice to our mission. A life of communion is not for the benefit of the church but for the sake of the world. All of us, regardless of our several points of view, must accept the invitation to consider more deeply what it means to live a life of communion, grounded in the knowledge that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself."

Given the emphasis of the Report on difficulties presented by our differing understandings of homosexuality, as Presiding Bishop I am obliged to affirm the presence and positive contribution of gay and lesbian persons to every aspect of the life of our church and in all orders of ministry. Other Provinces are also blessed by the lives and ministry of homosexual persons. I regret that there are places within our Communion where it is unsafe for them to speak out of the truth of who they are.

The Report will be received and interpreted within the Provinces of the Communion in different ways, depending on our understanding of the nature and appropriate expression of sexuality. It is important to note here that in the Episcopal Church we are seeking to live the gospel in a society where homosexuality is openly discussed and increasingly acknowledged in all areas of our public life.

For at least the last 30 years our church has been listening to the experience and reflecting upon the witness of homosexual persons in our congregations. There are those among us who perceive the fruit of the Spirit deeply present in the lives of gay and lesbian Christians, both within the church and in their relationships. However, other equally faithful persons among us regard same gender relationships as contrary to scripture. Consequently, we continue to struggle with questions regarding sexuality.

Here I note the Report recommends that practical ways be found for the listening process commended by the Lambeth Conference in 1998 to be taken forward with a view to greater understanding about homosexuality and same gender relationships. It also requests the Episcopal Church to contribute to the ongoing discussion. I welcome this invitation and know that we stand ready to make a contribution to the continuing conversation and discernment of the place and ministry of homosexual persons in the life of the church.

The Report calls our Communion to reconciliation, which does not mean the reduction of differences to a single point of view. In fact, it is my experience that the fundamental reality of the Episcopal Church is the diverse center, in which a common commitment to Jesus Christ and a sense of mission in his name to a broken and hurting world override varying opinions on any number of issues, including homosexuality. The diverse center is characterized by a spirit of mutual respect and affection rather than hostility and suspicion. I would therefore hope that some of the ways in which we have learned to recognize Christ in one another, in spite of strongly held divergent opinions, can be of use in other parts of our Communion.

As Presiding Bishop I know I speak for members of our church in saying how highly we value our Communion and the bonds of affection we share. Therefore, we regret how difficult and painful actions of our church have been in many provinces of our Communion, and the negative repercussions that have been felt by brother and sister Anglicans.

In a "Word to the Church" following the meeting of our House of Bishops in September we wrote as follows. "We believe our relationships with others make real and apparent God's reconciling love for all of creation. Our mutual responsibility, interdependence and communion are gifts from God. Therefore, we deeply value and are much enriched by our membership in the Anglican Communion. We also value Anglican comprehensiveness and its capacity to make room for difference."

One section of the Report recommends the development of a covenant to be entered into by the provinces of the Communion. This notion will need to be studied with particular care. As we and other provinces explore the idea of a covenant we must do so knowing that over the centuries Anglican comprehensiveness has given us the ability to include those who wish to see boundaries clearly and closely drawn and those who value boundaries that are broad and permeable. Throughout our history we have managed to live with the tension between a need for clear boundaries and for room in order that the Spirit might express itself in fresh ways in a variety of contexts.

The Report makes demands on all of us, regardless of where we may stand, and is grounded in a theology of reconciliation and an understanding of communion as the gift of the triune God. It is therefore an invitation for all of us to take seriously the place in which we presently find ourselves but to do so with a view to a future yet to be revealed.

Here I am put in mind of the words of Archbishop Eames in the Foreword to the Report. "This Report is not a judgment. It is part of a process. It is part of a pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation." It is my earnest prayer that we will undertake this pilgrimage in a spirit of generosity and patient faithfulness, not primarily for the sake of our church and the Anglican Communion but for the sake of the world our Lord came among us to save.

In the year since the Windsor Report was issued, the Episcopal House of Bishops has met, and has just responded to the Report. The have signed a covenant which reads as follows:

A Covenant Statement of the [U.S.] House of Bishops
      
We have received the Windsor Report as a helpful contribution to our relationships with Anglican brothers and sisters across the world. We recognize its recommendations as coming from a broadly representative commission inclusive of bishops, clergy, and laity and as an attempt to speak as equals to equals. We experience it as being in the best tradition of autonomy within communion and as helpful in our efforts to live into communion. Likewise, we appreciate receiving the communiqué from the February meeting of the Primates and take seriously the perspectives and convictions stated therein.

It is our heartfelt desire to be responsive and attentive to the conversation we have already begun and to which we are being called and as a body offer the following points.

1. We reaffirm our commitment to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 and each of its individual points. We reaffirm our earnest desire to serve Christ in communion with the other provinces of the Anglican family. We reaffirm our continuing commitment to remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and to participate fully in the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference, and the Primates' Meeting, and we earnestly reaffirm our desire to participate in the individual relationships, partnerships, and ministries that we share with other Anglicans, which provide substance to our experience of what it is to be in communion.

2. We express our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003 and we offer our sincerest apology and repentance for having breached our bonds of affection by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking those actions. 

3. The Windsor Report has invited the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges" (Windsor Report, para. 134). Our polity, as affirmed both in the Windsor Report and the Primates' Communiqué, does not give us the authority to impose on the dioceses of our church moratoria based on matters of suitability beyond the well-articulated criteria of our canons and ordinal. Nevertheless, this extraordinary moment in our common life offers the opportunity for extraordinary action. In order to make the fullest possible response to the larger communion and to re-claim and strengthen our common bonds of affection, this House of Bishops takes the following provisional measure to contribute to a time for healing and for the educational process called for in the Windsor Report. Those of us having jurisdiction pledge to withhold consent to the consecration of any person elected to the episcopate after the date hereof until the General Convention of 2006, and we encourage the dioceses of our church to delay episcopal elections accordingly. We believe that Christian community requires us to share the burdens of such forbearance; thus it must pertain to all elections of bishops in the Episcopal Church. We recognize that this will cause hardship in some dioceses, and we commit to making ourselves available to those dioceses needing episcopal ministry.

4. In response to the invitation in the Windsor Report that we effect a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same sex unions, it is important that we clarify that the Episcopal Church has not authorized any such liturgies, nor has General Convention requested the development of such rites. The Primates, in their communiqué "assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship" (Primates' Communiqué, para. 6). Some in our church hold such "pastoral care" to include the blessing of same sex relationships. Others hold that it does not. Nevertheless, we pledge not to authorize any public rites for the blessing of same sex unions, and we will not bless any such unions, at least until the General Convention of 2006.

5. We pledge ourselves not to cross diocesan boundaries to provide episcopal ministry in violation of our own canons and we will hold ourselves accordingly accountable. We will also hold bishops and clergy canonically resident in other provinces likewise accountable. We request that our Anglican partners "effect a moratorium on any further interventions" (Windsor Report, para. 155; see also 1988 Lambeth Conference Resolution 72 and 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution III.2) and work with us to find more creative solutions, such as the initiation of companion diocese relationships, to help us meet the legitimate needs of our own people and still maintain our integrity.

6. As a body, we recognize the intentionality and seriousness of the Primates' invitation to the Episcopal Church to refrain voluntarily from having its delegates participate in the Anglican Consultative Council meetings until the Lambeth Conference of 2008. Although we lack the authority in our polity to make such a decision, we defer to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church to deliberate seriously on that issue.

The bonds of affection are not ends in themselves but foundations for mission. Therefore, we re-commit ourselves to work together throughout the communion to eradicate HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and to address the other efforts mentioned by the Primates' Communiqué (para. 20). We dedicate ourselves to full and open dialogue in every available venue through invitations for mutual visitation, intentional exploration of the theological perspectives and spiritual gifts that our diverse cultures offer, and collaborative partnerships for the purpose of shared mission in Christ.

---

Bibliography

Don S. Armentrout and Robert S. Slocum. Documents of Witness: A History of the Episcopal Church 1782-1985. New York, NY: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994.

F. L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone (eds.). "Richard Hooker." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Robert Bruce Mullin. Episcopal Vision/American Reality: High Church Theology and Social Thought in Evangelical America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.

Robert Prichard. A History of the Episcopal Church, Revised Edition. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1999.

Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. Epsicopalians and Race: Civil War to Civil Rights. Lexington, KY: The Unversity of Press of Kentucky, 2000.

Stephen Sykes, John Booty, and Jonathan Knight. The Study of Anglicanism, Revised Edition. Bristol, England: Fortress Press, 1998.

William J. Wolf, John E. Booty, and Owen C. Thomas. The Spirit of Anglicanism. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing. 1979. pp. 1-43.

 

---

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance religious understanding and social justice issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who may have an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site or e-mail for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.