American Anglican Bishops

The Episcopal Church in the United States of America is a direct descendant of the Church of England and part of the world-wide Anglican Communion.

The first American Anglican Bishop was Samuel Seabury (1729-96). He studied theology at Yale and medicine at Edinburgh and was ordained by the Bishop of Lincoln in 1753. He ministered in New York and remained loyal to the British during the War of Independence. The clergy in Connecticut elected him to be their bishop but he was unable to secure consecration in England because of the necessity of making the oath of allegiance to the Crown. However, he obtained his Episcopal orders when he was consecrated at Aberdeen on 14th November 1784 at the hands of non-juring bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

By the end of the twentieth century the American Episcopal Church had 102 dioceses, 2 million communicant members and 8000 clergy.

America also has Methodist 'bishops' but they are not linked to the historic episcopate as the American Anglican Bishops are. The Methodist movement of the eighteenth century quickly spread to America and John Wesley sent them preachers to support and develop the movement. After the War of Independence the American Methodists sought their own ordained ministers because they were deprived of Anglican sacraments. Wesley took the law into his own hands and provided clergy and bishops for the rapidly expanding movement in America. In 1784, the year of Seabury's consecration in Scotland, he ordained 'clergy' and 'bishops' to administer and superintend sacraments for the Wesleyans in America. His brother, Charles, also and Anglican priest, was deeply shocked and opposed the move. He realised its consequences. Within a year John was ordaining men for work in England and the break with Anglicanism was complete.

Today the American Anglican Bishops are acting in ways that endanger their continuing unity with the Anglican Communion.

The Preface to the first American Prayer Book of 1789 states: 'This Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship; or further than local circumstances require.' The American Anglican Bishops still declare their desire to maintain full fellowship with the Anglican Communion, while at the same time being wholly free and independent in the ordering of its life and the fulfilment of its mission in the USA. The presence of female bishops, and practising homosexual bishops, not only causes division among themselves but is likely to precipitate divisions and realignments throughout the Anglican Communion.

How will it all work out? God alone knows. Our Lord's prayer must not be forgotten:
"Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us" (John 17.11).

P.S. I contribute a monthly article to the Parish Magazine at St Martin-on-the-hill, Scarborough
and this is from the current issue.